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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
This is a book I wanted to read and I am glad to have read but that I did not enjoy. It is no doubt my own fault. The fact that I am too distant from the characters and circumstances in the novel to really enter into their concerns and empathize with their struggles. After twenty years of activism since publishing her last novel, it is perhaps inevitable that the vices of the unheard, that Arundhati Roy has so often fought for, are the ones resonating in this book. The 'hijra' community, outcast but maintaining a special niche in Indian society. The brutal reality of Kashmir. The anti-Moslem riots in Gujerat. These all find their place in this book. The author has been courageous in relating this fictional tale that touches critically on so many critical issues. It is a tale of an India far away from the burgeoning affluence of the middle-class and the glamour of Bollywood stars - an India many prefer to ignore.
It is hard to call it a story as it is rather a collection of insights into the lives of the two protagonists, Anjum and Tilo and the communities that surround them. Community is important and it is through the gathering together of communities, caring for the abandoned children, Zainab and Miss Jebeen the Second, that an unexpected message of hope is delivered. Perhaps that is where the seemingly ironic title of The Misitry of Utmost Happiness paradoxically rings true.
It is hard to call it a story as it is rather a collection of insights into the lives of the two protagonists, Anjum and Tilo and the communities that surround them. Community is important and it is through the gathering together of communities, caring for the abandoned children, Zainab and Miss Jebeen the Second, that an unexpected message of hope is delivered. Perhaps that is where the seemingly ironic title of The Misitry of Utmost Happiness paradoxically rings true.
Breathtaking!!! Just breathtaking! Almost as big as India itself. It took a long time to read this sublime book because I had to stop often to swoon and take in the beauty and the horror of what I had just read.
Is there another writer of Arundhati Roy’s stature? I think not. I didn’t think I would ever read anything more extraordinary than Roy’s The God of Small Things but I have and it is this book. A modern classic, a literary masterpiece that HAS to be put on your Bucket List of Books to Read before you shuffle off your mortal coil. What a privilege it was to read this book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!!!
Is there another writer of Arundhati Roy’s stature? I think not. I didn’t think I would ever read anything more extraordinary than Roy’s The God of Small Things but I have and it is this book. A modern classic, a literary masterpiece that HAS to be put on your Bucket List of Books to Read before you shuffle off your mortal coil. What a privilege it was to read this book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!!!
I really liked this book but I think I would've liked it more in print/ereader [despite Arundhati Roy's beautiful voice/accent reading her own book]. There were just so many intertwined characters and jumping around between stories, I think I missed a few relationships. The relationships I *did* catch, however, were beautifully drawn and ought to warm the hearts of all who find families/community outside blood relatives. The backdrop of partition/Kashmiri violence was also very informative [and awful].
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
This is a beautiful book with incredibly beautiful sentences within its pages. This is also a book about the painful political scenario in India.
Amitav Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, Salman Rushdie, I don’t know what it is, but I sink without a trace into novels set on the sub continent. It’s not somewhere I have a desire to visit, or who’s history is of particular interest to me, but the authors have a certain flair for description, for crafting so joyfully the sights, sounds, smells and colours of this part of the world. Yet the bright, bold and overwhelming picture is merely a back drop to the horrifying, brutal and at times unbelievable lives being lived by millions of people, painstakingly served up on the page. That would be enough, but there’s more. There seems to be a sideways glance, an honest, yet self depreciating mocking of how ridiculous the brutality of it all is, how contradictory the faith and the lives are intertwined, how it’s in plain view but out of sight. The horror is diluted ever so slightly by the humour, the sheer force of personality of the survivors, of every single person who makes it to the end of another day.
Arundhati Roy encapsulates all this, and surpasses all others I’ve read, with The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Utmost Happiness is most definitely what I felt after finishing this.
For all the brutality and pointless horror throughout the whole novel, it’s a warm story of friendship, love, of survival. Set against the backdrop of Kerala’s fight for independence, a small group of characters find each other and survive against the prejudice, hatred and inexplicably cruel violence that permeates India as it convulses and changes.
Roy gathers a small group of characters around Anjum, formally Aftab, and Tilo, who’s sudden decision to claim an abandoned baby brings them together in an Old Delhi graveyard where the breathing live side by side with those who have breathed their last. As Anjum builds a community out of the way, Tilo, seen mostly through the eyes of three men who love her unconditionally, arrives with a baby snatched from a street of protest.
The complete absence of a desire to please, or to put someone at their ease, could, in a less vulnerable person, have been construed as arrogance. In her it came across as a kind of reckless aloneness. Behind her plain, unfashionable spectacles, her slightly slanting cat-eyes had the insouciant secretiveness of a pyromaniac. She gave the impression that she had somehow slipped off her leash. As though she was taking herself for a walk while the rest of us were being walked – like pets. As though she was watching considerately, somewhat absent-mindedly, from a distance, while we minced along, grateful to our owners, happy to perpetuate our bondage.
In the background the might of new India stamps it’s worn sandal down on Kerala. The mindless violence of a child who has discovered it’s own might by squashing ants and then discovered that actually, the ants can bite is perfectly captured, with an almost mocking, sardonic voice. A voice that says look India, look at how far you have come, yet how far you have yet to go. But The Ministry is not a novel utmost about violence, it is about life, in all it’s natural colours, smells and glory. So much did I enjoy it that it felt like the book was breathing in my hands.
It’s the detail that Arundhati Roy beautifully paints, while dealing with a whole country, through a small number of seemingly inconsequential protagonists that make The Ministry of Utmost Happiness a breathtaking read.
