I once had an Indian pen-pal who sent me two of R. K. Narayan’s novels, The Guide and Waiting for the Mahatma, both of which rather impressed me. I picked up The Dark Room second-hand somewhere, and finally got around to it when picking a book to read this weekend. It was a bit of a disappointment, frankly, nowehere as good as I remember the two others to be (which makes me think I probably ought to reread those). I think it will probably not survive the next move.