all 3 novels are more focused on establishing character and atmosphere than developing or advancing any real kind of plot, so at the end of each novel it almost feels like you've read an excerpt instead of a finished piece. there are also moments where you can tell chadhuri intends to sound profound but there's not enough context or just material in general for these moments to hit the way they're supposed to (as with the birds (?) at the end of the 1st novel). these are very nice little slice o...

A middle-class family in Calcutta going through post-retirement blues. A bit dull.

Vivid, compassionate, textured and beautiful writing, with only as much "story" as our own lives have.

I picked up this book and was treated to 230 odd pages of unassuming yet masterful prose that floated poetically through the quaint alleys of Calcutta. Amit Choudhuri reveals subtle idiosyncracies of otherwise ordinary characters with, what seems to me, his characteristic effortlessness. The Freedom Song is a blend of 3 serene nouvellas that entwine together and then drift apart while still keeping a touching distance. They may not have pulsating plots, but that was never what the author was goi...

A few quick thoughts about this lovely, lovely, book:If The Golden Gateis a novel in verse, this is poetry in prose. And just as evocative!Tinkling sounds came from outside, of hammering and chiselling, as labourers worked like bees, and seven- or eight-storeyed buildings rose in the place of ancestral mansions that had been raised cruelly to the ground, climbing up like ladders through screens of dust. An old mansion opposite the veranda had been repainted white, to its last banister and pillar...

Once I realised that Freedom Song was not a typical story with a beginning, middle and end, I happily allowed myself to get lost in Amit Chaudhury’s lyrical prose and became absorbed in the mundanities of the family life in Kolkata. Having got to know the city well over the years, I felt myself transported back there by the depth of the writing and when the book ended, I felt the same sadness that I always feel when my trip is over and it is time to go home.

I read the first of the three but can't get into the second and third at this time. The stories are beautiful tone poems, almost musical compositions, filled with sensual details and wonderfully rendered atmospheres - which I do like, but can't seem to concentrate on when my plate is full of kitchen remodel tasks, conversations, details, upsets, etc. I need something more narrative at the moment but may well come back to Chaudhuri's dreamy books in another season.

I've read the three short novels included in this volume over the past three year taking my time to savor the author's writing, world-view and his very localized stories, whether they are Indian emigres in America, or still at home. Just completed Freedom Song, the longest and last,and I'm reminded all over again what a terrific writer Chaudhuri is. This is a family saga told in short --sometimes only half a page long--chapters, It has the feeling of a Virginia Woolf novel, oddly enough, or of a...

Amit Chaudhuri's languorous, moment-by-moment prose is, to my mind, the perfect match for the country he describes. His pen illuminates the quotidian moments of everyday Indian life, giving them an almost sacred poignancy. He's a fine story teller, too, but for me it's the quality of his writing, and a sense of the numinous, which remains when I put down his books. This trilogy is my favourite of his work, and I read it again and again.

Slow paced but colorful book

*Mild spoilers aheadWhat appealed to me?The detailed descriptions of the nooks and crannies of ‘90s Kolkata, something that I’d been closely acquainted with, while growing up. The smallest idiosyncrasies of the character. Nando’s sharing an egg with Uma, the newly wed couple holding hands while sleeping, the friendship between Khuku and Mini.Some of the lines are intricately woven, almost as if those are a series of still lives capturing certain moments in the city and its people’s lives. Like t...

This is the third in the volume of three “novels” by Amit Chaudhuri, though why they would be called novels is beyond me as there is no plot whatsoever.“Freedom Song” is basically a beautifully written, atmospheric series of pictures, of moments, of brief conversations, of memories, of passing thoughts and feelings, of sights, sounds, smells and small everyday actions.Although I should have known better after reading “A Strange and Sublime Address” and “Afternoon Raag” I was impatient for someth...

The first part - "A Strange and Sublime Address" - was beautifully transporting; I didn't want it to end. However, I found the second section and much of the third section dry and monotonous, in strange contrast to that first section.

Just the title track.

Afternoon Raag is a strangely beguiling novella despite the fact that the plot doesn't amount to much, the structure is wishy washy and the characters don't really develop at all. Despite these considerable handicaps, it held my attention.

nice sentences.

Three short stories which are connected by all clearly being based on the author's barely fictionalized personal experiences. There's not much plot here, or change, or character development, or any of that sort of thing. At least the writer is doing it on purpose, as he describes early on in the first story:But why did these houses- for instance, that one with the tall, ornate iron gates and a watchman dozing on a stool, which gave the impression that the family had valuables locked away inside,...

I'm not quite finished with it yet, but I had to drop by to share a quick WOW. Just WOW. I wish I could say something more descriptive, but this novel (three novellas, actually) has left me completely speechless.

4.5. A gorgeous short and rich novel, beautifully written, a whole world teased out with great skill.

First story was by far my favorite, beautifully captured the feelings of being a child in an upper middle class family living in Calcutta. It felt like I was back there on my family vacations. Lovely and languid prose that illustrates the most ordinary of events poetically. However, eventually the lack of a discernible plot (and the self reference of this fact in the 2nd story) did wear on me.