The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy #Diversiverse

Convoluted, atmospheric, tragic.

About The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: The year is 1969. In the state of Kerala, on the southernmost tip of India, fraternal twins Esthappen and Rahel fashion a childhood for themselves in the shade of the wreck that is their family. Their lonely, lovely mother, Ammu (who loves by night the man her children love by day), fled an abusive marriage to live with their blind grandmother, Mammachi (who plays Handel on her violin), their beloved uncle Chacko (Rhodes scholar, pickle baron, radical Marxist, bottom-pincher), and their enemy, Baby Kochamma (ex-nun and incumbent grandaunt).

When Chacko's English ex-wife brings their daughter for a Christmas visit, the twins learn that Things Can Change in a Day. That lives can twist into new, ugly shapes, even cease forever, beside their river ...

My two cents

So here we are! It's Diversiverse once again and I admit to using this event to give me an extra push to review books that deserve to be read and reread by many others. This is one such book; it is set in 1960s India and drives home the point of the pervasiveness of the caste system to contemporary times.

What I liked:

Universal themes. The crux of this book: its themes of struggle, love, and how the truth eventually comes to light. Set in modern-day India, throw in a touch of the immigrant persona and a tragedy of immense proportions that stems from the seemingly innocuous.

This is such an unusual book for so many reasons that I didn't quite know what to do with it. It gave me a major headache the first read through, especially for about half of the book. I was constantly bewildered by the plot which shifted from present to past, was alternately mesmerized-then-annoyed by the verbosity, weirded out by the twin "thing" going on, and felt it was generally was just all over the place. Maybe it was because I was also reading this in bits and pieces that each time I'd pick up the book I had a hard time recalling what was happening. But by the second half, I was finally starting to appreciate the themes explored and I knew I had to wipe the slate clean and reread with the intent of finally reviewing it.

It's a love story. It's about fraternal twins sharing a very special bond. It's about family. It's about the struggle to go beyond what life deals us. It's about grief and heartbreak. This is a story where the plot only comes together after reading the entire thing. For me it took reading the entire thing twice to realize its simplicity in its tragedy.

(I speak in rather cryptic terms for a reason. I can't bear for anyone to expect what will happen when they start reading this.)

A taste of India, both traditional and modern. It's always fascinating to learn about other cultures and this gives readers a taste of exotic India with a heavy dose of reality. Depicted is the poverty, the desire for many to better their lives by getting an education elsewhere, and the sobering fact that the caste system remains entrenched in society.

Memorable characters. Oh Baby Kochamma! Oh Baby, you are an amazing in-your-face character and this book needs you! And you, dear reader, need to make her acquaintance!

Poetic lines. There are certain times when the Roy's words take on a magically poetic quality. I felt like her words had a rhythm that lulls, woos, and even breaks your heart. Consider:

Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of a burned house---the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture---must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for. Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstitutred. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.

I disliked:

What just happened? I already mentioned that the plot was confusing and felt convoluted when I first started. But it all became crystal clear as this non-linear narrative came to its tragic conclusion. If you're struggling with the first part, have patience, keep at it and clarity shall come.

Verdict: A devastating family secret is finally revealed in this tragic tale of struggle, love and grief set in India. A non-linear and poetic quality of a narrative, this award-winning novel has the power to intimidate you ... or entrance you. I hope it's the latter.

Book Depository

This was my read for 2015 Diversiverse!

Amsterdam by Ian McEwan

Of relationships and moral dilemmas.

Synopsis of Amsterdam by Ian McEwan: On a chilly February day two old friends meet in the throng outside a crematorium to pay their last respects to Molly Lane. Both Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday had been Molly's lovers in the days before they reached their current eminence, Clive as Britain's most successful modern composer, Vernon as editor of the quality broadsheet, The Judge. Gorgeous, feisty Molly had had other lovers too, notably Julian Garmony, Foreign Secretary, a notorious right-winger tipped to be the next prime minister. In the days that follow Molly's funeral Clive and Vernon will make a pact that will have consequences neither has foreseen. Each will make a disastrous moral decision, their friendship will be tested to its limits and Julian Garmony will be fighting for his political life.

