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burritapal_1's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
reflective
sad
medium-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
4.0
This book is about a young Indian-Trinidadian woman who is at first unsure of her sexual identity, but when she meets the French wife of a young family friend, she falls in love with her.
When I saw the title of the book Valmiki's Daughter, and the cover had pictures of bird cages on it, I thought it would be about a father who kept his daughter imprisoned and didn't let her live her life. On the contrary, the father tries to protect her from the impositions of her mother, and lets her know she has his support.
Her family is from an upper middle class Trinidadian neighborhood; she is "imprisoned" by the rigid rules of her culture and society. Everything is governed by "what people will say."
A friend of hers who expressed her love for other women was turned out to the streets by her own family. She had to turn to sex work to be able to live. Viveka is terrified that this could happen to her.
Valmiki is aware of his shortcomings. When he was in Medical school, in Goa, he had a gay lover, Tony. But, like Viveka in Trinidad, he was afraid of people discovering this part of him, so he went out with Devika. The first time they had sex, she became pregnant, so he married her. The next 20 years were spent with him having afair after afair, trying to prove to society what a virile man he was. On many weekends, he will go "hunting" with workers from the lower class, to give himself an opportunity to spend the night with his gay lover, Saul. But the result is that He and Devika have a Barren home life, and both she and Saul's wife know what is going on. Devika and Valmiki haven't had sex in 7 years.
Here's a funny part when they're sitting on the patio in the evening.
" The sun was just going down and the patio Was aglow in an orange light. The electric patio light was switched on in anticipation of the usual speedy nightfall. Valmiki reclined in the Wicker Chaise-longe, his feet aimed directly at Devika. If he hadn't turned the pages of the paper once in a while she would have thought he had fallen asleep. He raised his lower body, the left side, a couple of inches or so off the chaise, and there it Hovered for a good few seconds. He would have looked up at her with a lame and apologetic smile if there had been an accompanying sound or a foul scent. But since neither emanated, he lowered his body and continued his reading. Animals had better scent perception than humans, Devika reckoned, for the birds in the four cages that hung from the patio roof, one sporting a mohawk-like arrangement of feathers on its head and bearing a name she couldn't pronounce suddenly became ruffled and hopped about in agitation. The newest addition Scuttled defiantly on the cage's metal tray, nervous and distressed..."
Nayan, the son of the Prakashes, good friends just down the road from Viveka's family, is the same age as Viveka. His family owns cacao plantations in the middle of the island. He and Viveka grew up together, but Nayan went away to British Columbia for business school. He comes back with Anick, a French woman who had been in Canada for school as well. Anick and Nayan invite Viveka over for a meal cooked by Anick, who excels at French cooking. Nayan tells Viveka the story of how he and Anick got together, but he's a dick about it and Anick gets enraged.
" he knew better then to tell his parents about Anick, Nayan said, because he would be sent for, his money monitored, and even a marriage back home hastily arranged for him with a girl from a known family. Anick, meanwhile, had told her parents about him, that he was brown-skinned, West indian, wealthy and owned a cacao Plantation and chocolate-making factory. Apparently they were worried that he wasn't french, didn't speak any french, and that she was sounding much too serious about him. She had had other love interests before, but none they had seen her consider so seriously. If they had worried about her interests before, now they were even more so.
At this juncture, Anick got up abruptly and busied herself in the kitchen..."
Anick is bisexual, and she's enraged that Nayan is telling Viveka all about her, as if she weren't there, and it's none of her business.
Nayan pretends that Anick was living with her parents before he married her, but she had been living with her lesbian lover and had just broken up with her. She got together with Nayan on the rebound.
Anick is beautiful and is looked at as a curiosity, a decoration for Nayan's arm. She doesn't speak much English, and what she does is said with a thick French accent, that is thought of as charming.
Like many men, Nayan is intrigued by the thought of lesbian lovers.
" Then, on subsequent dates, he seemed to become more and more intrigued, as men tended to be, by her interest in women. He wanted details. She wouldn't tell him too much, holding those intimacies close to her heart. He would persist, ask her what it was that women did to each other, what it was that made her like being with a woman. The only way she had been able to respond and still be respectful of those intimacies, and at the same time not anger Nayan with a refusal to engage with him in such a manner, was to employ the strategy of appearing to educate him. But it took hardly a sentence or two before he would become aroused, wanting nothing more then than to show her, as he would say while in the act, what real sex was and what a real man was like.
