{"product_id":"talkative-man-by-r-k-narayan","title":"'Talkative Man' by R. K. Narayan","description":"\u003ch4 data-end=\"489\" data-start=\"0\"\u003eR. K. Narayan’s \u003cem data-end=\"43\" data-start=\"28\"\u003eTalkative Man\u003c\/em\u003e is a slim, comic novel set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi, suddenly deranged by the arrival of a mysterious stranger.\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"489\" data-start=\"0\"\u003eThe narrator, known mostly as TM — Talkative Man, naturally; no false advertising from Narayan — becomes entangled with a visitor calling himself Dr Rann, whose grand claims, odd secrecy, and bureaucratic evasions begin to unsettle the town’s rhythms.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"913\" data-start=\"491\"\u003eNarayan is one of the great quiet comic stylists of twentieth-century fiction: deceptively plain, beautifully paced, and allergic to melodrama even when his plots are full of frauds, dreamers, eccentrics, officials, and men talking themselves into ridiculous corners. This is late Narayan: dry, economical, gently absurd, and built around the pleasure of narrative itself — gossip as architecture, rumour as civic weather.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp data-end=\"913\" data-start=\"491\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFirst edition. Hardback, William Heinemann, first published in Great Britain 1986. Ex-library book. Dust jacket present, with visible fading\/shelf wear and some edge rubbing; book internally clean.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"bower studio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44781312770131,"sku":null,"price":20.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0689\/0268\/2707\/files\/Yourparagraphtext-2026-05-29T144632.455.png?v=1780030019","url":"https:\/\/bowerbooks.com\/products\/talkative-man-by-r-k-narayan","provider":"bower books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}