My two cents

Larger-than-life Molly is shockingly dead, and she went demented and hopeless. The many men in her life come together at her funeral and an interesting series of events unravel and they find themselves in some compromising situations. This dark psychological study and satire-of-sorts highlights a complicated mesh of relationships and of circumstances unwittingly created.

  ***

What I liked:

I've read McEwan's Atonement and promptly fell in love with that book and McEwan. So I really looked forward to reading his 1998 Booker Prize winner, Amsterdam.

I thought this took place in Amsterdam (naturally) but it is set in London. Then why is it titled Amsterdam, you may ask? (This was a niggly point and I was dying to find out. This was one of my dislikes, which I'll go into later.)

Overall, this was very good reading: something that I really sunk my teeth into; something with bite.

The story is so tight that it all fits into all of 178 pages. Think about it: how many authors can come up with a fast-paced, moral-laden story, with five well-fleshed out characters in that many pages? Not very many, in my opinion.

The highlight for me was how the I became so engrossed in how these various relationships panned out in a complex cause-and-effect, how the past impacted on decisions being made and vice versa, and how people's true colours came to the fore.

This is a psychological study of sorts, where morals and ethics are tested. The twist is that a lot of this was brought about posthumously by Molly. It's pretty insidious how the darkness of human nature worms its way into the individual character's little dilemmas -- in Julian Garmony's politics, in Clive's creation of music, in Vernon's desire for recognition and affirmation as a journalist -- all underscored by what society deems as "success."

What I didn't like:

The characters left me cold. While I recognize that I don't need to feel like I can be best buds with any of them, it was very difficult to empathize with them since they're all pretty obnoxious. I usually am able to latch on to one or a few characters in my favourite reads but this one, nada.

Now the niggly bit. Why is this novel called Amsterdam? I only made the connection because I Googled it and The Book Bag pointed it out: that two characters made a pact to allow themselves the option of a mercy killing so they wouldn't suffer the same horrible fate as Molly -- and I found out that euthanasia is legal in Amsterdam. I guess I'm slow or maybe it just wasn't apparent enough. But I went ahhh, ok.   
   
Verdict: This packed novel explores the darkness of human character through moral and ethical dilemmas, and tight, intricate plot and obnoxious characters. Rather brilliant in plotting and its profundity, I highly recommend this for those who like a dark psychological read.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Poverty, ambition, amorality: what a murderous combination. 

Synopsis of The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga: The white tiger of this novel is Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager whose great ambition leads him to the zenith of Indian business culture, the world of the Bangalore entrepreneur. On the occasion of the president of China’s impending trip to Bangalore, Balram writes a letter to him describing his transformation and his experience as driver and servant to a wealthy Indian family, which he thinks exemplifies the contradictions and complications of Indian society.  

My two cents 

What's a poor man got to do to move up in this world? Hard work, the ability to work the system, and murder, apparently. Even the mere hope for a better life can be a tremendous driving force to commit the most repulsive of acts.

Balram Halwai introduces himself as "The White Tiger, a Thinking Man and an Entrepreneur." This book -- a letter written to the president of China -- is his autobiography written from the light of a chandelier in his 150-square-foot office. He has no qualms about announcing that he is a murderer. With a beginning like that, yes, I was hooked!

Flashback to Balram's childhood when he still carried the generic name Munna (which simply means "boy") and renamed by his schoolteacher out of convenience of having a "real name." Hailing from an poor yet tightknit family, his rickshaw-pulling father has grand plans for Balram to escape their living hell.

But how does one defy the life and destiny of sweetmaking and tea dictated to him by his Halwai caste? How does one outsmart those big powerful landowners with their oppressive rules and demands?

