Review: Magic Square

Magic Square by Salini Vineeth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Magic Square by Salini Vineeth is a short novel. Coincidentally, I see a trend of many short novels or long short stories (however we want to refer to them) under 100 pages over the past year. While I would have thought that it would be difficult to build depth of characters in such short novels, this book does disprove that view. Magic Square does this with only a few characters and a very focused story. The story is different and holds your interest, well till the end.

Amudha and Dheeraj are doing their PhD and not quite by choice. Dheeraj, her senior is finding the going tough with Prof Murthy and isn’t quite sure when he will complete his PhD. Amudha grows to hate job interviews and the puzzles which have become an inherent part of the selection process, and settles to do a PhD. They grow to be good friends and the incidents around their lives in the lab is good fun to read.

As Dheeraj struggles with a tough assignment, Amudha suggests they visit a bookshop which has many old and less known books which might help. A book finally comes to Dheeraj’s rescue – it has all the questions which Dheeraj has to answer with the solutions scribbled by one “L V Sreenivasan”. Amudha is fascinated by Sreenivasan, as he comes across a brilliant person based on the solutions he has scribbled. Sreenivasan has also written a very short poem in the book.
Amudha goes in search of Sreenivasan – and that is the rest of the story. Where & what did he study, and what is he doing now?

The story is different, original and flows smoothly. The book would have benefited with better editing, though it is a minor issue. While the build up of the story is excellent, it had far greater potential. A lot of the discoveries are very lucky coincidences (quite a few of them) and the last section could have been far better.

An impressive debut novel which I recommend for its good story, and for being a short & easy read.

My rating: 3.75 / 5


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