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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
So it turns out that trans woman+outlaws+civil unrest+abandoned babies+revolutionaries+graveyards+horses in the city+abandoned children= B O R I N G
A tour de force. Challenging to carry those characters, that struggle, all the machinations to completion but done well and with her amazing style. I found it difficult to begin then impossible to stop reading.
Another well written and complex Roy book. I liked the insight into the gender bending, religious clashing, yet still safe spaces of the unseen India she writes about, but I wish I had been able to attend the book club discussion because I feel like I missed a lot of the deeper meaning of this one.
A wonderful book. A great novel.
Perhaps better than God of Small Things for which Roy won the Booker.
Must reread.
Perhaps better than God of Small Things for which Roy won the Booker.
Must reread.
It reads like an activist's narrative of India's headlined news, interspersed with sporadic, intoxicating shots of Arundhati's insightful and lyrical prose. Kashmir takes up a large share of her book and does help to acquaint readers with the human aspect of impersonal, newspaper headlined statistics. The book's impact is lessened by Arundhati trying to quickly summarize the Bastar tribals' plight, almost en passant. It ends up trivializing, I think, everyone and everything she writes about in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This one fights you both literally and figuratively.
A [3] average is the best compromise as my rating sense ranged from [1] to [5].
I hate deckle edges and I won't lie. The fibres in the rough feathery edges tend to interweave so that you often find it difficult to turn single pages because two pages will stick together. It always baffles me when I see "deckle edged" as a selling point in advertisements from book publishers. I suppose it is meant to signal a hearkening back to the era of handmade paper, but to me it is always a red flag of irritation to come.
Such is the case with Arundhati Roy's "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness," (TMoUH) which, aside from the difficulties presented by its structure and pacing also comes with the added physical barrier of deckle edging to make your reading experience even more frustrating.
Structure
TMoUH is organized into 12 chapters grouped into 5 parts. The 5 parts aren't numbered but the transitions are signalled by each part having a separate epigraph at its start. The 1st part is actually more of an extended prologue (it is almost 1/3rd of the book at 144 pages out of 444 total).
The difficulty about this 1st part is that it introduces a whole smorgasbord of incidental characters who are not actually the main protagonists of the story, and this goes on for a very ... long... time. Each time we think the story is going to start to take off we are introduced to some new person or location or situation that necessitates a whole new background to be explained and filled in.
It actually took me about 2 months to get through this first 144 pages. I often found myself nodding off after having only read 2 pages a night and I worried this would become a DNF. I ended up abandoning the book for a few weeks and then returned to it, dreading what part 2 would offer, only to find that the story actually started to move at this point and that I got through the next 300 pages in under a week.
Pacing
As mentioned above, you have to come to grips with how you are going to deal with the pacing that is forced on you by the structure. I even thought afterwards about what a different experience it would have been to start the book at part 2 and read it through to the end of part 5 with occasional looks at part 1 to fill in background.
Regardless, the real story is built around 4 characters who meet while rehearsing a student production of the 1970 play [b:Norman, Is That You?: A Comedy in Two-Acts|188051|Norman, Is That You? A Comedy in Two-Acts|Ron Clark|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|181765] (which also became a 1976 film vehicle for Redd Foxx & Pearl Bailey). That situation itself is quirky enough and one of the play character's names becomes a secret code forevermore from that incident alone.
So the real heart of the story is the love quadrangle between architecture student Tilo and her relationships with eventual lover Musa (later a Kashmir militant), her later landlord Biplab (who becomes a member of the Indian security services) and her later husband Naga (who is a journalist who actually works as security services agent). All of the drama and tragedy of the story is played out in the course of parts 2 to 5 and there are many great and moving passages here. There is wonderful humour as well, such as when Musa tries to convince Tilo that Las Kone (aka Leonard Cohen) is a great Kashmiri poet.
In any case, the book came alive for me then and I had no trouble in finishing it (except for the aforementioned deckle edges).
Characters
A List of the dozens of Characters would have really helped readers keep track of who is who here. Without it you will constantly be confused, especially if you are finding the book slow going. This is another example of the book fighting you. Either write your own character list or perhaps refer to the one provided at Wikipedia.