It is Balram's ambition, his matter-of-fact amorality, and his plain hard work that propels, maneuvers him into the entrepreneur caste, the caste of his choice. He becomes the chauffeur of American-educated son of the huge landowner of his community. With the grotesque side of impoverished India as the backdrop, Balram recounts his heartbreaking relationship with a master who is as lost as he is in the changing India, the incidents that lead to murder, and how he comes to be a successful small business owner.

***

I was conflicted by Balram's character: I alternated between pity and compassion; how can I feel for him yet be repulsed by at the same time?

I felt for him and his family. I felt for him wanting a better life ... yet run up against so many obstacles: poverty, the injustices foisted on them by the powerful and moneyed, and the corrupt systems.

Balram seemed to always be in desperate circumstances, painted into a corner with seemingly no options. But did he really have no choice?

*A spoiler follows because I can't not say something about this!*


One particularly powerful metaphor that I loved was that of man and life as is the rooster to its coop, in this case "The Great Indian Rooster Coop":

"Hundreds of pale hens and brightly coloured roosters, stuffed tightly into wire mesh cages, packed as tightly as worms in a belly, pecking each other and shitting each other, jostling just for breathing space; the whole cage giving off a horrible stench - the stench of terrified, feathered flesh. On the wooden desk above the coop sits a grinning young butcher, showing off the flesh and organs of a recently chopped chicken, still oleaginous with a coating of dark red blood. The roosters in the coop smell the blood from above. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they're next. Yet they do not rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop."

What a sly, sly writer Adiga is: graphic and disturbing, this could very well be a commentary for many poor countries where the rotten and corrupt systems condone and breed rotten and corrupt citizens wanting to play the system ... lest the system eats them alive.

As conflicted as I am about Balram, I am moreso conflicted with our society has done to shaped its people, or how do we shape our society?

Verdict

Forget the Incredible India commercials; The White Tiger exposes the dark side of an impoverished India where the small are eaten up by the big, moneyed and powerful ... if they let them. A provokingly realistic read which I highly recommend!

Book Depository

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

Serious summary of The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai: This stunning second novel from Desai (Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard) is set in mid-1980s India, on the cusp of the Nepalese movement for an independent state. Jemubhai Popatlal, a retired Cambridge-educated judge, lives in Kalimpong, at the foot of the Himalayas, with his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and his cook. The makeshift family's neighbors include a coterie of Anglophiles who might be savvy readers of V.S. Naipaul but who are, perhaps, less aware of how fragile their own social standing is—at least until a surge of unrest disturbs the region. Jemubhai, with his hunting rifles and English biscuits, becomes an obvious target. Besides threatening their very lives, the revolution also stymies the fledgling romance between 16-year-old Sai and her Nepalese tutor, Gyan. The cook's son, Biju, meanwhile, lives miserably as an illegal alien in New York. All of these characters struggle with their cultural identity and the forces of modernization while trying to maintain their emotional connection to one another. In this alternately comical and contemplative novel, Desai deftly shuttles between first and third worlds, illuminating the pain of exile, the ambiguities of post-colonialism and the blinding desire for a "better life," when one person's wealth means another's poverty. {Via}

My two cents

OK bits: I love Desai's writing. She has a comfortable way of describing the most mundane while capturing her character's moods. For example, when Biju finally gets his American visa:

"Raw sewage was being used to water a patch of grass that was lush and stinking, grinning brilliantly in the dusk."

It's been a while since I've read a novel which hits home, as the Indian experience is so very much like the Philippine one (a long history of colonial rule, every family is bound to have one immigrant, persistence of colonial mentality). While there is always a drive to seek a better life, immigrant life is not easy. Desai captures so many issues in her book - the phenomenon of globalization, economic inequality, of power (and lack thereof), multiculturalism, colonialism, prejudice and racism, and the whole struggle for self-identity and the issue of nationalism when being part of both Western and Eastern cultures.

However, while these bigger themes are running thoughout the storyline, she still manages to retain her readers' emotional empathy to each character. For example, I liked the love story of Sai and Gyan as well as the struggles of Biju. People have coped in different ways to the changing world and how Desai explores this is fascinating. Desai gives immigrants a voice.

