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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
Probably a great book for those who love puzzles. If I had liked it more, I would have taken the trouble to look up all the Indian terms I did not understand. However a few of the characters embedded themselves with me, but most did not. A great book to take to a desert island where you would have time for the extensive writing which was beautifully done but not my cup of tea. I kept reading it as I felt I needed to learn more about the Kashmir struggle. Otherwise I would have abandoned it.
No sé muy bien qué decir. Ha sido especial y siempre es triste que se termine algo así. Ha sido difícil por momentos, ha sido lento en otros. Pero ha terminado con una nota de esperanza sin ser cursi, y eso siempre se agradece.
While the writing is beautiful, the characters compelling, and the setting interesting, I couldn't follow this well enough to continue after 68 pages. Really admire Roy's writing though.
If you have followed the non-fiction work of Arundhati Roy since 'The god of Small Things', then it is perhaps easier to understand why 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' took 20 years in the making. Roy's incredible political insights pervade almost every page of this book, taking the reader through her critiques of the Kashmir issue, to skin lightning cultures, to caste based oppression, to the rise of Hindu nationalism and even neo-liberalism. It is all there for the reader who is interested in social justice beyond single-issue causes.
In that respect, Roy's placement of one of her protagonists within a community of 'hijras' is both brilliant and I'm sure will be discomforting for some, for she finds the human and the way to tell very human stories. Hermaphrodite communities and their networks of families and friends in the Indian subcontinent have a range of issues to deal with, and religion is always something difficult for their co-religionists to engage with in relation to them. Religion/non-religion, cultural, social issues and politics are intertwined through the lives and treatment of these communities, who are not seen, but are ever present.
Perhaps if there was a weakness in the book though (which wasn't enough for me to mark it down) it is Roy's lack of familiarity with Islam and Islamic issues - although her knowledge isn't terrible when considered against others writing. Small issues such as her narration of the prophet Ibrahim'a story as being to sacrifice his son Ishaaq, is borrowed from the biblical account rather than the Qur'anic. The lack of Muslim names in her acknowledgements perhaps suggests that her research on Muslim religion/culture was perhaps somewhat limited?
Regardless, as many of us hoped, this book is yet another marvel within Roy's canon, and I would suggest it was better than 'The god of Small Things' but largely because it was set in a period and context that I found to be highly relatable.
In that respect, Roy's placement of one of her protagonists within a community of 'hijras' is both brilliant and I'm sure will be discomforting for some, for she finds the human and the way to tell very human stories. Hermaphrodite communities and their networks of families and friends in the Indian subcontinent have a range of issues to deal with, and religion is always something difficult for their co-religionists to engage with in relation to them. Religion/non-religion, cultural, social issues and politics are intertwined through the lives and treatment of these communities, who are not seen, but are ever present.
Perhaps if there was a weakness in the book though (which wasn't enough for me to mark it down) it is Roy's lack of familiarity with Islam and Islamic issues - although her knowledge isn't terrible when considered against others writing. Small issues such as her narration of the prophet Ibrahim'a story as being to sacrifice his son Ishaaq, is borrowed from the biblical account rather than the Qur'anic. The lack of Muslim names in her acknowledgements perhaps suggests that her research on Muslim religion/culture was perhaps somewhat limited?
Regardless, as many of us hoped, this book is yet another marvel within Roy's canon, and I would suggest it was better than 'The god of Small Things' but largely because it was set in a period and context that I found to be highly relatable.
‘The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’ is a collection of short and longer fictional biographical sections about people born and raised in India. The end result is a quick thumbnail history of modern India and an intimate insider description of specific Indian people, places, mores and customs. The detail of historical facts and cultural mores are accurately realized as far as I can tell (I have been following Indian politics in fascinated horror, and occasionally admiration, for decades, ever since George Harrison and Steve Jobs popularized Indian gurus in the 1970’s and 1980's; and after several transplanted gurus, especially one in Oregon State, scammed and abused American followers).
