"A literary work embodies the writer's vision put in an artistic manner. The writer chooses his stools consciously and painstakingly to put across his world view in his work for onward transmission to audience. R. K. Narayan is one of such literary artists whose work are deceptively simple but underneath lies both occidental and oriental novelistic techniques to discover and define his life-values, without compromising charm of aesthetic pleasure. This book traces the narrative techniques involved in Narayan's novels and how from a stiff-necked amateur in narrative art he improved to be a master story-teller, successfully transmitting his message through the design. This book is not only a study of the author's novelistic art but also a handbook on the art of the novel. The art of the novel has been discussed in a simple, lucid and perceptive manner, easily comprehensible to the common reader, and different aspects of this have been illustrated with an analysis of Narayan's novels. This book will be prove to be a great help to scholars and students of R. K. Narayan and also for those who are interested in the theoretical aspects of the novelist's art."