Customer Reviews

The Age of Shiva: A Novel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The Partition, Indian Independence and war with Pakistan serve as a dramatic background for this tale of happily-ever-after turned bitter disappointment as Meera finds herself wed to Dev, a young man infatuated with her older sister, Roopa. Thanks to her naive miscalculations, the new bride leaves a comfortable home with a domineering father and religiously devout mother for the humble quarters of her in-laws. Not only is Dev as immature as he is handsome, but his older married brother casts covetous eyes on the newest member of the household. Raised in a male-dominated society, an unfair tug-of-war between a conditionally generous father and young husband who desires a singing career, Meera succumbs to pressure, making a fateful decision that alters her life and poisons her marriage, deeply unhappy until the birth of her son, Ashvin.

In a society with clearly proscribed roles, Meera is torn between the secular demands of a domineering father and religiously rigid in-laws, her husband clinging to a past that fails to translate into a viable future. But it is the evolving relationship with the innocent child that colors Meera's days, petty jealousies and a yearning for unconditional love long denied, the family's struggle played out in Bombay, isolated in their tiny flat where Dev faces the loss of his dreams and war with Pakistan shatters the city. Yet there is more destruction inside the home than in a country writhing in revolution, from Nehru to Indira Ghandi; Meera's painful tread along the edge of motherhood leads to a nearly tragic denouement: "For once I would matter most in someone's life".

While the political landscape of India is changing, Meera undergoes her own revolution, thanks to the birth of her son. Mirroring her country's, it is this private journey that Suri so beautifully captures. Not content with the ready complications of married life, the author takes Meera's plight one step further, unhappy days with Dev in Bombay and a sacrifice that returns to haunt the marriage relieved only by the joyful child that stands between his beleaguered parents. Through domestic disharmony and war, Meera charts a difficult path through motherhood, seeking a balance that eludes her. The son who saves Meera from despair offers her the most difficult challenges: Meera's dearth of affection from elsewhere presents unique problems that loom larger as the boy grows from childhood to adolescence. That her desperation leads this mother to shameful manipulation is the sad result of an unfulfilling marriage, natural affection twisted by crippling fear.

Rather than be constricted by the predictable struggles of his female protagonist in a repressive society, Suri takes Meera to darker places, her emotional maturity crippled by a cruelly controlling father and a weak husband, Ashvin the repository of her dreams. Meera tormented by conflicting desires, Ashvin becomes the object, the measure of her worth, a disturbing element that adds another layer to the brilliant depiction of a woman trapped between her need for love and the independence of the son who inhabits her every waking moment. This delicate balance tips more than once into dangerous territory, a precipice where Meera hovers, buffeted by warring emotions and a suddenly unbearable future, facing the most pivotal decision of her life. Luan Gaines/2008.

I was very excited to see a new novel by Manil Suri, since I was completely taken by his first novel, "Death of Vishnu." The novel is completely focused on the female protagonist, Meera... including every nuance of her thoughts and feelings. And although individual sections are well-written (when Suri writes about food cooking, you can almost smell the chapattis... ), the book moves very slowly. And most striking for me.... I found her completely inappropriate relationship with her son... well, creepy.

"Death of Vishnu" was an extraordinary novel. To me, "Age of Shiva" is just another Indian novel which leaves the reader feeling sad and sorry for most if not all of the characters.

I've been anxiously awaiting the publication of "The Age of Shiva" by Manil Suri, because I was a huge fan of "The Death of Vishnu", his first novel. And while it's interesting and well paced, I had a hard time sympathizing with any of the characters, particularly the narrator/protagonist, Meera. From the beginning she continually makes horrifically self-destructive choices in her life. Every single time. Early on she is coerced into a tragic choice and then spends years blaming others for that decision that was ultimately hers to make.

