Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.34 AVERAGE
4.34 AVERAGE
I couldn't get through it. I guess, it just wasn't my cup of tea. What I found problematic was that the book would just cut off in the middle of the story to spend thirty pages telling some characters life story. and it didn't just tell the main character's life story. I told really insignificant people's life story: Like the tax collector's. Why on earth do I need to know that. So... yeah. Not my cup of tea.
This book is not for every reader but I loved it. The author does an excellent job of immersing the reader in the Indian culture and political environment of the 70’s but without being heavy handed with the commentary. I learned so much without feeling like I was being taught. There are lots of trigger warning to be aware of if that’s an issue for you but if you can handle it, this book is worth the read. I loved and hated the characters in equal measure and found myself really rooting for most of them. This is a sad book so if you need happy and light, this is not the book for you.
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
this is a beautifully written book that tells the stories of a variety of characters who find themselves living under one roof during the 1984 Emergency. i really enjoyed the first 3/4 of this book and loved the moments in which the different characters established friendships with each other and found joy in their very, very sad lives. however, towards the end of the book, there was just...so. much. tragedy. one of the themes of the book is definitely the idea of suffering being an endless cycle, but honestly, it was so difficult to read because terrible, tragic thing after terrible, tragic thing kept happening to people who had already suffered so much brutality, oppression, sadness...it just kind of made me wonder what the point was. so as much as i thought the writing was beautiful and that each main character was really engaging, the bleakness began to overtake to the extent that i didn't really know what the point of the book was other than to remind me that life is suffering and suffering is endless unless you die.
This is a tale that is unrelievedly bleak in it's plot, and yet there is something about the wide-vision lens Mistry uses, that for me softens the impact. By wide-vision lens I am thinking, he looks at life from the perspective of many lifetimes. The life that each of these characters receives, within the perspective of each person only having one lifetime, is utterly unfair. Really bad things happen to these characters, and they are not redeemed by any silver lining. Like Dickens or Tolstoy, Mistry captures the complete picture of social conditions in India in the 70's. None of the characters in the book are completely innocent--or completely guilty. What they are is resilient, and the hope to be found in this book lies in the moments of connection and caring, the small acts of bravery, and the learning that happens, however slowly.
Wow! What a book! I measure the weight of a book by how lost I become in the story and the thinking about the characters during non-reading hours. This was both for me. Loved it! I have not read any novels by this author prior to this one, but will be reading them in the near future. I have "Family Matters" sitting on my shelf collecting dust for the past 12 years. Must check it out. This talented man can write.
“You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair”. The story opens with the first meeting of widowed Dina, the tailors Om and Ishvar who have come to work for her and her new student border, Maneck and then backtracks to their separate histories and the circumstances which have brought them together. No magic realism here, just realism set in India during the 1970’s brutal State of Emergency instituted by the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi. Magnificent story telling; these four characters and their hopes and despairs will stay with this reader for a long time. Disclaimer: this book was an Oprah pick, so consider yourself warned!
India (around the world in books series) -**4.5 rounded up to 5**
I realized after closing this book that it's going to be memorable, not because it's about Indian history or people or anything of that manner, but rather because it is a testament to the complexities of human nature and endurance. It serves as a reminder of how fortunate we are to be born into a life that has dealt us easier cards than it has to others. There's so much more I want to say, but nothing I write could summarize the skill with which Rohinton Mistry describes a slice of life from 1970s India. The magic of this book doesn't come from the story or the pacing, but from the characters and the writing itself.
A Fine Balance is set during one of India's most tragic times - the Emergency Period, declared by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in an effort to avoid fraud lawsuits against herself and bring cruel order into a restless country. One does not need extensive knowledge of 1970s India to begin this book, but a quick YouTube summary of the Emergency years may help complete the setting before turning the first page. In these tumultuous times, 4 unlikely strangers are thrown together into a single apartment, and though they despise and mistrust each other at first, the desire for companionship ultimately forms a loving bond between the tenants.
Their journey is far from easy, though - much of the beginning of the novel describes each character's painful past, and the series of unfortunate events that led them to their current positions. The characters in A Fine Balance endure unimaginable horrors as they become pawns in the nation's Chess game against itself, and it is in these moments that we see the struggle we humans face in our lifelong challenge to find balance: the balance between hope and despair, as Mistry puts it, but also between optimism and pessimism, between individualism and societal pressures, between desire and necessity, and most of all, between heart and mind.
Fair warning though, this book is not for the faint-hearted. There are several trigger warnings, emotional, depressing, difficult scenes, and several instances of swearing and other content. Mistry also writes in a slightly detached manner, which I found actually made the book more jarring than usual. If reading about the characters' lives itself was difficult, I can't begin to imagine what life must have been like back then for the people actually living through it.
If you're looking for a thought-provoking, emotional story, and don't mind the occasional punch in the gut, then you would enjoy this gem of a book, and possibly even take something back from it. ~
I realized after closing this book that it's going to be memorable, not because it's about Indian history or people or anything of that manner, but rather because it is a testament to the complexities of human nature and endurance. It serves as a reminder of how fortunate we are to be born into a life that has dealt us easier cards than it has to others. There's so much more I want to say, but nothing I write could summarize the skill with which Rohinton Mistry describes a slice of life from 1970s India. The magic of this book doesn't come from the story or the pacing, but from the characters and the writing itself.
A Fine Balance is set during one of India's most tragic times - the Emergency Period, declared by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in an effort to avoid fraud lawsuits against herself and bring cruel order into a restless country. One does not need extensive knowledge of 1970s India to begin this book, but a quick YouTube summary of the Emergency years may help complete the setting before turning the first page. In these tumultuous times, 4 unlikely strangers are thrown together into a single apartment, and though they despise and mistrust each other at first, the desire for companionship ultimately forms a loving bond between the tenants.
Their journey is far from easy, though - much of the beginning of the novel describes each character's painful past, and the series of unfortunate events that led them to their current positions. The characters in A Fine Balance endure unimaginable horrors as they become pawns in the nation's Chess game against itself, and it is in these moments that we see the struggle we humans face in our lifelong challenge to find balance: the balance between hope and despair, as Mistry puts it, but also between optimism and pessimism, between individualism and societal pressures, between desire and necessity, and most of all, between heart and mind.
Fair warning though, this book is not for the faint-hearted. There are several trigger warnings, emotional, depressing, difficult scenes, and several instances of swearing and other content. Mistry also writes in a slightly detached manner, which I found actually made the book more jarring than usual. If reading about the characters' lives itself was difficult, I can't begin to imagine what life must have been like back then for the people actually living through it.
If you're looking for a thought-provoking, emotional story, and don't mind the occasional punch in the gut, then you would enjoy this gem of a book, and possibly even take something back from it. ~
So beautifully written, but so dreary. There were times when I didn't want to read it because I knew that bad things were going to happen! Very interesting to learn about India during that time in history and how awful it was for a lot of people.
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
The most soul-crushingly depressing book I have ever read. Also the most beautiful.