This is a collection of short stories from the author of the Man Booker Prize winning "White Tiger". Welcome to Kittur, India. Of its 193,432 residents, only 89 declare themselves to be without religion or caste. And if the characters in "Between the Assassinations" are any indication, Kittur is an extraordinary crossroads of the brightest minds and the poorest morals, the up-and-coming and the downtrodden, and of an India that modern literature has rarely addressed...This recording is unabridged. Typically abridged audiobooks are not more than 60 per cent of the author's work and as low as 30 per cent with characters and plotlines removed.
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Between the Assassinations
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This short story collection, teeming with life in the small Indian city of Kittur between the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984 and that of her son Rajiv in 1991, serves as a prelude to Adiga's Booker Prize–winning The White Tiger. Loosely based on a tourist itinerary, the stories meander through the lives of a motley array of hoykas and Brahmins, Muslims and Christians. We meet Xerox, the peddler of illegally copied books who doesn't mind having been arrested 21 times, as this seems a step up from his father's work as an excrement shoveler. Then there is Jayamma: the eighth of nine daughters, she is sent out to work because her father had only enough money to marry off six daughters. Her only comfort is getting high on DDT fumes and rubbing the buttocks of a tiny idol of baby Krishna. Adiga's India is a place of wildly disparate fortunes, where a 500-rupee meal at the Oberoi Hotel in Bombay scandalizes a construction worker who marvels at the sight of a 20-rupee note. It's a gruesome picture of existence, and the small epiphanies hit like bricks from heaven. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Inspired by Balzac's La Comedie Humaine, Adiga intended to write a portrait of Indian life; as such, place and theme, rather than characters, tie together these 14 stories. Each starts with a travel vignette -- a daylong walk around a different section of Kittur -- that introduces the town. But, as he did in The White Tiger, Adiga soon delves deeper to focus on class and caste inequalities and characters "paralyzed by their powerlessness" (Newsweek). His meticulous descriptions of men, women, and children from all walks of life offer insight into modern India, one where few such as these experience redemption. Some reviewers commented on the unevenness of the stories and the lack of overall plot, but all agreed on Adiga's important role as "a sensitive chronicler of modern India" (Telegraph).
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More About the Author
Aravind Adiga was born in India in 1974 and attended Columbia and Oxford universities. A former correspondent for Time magazine, he has also been published in the Financial Times. He lives in Mumbai, India.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I'll be the fool that treads where the critic-angels may fear to go: with Aravind Adiga's White Tiger debut, and his Between the Assassinations encore, we are being invited to witness the birth of a literary superstar. My argument is a brief one: White Tiger (which I loved) won the 2008 Man Booker Prize; Between the Assassinations is deeper, richer, even better.
What makes Between the Assassinations superior literature as well as an absorbingly pleasurable (superior and pleasurable are NOT necessarily synonymous!) read? Several qualities, starting with Adiga's ability to describe his homeland of India with the eye of an eagle, and the heart of a lover. In vivid, accessible, witty, fast-moving prose, the author describes life in an Indian city with a vision that is clear, but not jaundiced, realistic but not morose.
Between the Assassinations is a collection of fourteen stories that describe one week in the life of Kittur, a city with enough diversity of culture, language, and religion to give Adiga an ample backdrop for stories about inter-faith tension, caste, corruption, gentility, quiet heroism, lost love, environmental devastation, the struggle (and, at times, the smoldering rage) of the abysmally poor, and spectacular irony. The stories are strung like glittering stones on a necklace: each tale distinct, the strong thread of human life in Kittur connecting all. One story involves a Muslim child, ejected from his rural family to fend for himself during the dry season. On his arrival in Kittur, looking for employment, he states "I'm a Muslim, sir, we don't do hanky-panky." How does this creed play out in the face of sleeping on the street and flirting with outright starvation? The ending surprised me. Another story involves a banker in a charming and childless marriage who repeatedly turns down promotions to Bombay in order to, in part, take pleasure in a secret spot in Kittur's last remaining forest, Bajpe. The protagonist, Giridhar Rao's house is on the edge of Bajpe, and Adiga writes that relatives and residents of the neighborhood "were usually up on their terraces or balconies, enjoying the cool breezes that blew from the forest in the evening. Guests and hosts together watched as herons, eagles, and kingfishers flew in and out of the darkening mass of trees, like ideas circulating around an immense brain. The sun, when it plunged behind the forest, burned orange and ocher through the interstices of the foliage, as if peering out of the trees and the observers had the distinct impression that they were being observed in return." A third story involves a bright, rich, but low caste student at St. Alfonso High School detonating a bomb in class. Struggling with the rough draft of his note to the authorities, he writes "I have burst a bomb to end the five-thousand-year-old caste system that still operates in our country". The effects of the bomb are more comical than lethal (the chemistry teacher, struggling with his congenital inability to use the letter F, shouts red-faced "Puckers! You Puckers"), with the caste system emerging as deadlier than the incident itself.
