Oh, it also grated on me that all the chapters have an epigram taken from an Indian writer except the one chapter that lets in a note of hope and therefore has to return to the light of western civilization with a quote from W.B. Yeats. Luczak’s search for M. Das leads him to an ancient, brutal cult of Kali worshippers who practice a whole host of depravities including human sacrifice of children. As Bobby delves deeper and deeper into the history and customs of the cult, he discovers a bizarre connection between the cult and the re-emergence of Das whose new verse is a celebration of the goddess of death. No, Sanskrit and Bengali, mostly. Here's the English translation." I handed over the other photocopy. He, like many Westerners, seems to have been expecting India to be all incense and smiling children with beautiful dark eyes and beautiful saris and delicious (though extremely hot!) food; without knowing about the darker aspects of that alluring land. (I admit that I had not known about some of them either! I've been to Bombay, but my visit there wouldn't have prepared me for anything like some of the things that the protagonist had encountered in this book.)

Whispers can still be heard, though, of the "Song of Kali", the condition of humanity dominated by hatred and violence, perfectly embodied, in the mind of the narrator, by the squalor and chaos of Calcutta.No. Right after. During the Hindu-Muslim partition riots in '47. Britain was pulling out, carving India into two countries and leaving the two religious groups to slaughter eath other. That was all before your time, wasn't it Roberto?" La pluma de Simmons aquí, al igual que en la mayoría de sus novelas, es magnífica, haciendo soberbias descripciones de la ciudad de Calcuta al punto que te sientes capaz de oler, sentir, ver y escuchar lo mismo que el protagonista. Sin mencionar que también hay partes de la primera mitad que te mantienen bastante enganchado y te invitan a descubrir que se oculta tras el misterioso culto a Kali y el turbio destino del poeta.

Later," said Abe. "Right now tell me about this Das thing Morrow's talking about. And I'd like to know why you want me to save half of next spring's issue of Voices for more Das stuff. I hate reprints, and there can't be ten lines of his verse that hasn't been printed and reprinted ad nauseum." But out of the great tragedy that befalls the two of them in Calcutta, there is still hope to be found in the world. As the hero Robert Luczak says in the end, “But there are other voices to be heard. There are other songs to be sung.” Para iniciar he de decir que me encanta el estilo de Simmons, amé Hyperion, sin embargo, la trama de ésta novela deja mucho que desear.And two of my Chicago Cycle pieces were dedicated to him," I said. "But I guess we were all a bit premature. Das seems to have resurfaced in Calcutta, or at least some of his new poetry and correspondence has. Harper's got some samples through an agency they work with there, and people who knew Das say that he definitely wrote these new things. But nobody's seen the man himself. Harper's wants me to try to get some of his new work, but the slant of the article is going to be ‘The Search for M. Das,' that kind of crap. Now here's the good news. Harper's gets first refusal on any of the poetry I get rights to, but we can print the rest in Other Voices." His hero, Bobby Luczak, is a coward who behaves stupidly and illogically; he's an effete literary type who one would think would treat his mathematician wife with some respect, but who repeatedly hides things from her and deserts her without reason. He claims to have a terrible temper, yet he's impotent in a crisis. The character development in Song of Kali is good without taking centre stage. Each one is very realistic, with the help of effective dialogue, with a good bit of depth. This definitely helped to add a sense of realism to the narrative that was essential to what Simmons was trying to achieve.

Dan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years—2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York—one year as a specially trained BOCES "resource teacher" and another as a sixth-grade teacher—and 14 years in Colorado.You may well be right,” I said. “Although I wouldn’t presume to say that I understood the ‘American psyche’ or the ‘Indian psyche’—if there are such things. First impressions are necessarily shallow. I appreciate that. I’ve admired Indian culture for a long time, even before I met Amrita, and she’s certainly shared some of the beauty of it with me. But I admit that Calcutta is a bit intimidating. There seems to be something unique… unique and disturbing about Calcutta’s urban problems. Perhaps its only the scale. Friends have told me that Mexico City, for all of its beauty, shares the same problems.” It was built on a swamp," I said, still irritated. I wasn't used to hearing this kind of garbage from Abe. It was like having your reliable old plumber suddenly break into a discourse on astrology. "And we'll be going there during the monsoon season, which isn't the most pleasant time of the year, I guess. But I don't think—" I am used to Americans and their reaction to our city. They will react in either one of two ways: they will find Calcutta ‘exotic’ and concentrate only on their tourist pleasures; or they will be immediately horrified, recoil, and seek to forget what they have seen and not understood. Yes, yes, the American psyche is as predictable as the sterile and vulnerable American digestive system when it encounters India.” Nope. That's about it. Of course there are only a few stanzas in that fragment," I said. "And it's a rough translation."