Scan barcode
mmmmmm's review against another edition
challenging
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
archytas's review
4.25
I thoroughly enjoyed this historical epic, balanced between the dying days of the Raj in Rangoon and Kuala Lumpur in the 1990s Reformasi movement, tied together by love stories of various kinds, but most especially between a grandmother and her granddaughter. As Tamils from what is now India, Iyer's protagonists are forever foreigners in others' lands, albeit with varying levels of privilege and social status. Iyer shows us the horrific, long reverberating impacts of the British policy of ethnic separation imposed upon the region. Her characters, all alive and vital, give empathetic rise to a variety of viewpoints, the balancing struggle for democracy of various kinds and that against bigotry, racial and religious. The book also explores the strengths of multifaith societies, and the joys that can be found in ritual and faith, as well as the more earthly joys of love, friendship and lust.
The book takes a rapid journey with elements of history I was not very familiar with - it is a little to my shame that I recall being only dimly interested in the Reformasi movement, and concluding it made little sense to me at the time. Iyer's KL in 1998 feels decades earlier in many ways, and I realise how my deep ignorance of the whole region factored into my incomprehension. The book avoids exposition, but is not hard to follow, as our protagonists are far more motivated by the world of those they love than abstract ideologies. This makes the story one of how politics impacts on people, and ends up being about why it all matters.
But mostly it's just a ripping yarn, with people you want to keep picking up the book to rejoin. If you are looking for something absorbingly escapist, but not frivolous, this would come highly recommended.
The book takes a rapid journey with elements of history I was not very familiar with - it is a little to my shame that I recall being only dimly interested in the Reformasi movement, and concluding it made little sense to me at the time. Iyer's KL in 1998 feels decades earlier in many ways, and I realise how my deep ignorance of the whole region factored into my incomprehension. The book avoids exposition, but is not hard to follow, as our protagonists are far more motivated by the world of those they love than abstract ideologies. This makes the story one of how politics impacts on people, and ends up being about why it all matters.
But mostly it's just a ripping yarn, with people you want to keep picking up the book to rejoin. If you are looking for something absorbingly escapist, but not frivolous, this would come highly recommended.
kali's review against another edition
4.0
This is a deeply immersive book, covering large political upheavals in Malaysia and Myanmar/Burma, portraying the experience of the exodus from Rangoon to Assam in the 1940s, and the reformasi protests in Kuala Lumpur in the 1990s. Huge crowd scenes are rendered in beautiful prose. But the heart of the book is by Grandmother Susheela's hospital bedside as her daughter Sandhya reads to her from the Gita in Tamil. They are connected by shared histories of love across religious divides. Two yolks from the same egg. Through their connection, Sandhya writes her grandmother's memories and stories, so that all who have lived will always live. That book, and this one, are the tiny houses of time where cultural, religious, language divisions dissolve, and we get a glimpse, a recognition of our shared humanity.
More...