Mahesh Rao’s Polite Society adds something fresh, funny and insightful to the age-old chatter about this fascinating country by detailing the world of the uber-rich who call it home ... Hilarious, scandalous and fascinating, Polite Society adds an interesting, modern layer to a complex culture.

As an adaptation of Emma, Polite Society is faithful to the core of the original plot, but not at the expense of its own narrative requirements. Rao never strains for fidelity ... readers familiar with the original will find themselves nodding along with pleasurable recognition. Not that any of this feels stale or predictable: Rao is an exceptionally assured storyteller ... Rao’s method could not be less Austenian. While Austen typically grants psychological depth only to her protagonist, Rao changes perspective freely, with minor characters portrayed just as sympathetically as Ania is. And where the core of her narrative art is individual psychology, and the construction of reality through an individual filter, his style is coolly omniscient, and chiefly interested in the external. Austen’s fiction is notable for its relative lack of sensory detail: Polite Societyis full of vivid, specific images, sounds and smells, given to us by the omniscient narrator. Rao only fleetingly inhabits the individual characters’ minds; as for free indirect style, he abjures it altogether ... There is no broad comedy at the expense of individual characters in Polite Society. This is not, then, a straight adaptation of Emma. Nor is it a conventional account of elite Delhi society.

Rao’s Indian update of Emma owes more to Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians...than to other 2019 Southeast-Asian Jane Austen adaptations ... Story lines swirl around Ania...all set amid the dizzying gossip and clashes among the uber-rich in modern India. Ania’s intentions aren’t always pure, no matter what she thinks, and Rao strikes the right balance between likable and self-deceiving. Though keeping precise track of all of the threads may be difficult, the pace and breezy style, along with sometimes broad but always entertaining characters, will keep readers enchanted.

... [an] ably observed comedy of manners ... the Emma comparison may be more true to the author’s intentions and to the novel’s structure ... a richly imagined world ... Sometimes, Polite Society can be too polite. While there is much exciting action in this book — affairs, lies, secrets buried in death — most of it happens offstage. What the reader gets instead is the gossip of the action, overheard in many a glittering drawing room. Rao’s gift is his ability to depict the elevated stakes of small gestures and etiquette, but this comes at a cost: We lose a sense of larger stakes. Slights seem recoverable, ignorance forgivable. Even when financial ruin is on the horizon, we trust that everyone will probably be fine ... Ironically, Rao’s writing shines brightest when his characters leave the glittering world ... While Austen’s Emma gives this book an even structure and sure pacing, events meaningful and fraught enough to shoulder an entire novel become subservient to a larger, predetermined plot ... Rao also writes with knowing insight on the hearts of the aspiring rich. His depictions of Ania’s upwardly mobile friend Dimple and her relatively humble life are more tender and sweet than mocking.

Rao’s lighthearted American debut will doubtless invite comparisons to the hit Crazy Rich Asians, but they are mostly unwarranted. Yes, Kevin Kwan's Asians drip with swank, but all that excess serves a linear plot that chugs full steam ahead. Here, however, the characters seem too fascinated by the scenery, and after a few too many dangling plotlines, the reader might not care that Ania chooses to 'supplement her tofu extract face-cleaning capsules with seaweed skin patches and an oxygenated mist in a sheathed canister couriered to her from a hilltop in New Zealand.' The slack-jawed focus on the dazzle also misses an opportunity for more nuanced commentary about class instead of the cautious bites the novel delivers. Glitter might make for an appetizing amuse-bouche but it's not enough for a satisfying meal.