I’ll scan this Kiran Desai piece from the point of view NOT of a peeved, ready-to-rip-apart critic – but that of an easy going common reader, who is just shoulder deep(and not neck deep) into serious novel-reading. So… get set GO!
Notwithstanding the fact that most of the people would pick up this book out of sheer respect for the darling Man Booker, [b]The Inheritance of Loss[b] is not a total mess(you’ll know what I mean if you’ve read The God of Small Things!). There are threatening, and failing, attempts to make out a story. But well, is it good enough for Rs. 350 at all? Yes, it is(but only Rs. 350, nothing more…heehaw). Its beauty lies in the fact that it radiates a myriad of colors, all distinct and all bright. This one could have easily gone totally haywire, but Ms Desai manages to seam a cord of familiarity throughout the book’s length and breath.
Story, Characters and the Etcetera*
Set against a legendry and inscrutable backdrop of North East India, with Mt Kanchenjunga overseeing all like mister big brother, the book explores a crumbling mansion of a retired judge who is suddenly ‘pelted’ with his orphaned granddaughter Sai. The judge’s cook, an archetype of the old and pitiful, is constantly lost in his son Biju’s thoughts, who is working in a café in the NYC. And then there are the etceteras: Gyan(Sai’s love interest), Lola and Noni(old-aged sisters living on their own set standards), lovable Uncle Potty and the foreigner Father Booty. Oh, and there is the Paris Hilton-isque kutti called Mutt: rich, dumb, loved and still very important to the plot!
And then there is the problem of insurgency that churns everything up and down. The gorkha gang wants self-government, and this hits hard the judge’s plans of retiring himself into the wilderness of Kalimpong.
The characterisation is so immense you almost end up feeling that three fourths of the book is just characterisation itself. Desai’s detailing is godly, and it lends a punch to the narration. It all boils down to a real sweet, feather- light, GREAT piece of work, though one knows that this book is working on many levels. It touches the heavy duty topics of the third and the first world with equal humor and equal horror.
From pre-independence days to the mid eighties and from NYC to the foothills of the Himalayas – the narration shifts time and space too easily to be taken seriously, never losing its touch and the ‘cord of familiarity’. Strangely enough for a Booker winner, this book attempts at having a start, a middle(with all its masalas) and a climax. But, of course, all this is done in a refreshingly new way. Good good.
Pros and Cons and the Blur
I would be failing the book and its review altogether if I attempt at ‘numbering’ out its pros and cons. It’s not [i]that[i] kind of a book. It is a world in its own, never telling you what sentiment to attach to which character. I think the most striking point is that ALL characters are imparted with a sense of pity. Almost all the pages are simultaneously happy, sad, humorous, light and dark(!).
It’s like a caravan moving towards the ultimate gloom, without anybody discerning or making an issue out of it. The deep seated melancholy within each of the characters is – ahem – disguised in a way to show more of it! Wow!
A sad zeal runs throughout the story, and through its unending parallel stories. It is in a way more meticulous than most of the books you’d expect to win a Booker. Boredom hardly creeps in, and the wit never dies. Plus, Ms Desai presents an engaging account of India in different times.
It may not become the best book you’ve ever read, simply because it isn’t written with that intention. I just can’t say – go get your thrills – because there aren’t any. The Sai-Gyan romance deliberately lacks the popcorn crisp. In short, it’s never going to be the typical novel.
Anyways, go for it if you’re in for something new. It won’t fail you, trust me.