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A review by dhiyanah
Difficult Daughters by Manju Kapur
2.0
I wanted to like this novel, but what was thought to be a story of a woman's conflict between her desire to get educated and her desire to conform to expectations took shape, instead, into one where the woman uses her desire for personal independence to rebel against conformity in order to be the second wife of a married man - a man who made her wait years before officializing their relationship, who only did so after being prodded by a male poet friend, on the brink of Virmati's potential (actual) independence. Once married, he sends her off to get an MA - as if to intellectually upgrade his trophy wife. There is very little mention on her part on what her education has done for her. While she stood her grounds against her family for the sake of education, claiming she will never marry, it seemed as if her pursuit for study was only to feed her obsession for this man. The lack of any passion or rumination towards the subjects she studied was questionable.
I'm not sure what argument their story was trying to make regarding education for girls. While peripheral characters, like Virmati's roommate, posed as a symbol for the promise and resilience of educating girls, the main character herself falls short in saying/representing anything substantive about this. I don't know why we're made to follow her story, apart from it being representative of a deeply-rooted lack, it was mostly a repetitive cycle of despair, familial disappointments, and her perpetual dissatisfaction as student/lover/co-wife.
Her daughter, who opens the novel in a flash-forward scene, is the most intriguing character and we only hear from her rarely throughout the book. Those few pages held in them things about memories, lineage, and history that are worth cherishing. It's unfortunate we don't hear more from her.
I appreciate the realism of the characters - their naivety, desperation and extent of manipulation were true to what's known and familiar. This could potentially be a good primer into the backdrops of South Asian literature, to acclimatize to a bit of its history and the expectations weaved into its social constructs, how intensely duty and obligation have been drummed into generations, how much battle it takes to get even just a slight wiggle room within (or out of) them. For me, there wasn't much in this novel that delivered what its 'Difficult Daughters' title might promise.
I'm not sure what argument their story was trying to make regarding education for girls. While peripheral characters, like Virmati's roommate, posed as a symbol for the promise and resilience of educating girls, the main character herself falls short in saying/representing anything substantive about this. I don't know why we're made to follow her story, apart from it being representative of a deeply-rooted lack, it was mostly a repetitive cycle of despair, familial disappointments, and her perpetual dissatisfaction as student/lover/co-wife.
Her daughter, who opens the novel in a flash-forward scene, is the most intriguing character and we only hear from her rarely throughout the book. Those few pages held in them things about memories, lineage, and history that are worth cherishing. It's unfortunate we don't hear more from her.
I appreciate the realism of the characters - their naivety, desperation and extent of manipulation were true to what's known and familiar. This could potentially be a good primer into the backdrops of South Asian literature, to acclimatize to a bit of its history and the expectations weaved into its social constructs, how intensely duty and obligation have been drummed into generations, how much battle it takes to get even just a slight wiggle room within (or out of) them. For me, there wasn't much in this novel that delivered what its 'Difficult Daughters' title might promise.