Bhoori:
hats off to you!there is a fairness in your arguments without political or personal hatred. there r only a few like that here in the hub.please write more about novels you have read and like.

Devasagayakumar:
i can't understand what you said in Tamil. if u r a researcher it will be nice if you contribute to this thread

thanks for correcting A.J.Kanagaratna's name.yeah, it is a good review of the book. the book has all kinds of people in it. but no central human character. the central character is "vishnupuram" city itself.people go in and out thru it for centuries so you cant have central characters. rulers and philosophies keep changing also in he city.

A.J.K. is rite. this is not a Hindutva propaganda book at all.it shows most religious organizations & leaders as fakes,womanizers, powerbrokers and so on. this may offend many ppl. so u can definitely expect these ppl to give negative reviews for J. and the book.

the philosophical discussions r not easy to follow bcoz of the language & content.this book is not for everyone. it is very long also like 800 pages.

i didn't know old epics had debates b'tween different religions till i read Kanchana's writings in the Neelakesi or Manimegalai threads in this forum hub.i don't know classics except for those taught in school

there are many "old epic" touches in Vishnupuram.the author also mentions that in the book that is what A.J.K. means by "kalavai vadivam" in his review. old epic+new stuff

Bhoori, you said Pavannan & Kanchana gave their opinions on Vishnupuram.i saw Pavannan's. Kanchana hasn't given any full criticism according to my "search". my serach dug some old postings which show she read the book in 1999. recently she has used Vishnupuram as a point to argue against having single definitions of lit forms like Novel. Kanchana's question to Jeyamohan is when his own Vishnupuram does not conform to his novel definition how a critic should see it

in my humble opinion, Vishnupuram novel idea is brilliant!nice poetic tamil. in the philosophical discussion he converts sanskrit words to tamil. that is where i had a problem with the language. it was hard. the philosophies of all these religions are hard itself. if language is also hard then it is harder.the book is 700+ pgs long. it is not for everyone.that is truthful not elitist.

about nailing ppl on spelling mistakes.i remember reading an essay by A.Marx where he was mad at kalachuvadu. Jeyamohan wrote an essay in that mag. that had spelling mistakes.A.Marx spent many paras cursing Jeyamohan and Manushyaputhiran the editor of kalachuvadu.everyone knew he wasn't worried about spellings;-0