Then, once they were married, Nayan's fascination with the subject waned. Furthermore, shortly after they arrived in Trinidad, he was suddenly disgusted. He told Anick he hated that part of her life, that he was appalled, even tormented, by the idea that she had once loved women. Since then, she had dreaded the day he would throw all that she had so recklessly told him back at her. And now, that day had come. She had to fight the breaking of her heart at what she had sacrificed in herself by marrying him. In a strange place, in a family whose ways were so foreign to her, with this man whose body did not comfort her well enough, whose presence bent her spirit and heart, she felt more acutely than ever before all that she had given up."
Anick and Viveka befriend each other, and when they discover their mutual feelings, their love is profound. But Within the rigid Society of Trinidad upper class, they cannot be together. They end up caged within the only accepted life of society in Trinidad. Apart.
The ending is sad.
I liked this story a lot, by this Irish-Trinidadian author. I appreciated that she didn't spell out sex scenes that can repulse a reader like me.
_rusalka's review against another edition
1.0
I was overly excited to read this book. I have a friend at work who is from Trinidad and Tobago. We hear all these wonderful stories about her homeland, and I was hoping for a bigger insight into this world.
But what I got is a transplantation of the overly oppressive elements of Indian society in a lovely tropical location. I will have to ask her about this, as that is the cultural background she is from (as opposed to Afro-Caribbean) but she funnily enough went home for the Christmas break so I have to wait until I get back to work. But this was entirely at odds to conversations we had had. And that was worrying to me from the outset. Two possibilities for this. One is my friend's childhood and young adulthood was abnormal. Or the book written by a expat living in Canada was abnormal. So I was slightly on edge.
Valmiki is a rich, successful doctor on Trinidad. He has a wife and two daughters. He sleeps with lots of exotic, foreign women. We also find out in the first quarter, even the first fifth of the book, that he is actually gay (I say gay not bi, as he seems to have absolutely no feelings towards the women besides his wife, and that just seems to be companionship, not love at all) and sneaks off into the forest to go hunting with a group of lower class men (class is a BIG deal apparently...), one of which he has had a long term sexual relationship with. This is apparently a giant elephant in the room as his wife knows and it's all about keeping up appearances.
But then he is so upset about a fight with his wife and eldest daughter as she wants to play sport. And this is wrong and not to be tolerated apparently, more by wifey than him, but it sets off alarm bells for him. And I'm here thinking "Oh here we fricking go". Then there is a big deal about what his intelligent daughter wears. This is an reoccurring theme, about how she likes jeans, a cotton shirt and leather Indian shoes. If I wanted to read a book about clothes I would find the equivalent of Sex in the City in paperback. For disclosure's sake, that's what I wear substituting tshirt for shirt as I feel like it, and shoes would be thongs or skate shoes. But the whole time I'm reading this I'm getting "DO YOU GET IT????? She won't wear a dress!!!! SHE'S A LESBIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" If the author had taken a 2x4 and painted "She is a lesbian" on it, and then smacked me literally over the head with that, it would have been more subtle.
Enter the French girl who apparently goes both ways, because all French girls do. ... Really? Is that not incredibly offensive to put peoples sexuality down to a nationalistic stereotype???
And then the end. The ending made me want to throw up over the entire book.
Just. No.
When I get back to work I'm asking my friend for a proper Trini read as this was bollocks. Not very grown up that final assessment, but I really did not enjoy much of this book at all and at 398pp I'm entitled to call it names.
For more reviews visit http://rusalkii.blogspot.com.au/
But what I got is a transplantation of the overly oppressive elements of Indian society in a lovely tropical location. I will have to ask her about this, as that is the cultural background she is from (as opposed to Afro-Caribbean) but she funnily enough went home for the Christmas break so I have to wait until I get back to work. But this was entirely at odds to conversations we had had. And that was worrying to me from the outset. Two possibilities for this. One is my friend's childhood and young adulthood was abnormal. Or the book written by a expat living in Canada was abnormal. So I was slightly on edge.
