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brianreynolds
Sep 22, 2016brianreynolds rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Surely Rohinton Mistry was familiar with the work of Northrop Frye. It could not be coincidence that the conclusion of Such a Long Journey includes elements of each of Frye’s four contrasting archetypes of fiction: the tragic death of a scapegoat who in his demise educates his community, the comic reunion of two characters who had to overcome great obstacles to effect the syzygy, the bitter irony of the march of progress to the tune of desecration and corruption, the romantic journey of a character whose heroic actions overcome the acts of squalor and violence that surround him. Mistry paints with a big brush. His first novel encompasses many things, but in the end he chose wisely for a title; it is, in its totality, a (masterfully written) pure romance: the odyssey of a good man in an often chaotic world, a triumph of morality over the forces of bad governance, greed, ignorance, lust, and the list goes on.