The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India

Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.5
Word count
796K words
Chapters
80

Tags

English Originals Romance Fiction Hermit DoctorFate and FortuneCross-cultural RomanceLove EntanglementsTender SentimentIndian SettingExotic CultureCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Hermit Doctor of Gaya: A Love Story of Modern India by I. A. R. WylieAuthor: ,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Jul 30, 2015

Editor's review

Set in modern India, this novel revolves around a "hermit doctor" and a love story. It comes from a public-domain ebook project and belongs to English literature; the barrier to reading lies chiefly in the English original rather than in theoretical depth. Its value lies not in exotic local color but in how one character and one romance refract the tension between tradition and modernity, withdrawal and engagement. Its strength is the readability of early popular fiction, with character situations interwoven with local atmosphere. It suits reading as a quiet exercise in the English original, and also readers interested in early twentieth-century English popular literature and Indian subjects. It can be read chapter by chapter during commutes or discussed in a small literary reading group. Note that this is a public-domain ebook reissue with limited editorial information; readers should treat it as a text in itself and not expect detailed scholarly notes or an introduction.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the first two chapters, note character relationships and place clues, then decide whether to read closely or extensively.
  2. Proceed chapter by chapter; after each chapter, summarize the plot and characters' motives in two or three sentences to keep the threads clear.
  3. Mark words and passages with unclear cultural background first and look them up after finishing, to avoid constant interruptions.
  4. For a reading group, prepare discussion questions around the two keywords "hermit" and "love."

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80

FAQ

Does this book require a high level of English to read? It is early English popular fiction; sentence structures are not very difficult, but there are period expressions and local usages. Readers with college-level English reading ability who are willing to look up words can generally make progress; those who rely entirely on translation will need to find a Chinese edition or parallel materials.
What is the difference between a public-domain ebook edition and an ordinary publication? This edition comes from a public-domain ebook project and mainly provides the original text, usually without the introduction, notes, and textual apparatus of a modern publisher. Its advantage is that it is free and easy to obtain; its limitation is that readers must supply background information themselves, and should focus mainly on the text itself.
Is it suitable for learning about modern Indian society? It is first of all a love story; the social background is the narrative setting rather than systematic exposition. Readers can sense local atmosphere and characters' situations, but to understand Indian social structures they still need history and sociology books; the novel should not be treated as a reference work.

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About the author

Project Gutenberg Author

Project Gutenberg is not a single author but a nonprofit digital library founded by Michael Hart in 1971 and one of the world's earliest free ebook platforms. It relies on volunteers to digitize, proofread, and freely distribute public-domain works and is now operated by the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Its collection contains 2,692 works, mainly religious texts, epics, and story collections, including the King James Bible and the Douay-Rheims volumes, the epic Mahabharata, a literal translation of the Arabian Nights, and Danish editions of the Old and New Testaments. Public information is limited, and its nature is closer to a public-interest compiling and dissemination body; these texts are open to the public, easy to consult and circulate, and have had a profound influence on the spread of ebooks and the preservation of public-domain resources.