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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
This was a very dark difficult book to slog through. It dredges up every fear a child has about switching places with a parent (or even more awkward a parent-in-law) and our reluctance to now be the one caring for them. And in the background the decaying image of Bombay, a parent in its own right whose children don't want to care for it.
This comes no where close to the breadth and tragedy of a A Fine Balance. The most likeable and endearing character has no voice after the first third of the book. The other characters have none of the charm of Nariman Vakeel the patriarch of the family. Found the second half of the book a complete slog to get through.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Infidelity, Excrement, Grief, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
It took awhile to get into this book but once I warmed up to it, it stole my heart. Families are not perfect, people can be too proud, life is hard. The consequences of your actions can be far reaching and fatal. All these lessons come through loud and clear in this moving story.
Rohinton Mistry's 'Family Matters' is exactly what the title suggests, the tiny and significant components that shape a family despite its dysfunctional ambitions.
How responsibility can calmly prevent the growth of passion? How conservativeness is a disorder installed in oriental parenthood? How religious extremism can slaughter innocent lives? How hunger can transform people? How unfortunate is it to perish with rage, without forgiving or being forgiven? How switching perspectives can make life simpler? How efficiently someone can become exactly what he despised? - All these questions were breeding in my mind. And Mistry's beautiful writing answered them with unbiased humility.
Nariman Vakeel's helplessness reminded me of my own grandfather who was bedridden in his last few years. His stepchildren Jal and Coomy Contractor who lived with him had their own share of unfulfillment. Nariman's biological daughter Roxana was blissfully married to Yazad Chenoy, and they had a pleasant family of four with their two boys Murad and Jahangir. Lucy and Yasmin were also two of the principal characters who obliquely impacted the lives of other characters in the novel.
The use of brusque terms in the conversations designed a drama-like air in the fiction. The characters and the events of the three generations are exceptionally raw and homely that you will feel like viewing your own family story, the big little entities of ordinary family time.
This long novel is a slow burn playing on the precise predilections. Give it a read, only if you have the interest to perceive something extraordinary in our mundane family matters.
How responsibility can calmly prevent the growth of passion? How conservativeness is a disorder installed in oriental parenthood? How religious extremism can slaughter innocent lives? How hunger can transform people? How unfortunate is it to perish with rage, without forgiving or being forgiven? How switching perspectives can make life simpler? How efficiently someone can become exactly what he despised? - All these questions were breeding in my mind. And Mistry's beautiful writing answered them with unbiased humility.
Nariman Vakeel's helplessness reminded me of my own grandfather who was bedridden in his last few years. His stepchildren Jal and Coomy Contractor who lived with him had their own share of unfulfillment. Nariman's biological daughter Roxana was blissfully married to Yazad Chenoy, and they had a pleasant family of four with their two boys Murad and Jahangir. Lucy and Yasmin were also two of the principal characters who obliquely impacted the lives of other characters in the novel.
The use of brusque terms in the conversations designed a drama-like air in the fiction. The characters and the events of the three generations are exceptionally raw and homely that you will feel like viewing your own family story, the big little entities of ordinary family time.
This long novel is a slow burn playing on the precise predilections. Give it a read, only if you have the interest to perceive something extraordinary in our mundane family matters.
You can't deny that Mistry is an amazing writer. In Family Matters, he draws you into the Chenoy family and makes you love them and hate them in the same way we all love and hate our own families. The setting -- the city of Bombay -- is almost a character in and of itself, so exquisitely is it described. And the book is a reflection on relationships and learning and loving each other. It, like other Mistry books, is hard to read in parts. The bad things are bad and the good things lead to bad -- it can be depressing. But at least it wasn't as depressing as A Fine Balance. That one left me unbalanced for weeks. This one is bittersweet -- the scene with the violinist playing for the grandfather on his deathbed -- it was so beautifully moving.
I couldn't remember which was recommended to me, and picked Family Matters at the library, instead of A Fine Balance. I wonder if, had I chosen the latter, I would have been awed as promised. I started reading Family Matters late in the evening and finished it in the middle of the night. Interesting and at times painfully beautiful, though the book was, it did leave something to be desired. For me, the book had a combination of goods and bads. I certainly didn't love it. I can think of many people, though, who might really like the book for the very reasons I didn't: the fairly poetic prose, the often ostentatious drama and the raging sentimentality.
Follow the link for the full review: http://peskypiksipesternomi.blogspot.in/2013/06/family-matters-by-rohinton-mistry.html
Follow the link for the full review: http://peskypiksipesternomi.blogspot.in/2013/06/family-matters-by-rohinton-mistry.html
I found this book to be both heartwarming and heartbreaking, with a nice sprinkling of satiric humor thrown in. It is the story of a family; of basically good people who find themselves in a difficult situation and each deal with it in the way their nature commands. Choices are made -- some good, some bad -- but all authentic to the characters and the story. Watching events unfold and attempting to achieve some understanding is the nine-year-old Jehangir, an endearing little boy who loves to lose himself in books but sadly grows to understand that life is not like the stories he reads.