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Better To Have Gone

Love, Death and the Quest for Utopia in Auroville

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Better To Have Gone

By: Akash Kapur
Narrated by: Vikas Adam
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About this listen

 'Beautifully written and structured, deeply moving, and realised in wise, thoughtful, chiselled prose... it is that rarity: a genuine non-fiction classic' William Dalrymple

A spellbinding story about love, faith, the search for utopia - and the often devastating cost of idealism.

It’s the late 1960s, and two lovers converge on an arid patch of earth in South India. John Walker is the handsome scion of a powerful East Coast American family. Diane Maes is a beautiful hippie from Belgium. They have come to build a new world - Auroville, an international utopian community for thousands of people. Their faith is strong, the future bright.

So how do John and Diane end up dying two decades later, on the same day, on a cracked concrete floor in a thatch hut by a remote canyon? This is the mystery Akash Kapur sets out to solve in Better to Have Gone, and it carries deep personal resonance: Diane and John were the parents of Akash’s wife, Auralice. Akash and Auralice grew up in Auroville; like the rest of their community, they never really understood those deaths.

In 2004, Akash and Auralice return to Auroville from New York, where they have been living with John’s family. As they re-establish themselves, along with their two sons, in the community, they must confront the ghosts of those distant deaths. Slowly, they come to understand how the tragic individual fates of John and Diane intersected with the collective history of their town.

Better to Have Gone is a book about the human cost of our age-old quest for a more perfect world. It probes the under-explored yet universal idea of utopia, and it portrays in vivid detail the daily life of one utopian community. Richly atmospheric and filled with remarkable characters, spread across time and continents, this is narrative writing of the highest order - a heartbreaking, unforgettable story. Sociology Urban Utopian Inspiring

Critic reviews

'A forensic reconstruction of two deaths set against the background of a tropical utopia. It is beautifully written and structured, deeply moving, and realised in wise, thoughtful, chiselled prose. It tells an extraordinary tale of a paradise lost, and of the dangers of utopian naivety: what happens when dreams collide with harsh reality. Like In Cold Blood, it is that rarity: a genuine non-fiction classic.' (William Dalrymple, author of The Anarchy)
'Akash Kapur’s Better to Have Gone is a troubling and moving account of lives gone wrong in the search for an eastern Utopia.' (Damon Galgut)
'This beautifully written account ... is fascinating in describing the efforts of people...to carve out a sustainable community in such a forbidding environment. But it becomes more fascinating still when it begins to explore the contradictions between idealism and real life.' (Mick Brown)
'A haunting, heartbreaking story, deeply researched and lucidly told, with an almost painful emotional honesty... I kept wanting to read Better to Have Gone because I found it so gripping; I kept wanting not to read it because I found it so upsetting. Better to Have Gone ends with an unexpected lightness, even transcendence, as Kapur helps us see what Auroville has given him, gives him still, despite the pain.' (Amy Waldman)
'Using the framework of a personal historical quest, Akash Kapur gives us a gripping morality tale, phosphorescent and unsettling, of the cruelty that accompanies utopia.' (Jeet Thayil, Booker shortlisted author of Narcopolis)
'Spellbinding and otherworldly, Better to Have Gone is an exquisite literary achievement. With graceful, luminous prose, Akash Kapur's intimate account of utopian Auroville is entrancing, devastating and unforgettable. Above all, this book is a hauntingly beautiful love story, composed by a writer in full command of his craft.' (Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove)
'Haunting and elegant... The beauty of Mr Kapur’s story lies in our conviction, by the end, that he and his wife have found most of the answers they were looking for.' (Tunku Varadarajan)
'Akash Kapur has written a trenchant, nuanced account of the longing for a perfect world. Working from personal experience and a writer’s profound curiosity, he takes us deep into the heart of an intentional community’s ambitions and failures. This is an important work about the eternal human desire for utopia, and about the dystopia that always lurks within these dreams.' (Vikram Chandra, author of Sacred Games)
'Haunting...a harrowing quest to understand the blinkered idealism that led to [his parents-in-law's] deaths, on the same day, in 1986'
All stars
Most relevant
Having followed Auroville for decades (and even at one time considered living there) I found this book gave a helpful context to a lot of what was hard to understand about Auroville as an outsider.
The story is fascinating, although the narrator can be a bit over the top breathless in his recounting of it. Another minor irritant is mispronounced French and Dutch - a quick online search would have avoided that. All in all worth a listen for anyone who knows it or wants a peek behind the curtain of communal living with so-called spiritual people.

A fascinating glimpse inside an innovative community

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fantastic read... largely because I have stayed in Auroville and heard part of the story. So well researched, cleverly told, and riveting. Thankyou.

extraordinary.

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Captivating, heartfelt, heartbreaking, enlightening, curious, wasteful perhaps, but definitely beautiful. Unrelatable in a sense, yet poignant and brilliantly written. I hope the author and family are as happy with it as I am.

a story for all

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I am going to return title as I found the narrator's portentous style annoying and I found the book's slow start was not enough to keep me going.

poor narrator

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