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.