Throughout her life Meera tries to take a stand for strength and reason in her life, only to capitulate every time to her husband, father, brother-in-law, or son. Frustratingly she by-passes every opportunity to say "no" and then finds herself in a mess and whines about being "powerless". Her motivations for making the stupid choices again and again just aren't made clear. Ironically, in the end it's her inability to make a resolve and then follow through with a plan that saves her life.

Despite my consternation I realize that Meera is likely to be an allegory for the country India herself. (Similar to Rushdie's "Midnight's Children") I am not educated enough on Indian history and politics to agree or disagree with the comparison. I will leave that to savvier critics. But reading about India, the culture, the religious identities, the Partition and the Emergency was very interesting and informative.

In addition to frustration with Meera's passivity, there is the entirely inappropriate relationship with her son. If you cringe in the beginning reading her sexually-charged descriptions of breastfeeding, well, that's only a foreshadowing, so be warned.

And still, it held my interest to the end, so I'm giving it 3 stars.

In the age of Shiva, Manil Suri tells the story of several Indian families as seen through the eyes of his narrator, Meera, a widowed middle aged woman looking back on her life after her son has left home. Providing the background for this tale are the stories of creation and destruction which characterize much Indian religious thought and periodic references to historic events of the past fifty years.

This scheme gives the reader many interesting contradictions to contemplate. For example, the many descriptions of women being limited to traditional roles contrast with the descriptions of Indira Gandhi's control over the country. The liberal political notions of Meera's father contrast with his actual treatment of his daughters and wife. Meera's all consuming love for her son typifies the virtues of a mother's love and is also deeply sick. The stories of Hindu deities contrast with the plots of the old movies adored by Meera.

With so many references to religion, history, and Indian popular culture and having been written by a mathematician, one is sure that these references must be purposeful and that there is an underlying structure that, if understood, would illuminate the book's symbolism.

Unfortunately, however, I, at least, failed to discover that underlying structure. Although the many references and allusions lead you to look for greater meaning; in the end, this appears to be a book that is only about Meera's own perceptions of her world. Perhaps this is the ultimate contradiction that the book is intended to illuminate: that although our lives appear to acquire meaning out of history, religion, politics, and culture, in the end our lives are lived on very small stages where all that matters are the relationships that we have with a few relatives and friends and our own thoughts.

There's no question that Suri can write well and manage characters, but this book just didn't give me enough to make me warm to it. Most of Meera's narrative revolves around her love for her son. Understandable given the paucity of Meera's life, but since I found neither Meera nor her son particularly interesting, the effect was stultifying -- like being trapped with one of those women determined to take you through every groaning second of her labor and delivery, whether you are interested or not. I found almost all the other characters more interesting, especially Meera's sister-in-law Sandhiya and her neighbor Zaida. The author does spin up small subplots, but all end anticlimactically. I finished the novel, but somewhere around page 300 began skimming the paragraphs that read to the effect of "That was the day the school bus became stuck in a flooded road and I carried you. I remember how your boots, the yellow ones, filled with water and you clung to my neck, your little wet hands with their perfect fingers grasping at strands of my hair . . . " I was glad to see that many readers posting here praised the author's earlier book, so I'll give that one a try.

Alas, though I had very much looked forward to this guy's second effort, I have to say that it read like undigested research for a novel that would one day be called The Age of Shiva.
Forced, unnatural. He had a commitment to do the book for the publisher. But without the immediacy and character and fluidity of the first, it fails and disappoints a predisposed reader.

I truly loved the author's first book, the Death of Visnu. I was so let down by this one, after looking forward to reading it so much. It was depressing, a little creepy, and I became ever so tired of the main character. This is a gifted author. I hope he writes another book, this time expanding the context to other personalities, as he did in his first book.

Hindu mythology, like that of most Christian faiths, is built around a trinity of god-figures. Brahma is the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. Together, they form a perfect cycle of birth, life, and death, but only to set the stage for rebirth and another cycle. Shiva is thus not only a destroyer but also the deity who makes rebirth (read: transformation) possible.

Manil Suri's second novel, THE AGE OF SHIVA, borrows heavily and often by specific reference to the representational meanings of both Shiva and Vishnu. In doing so, he tells two parallel stories running from January 1955 into the early 1980s -- that of his main character, Meera Sawhney in the foreground, and that of the emergence of modern India as an independent nation-state in the background.

Meera's story begins on the eve of India's fifth anniversary as an independent nation when her outgoing sister Roopa drags her socially immature little sister to a Republic Day collegiate singing contest to watch Roopa's boyfriend Dev Arora compete. Thus begins Meera's journey into and through adult womanhood. Meera and Dev fall for each other, much to Roopa's eternal dismay, and they eventually marry. Meera's father, identified throughout as Paji, accepts the marriage but encourages his daughter, as he always has, to finish her education and remain an independent woman. An unplanned pregnancy occurs while Dev struggles to break into the music business and establish his performing career. A son, Ashvin, is born, and Meera assumes the roles and responsibilities of motherhood by bonding with her growing son in ways that are positively Oedipal. In the meantime, there are endless family squabbles, parental illnesses and deaths, bouts of drunkenness and despair, a sexual assault on Meera from within the Arora family, and political conversions that ultimately include Ashvin. By novel's end, Meera faces the inevitable empty nest alone, with only a neighborhood friend to cajole her into her true calling.

Almost Tolstoyan in its rich array of characters, THE AGE OF SHIVA portrays the complexities and interrelationships of Indian family life, particularly as seen from the woman's viewpoint. Manil Suri tells his story through Meera's eyes, and the arc of her life parallels that of her country's most famous female, Indira Gandhi. As the book nears its conclusion with Meera contemplating suicide at Mumbai's famous Chowpatty Beach, she is watched over by huge portraits of Ms. Gandhi have been set up for a political rally at which the country's leader had apparently just spoken (although, of course, we all know from history that Ms. Gandhi will soon be dead by assassination at the hands of two of her own security guards).

To some degree, THE AGE OF SHIVA could be seen as something of a novelistic feminist manifesto for India's female population. Paji's constant urgings to his daughter to develop herself to her fullest, to go against the accepted cultural mores reinforce this view, as do the sudden politicization of Meera's mother Biji and the open-minded neighbor Zaida. The men of Meera's generation do not fare well in Suri's hands, either, especially Meera's husband Dev and his brother-in-law Arya. Even the book's title is indicative - THE AGE OF SHIVA, not THE AGE OF VISHNU. This isn't a book about preserving, it is a book about destruction of old ways and transformation of its lead female character into a new life. The author incorporates multiple references to the stories of Shiva and Vishnu throughout the book, many through the myth tales told to young Ashvin by his parents. Even Ashvin's name, a near acronym for both Shiva and Vishnu, constantly reminds the reader of both Indian gods. In the final analysis, it is indeed Ashvin as Shiva whose departure to boarding school leads his mother to her own transformation and rebirth, much as India today is experiencing its own industrial and technological rebirth in the post-Gandhi era.

While Suri's second book does not quite reach the stratospheric level of his extraordinary first book, THE DEATH OF VISHNU, THE AGE OF SHIVA is nevertheless a compelling tale of Indian culture and family life as well as a neatly-structured allegory of modern India's own rebirth and emergence on the world stage.

I enjoyed reading this book from begining to end. I found it hard to put down , and although some of it was predictable it was still worth the read.The detailed description of Indian Mythology was wonderful. I appreciated all the charcaters in the book who had their own unique flavor. I would recommend this read.

Manil Suri is a greater writer. His ability to give interesting description and dialogue is apparent, however, I expected a lot after reading The Death of Vishnu several years ago. The Age of Shiva is a horrible story. I struggled to make myself finish it in a month, whereas I couldn't put The Death of Vishnu down. In short the storyline was bland, repetitive in nature, and made me feel as if it would never end. I would not recommend purchasing this book.