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3.32 AVERAGE
3.32 AVERAGE
spiritual realism but more real than spiritual. so great, read it in 3 days.
I could barely finish this one. I read it for the book club I belong to, and it was unanimously disliked by the group. Before reading it, I thought it would be comparable to Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner, but it wasn't at all. I kept waiting for there to be an uplifting message, but it never happened. The book was extremely depressing. On a positive note, there were some beautifully written passages and I learned a little about India.
This novel was devastating. It was full of beauty and equally full of brutal truths about life, the world, and all of humanity.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"All you needed to do was to reach out and pluck it."
Not the best reading experience, compared to other Booker Prize winners from India such as The White Tiger, Life of Pi, or the God of Small Things. But I see that the stories inside the book are carefully researched by Kiran Desai. The setting of the book is a city called Kalimpong located in the Himalaya mountainsides. A place where border conflicts happened as there are many Nepali Indians who reside there.
The story is too fast paced with random plots. There are three main characters with three main happenings. The judge who owned the house, with his past stories on how he ended up as a judge in a country where the rule of law is hard to be taken seriously. The cook whose son was in the US. And the granddaughter of the judge who was orphaned and had a romance with her tutor. The plots quickly changed between these three characters. It feels like a taking a roller coaster while reading the story. Since this is a debut book, it could be interpreted as a way of Desai in experimenting with her work of art.
Not the best reading experience, compared to other Booker Prize winners from India such as The White Tiger, Life of Pi, or the God of Small Things. But I see that the stories inside the book are carefully researched by Kiran Desai. The setting of the book is a city called Kalimpong located in the Himalaya mountainsides. A place where border conflicts happened as there are many Nepali Indians who reside there.
The story is too fast paced with random plots. There are three main characters with three main happenings. The judge who owned the house, with his past stories on how he ended up as a judge in a country where the rule of law is hard to be taken seriously. The cook whose son was in the US. And the granddaughter of the judge who was orphaned and had a romance with her tutor. The plots quickly changed between these three characters. It feels like a taking a roller coaster while reading the story. Since this is a debut book, it could be interpreted as a way of Desai in experimenting with her work of art.
If it's Indian, if it's contemporary, if it's filled with heat and fragrance and loss and longing and injustice and inequality and silent suffering, I'm so there. I've been a goner for all things Indian ever since "The Jewel in the Crown".
While I thought the author's tone was very easy to take (if it wasn't I would not have gotten through this book), I was not engaged by the characters. Unfortunately, if the characters aren't engaging, 90% of the story is basically worthless. If you're not particularly well-versed in Indian culture, beware: this might not be the book for you.
It seemed like Desai was hopping from one character to another, one timeline to another, one place to another more than her character Biju did from one NY restaurant to another. Which, if had been done better would have made it a gripping read- even with the sheer lack of a plot.
Desai is a beautiful writer in terms of descriptions and observations, but eventually the hodgepodge of her thoughts in an incredibly distracting writing style with overuse of lists as humor makes this book a boring read. Better leave it alone.
Desai is a beautiful writer in terms of descriptions and observations, but eventually the hodgepodge of her thoughts in an incredibly distracting writing style with overuse of lists as humor makes this book a boring read. Better leave it alone.
emotional
funny
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I first picked up this book soon after it won the Booker, and couldn't go beyond the first few pages. I picked it up again, and this time it was no better.
The premise of the book could have been interesting- a bunch of anachronistic misfits desperately trying to keep alive the "English culture" at a time when the hills around Kalingpong are echoing with the demand for Gorkhaland. The author has a keen eye which sees the reality and the eccentricities of people, and often expresses them in a wry tone that is hits hard while also making you smile. But the undoing of the book was the lack of empathy; none of the characters evolve. They go through experiences which could be life changing, yet continue to remain the same self centred people they were before.
Even Biju, the Cook's son, who is barely surviving as an illegal migrant in the United States doesn't evoke sympathy. Nor does Gyan, the Nepali tutor carries the weight of his family's expectations, but gets simultaneously drawn into the Gorkhland Movement and into a relationship with his student. So much could have been done with both these characters, and with Sai who lost her parents in a freak accident and came to live with a grandfather she never knew. It was a case of missed opportunities.