(blog review here)
Arundhati Roy encapsulates all this, and surpasses all others I’ve read, with The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Utmost Happiness is most definitely what I felt after finishing this.
For all the brutality and pointless horror throughout the whole novel, it’s a warm story of friendship, love, of survival. Set against the backdrop of Kerala’s fight for independence, a small group of characters find each other and survive against the prejudice, hatred and inexplicably cruel violence that permeates India as it convulses and changes.
Roy gathers a small group of characters around Anjum, formally Aftab, and Tilo, who’s sudden decision to claim an abandoned baby brings them together in an Old Delhi graveyard where the breathing live side by side with those who have breathed their last. As Anjum builds a community out of the way, Tilo, seen mostly through the eyes of three men who love her unconditionally, arrives with a baby snatched from a street of protest.
The complete absence of a desire to please, or to put someone at their ease, could, in a less vulnerable person, have been construed as arrogance. In her it came across as a kind of reckless aloneness. Behind her plain, unfashionable spectacles, her slightly slanting cat-eyes had the insouciant secretiveness of a pyromaniac. She gave the impression that she had somehow slipped off her leash. As though she was taking herself for a walk while the rest of us were being walked – like pets. As though she was watching considerately, somewhat absent-mindedly, from a distance, while we minced along, grateful to our owners, happy to perpetuate our bondage.
In the background the might of new India stamps it’s worn sandal down on Kerala. The mindless violence of a child who has discovered it’s own might by squashing ants and then discovered that actually, the ants can bite is perfectly captured, with an almost mocking, sardonic voice. A voice that says look India, look at how far you have come, yet how far you have yet to go. But The Ministry is not a novel utmost about violence, it is about life, in all it’s natural colours, smells and glory. So much did I enjoy it that it felt like the book was breathing in my hands.
It’s the detail that Arundhati Roy beautifully paints, while dealing with a whole country, through a small number of seemingly inconsequential protagonists that make The Ministry of Utmost Happiness a breathtaking read.
(blog review here)
I was grateful for the excuse for re-reading The Ministry of Utmost Happiness for a recent literary tertulia of Indian authors. I enjoyed the book first time round, but felt better able to appreciate it after having learnt more about the author, and particularly her outspoken political activism. I’ve read other novels by Indian writers that criticise aspects of contemporary politics, but usually from the relative safety of New York or London. It must take much greater commitment and bravery to do so from within India.
At one point in the book, a character asks “how to tell a shattered story?”. That certainly resonated, since the book seems like a mosaic of shining shattered fragments taken from two different novels. The first is that of Anjum, a Muslim hijra (intersex person) who lives in a cemetery in Delhi amongst a wonderful cast of friends, visitors and acquaintances. The other major character is Tilo, and her three male friends through whom we are immersed into the violent conflict of insurgency in Kashmir. The two stories do cross each other, but ever so lightly.
Twenty years separate this second novel from Roy’s influential The God of Small Things, winner of the 2007 Booker Prize, during which time she has been heavily involved in political activism, defending human rights and environmental issues throughout India. In that time, she has written numerous articles and works of non-fiction. In her second novel she has condensed a great deal of her political concerns, covering the Kashmiri insurgency, Naxalite movement, political corruption through to gender issues and beyond. It is a wide-ranging with a large cast of actors, some of which are thinly disguised representations of real people, not least of whom is Narendra Modi, the President of India. A brave and beautifully written novel.
At one point in the book, a character asks “how to tell a shattered story?”. That certainly resonated, since the book seems like a mosaic of shining shattered fragments taken from two different novels. The first is that of Anjum, a Muslim hijra (intersex person) who lives in a cemetery in Delhi amongst a wonderful cast of friends, visitors and acquaintances. The other major character is Tilo, and her three male friends through whom we are immersed into the violent conflict of insurgency in Kashmir. The two stories do cross each other, but ever so lightly.
Twenty years separate this second novel from Roy’s influential The God of Small Things, winner of the 2007 Booker Prize, during which time she has been heavily involved in political activism, defending human rights and environmental issues throughout India. In that time, she has written numerous articles and works of non-fiction. In her second novel she has condensed a great deal of her political concerns, covering the Kashmiri insurgency, Naxalite movement, political corruption through to gender issues and beyond. It is a wide-ranging with a large cast of actors, some of which are thinly disguised representations of real people, not least of whom is Narendra Modi, the President of India. A brave and beautifully written novel.
checked out of this pretty early on, just awful. huge disappointment, especially right after reading the god of small things. her prose is still great (with the exception of certain sections of the book) but this often delves into laborious preachy history lessons at the expense of plot and character. and it isn't some unique niche like the history of communism in kerala (which is described in great detail in the god of small things), but basic common knowledge, the partition, emergency period, sikh massacre, babri masjid, gujarat riots, going all the way to the anna hazare protests and modi's rise to power. there's nothing new about the way she describes these events other than some flowery language, and they contain as much depth as a buzzfeed article. the novel's politics are good politics, but again, relayed in an extremely surface level and shallow manner. Hindu nationalism is dangerous, the BJP is evil, casteism is bad, military rule in kashmir should end -- it's not like anyone reading this book isn't going to already agree with that. if you're going to sacrifice your fiction for the sake of political commentary, at least try to make it meaningful.
A tour de force
A rich, complex set of stories bringing out the state of Modern India and the world. I can see why some reviewers have complained about her trying to weave too many threads into the book, but I think it all works to a powerful effect. Great writing. Political commitment. What more could you want.
A rich, complex set of stories bringing out the state of Modern India and the world. I can see why some reviewers have complained about her trying to weave too many threads into the book, but I think it all works to a powerful effect. Great writing. Political commitment. What more could you want.