This novel had won "The Man Booker Prize" of the year 2008. It was with this reputation of the book that I decided to read it.
Bluntly speaking, the book began disappointing me in its half-way mark itself and finishing it proved to be a tough job.
The book tells the story of a boy from a village in Bihar and how he becomes a successful entrepreneur in Bangalore after fighting and rising from the social evils that still haunt any poor family in India.
The story shows various aspects of the protagonist Balram, his thoughts about his friends, colleagues, his masters and mistress and also his family members in detail. The book is a sarcastic comment on the social evils prevailing in the Indian society like ill-treatment of labourers and workers by their masters, corruption in the administration at village level, a huge gap between the worlds of the rich and poor Indians and the perils of being born in any backward village in India.
Although the story strikes a thought in the mind of the reader about the systems that have hollowed the foundations of our nation, it stretches each and every bit of the perspective of Balram towards these evils which, many times, frustrates the readers to shut the book for a breath of fresh air. Moreover, the book’s second-half is much slower than the first due to which the reader ends up keeping the book down now and then and think whether he/ she should proceed further.
Overall, the book may be read only by the people who want to have deep insights of the "poor-India" or having nothing good to read on a weekday(not on a week-end as it may get spoilt) or have a habit of reading books that have been awarded. AGAIN, THE QUESTION ARISES "WAS IT GOOD ENOUGH FOR A MAN BOOKER?"