As a sidebar, the description of the sacrifices made and the visa issue system is highly accurate based on what I have heard from other immigrants.

Boring bits: I didn't find anything boring in this one. The multiple stories kept me going as I had to find out what happened to each character.

Just don't read this if you're feeling down, as reading misfortune after misfortune can get a bit depressing. It may come across as bitter, bleak, cynical - I say it's honest.

Verdict: Powerful. A very worthwhile read.

***

First line: All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows.

The book in one sentence: The stories of heartache of Indian immigrants (to New York and England) and of the families and communities they have left behind.

Who would you recommend it to: Readers who are not reading for escape, but are ready to face the very sad reality of injustice in this world.

Factoids: Desai, at 35, is the youngest female winner of the Man Booker Prize which she won in 2006. It took her eight years to write The Inheritance of Loss. She is the daughter of novelist Anita Desai who was nominated for the Booker Prize three times but never won.

Desai has retained her citizenship of India and is a Permanent Resident of the United States.

Random quotes:

Love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love is the ache, the anticipation the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.

... he forgot how to laugh, could barely manage to lift his lips in a smile, and if he ever did, he held his hand over his mouth, because he couldn't bear anyone to see his gums, his teeth.They seemed too private. In fact, he could barely let any of himself peep out of his clothes for fear of giving offence. He began to wash obsessively, concerned he would be accused of smelling. To the end of his life, he would prefer shadow to light, faded days to sunny, for he was suspicious that sunlight might reveal him, in his hideousness, all too clearly.

Interesting links:

• Man Booker Prize interview
• Interview by Abe Books
• Interview by Random House
• Wounded by the West

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

Summary of Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee from Book Depository: A divorced, middle-aged English professor finds himself increasingly unable to resist affairs with his female students. When discovered by the college authorities he is expected to apologize to save his job, but instead he refuses and resigns, retiring to live with his daughter on her remote farm.

My take
I got so much from this slim volume - on middle age, of sex, of racism, of fatherhood/daughterhood. It made me empathic, angry, sentimental. I must read this again.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Back blurb of The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin opens with these simple, resonant words: “Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.” They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister’s death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura’s story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel.

Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist. Brilliantly weaving together such seemingly disparate elements, Atwood creates a world of astonishing vision and unforgettable impact.

My take

I started out pretty well, then slowly got more and more disoriented. With more characters introduced, I felt things getting murkier. After recovering several chapters in, and sorting out who was who, backtracking to understand the importance of newspaper stories interspersed … I started picking up pace and started enjoying myself. I was hooked.

Once in that quagmire of several stories happening all at once, I actually resisted leaving. I felt like I was racing to the finish line. Seemingly discrete characters and mini-stories magically melded and converged at the end. I was ecstatic yet reluctant at having finished the last page. It was like I had became privy to a huge secret. Atwood is truly a master at pacing her readers!

This is my first Atwood book and I am blown away by how unpredictably she has treated the oft-times predictable themes of familial love and dynamics. Isn’t the title brilliant? You read so much into the title alone … who is the blind assassin? Who killed whom? Was the character truly blind or merely casting a blind eye?

Spoilers here: On the other hand, I can’t say that this book isn’t without its flaws. For one, I disliked the two main characters. Our protagonist Iris is a boring old lady and somehow I was nagged that I couldn’t plausibly reconcile the risk-taking lover with the old lady she had become. While I enjoyed the character of Laura, she too became quite a tired, predictable character, at least she was consistently inconsistent throughout. Most of the characters were quite flat and stereotyped, particularly Iris’s husband Richard and her sister-in-law Winifred.

Are Atwood’s storytelling devices maybe, maybe overshadowing the story itself? The pulp science-fiction story narrated by Red, the lover, was interesting but did I miss the metaphors? I felt a little lost here. Sometimes the loveliest of tales don’t need any bells and whistles, a good yarn is a good yarn. Reduce the story to its bare bones and somehow the book loses its appeal and sad to say, is actually lackluster.

