The Golden Gate
Vikram Seth Creates a Sonnet Novel in the High Tech Era of Reagan, New Wave and Silicon Valley
Vikram Seth’s 1986 novel-in-verse was such a long-shot that the author makes Shakespearian voice-overs explaining his hopes and misgivings. Now it’s a must-read for poets
Vikram Seth's 1986 novel-in-verse was such a long-shot that the author makes Shakespearian voice-overs explaining his hopes and misgivings. Now it's a must-read for poets.
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It's Friday night. The unfettered city
Resounds with hedonistic glee.
John feels a cold cast of self-pity
Envelop him. No family
Cushions his solitude, or rather,
His mother's dead, his English father,
Retired in his native Kent,
Rarely responds to letters sent
(If rarely) by his transatlantic
Offspring. (1)
Thus begins Vikram Seth's 1986 poem novel, The Golden Gate. Written in Tetrameter sonnets inspired by the classic novel-in-verse Eugene Onegin (Evgenii Onegin). (2)
Seth's characters are taken from the world of late-century San Francisco peninsula - a computer engineer, a sculptor, a political activist, a grower of wine grapes.
So unusual was this undertaking in the decade of President Reagan and new-wave music that Seth occasionally breaks into explanations and complaints about his odd choice of genre. The path of poetry has followed Seth's example, however, and twenty years later the poetry community now followed his lead. The novel-in-verse is experiencing a jubilant renaissance.
Would-be writers of poem novels sometimes complain of the constriction rhyme and/or meter puts on the narrative spirit. To be honest, the Tetrameter sonnets Seth uses does add a clipped and hurried step to the proceedings. The reader feels the pace is slightly accelerated, putting one in mind of a silent movie. This, plus the use of a strong rhyme scheme, might have threatened to make the book seem anachronistic. It mest have seemed so, at the time, because Seth feels compelled to apologize in verse to his readers midway through his story.
Happily, however, the brisk meter and rhyme work together to give the book a bright and energetic feel. Even though skies are not always sunny over The Golden Gate, whose characters experience - loneliness, grief, love, hatred, lust, guilt, and a variety of other human emotions - the story never becomes ponderous or takes itself too seriously. The reader experiences delight.
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- Seth, Vikram. The Golden Gate. New York: Random House. 1986. 6.
- Tetrameter: A Page Dedicated to Four-Footed Verse, "Vikram Seth." 12 July 2006.
For other linking narratives written in sonnets, please check out Davis McCombs' Ultima Thule.
You also might be interested in Les Murray's Fredy Neptune, which is written in iambic hexameter.
Sam Savage's The Criminal Life of Effie O. is a children's book written for adults, which uses rhyme and meter to create a light-hearted book about heavy things. It shares a common spirit with The Golden Gate.
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