There are flashes of insight- "The wealth that seemed to protect them like a blanket was the very thing that left them exposed. They, amid extreme poverty, were baldly richer, and the statistics of difference were being broadcast over loudspeakers, written loudly across the walls. The anger had solidified into slogans and guns, and it turned out that they ....wouldn’t slip through, (and) ... would pay the debt that should be shared with others over many generations.”
There are descriptions that are so scathingly accurate that make you smile- ""What’s for PUDS?" Lola, when she said this in England, had been unsettled to find that the English didn’t understand. . . . Even Pixie had pretended to be bewildered. . . . But here they comprehended perfectly, and Kesang lugged out a weighty pudding that united via brandy its fraternity of fruit and nut, and they made the pudding holy with a sanctifying crown of brandy flame."
Personally, I did not like how she treated the Gorkhaland Movement, and I can understand why the book attracted the kind of protest that it did. Depending on how you look at it, the same person can be considered both a terrorist and a freedom fighter. She, however, failed to present the other perspective, and chose to villainise all the people who were sympathisers of the Movement. This, to me, was a major fail, because if you read between the lines of the book, you can see how many of their demands were justified (even if you didn't approve of the means they adopted).
The book is called "Inheritance of Loss", and it is easy to see why. It is an intergenerational saga, where what is passed on is loss and loathing.
I am glad I persisted and finished the book because there were parts that made me smile. But I would have been no worse off if I hadn't made the attempt. What I will choose to remember of the book are the beautiful descriptions of the mountains.
The premise of the book could have been interesting- a bunch of anachronistic misfits desperately trying to keep alive the "English culture" at a time when the hills around Kalingpong are echoing with the demand for Gorkhaland. The author has a keen eye which sees the reality and the eccentricities of people, and often expresses them in a wry tone that is hits hard while also making you smile. But the undoing of the book was the lack of empathy; none of the characters evolve. They go through experiences which could be life changing, yet continue to remain the same self centred people they were before.
Even Biju, the Cook's son, who is barely surviving as an illegal migrant in the United States doesn't evoke sympathy. Nor does Gyan, the Nepali tutor carries the weight of his family's expectations, but gets simultaneously drawn into the Gorkhland Movement and into a relationship with his student. So much could have been done with both these characters, and with Sai who lost her parents in a freak accident and came to live with a grandfather she never knew. It was a case of missed opportunities.
There are flashes of insight- "The wealth that seemed to protect them like a blanket was the very thing that left them exposed. They, amid extreme poverty, were baldly richer, and the statistics of difference were being broadcast over loudspeakers, written loudly across the walls. The anger had solidified into slogans and guns, and it turned out that they ....wouldn’t slip through, (and) ... would pay the debt that should be shared with others over many generations.”
There are descriptions that are so scathingly accurate that make you smile- ""What’s for PUDS?" Lola, when she said this in England, had been unsettled to find that the English didn’t understand. . . . Even Pixie had pretended to be bewildered. . . . But here they comprehended perfectly, and Kesang lugged out a weighty pudding that united via brandy its fraternity of fruit and nut, and they made the pudding holy with a sanctifying crown of brandy flame."
Personally, I did not like how she treated the Gorkhaland Movement, and I can understand why the book attracted the kind of protest that it did. Depending on how you look at it, the same person can be considered both a terrorist and a freedom fighter. She, however, failed to present the other perspective, and chose to villainise all the people who were sympathisers of the Movement. This, to me, was a major fail, because if you read between the lines of the book, you can see how many of their demands were justified (even if you didn't approve of the means they adopted).
The book is called "Inheritance of Loss", and it is easy to see why. It is an intergenerational saga, where what is passed on is loss and loathing.
I am glad I persisted and finished the book because there were parts that made me smile. But I would have been no worse off if I hadn't made the attempt. What I will choose to remember of the book are the beautiful descriptions of the mountains.