Love, hate, anger, betrayal, sadness, happiness: every shade of human existence was contained between its lines. I learned the nearness of both reality and imagination in our lives, I learned about life and literature simultaneously from the novel's vision of both.
Jean-Christophe offered full and pure slices of life that were so well painted that literature didn't seem any different or any more remote from real life. It's a big and brave novel, and a complete novel, technically as well-the inner fabric of the text seemed sound and completely convincing.
Reading this novel that runs to thousands of pages, strangely enough, taught me the art of writing with brevity, of working on a short novel, because of Rolland's economy of phrase. And the endless stream of writings, the constant drama that sang through the pages of the book, gave me the courage as a writer to peep into the human mind.
I also have a special sentimental corner in my heart for the circumstances in which the novel came to me: it was presented to me by a friend in Lahore many, many decades ago.