R. K. Narayan, in his memoir MY DAYS, talks about the effect EAST LYNNE had on him as a reader: "Reading and rereading it has always produced a lump in my throat, and that was the most luxurious sadness you could think of."
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Born Rasipuram Krishnaswami Ayyar Narayanaswami, Narayan was raised in a well-off middle-class family in Mysore, the inspiration for the fictional city of Malgudi, where much of his fiction is set. His father was the headmaster of a Western-style school, and Narayan grew up reading English newspapers and magazines. He received a B.A. from Maharaja's College in 1930, and was married in 1933; his adored wife, Rajam (with whom he had one daughter, Hema), died suddenly in 1939, an event Narayan neve more...
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10/10/1906 Madras, India, South Asia,
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The second sentence of this book reads like this:
"The man stood gazing reverentially on his face."
And still, this is so far one of the most thought-provoking books I've read all year.