THE SMALL WILD GOOSE PAGODA

The Small Wild Goose Pagoda is
a natural and social history of 433 square yards of India. On this piece of
land in the foothills of the Himalaya, the Sealy family have a small brick
house with one-and-a-half bedrooms, two-and-a-half gardens, front, back and
side, an old Fiat, an internet link with the world, and a terrace roof for
walking on under the sky. Here?surrounded by trees: litchi, rosewood,
magnolia, silk cotton, jacaranda, a reluctant pear, a profusely flowering
peach?Allan Sealy looks back on his life as he turns sixty and goes from
Householder to Forest Dweller (the two middle stages in the life of a man –
as set out in Indian philosophical tradition). Lending depth and texture to a
narrative written in the form of an almanack is his experience of building,
after a visit to China, a pagoda on his roof. As the pagoda takes shape we
are introduced to a host of extraordinary characters who drift in and out of
the 433 square yards: Dhani, family retainer and mali, bent in half by age;
Habilis, master brick-layer and contractor with a roving eye; Beauty, part of
Habilis?s crew, who may or may not be his lover; Victor, stoic assistant to
Habilis?. In this remarkable book, his first in a decade, award-winning
novelist and travel writer, Irwin Allan Sealy, gives us an evocative account
of the drama of small town life; at the same time it is an extraordinary
meditation on work, family history, nature, Indian society, and the passage
of time.