First published in 1961, M Anantanarayanan's The Silver Pilgrimage, though not a well-known novel, does have a selected readership. Its author, who was born in 1907 and who died a few years back, was a judge in the Madras High Court, a connoisseur of music, and a recognized figure in the intellectual circles of Madras. He was not a writer by profession and The Silver Pilgrimage is his only novel. His father was the distinguished English and Tamil writer, A Madhavaiah, the author of books like Thillai Govindan (1908) and Clarinda (1915). The Silver Pilgrimage itself is a unique novel. Its narrative technique is a mixture of fable and fantasy, somewhat reminiscent of another neglected novelist, Sudhin Ghose. It differs from Ghose's works in that it is set in the mythical past of medieval India, though the narrative voice is thoroughly modern. The overall effect, as Harvey Breit points out in his preface, is magical: