Take a photo of a barcode or cover
drjreads 's review for:
Ghachar Ghochar
by Vivek Shanbhag
I enjoyed this brisk novel a great deal!
It opens in a coffee shop as our narrator reflects on the relationship he has with the employee who works there, a mixture of guru and confidant. We then backtrack as we are told about his family and their rags to riches story, and how the newfound wealth impacted their values, dynamics, and behaviors.
We do eventually learn the meaning of the title, but it's such a lovely and interesting discovery that I feel like it would be wrong to disclose anything, as it is thematically important and a clue as to how the entire story unravels.
There are several ambiguities to the tale that ask the audience to draw its own conclusions, some of which work and others feeling more like loose threads rather than intriguing omissions, but the pace of the story is brisk, the characters are interesting, and it overall works as a parable of an Indian family coming into money and how it transforms them all.
It opens in a coffee shop as our narrator reflects on the relationship he has with the employee who works there, a mixture of guru and confidant. We then backtrack as we are told about his family and their rags to riches story, and how the newfound wealth impacted their values, dynamics, and behaviors.
We do eventually learn the meaning of the title, but it's such a lovely and interesting discovery that I feel like it would be wrong to disclose anything, as it is thematically important and a clue as to how the entire story unravels.
There are several ambiguities to the tale that ask the audience to draw its own conclusions, some of which work and others feeling more like loose threads rather than intriguing omissions, but the pace of the story is brisk, the characters are interesting, and it overall works as a parable of an Indian family coming into money and how it transforms them all.