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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
medium-paced
Couldn't get into this at all. To be honest, I wouldn't have even looked at it if someone hadn't lent it to me, it really isn't my kind of book. I've never been able to get into any of the Booker prize winners, they all seem too pretentious and overwritten and melodramatic to me - especially this one.
Mistry has a way with words and storytelling, fullstop. With a mix of social commentary, tragedy, comedy, wit and a cast of non-manichaean characters he'll teach you a thing or two without you even noticing. But this one just lacked the fine balance [b: A Fine Balance|5211|A Fine Balance|Rohinton Mistry|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1551173390l/5211._SY75_.jpg|865827] had. In my opinion, excess what particularly noticeable and irritating in the following areas:
*Unrealistic-intellectualism: granted characters are the main vehicle of whatever point needs to be made but on a cluster of randomly picked characters not everyone will not should have deep philosophical, political, religious and social conversation every single chapter.
*Over-tragedy: While coincidences may happen, various family members needn't die on a quarter-century interval to make a point.
*Unrealistic-intellectualism: granted characters are the main vehicle of whatever point needs to be made but on a cluster of randomly picked characters not everyone will not should have deep philosophical, political, religious and social conversation every single chapter.
*Over-tragedy: While coincidences may happen, various family members needn't die on a quarter-century interval to make a point.
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Amazing ! This made me cry more than AFB and Such a Long Journey. My favorite characters were Coomy and Jehangir.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
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:
Complicated
It took me most of the process of reading this book to truly decide how I felt about it. This is my first experience with Rohinton Mistry and I was so impressed with his attention to character development and his portrayal of human nature at its best and worst. His story shows the natural way that history so often repeats itself within families, many times with tragic consequences. Sadly, Nariman was unable to directly communicate the message to his family that he did not want them to continue a bitter legacy. The final chapter before the epilogue creates a scene that is perhaps one of the most poignant I have ever read. I read it with tears in my eyes. It made me think of my family, my loved ones. One of the best gifts literature can give us is a glimpse at our own humanity. I believe Mistry accomplished that with this work.
Another hit out of the ball park for Mistry. After placing "A Fine Balance" on my top 10 list, I was hesitant to read this lest it fell short of the AFB. And to be clear - it did, but only by a pinch.
In this novel Mistry tackles the issue of family; a Parsi family coping and struggling with a bedridden 79 year old parent, 2 children, cramped quarters, a bad job, step siblings. Many of the issues are universal, but Mistry injects them with a dose of India, and in this case, 1990's Bombay, reality which transports you to that side of the world and sits you down in the family's living room with grandfather, bedridden and smelly on the settee, and mother in the kitchen preparing tea, boys in the only other room of the flat doing homework, and the hectic, dirty, noisy world of the street below. Woven within this story is another one - that of the grandfather, Nariman Vakeel, and of his love and loss of Lucy and the disaster of his arranged marriage, his regrets, his attempts at reconciliation, his humility in the face of his body abandoning him to the grim indignities of Parkinson's disease, of his step children dumping him, his son in law resenting him, his grandson adoring him, his daughter Roxana taking gentle care of him while juggling the needs of her 2 boys and her husband's, Yezad, growing frustrations. Through Yezad, we learn of the difficulties of just arriving at work, corruption, built into the Indian system, the frustration of seeing his family unravel before his eyes and the desperate measures he takes to keep it going.
In the end, this book is about the importance (or diminishing importance) of family, the difficulties of life, of keeping the family together, of happiness - so important to the balance of life in this family. "Then she lets them settle lightly on my arm. 'What is it, Jehangoo? Aren't you happy?' 'Yes,' I say. 'Yes, I'm happy.'"
At times I questioned who the target audience was for this novel. Was it for Westerners who don't understand India, what makes it tick and how people think? Or was the target Indians - perhaps expats? who need to reevaluate the overwhelming poverty, bureaucracy, the callousness generated by the survival of the fittest, the dishonesty and corruption of the system?
Note: Something that would have been enormously helpful in this book would have been a glossary of terms. I had a very difficult time with all the Indian terms, trying to figure out the meaning from the context became tedious. Also helpful would have been prior knowledge of the religious aspects of the Parsi population of India. They were a people who lived in Persia and rather than be forced to convert to Islam, emigrated to India, and therefore consider themselves Persians. They don't cremate their dead (another question I had), rather they allow the body to be consumed by vultures.
In this novel Mistry tackles the issue of family; a Parsi family coping and struggling with a bedridden 79 year old parent, 2 children, cramped quarters, a bad job, step siblings. Many of the issues are universal, but Mistry injects them with a dose of India, and in this case, 1990's Bombay, reality which transports you to that side of the world and sits you down in the family's living room with grandfather, bedridden and smelly on the settee, and mother in the kitchen preparing tea, boys in the only other room of the flat doing homework, and the hectic, dirty, noisy world of the street below. Woven within this story is another one - that of the grandfather, Nariman Vakeel, and of his love and loss of Lucy and the disaster of his arranged marriage, his regrets, his attempts at reconciliation, his humility in the face of his body abandoning him to the grim indignities of Parkinson's disease, of his step children dumping him, his son in law resenting him, his grandson adoring him, his daughter Roxana taking gentle care of him while juggling the needs of her 2 boys and her husband's, Yezad, growing frustrations. Through Yezad, we learn of the difficulties of just arriving at work, corruption, built into the Indian system, the frustration of seeing his family unravel before his eyes and the desperate measures he takes to keep it going.
In the end, this book is about the importance (or diminishing importance) of family, the difficulties of life, of keeping the family together, of happiness - so important to the balance of life in this family. "Then she lets them settle lightly on my arm. 'What is it, Jehangoo? Aren't you happy?' 'Yes,' I say. 'Yes, I'm happy.'"
At times I questioned who the target audience was for this novel. Was it for Westerners who don't understand India, what makes it tick and how people think? Or was the target Indians - perhaps expats? who need to reevaluate the overwhelming poverty, bureaucracy, the callousness generated by the survival of the fittest, the dishonesty and corruption of the system?
Note: Something that would have been enormously helpful in this book would have been a glossary of terms. I had a very difficult time with all the Indian terms, trying to figure out the meaning from the context became tedious. Also helpful would have been prior knowledge of the religious aspects of the Parsi population of India. They were a people who lived in Persia and rather than be forced to convert to Islam, emigrated to India, and therefore consider themselves Persians. They don't cremate their dead (another question I had), rather they allow the body to be consumed by vultures.
A great attempt at depicting the miseries of a middle class family and atrocities and evolution of human relations with time. Family Matters, like its title, has many layers at the subtext level and needs to be read for the sheer pleasure of it.