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angeldawn's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
caffee's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
I was really invested in Anjum story and I still think Roy's writing is beautiful at times but this was so hard for me to understand, so fractured and messy, I was grateful that she tied up the ends but I feel I missed a huge amount of what this was actually about.
kritika32's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
shimmery's review against another edition
4.0
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness weaves together stories of the conflicts that plagued India and the surrounding countries around the turn of the 21st century. Using the lives of Anjum and Tilo as a scaffold, the narrative moves through a diverse range of settings and traumas, never too far from either the great loves or the nightmares in the lives of these two women.
Both Anjum and Tilo have unusual backgrounds that mark them as outsiders: Anjum was born a hermaphrodite and leaves her family to live in a community of hijras, while Tilo was disowned and then adopted by her birth mother. Throughout the course of the story these two gather a group of others who were not intrinsically outsiders like them but instead were made so by the war: by their families being murdered, their values becoming alternative, their bodies wanted.
It's a novel filled with one sad story after another, and yet it manages humour and a huge amount of charm. It's charming in its characters' defiance, in their ability to build a life in the midst of all the death - this is illustrated literally by the group building a house in a graveyard, the living inhabitants sharing rooms with the graves they were built over.
I hugely value books that teach me a lot and this is certainly a novel that falls under that category - I didn't know anything about this conflict and so this was a kind of crash course which although by no means conclusive provided stepping stones from which to research. I think it's real talent that can manage to capture such an overarching view of a situation, which is what this book is. The two main(ish) characters (the ish included because there are a LOT of characters, which if reading again I would write down to recognise them faster when they reappear 100s of pages later) are given more fleshed out lives, but the rest are more snapshots and I think supposed to be representative of many experiences.
I did find I was very invested in Tilo's story, particularly the love between her and Musa, and I loved all the stories of the hijras and Anjum's mothering, but there were some sections of this book (I'm thinking really of the parts told in first person) which felt a bit out of place. Whilst reading I felt that if these weren't included it would be easier to follow, but having finished I did see that the stories all tied together and made sense of each other in the end. I think the main reason I resented these sections was that I missed the poetry of the third person prose when it was told from a character's viewpoint.
A review that is a bit all over the place - but that's sort of how the book is too. I don't think it's supposed to be an easy or entertaining read, and I appreciated that.
Both Anjum and Tilo have unusual backgrounds that mark them as outsiders: Anjum was born a hermaphrodite and leaves her family to live in a community of hijras, while Tilo was disowned and then adopted by her birth mother. Throughout the course of the story these two gather a group of others who were not intrinsically outsiders like them but instead were made so by the war: by their families being murdered, their values becoming alternative, their bodies wanted.
It's a novel filled with one sad story after another, and yet it manages humour and a huge amount of charm. It's charming in its characters' defiance, in their ability to build a life in the midst of all the death - this is illustrated literally by the group building a house in a graveyard, the living inhabitants sharing rooms with the graves they were built over.
I hugely value books that teach me a lot and this is certainly a novel that falls under that category - I didn't know anything about this conflict and so this was a kind of crash course which although by no means conclusive provided stepping stones from which to research. I think it's real talent that can manage to capture such an overarching view of a situation, which is what this book is. The two main(ish) characters (the ish included because there are a LOT of characters, which if reading again I would write down to recognise them faster when they reappear 100s of pages later) are given more fleshed out lives, but the rest are more snapshots and I think supposed to be representative of many experiences.
I did find I was very invested in Tilo's story, particularly the love between her and Musa, and I loved all the stories of the hijras and Anjum's mothering, but there were some sections of this book (I'm thinking really of the parts told in first person) which felt a bit out of place. Whilst reading I felt that if these weren't included it would be easier to follow, but having finished I did see that the stories all tied together and made sense of each other in the end. I think the main reason I resented these sections was that I missed the poetry of the third person prose when it was told from a character's viewpoint.
A review that is a bit all over the place - but that's sort of how the book is too. I don't think it's supposed to be an easy or entertaining read, and I appreciated that.
kycerae's review against another edition
I got 100 pages in and just wasn’t quite feeling it. I’ll return to this again and imagine it will hook me the second time around once I dedicate some proper time to reading it. For now, time for something more gripping.
rafdee13's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
krishnendu's review against another edition
5.0
4.8/5
This is one of those books that profoundly impacts you, alters your brain chemistry and forever changes your perception of society.
This novel is essentially a social and political commentary on India, addressing a wide array of issues such as caste discrimination, transphobia, corruption, the Kashmir Valley conflict, Maoist insurgency, environmental degradation, and, pervasively, the rise of 'Gujarat ka Lalla' and the saffron fundamentalist army. It also touches upon significant historical events like the Emergency and subsequent Sikh lynching, the Gujarat riots of 2001, the 1993 Bombay bombings, and the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and its aftermath in India, culminating in Lalla's Holy Prime Ministership.
The story intertwines the initially independent lives of two complex and bewitching characters: Anjum, a Muslim hijra who lives in a graveyard in Delhi, and Tilottama, a fiercely independent Malayali woman (possibly Roy's alter-ego) deeply entangled in Kashmir's bloody tangle and with Musa, a separatist militant.
