Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

for you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello and welcome to Bookworm. My name is Michael Silverblatt, and today my guest is Manil

Surrey. His book, The Death of Vishnu, a novel, is published by Norton. It's a first novel,

a very first novel, and has earned very well-deserved praise on the front cover of the New York Times.

Just about anyone who's reviewed it or written about it has spoken of it with enormous enthusiasm.

It's an enthusiasm which I share. I was delighted, really. The book not only

taught me a good deal about Bombay and led me to read a translation of the Bhagavad Gita,

it gave me as vivid an experience as I've had about the notion of assent and avatars and rebirth.

And I wanted to know, would you describe it as a spiritual book?

I would. Some people have called it a religious book, and that I would not say. I would probably use the word spiritual rather than religious.

Because I've been getting the sense from some of the writing that a slight mistake is being made.

There are comical tones, and there is a, they're calling it tragic ending,

but I don't experience the book as being mean-spirited or counter-spiritual.

No, I agree with you.

I think on one level it's a book that's supposed to be read maybe from cover to cover at one sitting and just as an interesting tale.

And then on the other hand, there are these levels which hopefully draw the reader into some questions that could only be termed as spiritual.

Now, when you speak about levels, in this book, The Death of Vishnu by my guest, Manil Suri,

levels is a literal concept. We're in an apartment complex in Bombay.

...