Quotes (From the preface)
“All theories of writing are bogus. Every writer develops his own method or lack of method and a story comes into being for some unknown reason anyhow.” – R.K. Narayan
“I liked to be free to read what I please and not be examined at all.” – R.K. Narayan
Both these lines stayed with me long after I finished the book. They feel almost like a permission slip to read freely, to write instinctively, and to not over-intellectualise the act of creation. Coming back to Narayan now, while consciously trying to study writing, felt ironic and grounding at the same time.
The Protagonist
At the heart of this book is a character who speaks endlessly, and yet, paradoxically, it is what remains unsaid that feels the most important.
- His loneliness
- His desire to be heard
- His desire to be understood
The Talkative Man (TM) fills silences with words, stories, and digressions. But beneath all that talk is a deep human need to matter, to be acknowledged, and to connect. Narayan never states this outright. He doesn’t need to. The emotional undercurrent is subtle, persistent, and devastating if one pauses long enough to notice it.
How does place work
One of the things that stood out to me on this read was how place functions in the story. There is a repetition of places, and this repetition works beautifully. Malgudi comes alive not as a loud, overbearing presence, but as something familiar, lived-in, almost taken for granted.
Malgudi plays a crucial role in the setting, and yet it never overshadows the narrative. It is important, but not the point.
The character of The Talkative Man is sprinkled all over the story, much like the town itself.
Narayan doesn’t pause to describe in a conventional sense. Instead, we learn about TM organically:
- Physical attributes
- Nature
- Behavioural traits
- Habits
- Background
- Family
Usually, authors tend to dump all of this information at the beginning. Here, it is woven seamlessly into the narrative. One paragraph tells you about his looks while the story continues to move forward; another casually mentions his family, and then moves on. There is no sense of interruption. Life, memory, and storytelling bleed into one another, much like real conversations do.
Time
The sense of time in The Talkative Man is fascinating because it is never explicit. There is no date, no day, no calendar year mentioned. No timestamp per se. And yet, time is present everywhere. Narayan uses placeholders that are both cultural, political, and social markers to situate the reader.
Some examples:
- Slogans for independence
- Khadi
- British people—soldiers, teachers, people occupying powerful positions
- The impact of colonialism is visible in language (addressing people as “Sir”)
- Christian missionary schools led by Fathers where they are struggling to communicate with the locals.
- Treatment meted out to widows
- Houses, cost of living, money, lifestyle
- Casteism
- Othering—servants, drivers, low-caste vendors, specific areas in a city marked for specific communities.
None of this is explained. It simply exists. The reader is trusted to pick up the signals. This makes the book feel oddly timeless and deeply rooted at the same time.
Subtlety
What struck me most on this reading was Narayan’s restraint.
The opulence of TM’s lifestyle is subtle.
The laid-back attitude of people at large is subtle.
The fear or uncertainty of what the future holds is subtle.
The characters seem to live for the day, going with the flow, rarely questioning what comes next.
Even when change looms, in terms of political, social, or personal changes, it never erupts dramatically on the page. It simmers in the background.
This subtlety is perhaps what gives the book its enduring power. Nothing is forced. Nothing is spelled out. And yet, everything is there.
Classic / Literary fiction
In many ways, this book feels like a classic in the truest sense. It is a timeless read and leans strongly towards literary fiction.
During the pandemic, popular literary agent Anish Chandy, in a closed group discussion, defined literary fiction as stories with high re-read value. By that definition alone, The Talkative Man qualifies effortlessly.
I read this book for the first time when I was in my early teens. Then again, almost a decade later. And now, once more. I seem to revisit it every decade. Each time, my interpretation changes. My observations evolve. But the entertainment, the comfort, and the simple joy of reading remain constant.
That, to me, is the mark of something timeless.
The way Narayan captures time and history is simply brilliant. What we might call vandalism or looting today could perhaps be traced back to one of his short stories and framed as a simple misunderstanding between two people who did not share a common language, yet still tried to communicate.
Can this be called pre-partition literature?
I read somewhere that everyone has a partition story. Is that really true?
Growing up in Gujarat, despite being South Indian, I was not exposed to any such narratives firsthand. Even when I mentioned this to a few people, also South Indians, they were surprised. One of them said,
“It is so strange that such an important chapter in the history of our nation had zero implications down south. We were completely unaware of it until we grew up and read or watched something about it.”
Reading Narayan makes me think about these gaps that are regional, cultural, are narrative. His work exists in that liminal space: shaped by history, but not defined by its most violent ruptures.
Some observations
A few things stood out to me as reminders that human nature hasn’t really changed:
- Longevity was an obsession even then
- Trends were being studied
- Scams did happen then
- Thieves, scamsters, fraudsters—all existed
- The Othering was always present in our society
There is something oddly comforting in this continuity. The tools may change, the scale may expand, but the impulses remain the same.
Additional notes
The postscript stayed with me longer than I expected.
Swami and Friends—Narayan’s earlier work—was considered a failure due to its length (around 55,000 words). In the postscript to The Talkative Man, he mentions being unsure of its fate because of its length as well. At 116 pages, it is more of a novella. His literary agent in London had warned him against this.
His friend, Graham Greene, offered a piece of advice:
“I hope you will get a subject next time which will run to a full-length book. But that’s on the knees of the gods. Only if you see a choice of subjects and lengths ahead of you, do next time go for the longer.”
Narayan calls this a welcome advice.
This made me think of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, a book no publisher wanted to touch because the protagonist has no name.
And yet, both these books are still selling, almost a century after they were published.
Which makes me wonder: Do literary agents actually know what will sell?
They are known to read trends. But sometimes it feels like they function like elite institutions. Taking the best, polishing it, stamping it, and making it the bestest version of itself. Is the ability to spot a bestseller genuinely predictive? Is there merit in this? Or is it, as Greene suggests, ultimately on the knees of the gods?
These are questions I want to think about separately.
For now, I find it interesting that what I set out to study as writing has led me to notice so much more about time, history, publishing, and the strange, unpredictable afterlives of books.
Disclaimer: These are personal reading notes written as part of a long-term, self-directed apprenticeship in writing. They are not reviews, critiques, or finished interpretations, but thinking-on-paper through observations, questions, and responses that arise while reading attentively. The notes are allowed to be partial, tentative, and evolving. They exist primarily to support my learning and practice, and may change as my reading deepens over time.