Although the novel received mixed reviews, especially with a long wait of 20 years after [b:The God of Small Things|9777|The God of Small Things|Arundhati Roy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1590282886l/9777._SY75_.jpg|810135] I ended up liking [b:The Ministry of Utmost Happiness|32388712|The Ministry of Utmost Happiness|Arundhati Roy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1520327592l/32388712._SY75_.jpg|53001637] even more. I'm in love with Roy's lush, lyrical prose and her mastery of language, with a stream-of-consciousness-like narration and rich elements of magical realism.
I'm glad to have read this work; it will be one of my favourites!
P.S. Eternally grateful to Roy for introducing me to Rasoolan Bai and Leonard Cohen's music.
This is one of those books that profoundly impacts you, alters your brain chemistry and forever changes your perception of society.
This novel is essentially a social and political commentary on India, addressing a wide array of issues such as caste discrimination, transphobia, corruption, the Kashmir Valley conflict, Maoist insurgency, environmental degradation, and, pervasively, the rise of 'Gujarat ka Lalla' and the saffron fundamentalist army. It also touches upon significant historical events like the Emergency and subsequent Sikh lynching, the Gujarat riots of 2001, the 1993 Bombay bombings, and the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and its aftermath in India, culminating in Lalla's Holy Prime Ministership.
The story intertwines the initially independent lives of two complex and bewitching characters: Anjum, a Muslim hijra who lives in a graveyard in Delhi, and Tilottama, a fiercely independent Malayali woman (possibly Roy's alter-ego) deeply entangled in Kashmir's bloody tangle and with Musa, a separatist militant.
Although the novel received mixed reviews, especially with a long wait of 20 years after [b:The God of Small Things|9777|The God of Small Things|Arundhati Roy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1590282886l/9777._SY75_.jpg|810135] I ended up liking [b:The Ministry of Utmost Happiness|32388712|The Ministry of Utmost Happiness|Arundhati Roy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1520327592l/32388712._SY75_.jpg|53001637] even more. I'm in love with Roy's lush, lyrical prose and her mastery of language, with a stream-of-consciousness-like narration and rich elements of magical realism.
I'm glad to have read this work; it will be one of my favourites!
P.S. Eternally grateful to Roy for introducing me to Rasoolan Bai and Leonard Cohen's music.
saraaaa's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Wow, this book was a lot. A lot of good, a lot-ish of bad. But surely a lot.
The first few chapters were great – the gentleness and simplicity with which Roy touched themes usually considered taboo or niche made for a comforting read.
The story read like an ensemble of fables, and as such its characters are only briefly focused on, barely skimming the surface of their essence, touching only those traits of theirs that are relevant to the narrative. At the end of the second chapter, I grew fond of Anjum, but the narrator keeps such a distance that she feels in a way out of reach, visible only through binoculars that follow her as she moves her residence from place to place.
After a hundred pages focusing on her character and the people and places that make up her world, I really couldn't care less about the others at they came into frame quite abruptly. This could easily have been a two novels installments, as, though surely strictly interlinked, the two main stories fail to be seamlessly bound together. It felt like she couldn't decide which story to tell, which battle to fight in, so instead of making a collection of shorter stories, she tried very hard to fit everything into a single box, full to the brim, so that the reader ends up struggling to find anything at all. It was as if Roy was trying to fit as many of her opinions as she could into these pages, and then some more.
The men's voices fell particularly flat, like heroines' in a 1800s male novelist's work.Both The Landlord chapters' first person narration split the novel in two, and Garson Hobart felt like an intruder in someone else's story. Perhaps both things were intentional, with Roy you can hardly ever know.
But all in all, I'm glad I read it – it's a heavily politicized book, with even heavier themes, so definitely not a light leisure read, but offers an important perspective nonetheless.
The first few chapters were great – the gentleness and simplicity with which Roy touched themes usually considered taboo or niche made for a comforting read.
The story read like an ensemble of fables, and as such its characters are only briefly focused on, barely skimming the surface of their essence, touching only those traits of theirs that are relevant to the narrative. At the end of the second chapter, I grew fond of Anjum, but the narrator keeps such a distance that she feels in a way out of reach, visible only through binoculars that follow her as she moves her residence from place to place.
After a hundred pages focusing on her character and the people and places that make up her world, I really couldn't care less about the others at they came into frame quite abruptly. This could easily have been a two novels installments, as, though surely strictly interlinked, the two main stories fail to be seamlessly bound together. It felt like she couldn't decide which story to tell, which battle to fight in, so instead of making a collection of shorter stories, she tried very hard to fit everything into a single box, full to the brim, so that the reader ends up struggling to find anything at all. It was as if Roy was trying to fit as many of her opinions as she could into these pages, and then some more.
The men's voices fell particularly flat, like heroines' in a 1800s male novelist's work.
But all in all, I'm glad I read it – it's a heavily politicized book, with even heavier themes, so definitely not a light leisure read, but offers an important perspective nonetheless.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Domestic abuse, Dysphoria, Grief, Hate crime, Terminal illness, Police brutality, Murder, Dementia, Deportation, Genocide, Classism, Mass/school shootings, Sexual assault, Abortion, Animal cruelty, Gore, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Islamophobia, War, Kidnapping, Rape, Torture, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Racism, Sexual violence, Transphobia, Violence, Confinement, Deadnaming, and Physical abuse
Moderate: Suicide, Racial slurs, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, and Medical content
Minor: Stalking, Suicide attempt, Infidelity, and Misogyny