BOOK
TITLE: The Old Man and the Nymph
ISBN:
-
AUTHOR:
Vipin
Behari Goyal
GENRE:
Fiction
NUMBER
OF PAGES: 190
FORMAT:
Paperback
SERIES
/ STANDALONE: Standalone
REVIEW
BY: Dhivya
Balaji
HOW
I GOT THIS BOOK:
We got this review copy from Blackbuck
publishers
SUMMARY:
The
book is based on Greek Mythology which describes four types of nymphs. These
are the nymphs of water, clouds, plants and underworld. Incarnated as
beautiful nubile girls who were full of passions each of them enticed old man
to satisfy their sensual desires. They loved to laugh, dance and had fun in
breaking the rules of the society of mortals. What happened when the three of
them met with Colonel under the same roof? One of them had escaped from Colonel
in her past birth and had gone underworld. What would she do now? A strange
story set in Indian context.
REVIEW:
Straight out, this review is actually
going to be a rant. The Old Man and The Nymph has nothing, literally nothing, that it said in the summary except the nymphs enticing the old man to satisfy the
sensual desires. It had been 190 pages of pure torture written in crude, explicit language that made readers cringe. The writing of the
‘sensual’ parts is, at best, crass.
The writing is dismal, the plot even more so. Any reader familiar with
Greek Mythology will fume at the
injustice. There is nothing regarding Greek mythology in this book except
the word ‘nymph’… You aren’t even sure who the nymphs are, or what their
qualities are. Come on, who is the cloud nymph, who is the water nymph, the
earth nymph, etc? The book made me take out my curly hair in clumps when I read
it through.
Except for writing about beautiful young girls seducing old men,
what else has the author written about? Hmmm, let us see… tata daaaa… nothing.
It seems like the author had no idea
what to write about and he chose dreamy locations and some other such exotic
components. But please, don’t damage
the dreamy fantasy story of nymphs. When better books are being written about
such characters, this sticks out like a sore thumb.
The storyline is so incoherent that I even lost my sense of
language and sarcasm. I am, in short, wordless to describe it. The story is
about paedophilic old men who take
advantage of young women (aided and
abetted by their wives! Every ‘woman’ in this story helps her husband carnally abuse little girl children –
It is sad that Indian women have been portrayed like this). One ‘nymph’ is
killed, one is smart enough to come out of the grasp, even though she almost
slips, and one nymph does not get enough of men. Agreed that the character of nymphs has not always been
chaste in all books. But this is one bit too much. All through the story,
(written in five parts – that have, incidentally, no connection with each other, and are like confused recollections
like REM dreams) the ‘nymphs’ behave totally un-Greek like. They are neither Indian, nor Greek.
The plot is non existent, the characters are badly written, the story is nauseating, the language is abysmal.
This is one classic case of being fooled
by the summary and the book cover. Please give this book a miss, you will
not lose anything. Read this book and you will lose your idea of fantastic
characters like nymphs and Greek mythology in general.
Blackbuck
publishers have given us some fantastic books so far (some titles have been
reviewed by Readers’ Muse too) but this one is a major disappointment. You
could have done better, blackbuck! Am going to read one of your better titles
now again!
WHAT
I LIKED: Nope, not a thing. Except maybe the fact that
the author didn’t extend this piece by a few more rambling pages.
WHAT
COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER: The author could have presented
the story for what it was, old men seducing young women irrespective of their
reciprocation. There was no need to drag
‘Greek mythology in Indian perspective’ into this.
VERDICT:
Give this a miss. Take it from a fellow sufferer.
RATING: 1/5
(because no matter what, the author has taken time to write 200 pages worth of
content.)
EDITIONS
AVAILABLE: Paperback
PRICE:
Rs.
140 for Paperback.
BOOK
LINKS:
Your review is vulgar, book is mirror of society. After Indrani case you should start acknowledging truth, may it be bitter.
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