BOOK REVIEW : A Hazy Look Into the Changes in a Lonely Aristocrat’s Life : THE WORLD OF NAGARAJ, <i> by R. K. Narayan</i> . Viking. $18.95, 185 pages

R. K. Narayan, a well-known writer in India, has over the years created the fictional town of Malgudi--a suburb outside the capital city of Delhi--and filled it with a vast cast of characters.

This book is, obviously, about “The World of Nagaraj” and that world is small, sad, full of disappointments. And, yet, there are plenty of clues that this novel is supposed to be a comedy. A quote by Graham Greene appears at the front of this volume: “Narayan wakes in me a spring of gratitude, for . . . without him I could never have known what it is like to be Indian.” For some readers, what it is like to be Indian will remain a mystery even after reading this book.

Nagaraj is a shy man in his 50s, a member of the aristocracy in the village of Malgudi. The Western reader is already in trouble here: The family house covers close to a square block of space. Nagaraj’s mother always used to bedeck herself in diamonds and gold, even around the house. But the house seems to have only two folding chairs in it. And, yes, there are three courtyards, but the rooms around the third one are inhabited only by rats and ants.

The reader’s first response to a printed page is often visual. “Cast the picture up in front of your eyes!” Didn’t Aristotle say that? But it’s going to be hard to get this picture “cast up” correctly in front of your eyes.

Nagaraj has lived in his family house forever. He is the second of two sons. His older brother, Gopu, was a nasty, bullying tyrant who lived in the front room and kept the one bed and one of the chairs.

When Gopu gets married, he and his wife take over all the rooms and scare Nagaraj and his parents half to death. Then their father dies. Gopu unfairly takes more than half the family property and moves out to a village where the family fields are located, where he will devote the rest of his life to creating natural-gas-as-energy from cattle dung. Gopu will have one child, Tim. Nagaraj will marry a plain girl, Sita, who will remain barren.

For 20 years, nothing much will happen. Nagaraj dreams of writing a great book, but spends most of his time volunteering his services as a bookkeeper at his best friend’s sari store.

Nagaraj and Sita bicker incessantly. They live quite separate lives; she keeps house (where are the servants if this couple is so rich?) and goes to the temple, while her husband sits outside and watches his world go by. It’s a very small world.

The town has a housing development called New Extension where the jungle used to be, but Nagaraj never goes there. And natives (called “junglees”) have been moving into town, but Nagaraj never sees them, either.

The truth is, nobody gives Nagaraj the time of day. He’s lonely, sad, sorry-faced and discontented--until Gopu’s son runs away from his mean father and comes to live with his nice uncle.

Not only that, Tim marries a ditz named Saroja who does nothing all day but play movie melodies on her harmonium and sing at the top of her nasal voice. And, now, at last, some cultural ties can be knotted up. If you haven’t heard a harmonium, think of an accordion, OK? Or think of all the loud CDs your children play, filling your house with alien sound waves. Tim goes out at all hours to a night club called Kismet and takes to drink--although he explains unconvincingly that his alcohol smell comes from someone spraying cologne on his lips. Then think how much you love your own children, even though they drive you bats.

Nagaraj’s world ends up noisy and inconvenient, but finally complete. You can’t “cast the picture up in front of your eyes,” but you can feel Nagaraj’s early loneliness, and how, through the strength of his whacked-out family, that loneliness turns into love.