art of living – Notes from Ben

Simplify

In R. K. Narayan’s fine novel The Painter of Signs, set in the fictional South-Indian town of Malgudi, the protagonist Raman lives with his ageing aunt. She spends her days tending the home, receiving friends, shopping to feed herself and Raman, and in the evening, attending the local temple to listen to the reading ofContinue reading “Simplify”

Patience…

I’m reading Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession. I nearly gave up early on, nothing seemed to be happening, then I found myself enchanted by its beguiling, funny, undramatic normalness. It’s full of well-expressed passages that sound just right: “With the morning all to himself, he moved to the living room and sat byContinue reading “Patience…”