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jennygaitskell 's review for:
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
by Arundhati Roy
This is a novel that takes you by the shoulders and shakes you. It's a novel with another novel hidden inside it. It is dazzling.
The novel starts with the life story of Anjum in Old Delhi, raised a boy, who overcomes much to grow into herself, and is surrounded by beloved eccentrics. When Anjum meets Tilo, the novel switches to Tilo's story, a difficult character who journeys into a dirty civil war in Kashmir.
There are lines of transcendent beauty in both stories, and both stories have unforgettable horrors: communal violence, homophobic abuse, poverty and corruption, torture and murder and grief. Arundhati Roy obliges the reader to examine truths they might prefer to ignore, about India and about human beings. The writing is exquisite, even when it hurts.
As Tilo's story shifted back and forth in time, I doubted it could fit with Anjum's. I was not only wrong, I was utterly wowed.
The novel starts with the life story of Anjum in Old Delhi, raised a boy, who overcomes much to grow into herself, and is surrounded by beloved eccentrics. When Anjum meets Tilo, the novel switches to Tilo's story, a difficult character who journeys into a dirty civil war in Kashmir.
There are lines of transcendent beauty in both stories, and both stories have unforgettable horrors: communal violence, homophobic abuse, poverty and corruption, torture and murder and grief. Arundhati Roy obliges the reader to examine truths they might prefer to ignore, about India and about human beings. The writing is exquisite, even when it hurts.
As Tilo's story shifted back and forth in time, I doubted it could fit with Anjum's. I was not only wrong, I was utterly wowed.