Valmiki is a rich, successful doctor on Trinidad. He has a wife and two daughters. He sleeps with lots of exotic, foreign women. We also find out in the first quarter, even the first fifth of the book, that he is actually gay (I say gay not bi, as he seems to have absolutely no feelings towards the women besides his wife, and that just seems to be companionship, not love at all) and sneaks off into the forest to go hunting with a group of lower class men (class is a BIG deal apparently...), one of which he has had a long term sexual relationship with. This is apparently a giant elephant in the room as his wife knows and it's all about keeping up appearances.
But then he is so upset about a fight with his wife and eldest daughter as she wants to play sport. And this is wrong and not to be tolerated apparently, more by wifey than him, but it sets off alarm bells for him. And I'm here thinking "Oh here we fricking go". Then there is a big deal about what his intelligent daughter wears. This is an reoccurring theme, about how she likes jeans, a cotton shirt and leather Indian shoes. If I wanted to read a book about clothes I would find the equivalent of Sex in the City in paperback. For disclosure's sake, that's what I wear substituting tshirt for shirt as I feel like it, and shoes would be thongs or skate shoes. But the whole time I'm reading this I'm getting "DO YOU GET IT????? She won't wear a dress!!!! SHE'S A LESBIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" If the author had taken a 2x4 and painted "She is a lesbian" on it, and then smacked me literally over the head with that, it would have been more subtle.
Enter the French girl who apparently goes both ways, because all French girls do. ... Really? Is that not incredibly offensive to put peoples sexuality down to a nationalistic stereotype???
And then the end. The ending made me want to throw up over the entire book.
Just. No.
When I get back to work I'm asking my friend for a proper Trini read as this was bollocks. Not very grown up that final assessment, but I really did not enjoy much of this book at all and at 398pp I'm entitled to call it names.
For more reviews visit http://rusalkii.blogspot.com.au/
keetham's review
3.0
A good book, and intro to Shani Mootoo. A little slow at first to set up everything then rushed through the main part. Some intentional loose ends that I can't decide whether they are intriguing or annoying. Beautiful and subtle complexities though.
rebeccazh's review
read for school. this is such a heartbreaking book and the ending in particular is so awful because of the idea that societal pressure is so overwhelming that Indian LGBT people have to have a heterosexual marriage to fit in, survive, live. also this book had a LOT of descriptions of sex, food, and geography/nature. not sure what to make of those.
kstookley's review
5.0
so gay. so post-colonial. so yes.
This book left me thinking about the intersections of queer identity with race and culture, which is something I have honestly barely given any of my time or thinkspace before, so that's pretty rad
This book left me thinking about the intersections of queer identity with race and culture, which is something I have honestly barely given any of my time or thinkspace before, so that's pretty rad
aruarian_melody's review against another edition
Took me over two weeks to read 200 pages. Just couldn't get into it.
caseythecanadianlesbrarian's review
4.0
Any discussion at all of Shani Mootoo I must precede with an acknowledgement that I love, love, LOVE, her writing. I think she’s one of the most talented writers or artists period whose work I am familiar with—she happens to be one of those disgustingly talented people who is not only an imaginative and brilliant writer but also a gifted visual artist and filmmaker. So when I finally picked up her most recent novel Valmiki’s Daughter (2008), after being too swamped for too long with school work to fit time in to read it, the anticipation was killing me. I pretty much devoured it in one day—it was the first thing I read when I decided not to continue my PhD, in fact. The novel, indeed, forcefully pulls the reader in immediately, somewhat disconcertingly addressing “you” directly in the first section and, using an imperative tense, telling you where you are, what you see, smell, hear, and touch—and where to go next. You are a visitor to San Fernando, Trinidad and Mootoo inundates you with vivid sensory details of the polyphonic, bustling city, the lush environment, and mouth-watering food....
see the rest of my review here: http://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/review-of-shani-mootoos-novel-valmikis-daughter/
see the rest of my review here: http://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/review-of-shani-mootoos-novel-valmikis-daughter/
bela's review against another edition
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
clem's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5