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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
I stumbled across this book in a used bookstore--my favorite place to find such gems. I had likely heard of this book before in title but not in content. The novel follows the life of Rukmani, a child-bride in early 20th century rural India and her life as she moves from her family into her husband's Nathan's home. As a third daughter, the dowry she could provide was insubstantial and thus she is married away to a poor (but kind) man who works the rice fields. Together, they work year after year to yield life from the land but encounter increasing hardships as they have children--some who stick around but more who go--and deal with the inevitable ways life is made infinitely harder and more nuanced for the poor. After dealing with a particularly harsh drought, they continued to decline in their ability to sustain themselves and eventually, even the land they work on is taken from them. They make a final effort to seek out one of their sons whom they have not seen in years, but even that ends in misfortune. Obviously, this is no "feel good" book. It's a book that does not romanticize the life of the Indian poor but it does provide a strong sense of resilience, compassion, and ability and in that way resonates with many other such tales including (as the afterword notes) as The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, The Good Earth by Pearl Buck, and (my own connection), Child of the Dark by Carolina Maria De Jesus. The book can be rather intense at times in how straightforward it is about the hardships, brutality, and sometimes, callousness of life but that is its power as well; Markandaya doesn't overplay such scenes but rather shows us through Rukmani's eyes how she witnesses or responds to such scenes in ways that make complete sense for the characters and for the situation. In this way, Markandaya shows us there is an intentionality and intelligence in what and how they move through and respond to situations to which the likely-reader (an educated person from a higher socioeconomic class) has no real understanding of (but are often willing to cast judgment).
This review is cross-posted from my blog here: https://daariga.wordpress.com/2017/03/19/nectar-in-a-sieve/
The sad, hard and futile life of the rural poor in British Raj India pervades Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya. It begins with the marriage of the narrator Rukmani to a landless farmer named Nathan at age 12 and ends with his death by her side. What fills the in-between is a few years of happiness with good harvests and young children and many years of deprivation, starvation, disease and death due to drought and floods. Urbanization also rears its ugly head in their tiny village in the form of a smelly tannery and a British doctor named Kenny. Rukmani hates the sight of the polluting and crowded lifestyle brought about by these changes, but poverty drives her children to work at that very tannery and later sail off as labourers to British plantations in Ceylon. The middle-aged couple is hit hard when their landlord sells off his land to the tannery and they have to eke out a hard life in the nearest city.
Published in 1954, this novel is supposedly the first novel about India to get popular in USA and in its textbooks. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Markandaya was born in Mysore, studied in Madras and later settled in the UK. Though no places are named, the characters and settings are quite obviously of the Mysore-Madras region. The story is quite similar to The Good Earth, which I recently read, and the writing is similarly achingly beautiful, though the focus here remains on Rukmani and her family and not so much about the happenings in her country. The India here is somewhat unimaginable now in some its dimensions: an age before electricity, literacy and modern medicine. Caste is somehow absent, which is surprising. The onus is the plight of the rural (and later urban) poor and their hapless existence as mere pawns in a grand game played by nature, fate and the rich. The landless, illiterate, uneducated characters swallow whatever comes their way without a protest because neither do they have the means nor the social structure to do anything about it. This slim novel is laden with incredible prose and filled with many unforgettable characters like the Old Granny.
The sad, hard and futile life of the rural poor in British Raj India pervades Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya. It begins with the marriage of the narrator Rukmani to a landless farmer named Nathan at age 12 and ends with his death by her side. What fills the in-between is a few years of happiness with good harvests and young children and many years of deprivation, starvation, disease and death due to drought and floods. Urbanization also rears its ugly head in their tiny village in the form of a smelly tannery and a British doctor named Kenny. Rukmani hates the sight of the polluting and crowded lifestyle brought about by these changes, but poverty drives her children to work at that very tannery and later sail off as labourers to British plantations in Ceylon. The middle-aged couple is hit hard when their landlord sells off his land to the tannery and they have to eke out a hard life in the nearest city.
Published in 1954, this novel is supposedly the first novel about India to get popular in USA and in its textbooks. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Markandaya was born in Mysore, studied in Madras and later settled in the UK. Though no places are named, the characters and settings are quite obviously of the Mysore-Madras region. The story is quite similar to The Good Earth, which I recently read, and the writing is similarly achingly beautiful, though the focus here remains on Rukmani and her family and not so much about the happenings in her country. The India here is somewhat unimaginable now in some its dimensions: an age before electricity, literacy and modern medicine. Caste is somehow absent, which is surprising. The onus is the plight of the rural (and later urban) poor and their hapless existence as mere pawns in a grand game played by nature, fate and the rich. The landless, illiterate, uneducated characters swallow whatever comes their way without a protest because neither do they have the means nor the social structure to do anything about it. This slim novel is laden with incredible prose and filled with many unforgettable characters like the Old Granny.
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
"Bend like a grass, that you do not break."
Nectar in a Sieve left me in a daze. It was very intriguing and definitely moving. This book tackles life in India where poverty left people with no choice but to find various means to survive day by day. It portrays what desperation and need can drive one to do.
"It is not enough to cry out, not sufficient to lay bare your woes and catalogue your needs; people only have to close their eyes and their ears, you cannot force them to see or hear– or to answer your cries if they cannot and will not."
Reading this book made me see women, especially mothers in a completely different light. How heartbreaking it must be to see your children suffer and in worst cases, die of hunger or diseases because you cannot provide their needs. That they have to resort to prostitution just so they won't starve to death is really painful although not uncommon.
Nectar in a Sieve left me in a daze. It was very intriguing and definitely moving. This book tackles life in India where poverty left people with no choice but to find various means to survive day by day. It portrays what desperation and need can drive one to do.
"It is not enough to cry out, not sufficient to lay bare your woes and catalogue your needs; people only have to close their eyes and their ears, you cannot force them to see or hear– or to answer your cries if they cannot and will not."
Reading this book made me see women, especially mothers in a completely different light. How heartbreaking it must be to see your children suffer and in worst cases, die of hunger or diseases because you cannot provide their needs. That they have to resort to prostitution just so they won't starve to death is really painful although not uncommon.
This book opened my eyes to a poverty that goes beyond anything that I have ever considered. The absolute pain of losing any freedom to choose, and the devastating burden that falls to the women of the family is hard to read, but definitely increased my understanding of how so many in the world are forced to live.
This book made me cry, especially at the end. I'd definitely recommend it to anybody who's interested in the India that existed during the British Raj and the transition from the village economy to an urban one. The portrayal of the characters and the situation is quite realistic too, which made the story quite sad.
What a depressing book. The story was ok, but while reading it felt like something I had to for school. A solid look at poverty though, and specifically life in the Indian countryside. For me, I got more out of it as a historical view than as a work of literature.
Heartbreaking and beautiful but mostly just heartbreaking.
Also had to read this one for school . .It paints a picture of the disaster colonialism brings and it is very easy to feel for the characters. It is. .. definetely a major bummer.. yup. . .. it is a little bit tedious to get through but yeah it is definetely a book!