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shanaban15's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Meandering and theoretical, interspersed with failed relationship sagas. Reads like a memoir. Not for me, but can see its appeal, especially to those familiar with academia. Was interesting to see a world (lefty international graduate students) that I am unfamiliar with.
noshelfcontrol's review against another edition
Started out strong then developed into a confusing story that I neither understood nor cared for. The female characterisation was disappointing as they were all women the main character slept with and nothing more
atharvg's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 Stars
I definitely enjoyed this book more as it went along. The author explores a lot of interesting issues (such as communism, colonialism, and poverty) and themes (like migration, isolation, and relationships) while recounting the thoughts and personal life of a grad student in 1990s New York. This book really read more like a meditation on these themes and issues than a straightforward novel. Unlike most of the novels I read, this one didn't rely on its writing style, a plot, or its characters to propel it forward. Instead, connections were drawn through world events and the various texts, global events, and cultural contexts that the narrator encountered as an immigrant, but also as a young boy in India.
I haven't read much "autofiction," but one thing I find is that these types of novels do not feel quite as cohesive to me. Perhaps it is because they imitate real life much more than other novels. While this book read like an interesting thought exercise, it didn't really fulfill what I look for when I choose to read novels in particular.
I definitely enjoyed this book more as it went along. The author explores a lot of interesting issues (such as communism, colonialism, and poverty) and themes (like migration, isolation, and relationships) while recounting the thoughts and personal life of a grad student in 1990s New York. This book really read more like a meditation on these themes and issues than a straightforward novel. Unlike most of the novels I read, this one didn't rely on its writing style, a plot, or its characters to propel it forward. Instead, connections were drawn through world events and the various texts, global events, and cultural contexts that the narrator encountered as an immigrant, but also as a young boy in India.
I haven't read much "autofiction," but one thing I find is that these types of novels do not feel quite as cohesive to me. Perhaps it is because they imitate real life much more than other novels. While this book read like an interesting thought exercise, it didn't really fulfill what I look for when I choose to read novels in particular.
dilema's review against another edition
2.0
"Airports, Your Honor, are the places where immigrants feel most at home. And also most uneasy."
Entirely agreed.
Alas, that was the one line in the whole book that spoke to me. Admittedly, I went to the library about 2/3rds of the way through and got out three books I'm immensely excited to read, and thus skimmed the last third instead of reading properly, but I don't think I missed anything.
This book had so many things going for it. It has MONTANA in the title. You know what my favourite state is? Yeah, it's Montana. And I'm always up for a good immigrant story. And it's set up in seven parts, all revolving around a girl, and y'know, even that is a concept that's super fascinating to me.
But! It kind of...sucked? There are no moments that are interesting. I was glad to realise a chapter in that it was fiction, which made all the delusions of grandeur slightly more bearable.
Also, majorly explicit content warning! So! Much! Sex! Ugh! Seriously, publishing industry, let's get some content flags 'cause I'll happily live my life without reading about people fornicating in strange mannerisms. Sometimes it can add value, but when it becomes the focal point such as in this, well.
This is what I get for getting too excited about books based on their titles. And what I get for assuming that intriguing copy makes an intriguing book. Sigh.
Entirely agreed.
Alas, that was the one line in the whole book that spoke to me. Admittedly, I went to the library about 2/3rds of the way through and got out three books I'm immensely excited to read, and thus skimmed the last third instead of reading properly, but I don't think I missed anything.
This book had so many things going for it. It has MONTANA in the title. You know what my favourite state is? Yeah, it's Montana. And I'm always up for a good immigrant story. And it's set up in seven parts, all revolving around a girl, and y'know, even that is a concept that's super fascinating to me.
But! It kind of...sucked? There are no moments that are interesting. I was glad to realise a chapter in that it was fiction, which made all the delusions of grandeur slightly more bearable.
Also, majorly explicit content warning! So! Much! Sex! Ugh! Seriously, publishing industry, let's get some content flags 'cause I'll happily live my life without reading about people fornicating in strange mannerisms. Sometimes it can add value, but when it becomes the focal point such as in this, well.