Conclusion
I know this is a pretty unorthodox review but I just felt compelled to analyse and break down why I had such difficulties with this book. Likely a 2nd reading would be much easier as I would know what to expect. I do see from many other reviews that I'm not alone in having such difficulties even if some of them are only my pet peeves.
A [3] average is the best compromise as my rating sense ranged from [1] to [5].
I hate deckle edges and I won't lie. The fibres in the rough feathery edges tend to interweave so that you often find it difficult to turn single pages because two pages will stick together. It always baffles me when I see "deckle edged" as a selling point in advertisements from book publishers. I suppose it is meant to signal a hearkening back to the era of handmade paper, but to me it is always a red flag of irritation to come.
Such is the case with Arundhati Roy's "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness," (TMoUH) which, aside from the difficulties presented by its structure and pacing also comes with the added physical barrier of deckle edging to make your reading experience even more frustrating.
Structure
TMoUH is organized into 12 chapters grouped into 5 parts. The 5 parts aren't numbered but the transitions are signalled by each part having a separate epigraph at its start. The 1st part is actually more of an extended prologue (it is almost 1/3rd of the book at 144 pages out of 444 total).
The difficulty about this 1st part is that it introduces a whole smorgasbord of incidental characters who are not actually the main protagonists of the story, and this goes on for a very ... long... time. Each time we think the story is going to start to take off we are introduced to some new person or location or situation that necessitates a whole new background to be explained and filled in.
It actually took me about 2 months to get through this first 144 pages. I often found myself nodding off after having only read 2 pages a night and I worried this would become a DNF. I ended up abandoning the book for a few weeks and then returned to it, dreading what part 2 would offer, only to find that the story actually started to move at this point and that I got through the next 300 pages in under a week.
Pacing
As mentioned above, you have to come to grips with how you are going to deal with the pacing that is forced on you by the structure. I even thought afterwards about what a different experience it would have been to start the book at part 2 and read it through to the end of part 5 with occasional looks at part 1 to fill in background.
Regardless, the real story is built around 4 characters who meet while rehearsing a student production of the 1970 play [b:Norman, Is That You?: A Comedy in Two-Acts|188051|Norman, Is That You? A Comedy in Two-Acts|Ron Clark|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|181765] (which also became a 1976 film vehicle for Redd Foxx & Pearl Bailey). That situation itself is quirky enough and one of the play character's names becomes a secret code forevermore from that incident alone.
So the real heart of the story is the love quadrangle between architecture student Tilo and her relationships with eventual lover Musa (later a Kashmir militant), her later landlord Biplab (who becomes a member of the Indian security services) and her later husband Naga (who is a journalist who actually works as security services agent). All of the drama and tragedy of the story is played out in the course of parts 2 to 5 and there are many great and moving passages here. There is wonderful humour as well, such as when Musa tries to convince Tilo that Las Kone (aka Leonard Cohen) is a great Kashmiri poet.
In any case, the book came alive for me then and I had no trouble in finishing it (except for the aforementioned deckle edges).
Characters
A List of the dozens of Characters would have really helped readers keep track of who is who here. Without it you will constantly be confused, especially if you are finding the book slow going. This is another example of the book fighting you. Either write your own character list or perhaps refer to the one provided at Wikipedia.
Conclusion
I know this is a pretty unorthodox review but I just felt compelled to analyse and break down why I had such difficulties with this book. Likely a 2nd reading would be much easier as I would know what to expect. I do see from many other reviews that I'm not alone in having such difficulties even if some of them are only my pet peeves.
Loved Anjum and thought it was fun to learn about hijras. The book got really boring when it switched away from Anjum and became military dominated in the second half. The writing was nice. Simple and easy to read but also very poetic. I liked the concept of her father using personalized poems for sick people to help heal them.
Ovo je jedna predivna knjiga, koju bi ako mene pitate trebalo čitati na odmoru, jer način na koji sam je ja čitala, s velikim pauzama i onda kada sam dovoljno odmorna i koncentrisana da joj se posvetim, verovatno kvari utisak. Delo je nastajalo godinama i u njega je očigledno uložen ogroman trud. Gotovo je neverovatno čitati savremeni roman koji ovoliko ne povlađuje zakonima tržišta. Pripovedanje nije linearno, likova ima mnogo, i da, teško je pratiti sve s punom pažnjom ako niste baš u pravom raspoloženju za to, ali vredi.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
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:
Complicated