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my3c 's review for:
A Fine Balance
by Rohinton Mistry
India (around the world in books series) -**4.5 rounded up to 5**
I realized after closing this book that it's going to be memorable, not because it's about Indian history or people or anything of that manner, but rather because it is a testament to the complexities of human nature and endurance. It serves as a reminder of how fortunate we are to be born into a life that has dealt us easier cards than it has to others. There's so much more I want to say, but nothing I write could summarize the skill with which Rohinton Mistry describes a slice of life from 1970s India. The magic of this book doesn't come from the story or the pacing, but from the characters and the writing itself.
A Fine Balance is set during one of India's most tragic times - the Emergency Period, declared by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in an effort to avoid fraud lawsuits against herself and bring cruel order into a restless country. One does not need extensive knowledge of 1970s India to begin this book, but a quick YouTube summary of the Emergency years may help complete the setting before turning the first page. In these tumultuous times, 4 unlikely strangers are thrown together into a single apartment, and though they despise and mistrust each other at first, the desire for companionship ultimately forms a loving bond between the tenants.
Their journey is far from easy, though - much of the beginning of the novel describes each character's painful past, and the series of unfortunate events that led them to their current positions. The characters in A Fine Balance endure unimaginable horrors as they become pawns in the nation's Chess game against itself, and it is in these moments that we see the struggle we humans face in our lifelong challenge to find balance: the balance between hope and despair, as Mistry puts it, but also between optimism and pessimism, between individualism and societal pressures, between desire and necessity, and most of all, between heart and mind.
Fair warning though, this book is not for the faint-hearted. There are several trigger warnings, emotional, depressing, difficult scenes, and several instances of swearing and other content. Mistry also writes in a slightly detached manner, which I found actually made the book more jarring than usual. If reading about the characters' lives itself was difficult, I can't begin to imagine what life must have been like back then for the people actually living through it.
If you're looking for a thought-provoking, emotional story, and don't mind the occasional punch in the gut, then you would enjoy this gem of a book, and possibly even take something back from it. ~
I realized after closing this book that it's going to be memorable, not because it's about Indian history or people or anything of that manner, but rather because it is a testament to the complexities of human nature and endurance. It serves as a reminder of how fortunate we are to be born into a life that has dealt us easier cards than it has to others. There's so much more I want to say, but nothing I write could summarize the skill with which Rohinton Mistry describes a slice of life from 1970s India. The magic of this book doesn't come from the story or the pacing, but from the characters and the writing itself.
A Fine Balance is set during one of India's most tragic times - the Emergency Period, declared by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in an effort to avoid fraud lawsuits against herself and bring cruel order into a restless country. One does not need extensive knowledge of 1970s India to begin this book, but a quick YouTube summary of the Emergency years may help complete the setting before turning the first page. In these tumultuous times, 4 unlikely strangers are thrown together into a single apartment, and though they despise and mistrust each other at first, the desire for companionship ultimately forms a loving bond between the tenants.
Their journey is far from easy, though - much of the beginning of the novel describes each character's painful past, and the series of unfortunate events that led them to their current positions. The characters in A Fine Balance endure unimaginable horrors as they become pawns in the nation's Chess game against itself, and it is in these moments that we see the struggle we humans face in our lifelong challenge to find balance: the balance between hope and despair, as Mistry puts it, but also between optimism and pessimism, between individualism and societal pressures, between desire and necessity, and most of all, between heart and mind.
Fair warning though, this book is not for the faint-hearted. There are several trigger warnings, emotional, depressing, difficult scenes, and several instances of swearing and other content. Mistry also writes in a slightly detached manner, which I found actually made the book more jarring than usual. If reading about the characters' lives itself was difficult, I can't begin to imagine what life must have been like back then for the people actually living through it.
If you're looking for a thought-provoking, emotional story, and don't mind the occasional punch in the gut, then you would enjoy this gem of a book, and possibly even take something back from it. ~