This is what I get for getting too excited about books based on their titles. And what I get for assuming that intriguing copy makes an intriguing book. Sigh.
bookingaround's review against another edition
4.0
Ignore the terrible title and cover, this is actually a great book!
jessicaesquire's review against another edition
4.0
There is a long, literary tradition of the bildungsroman. It is often a story of the author's fictional alter ego, a novel of ideas and politics, a story about love and lovers. There is also a more recent (at least as far as mainstream US literary fiction is concerned) literary tradition of the immigrant's story, the attempt to discover the self while straddling two cultures. IMMIGRANT, MONTANA takes both of these traditions and melds them into one ambitious, exciting, highly readable novel.
The book begins when Kailash gets to the US, a grad student in New York City recently from India, he is still forming his own identity. That journey to self-discovery becomes complicated by his journey to discover an entirely new country, and complicated even more by that country's refusal to acknowledge him as a normal person. The greatest joys of this book are when Kumar follows a question down line after line, moving in one direction and then another, piling complexity upon complexity. The voice and the ideas vibrate at a frequency that you can feel in your bones.
The style is both erratic and highly controlled, with footnotes and pictures and the ongoing question of how much is Kailash and how much is Amitava. Often reported like nonfiction, with side paths exploring Kailash's studies into both real and fictional political activists, the twining of fiction and nonfiction is one of the more satisfying I've seen in this type of novel. (More than once I found myself googling someone to see if they were real or a fictional version of a real person.) Kailash's study of global politics and the way America is almost always placed in a larger context that also considers countries like China and India opens up the book and opens up your view of the world and of Kailash's place in it.
The only real hesitation I have on this novel is part and parcel with a bildungsroman about a straight man in his twenties: its structure and its beating heart are all about the women he is involved with. It probably wouldn't be honest to write a book about this kind of protagonist without having the kind of lustful obsessions he has. And to be fair, the older Kailash writing about the younger Kailash can see with clear eyes how he mistreats his partners, how he objectifies them, and how it dooms his relationships. (Though it also seems quite possible that the older Kailash is still stuck in the very same pattern.) If you are a woman who has ever read a book, you will occasionally find yourself wearied and put off because you exist in the world and it can be exhausting to be constantly reminded of the way men look at you. But it is one of the less frustrating examples I have come across, and I was always willing to put up with it because the joys of the novel outweighed the annoyances. Just know that if you are in a place where you just cannot with male writers, you may want to give yourself some time before you read this book.
The book begins when Kailash gets to the US, a grad student in New York City recently from India, he is still forming his own identity. That journey to self-discovery becomes complicated by his journey to discover an entirely new country, and complicated even more by that country's refusal to acknowledge him as a normal person. The greatest joys of this book are when Kumar follows a question down line after line, moving in one direction and then another, piling complexity upon complexity. The voice and the ideas vibrate at a frequency that you can feel in your bones.
The style is both erratic and highly controlled, with footnotes and pictures and the ongoing question of how much is Kailash and how much is Amitava. Often reported like nonfiction, with side paths exploring Kailash's studies into both real and fictional political activists, the twining of fiction and nonfiction is one of the more satisfying I've seen in this type of novel. (More than once I found myself googling someone to see if they were real or a fictional version of a real person.) Kailash's study of global politics and the way America is almost always placed in a larger context that also considers countries like China and India opens up the book and opens up your view of the world and of Kailash's place in it.
The only real hesitation I have on this novel is part and parcel with a bildungsroman about a straight man in his twenties: its structure and its beating heart are all about the women he is involved with. It probably wouldn't be honest to write a book about this kind of protagonist without having the kind of lustful obsessions he has. And to be fair, the older Kailash writing about the younger Kailash can see with clear eyes how he mistreats his partners, how he objectifies them, and how it dooms his relationships. (Though it also seems quite possible that the older Kailash is still stuck in the very same pattern.) If you are a woman who has ever read a book, you will occasionally find yourself wearied and put off because you exist in the world and it can be exhausting to be constantly reminded of the way men look at you. But it is one of the less frustrating examples I have come across, and I was always willing to put up with it because the joys of the novel outweighed the annoyances. Just know that if you are in a place where you just cannot with male writers, you may want to give yourself some time before you read this book.
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