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Back blurb of Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie: Born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, at the precise moment of India's independence, the infant Saleem Sinai is celebrated in the press and welcomed by Prime Minister Nehru himself. But this coincidence of birth has consequences Saleem is not prepared for: telepathic powers that connect him with 1,000 other 'midnight's children' - all born in the initial hour of India's independence - and an uncanny sense of smell that allows him to sniff out dangers others cannot perceive. Inextricably linked to his nation, Saleem's biography is a whirlwind of disasters and triumphs that mirrors the course of modern India at its most impossible and glorious.

My take

29 May 2007: Making headway! Already into Book 2 and Saleem Sinai is alive ... and his nose is growing. I've gotten through all the geneaological and historical information of Book 1, which was a little tiresome but very necessary to the story (as far as I can see). Wish me luck!

13 May 2007: I must admit that I thought I would breeze through this book, but I keep forgetting the characters' names (all these Indian names are confusing!), and I feel that the author deviates from a main storyline. But I am swimming through these and making headway, and have gotten to a point that I cannot not continue reading. The main character has been born!

Half fiction and non-fiction (or some would believe otherwise), a prophecy of the life of our lead character, Saleem Sinai, sums up how his life is inevitably entwined with the turbulent history of India.

"There will be two heads but you will see only one - there will be knees andnose - a nose and knees. ... Newspaper praises him, two mothers raise him! Bicyclists love him - but crowds will shove him! Sisters will weep, cobra will creep ...

Spittoons will brain him - doctors will drain him - jungle will claim him - wizards reclaim him! Soldiers will try him - tyrants will fry him ...

He will have sons without having sons. He will be old before he is old! And he will die ... before he is dead!"

***

Saleem narrates the events of his own life to his lover Padma, a first person account of his own life. While the title would lead us to believe that it is about the super powers of this elite group of midnight's children, the book bespeaks of a generation struggling to shape the world into a better place and at the same time, they becoming a product of the very environment they aim to change.

I'd been complaining about how it took me a while to get into it. In fact it took me two months to finish it (I carried it everywhere to force me to read in short bursts). For someone who can finish reading a novel in 3 days, this is excuciatingly long.In hindsight, I better appreciate the book knowing it is divided into three parts.

The first part is entirely dedicated to tracing the geneology of Saleem Sinai's family set in India's colonial past. The second part delves into the birth, childhood and early adulthood. The third paints Saleem as old (at 30+ years), after having lived a full yet difficult life.

The first part is very detailed and at times I lost interest, but it lays the groundwork for the entire book, hence a boring-ish necessity. At one point I was wondering when Saleem would be born ... I was a third into the book!

But throughout, you can't help but enjoy the vibrancy and trivialities of Indian life (magicians and seers and Indian customs) and the soap-opera-ish lives of the people (lovers allowed only to see each other through a sheet with a hole in the middle, or a husband being hidden in the cellar, infidelities, and their sex lives).

I also kept wondering about the midnight's children. There are fascinating depictions of their powers and how they might make a difference in a difficult world. But Saleem and his kind, particularly his "twin" midnight brother and nemesis play a prominent role in India's history and the plot, from start to finish.

I started the book skeptical that I would enjoy it. But after the initial difficulty, I enjoyed the writing style - engaging, witty and at times irreverent. Be forewarned that there are many Indian names and unfamiliar (to me) Indian terms, that I had a dictionary close by. This is also the first time I've encountered someone who just revels in compound-compound words like fasterfaster, compound-compound-compound sentences - in fact, one sentence that went on and on for a page and a half. But it works.

The arch of the story is flawless. Don't try to skip sections to get to the ending, it is the process of reading this (rather lengthy) biography that is the source of the enjoyment journey. It is a book with both the mundane and the profound, I came away not regretting reading it.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight's_Children

http://www.thecore.nus.edu.sg/post/pakistan/literature/rushdie/mcov.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salman_rushdie