Customer Reviews

Ashes of Immortality: Widow-Burning in India

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After reading Mala Sen's "Death By Fire" book which contained information of infanticide and widow burning India, I became entranced with widow burning that I wanted to know more-however, I picked the wrong book. "Ashes of Immortalilty" is a good book filled to the brim with history and knowledge of widow burning. However, to fully appreciate this book one needs to be familiar with the caste system of India, Hinduism, and a already knowledgable background of widow burning-for these reasons, I stopped reading the book.

I will also mention that I stopped reading this book because how the author wrote. I know this book was translated, but none the less, how the author wrote was just a nightmare. Her paragraphs were always congested with poorly written sentences, with words I never heard ,while she jumped from thought to thought. I had to reread paragraphs and even sentences to understand thier potential.

In Conclusion: this book is not for the faint of heart. If your a newbie like me in the widow burning interest, avoid this book and keep looking (thats what Im doing). For people who are familiar with the Indian culture and practices, you may find this book interesting. For those who want a second opinion, scroll back up and read the first Editorial Review done by Jay Bernstein-I wish had read his review before I bought this book :P