Ideas And Variations: Essays, Satire, Criticism, 1973-76

A book must grip the reader as in a vice-that is readability. A book must be a pleasure to reader-that is elegance. A book must communicate without tears-that is clarity. Bereft of these three cardinal virtues it is junk: toss it out of the window! Here is a book that is at once readable, elegant, and crystal clear. You may or may not agree with all its numerous obsessions and eccentricities. But if you share its almost paranoiac concern for the future of the human race and its agony over the rapid qualitative deterioration of the human individual, then you will have established a rapport with the author. And where there is raport there is recomfort and resurrection. T.K. Mahadevan is, if anything, a shocker. Heprides himself on being a ?direct descendant? (take that phrase with a pinch of salt, will you?) of Diogenes the Dog, who roamed the bylanes of Athens at high noon, blazing torch in hand, looking for one honest man-and finding none! Yes, by George, the world hasn?t changed much, has it? Well, read on, and you?ll be the wiser. Apart from the large helping of ideas which the book offers, its generic variety is delightful to the point of being tipsy. Pungent humour rubs shoulders with the unsmiling face of a pontiff? If IDEAS AND VARIATIOMS doesn?t make you think again-here?s your money back.