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A review by geolatin
Professor Chandra Follows His Bliss by Rajeev Balasubramanyam
4.0
I'm giving this 4 stars because I could see myself reading this again. Starting off, I wasn't sure I'd even finish the book, because the protagonist is a self-obsessed, unpleasant 69-year-old professor of economics at Cambridge who is never wrong. However, after a minor heart attack and being sent on an enforced sabbatical due to bullying students, he acknowledges to himself that he's unhappy and he isn't where he wanted to be in life. He is divorced and is estranged from 2 of his 3 children and he decides to figure out what went wrong.
What I really liked about this book is that there is no immediate change of behavior, but as the book progresses, Professor Chandra begins to see the patterns of behavior which create bad results and tries to start fixing them. He's not always successful and his fits of temper never really end, although he starts to be able to control them a bit better. He starts to reconnect with his family, including his ex-wife, and even is able to be somewhat harmonious with her husband, although he never really likes him.
This book felt very authentic to me. It doesn't end with everything resolved, although it's moving in the right direction. There really are no changes of heart...it's more that there are purposeful changes in behavior to better meet relationship goals. I don't know that I really liked Professor Chandra at the end of the book, but I respected his growth and enjoyed watching him struggle to become a better person, with varying results.
The only thing that really bothered me that almost made me stop listening to the audiobook was that the narrator sounded white during the non-dialogue portions, but the accents sounded authentic during dialogue. However, after investigation, the narrator is of South Asian descent.
What I really liked about this book is that there is no immediate change of behavior, but as the book progresses, Professor Chandra begins to see the patterns of behavior which create bad results and tries to start fixing them. He's not always successful and his fits of temper never really end, although he starts to be able to control them a bit better. He starts to reconnect with his family, including his ex-wife, and even is able to be somewhat harmonious with her husband, although he never really likes him.
This book felt very authentic to me. It doesn't end with everything resolved, although it's moving in the right direction. There really are no changes of heart...it's more that there are purposeful changes in behavior to better meet relationship goals. I don't know that I really liked Professor Chandra at the end of the book, but I respected his growth and enjoyed watching him struggle to become a better person, with varying results.
The only thing that really bothered me that almost made me stop listening to the audiobook was that the narrator sounded white during the non-dialogue portions, but the accents sounded authentic during dialogue. However, after investigation, the narrator is of South Asian descent.