You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
punkrocknreticence 's review for:
A Fine Balance
by Rohinton Mistry
There is a fine balance between authorial detachment and narrative excellence, and Mistry maintains it throughout this book.
A Fine Balance is the second of Rohinton Mistry's novels that I have read, and, as of yet, it is without a doubt the saddest one I have ever had the opportunity to peruse. The pathos in this novel is constant, and constantly overbearing. And yet, the book does not cease to be gripping. In fact, it is commendable how Mistry explores the depths of desolation in this book; be it in the lives of its characters, or in the country their lives take shape within; without losing the hold he has on the reader: a hold that seems to have a grip on the readers' very fingertips, refusing to let go of his pages even after soaking in them for long enough.
Every single character in this book suffers in the throes of life. However, Mistry writes them with such lifelike abandon (and perhaps, it is in spite of this) that there emerges a certain tragicomic quality in episodes from their daily lives. The lifelike irony of happenstances and the brusqueness of actual conversation has probably never been written with as much of a flair. Mistry is, indeed, a caricaturist of common lives, and in A Fine Balance he draws the many faces of life during, before and after the Emergency of 1975. The real genius of Mistry's skill, I believe, lies in the detail in which he explores the pathos of each of his characters - from major characters like Dina Dalal, Omprakash and Ishvar Darji and Maneck Kohlah to Shankar and Monkey-man. The author's prose in this book is itself quite like the quilt that emerges within the narrative: an evocative and lovingly crafted patchwork of a multitude of emotions and lived experiences.
But there is more. A Fine Balance is based; as mentioned earlier, and following the pattern of Mistry's other novel; chiefly in Bombay of the 1970s, or as phrased in the book, 'the city by the sea. However, unlike in Such A Long Journey, it is not the where but the when that A Fine Balance focuses on. The spotlight is on Indira Gandhi's India, on the nation during the Emergency, and Mistry is ruthless in exposing it for what it was. Particularly in the lives of Ishvar and Omprakash as they're retold to us can one find woven bits and pieces of the real India: the caste-ridden, violence and corruption-ridden, suffering-ridden India, a nation that sees itself in herds and ignores it to keep going, a nation of forced sterilisation and dragging court cases. But more than anything else, Mistry's prose tells us that India is, first and foremost, a nation where the personal is the political, for the personal suffering of every character is touched by the arm of law, or of the government, in the most alarming (and yet, commonplace) ways in the novel.
The questions of life and death, and of change and loss, are also dealt with in the book, with instances and quips both fleeting and elaborate. One of the most striking things about Mistry is that he writes like life. His wisdom, which is never posited as such, is in many places entirely missable in the depths of the narrative, but also compelling, thoughtful and highly quotable. A Fine Balance is as reliable as Mistry's first novel in terms of the philosophical food for thought it offers.
Overall, this book is a powerful, politically charged and intricately done patchwork of reasons why it needs to be read. There are many, and it is beautiful enough to make the reader very, very sad. But read, anyway. For as the epigraph by Balzac says, "this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true''.
A Fine Balance is the second of Rohinton Mistry's novels that I have read, and, as of yet, it is without a doubt the saddest one I have ever had the opportunity to peruse. The pathos in this novel is constant, and constantly overbearing. And yet, the book does not cease to be gripping. In fact, it is commendable how Mistry explores the depths of desolation in this book; be it in the lives of its characters, or in the country their lives take shape within; without losing the hold he has on the reader: a hold that seems to have a grip on the readers' very fingertips, refusing to let go of his pages even after soaking in them for long enough.
Every single character in this book suffers in the throes of life. However, Mistry writes them with such lifelike abandon (and perhaps, it is in spite of this) that there emerges a certain tragicomic quality in episodes from their daily lives. The lifelike irony of happenstances and the brusqueness of actual conversation has probably never been written with as much of a flair. Mistry is, indeed, a caricaturist of common lives, and in A Fine Balance he draws the many faces of life during, before and after the Emergency of 1975. The real genius of Mistry's skill, I believe, lies in the detail in which he explores the pathos of each of his characters - from major characters like Dina Dalal, Omprakash and Ishvar Darji and Maneck Kohlah to Shankar and Monkey-man. The author's prose in this book is itself quite like the quilt that emerges within the narrative: an evocative and lovingly crafted patchwork of a multitude of emotions and lived experiences.
But there is more. A Fine Balance is based; as mentioned earlier, and following the pattern of Mistry's other novel; chiefly in Bombay of the 1970s, or as phrased in the book, 'the city by the sea. However, unlike in Such A Long Journey, it is not the where but the when that A Fine Balance focuses on. The spotlight is on Indira Gandhi's India, on the nation during the Emergency, and Mistry is ruthless in exposing it for what it was. Particularly in the lives of Ishvar and Omprakash as they're retold to us can one find woven bits and pieces of the real India: the caste-ridden, violence and corruption-ridden, suffering-ridden India, a nation that sees itself in herds and ignores it to keep going, a nation of forced sterilisation and dragging court cases. But more than anything else, Mistry's prose tells us that India is, first and foremost, a nation where the personal is the political, for the personal suffering of every character is touched by the arm of law, or of the government, in the most alarming (and yet, commonplace) ways in the novel.
The questions of life and death, and of change and loss, are also dealt with in the book, with instances and quips both fleeting and elaborate. One of the most striking things about Mistry is that he writes like life. His wisdom, which is never posited as such, is in many places entirely missable in the depths of the narrative, but also compelling, thoughtful and highly quotable. A Fine Balance is as reliable as Mistry's first novel in terms of the philosophical food for thought it offers.
Overall, this book is a powerful, politically charged and intricately done patchwork of reasons why it needs to be read. There are many, and it is beautiful enough to make the reader very, very sad. But read, anyway. For as the epigraph by Balzac says, "this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true''.