[Voices in the City] is set in Calcutta, in an atmosphere of aimless corruption and destruction. [Mrs. Desai] traces the development of a sensitive and melancholic trio; Nirode, deliberate wastrel, editor of a little magazine, and his two sisters, Monisha, a connoisseur of Russian and English literature married into a large and conventional Calcutta family, and Amla, the youngest, who finds a bitter fulfilment in inspiring a new stage in the development of a middle-aged painter….
Mrs. Desai's virtues are also her faults. She can create atmosphere excellently but the book is overloaded with minute and intense descriptions of momentary emotions. She has great skill in suggesting rapid fluctuations of consciousness. There is no reason why a novel should set out to be completely intelligible to foreigners; it is not possible to write subtly without presupposing certain expectations and knowledge in the reader. But it is often difficult for an English reader to distinguish the indisputable moments of insight through the haze of decorative emotion.
"Bengali Beat," in The Times Literary Supplement (© Times Newspapers Ltd. (London) 1965; reproduced from The Times Literary Supplement by permission), No. 3306, July 8, 1965, p. 581.