Spreading the book’s focus onto many individual vignettes, the novel sews together a group of stories about characters whose intralinked histories are separated by place, time and religion. They are, imho, clumsily arranged into a quilted Indian bedspread of many lives. Some of the characters are large quilt squares that are more embroidered by the author than others. Each of the quilted squares cascade outward affecting the others directly and indirectly (I was reminded by the book’s architecture of the quilt squares made by supporters of individual AIDS patients sewing a biography of a patient in thread in the 1980’s, thus my own clumsy analogy).
The novel is interesting, educational and emotionally perceptive. It won’t be an enjoyable read for everyone, but most people will learn something new about India. For myself, it made me wonder once again at the pain we cause others and ourselves in the name of ignorance, religion and in seeking power.
I recognize that the author, Arundhati Roy, was trying to capture the spirit and soul of India with her insightful biographical sketches. Life is hard in India; people are beautiful and ugly and wonderful and ignominious; we all feel the same emotions yet they end in dividing us with often mistaken perceptions of difference, but some of us encourage our better natures and sometimes save something humane out of the wreckage. People cut off their own noses to spite their own faces, too, as we say in America. People also make lemonade out of lemons, as we also say in America.
The book opens and closes following the Delhi life of Aftab/Anjum, a Muslim hermaphrodite, who is identified inaccurately as a ‘Hijra’ - a transfemale trapped in a male body - by most neighbors, who initially are tolerant of her sexuality since India has an ancient cultural history of acceptance and acknowledgement of LGBT communities, as did China too (not kidding).
In between the beginning and end of the book are parts and chapters which follow the lives of other fictional characters. In one part is a first-person autobiographical memoir of a Hindu security policeman and spy in India’s disputed territory of Kashmir, followed by a Communist character who is a victim of the political and religious violence currently still ongoing in Kashmir.
There are also hundreds of minor street-life character sketches, in third-person narrations (I suppose to make the pointed assertion by a literary construction how diverse India is and how individually important each life is to the individual, yet still everybody is interconnected no matter how much they deny it).
The timeline in the novel appears to be from about the mid-1970’s to the present. The action moved from the city of Old Delhi to the disputed territory of Kashmir and back again to New Delhi. Some of the characters are educated, but all are poor - most very poor - because of caste and religious prejudices. Some marry and some never marry. Some fall in love, others do not. Babies are born and some are adopted out. Politics smother and harm a lot of these folks, as does religious warfare. Hindus kill Muslims, and Muslims kill Hindus, and Sikhs kill whoever are the oppressors of the day of their community. Mob violence and caste discrimination is roused by rumors, so ordinary people kill and torture their neighbors. Ordinary people also behave heroically, rescuing distressed and abandoned neighbors. Police torture and kill in the name of keeping the peace and religious faith and revenge. Superstitions, religions and beliefs in magic decide the outcome and future of individual lives.
LGBT folks connect the various stories eventually, as a variety of ethnic refugees of government and religious violence end up in an accepting LGBT community living in a graveyard. Outcasts. If this had been a literary story written by someone English, there might have been a character wearing a Harlequin outfit of many colors somewhere, instead of hermaphrodites and members of the LGBT community supporting the survivors of religious violence.
I was left with an impression of a teeming mass of painful individual stories of loss, fear and disillusionment. Survivors eventually try to learn ‘the Art of Being Happy’ with what is left of their faith and loved ones. The beat goes on…
Since the issue has been discussed on other reviews - I approve of Roy’s ‘politics’, which I consider as being that of a non-aligned journalist reporting Truth. Poverty, ignorance and power-seeking is same-same all over the world, whatever the politics, religion or culture. The only legitimate argument as far as I see it is whether people are either telling the facts straight and able to say Truth out loud or are they presenting the facts buried under a mountain of coverup words spinning the truth away from logic or trying to hide awareness of facts with Pollyanna comfort and lies.
The common denominator derailing many lives in author Arundhati Roy’s book is religious harassment. Observant or politically-motivated Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs make life hell for many ordinary people. This novel is without question a literary telling of actual facts mixed into fictional tales of true recent history, not an activist’s polemic.
How it must annoy some religiously observant immigrant Indian Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus that they are perceived by their new neighbors in foreign western countries as being all of the same culture and appearance! (In fact, I KNOW it does, having experience both as a secretary in an American high school counseling office as well as a volunteer amateur tutor to teach non-literate and non-English-language speakers.)
I have since read many other novels (some written by Muslim Indian writers who have since had to go into hiding or left India because of fatwas, threats and assassination attempts), and I have enjoyed studying famous translated ancient Indian Hindu/Buddhist texts about myths and religions in Comparative Religions college textbooks. I have read histories which focused on known invader influences over millennia, as well as guesses that even maybe Alexander the Great penetrated western India (Greek-influenced archeological sites found in India), and more certainly Genghis Khan traveled through northern India (scientists have done genetic analyses based on mitochondria or something, anyway, science investigations - and some scientists are positing billions of people today are related to ol’ Genghis, including some Indian tribes).
Indian writers are brave. They keep on writing terrific books based on real life and actual history that are acclaimed and given awards by the First World despite the religious zealots of their home country. No matter what kind of zealot, or religious nationalist, people are, as long as a book has been printed and distributed in the Western World, knowledge and research based on facts will get out. The original Christians tried to eradicate the books of ancient Greece and Rome, but they did not succeed because the early Muslims saved them. Now it appears the world will have to save the literature and histories of Muslim and Hindu nations until certain nationalist theocracies pass on.
The very first time I read any novels about India was when I picked up ‘The Raj Quartet’ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/267745.The_Raj_Quartet by author Paul Scott.
The quartet are four novels set in India between 1942 and 1947.
1) The Jewel in the Crown
2) The Day of the Scorpion
3) The Towers of Silence
4) A Division of the Spoils
Spreading the book’s focus onto many individual vignettes, the novel sews together a group of stories about characters whose intralinked histories are separated by place, time and religion. They are, imho, clumsily arranged into a quilted Indian bedspread of many lives. Some of the characters are large quilt squares that are more embroidered by the author than others. Each of the quilted squares cascade outward affecting the others directly and indirectly (I was reminded by the book’s architecture of the quilt squares made by supporters of individual AIDS patients sewing a biography of a patient in thread in the 1980’s, thus my own clumsy analogy).
The novel is interesting, educational and emotionally perceptive. It won’t be an enjoyable read for everyone, but most people will learn something new about India. For myself, it made me wonder once again at the pain we cause others and ourselves in the name of ignorance, religion and in seeking power.
I recognize that the author, Arundhati Roy, was trying to capture the spirit and soul of India with her insightful biographical sketches. Life is hard in India; people are beautiful and ugly and wonderful and ignominious; we all feel the same emotions yet they end in dividing us with often mistaken perceptions of difference, but some of us encourage our better natures and sometimes save something humane out of the wreckage. People cut off their own noses to spite their own faces, too, as we say in America. People also make lemonade out of lemons, as we also say in America.
The book opens and closes following the Delhi life of Aftab/Anjum, a Muslim hermaphrodite, who is identified inaccurately as a ‘Hijra’ - a transfemale trapped in a male body - by most neighbors, who initially are tolerant of her sexuality since India has an ancient cultural history of acceptance and acknowledgement of LGBT communities, as did China too (not kidding).
In between the beginning and end of the book are parts and chapters which follow the lives of other fictional characters. In one part is a first-person autobiographical memoir of a Hindu security policeman and spy in India’s disputed territory of Kashmir, followed by a Communist character who is a victim of the political and religious violence currently still ongoing in Kashmir.
There are also hundreds of minor street-life character sketches, in third-person narrations (I suppose to make the pointed assertion by a literary construction how diverse India is and how individually important each life is to the individual, yet still everybody is interconnected no matter how much they deny it).
The timeline in the novel appears to be from about the mid-1970’s to the present. The action moved from the city of Old Delhi to the disputed territory of Kashmir and back again to New Delhi. Some of the characters are educated, but all are poor - most very poor - because of caste and religious prejudices. Some marry and some never marry. Some fall in love, others do not. Babies are born and some are adopted out. Politics smother and harm a lot of these folks, as does religious warfare. Hindus kill Muslims, and Muslims kill Hindus, and Sikhs kill whoever are the oppressors of the day of their community. Mob violence and caste discrimination is roused by rumors, so ordinary people kill and torture their neighbors. Ordinary people also behave heroically, rescuing distressed and abandoned neighbors. Police torture and kill in the name of keeping the peace and religious faith and revenge. Superstitions, religions and beliefs in magic decide the outcome and future of individual lives.
LGBT folks connect the various stories eventually, as a variety of ethnic refugees of government and religious violence end up in an accepting LGBT community living in a graveyard. Outcasts. If this had been a literary story written by someone English, there might have been a character wearing a Harlequin outfit of many colors somewhere, instead of hermaphrodites and members of the LGBT community supporting the survivors of religious violence.
I was left with an impression of a teeming mass of painful individual stories of loss, fear and disillusionment. Survivors eventually try to learn ‘the Art of Being Happy’ with what is left of their faith and loved ones. The beat goes on…
Since the issue has been discussed on other reviews - I approve of Roy’s ‘politics’, which I consider as being that of a non-aligned journalist reporting Truth. Poverty, ignorance and power-seeking is same-same all over the world, whatever the politics, religion or culture. The only legitimate argument as far as I see it is whether people are either telling the facts straight and able to say Truth out loud or are they presenting the facts buried under a mountain of coverup words spinning the truth away from logic or trying to hide awareness of facts with Pollyanna comfort and lies.
The common denominator derailing many lives in author Arundhati Roy’s book is religious harassment. Observant or politically-motivated Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs make life hell for many ordinary people. This novel is without question a literary telling of actual facts mixed into fictional tales of true recent history, not an activist’s polemic.
How it must annoy some religiously observant immigrant Indian Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus that they are perceived by their new neighbors in foreign western countries as being all of the same culture and appearance! (In fact, I KNOW it does, having experience both as a secretary in an American high school counseling office as well as a volunteer amateur tutor to teach non-literate and non-English-language speakers.)
I have since read many other novels (some written by Muslim Indian writers who have since had to go into hiding or left India because of fatwas, threats and assassination attempts), and I have enjoyed studying famous translated ancient Indian Hindu/Buddhist texts about myths and religions in Comparative Religions college textbooks. I have read histories which focused on known invader influences over millennia, as well as guesses that even maybe Alexander the Great penetrated western India (Greek-influenced archeological sites found in India), and more certainly Genghis Khan traveled through northern India (scientists have done genetic analyses based on mitochondria or something, anyway, science investigations - and some scientists are positing billions of people today are related to ol’ Genghis, including some Indian tribes).
Indian writers are brave. They keep on writing terrific books based on real life and actual history that are acclaimed and given awards by the First World despite the religious zealots of their home country. No matter what kind of zealot, or religious nationalist, people are, as long as a book has been printed and distributed in the Western World, knowledge and research based on facts will get out. The original Christians tried to eradicate the books of ancient Greece and Rome, but they did not succeed because the early Muslims saved them. Now it appears the world will have to save the literature and histories of Muslim and Hindu nations until certain nationalist theocracies pass on.
The very first time I read any novels about India was when I picked up ‘The Raj Quartet’ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/267745.The_Raj_Quartet by author Paul Scott.
The quartet are four novels set in India between 1942 and 1947.
1) The Jewel in the Crown
2) The Day of the Scorpion
3) The Towers of Silence
4) A Division of the Spoils
Could not finish it. I haven't ditched a book midway ( 25% in the book actually) in a long long time, so I am kind of feeling a bit guilty at the moment. Will come back with a proper review of why it didn't work for me once I compose my thoughts properly.
Sadly, I can’t finish the book. I pick it up, I put it down.... I want to like it, embrace it but I cannot. It plods along and I can’t connect. Maybe I will try again someday.
3.5⭐️ Lots to enjoy and to sit with, and I thought it was really well put together. It didn’t hit me the same way that God of Small Things did but I certainly think it’s excellent