One challenge issued to Adiga: Your male characters are often exquisitely wrought, your female characters.....are less so.
Is this book for everyone? Nope. It's not India Lite. When Adiga's eye sweeps the physical and human landscape of his country it is as unblinking as a video surveillance camera. The images are as beautiful as nature itself, and occasionally as stark as a bruised child or as revolting as a stream of human waste. India is the world's largest democracy, and an emerging economic superpower, almost reason enough to read these wonderful stories about our half-a-world-away neigbhor. In the end, many readers may be haunted knowing that the relevance of these stories does not know geographical, ethnic, or economic boundaries.
A characteristic I look for in a five star piece of work is the "lingering image test". A week after laying Between the Assassinations down, the herons and eagles of Bajpe mingle in my mind with Kittur's homeless having to pay money to Brother to secure a spot of dirt that they can sleep on at night. Test passed.
What makes Between the Assassinations superior literature as well as an absorbingly pleasurable (superior and pleasurable are NOT necessarily synonymous!) read? Several qualities, starting with Adiga's ability to describe his homeland of India with the eye of an eagle, and the heart of a lover. In vivid, accessible, witty, fast-moving prose, the author describes life in an Indian city with a vision that is clear, but not jaundiced, realistic but not morose.
Between the Assassinations is a collection of fourteen stories that describe one week in the life of Kittur, a city with enough diversity of culture, language, and religion to give Adiga an ample backdrop for stories about inter-faith tension, caste, corruption, gentility, quiet heroism, lost love, environmental devastation, the struggle (and, at times, the smoldering rage) of the abysmally poor, and spectacular irony. The stories are strung like glittering stones on a necklace: each tale distinct, the strong thread of human life in Kittur connecting all. One story involves a Muslim child, ejected from his rural family to fend for himself during the dry season. On his arrival in Kittur, looking for employment, he states "I'm a Muslim, sir, we don't do hanky-panky." How does this creed play out in the face of sleeping on the street and flirting with outright starvation? The ending surprised me. Another story involves a banker in a charming and childless marriage who repeatedly turns down promotions to Bombay in order to, in part, take pleasure in a secret spot in Kittur's last remaining forest, Bajpe. The protagonist, Giridhar Rao's house is on the edge of Bajpe, and Adiga writes that relatives and residents of the neighborhood "were usually up on their terraces or balconies, enjoying the cool breezes that blew from the forest in the evening. Guests and hosts together watched as herons, eagles, and kingfishers flew in and out of the darkening mass of trees, like ideas circulating around an immense brain. The sun, when it plunged behind the forest, burned orange and ocher through the interstices of the foliage, as if peering out of the trees and the observers had the distinct impression that they were being observed in return." A third story involves a bright, rich, but low caste student at St. Alfonso High School detonating a bomb in class. Struggling with the rough draft of his note to the authorities, he writes "I have burst a bomb to end the five-thousand-year-old caste system that still operates in our country". The effects of the bomb are more comical than lethal (the chemistry teacher, struggling with his congenital inability to use the letter F, shouts red-faced "Puckers! You Puckers"), with the caste system emerging as deadlier than the incident itself.
One challenge issued to Adiga: Your male characters are often exquisitely wrought, your female characters.....are less so.
Is this book for everyone? Nope. It's not India Lite. When Adiga's eye sweeps the physical and human landscape of his country it is as unblinking as a video surveillance camera. The images are as beautiful as nature itself, and occasionally as stark as a bruised child or as revolting as a stream of human waste. India is the world's largest democracy, and an emerging economic superpower, almost reason enough to read these wonderful stories about our half-a-world-away neigbhor. In the end, many readers may be haunted knowing that the relevance of these stories does not know geographical, ethnic, or economic boundaries.
A characteristic I look for in a five star piece of work is the "lingering image test". A week after laying Between the Assassinations down, the herons and eagles of Bajpe mingle in my mind with Kittur's homeless having to pay money to Brother to secure a spot of dirt that they can sleep on at night. Test passed.
22 of 26 people found the following review helpful
By M&M
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I should start by saying that I have not read Adiga's first book, "The White Tiger", so I can't make any comparisons. "Between the Assassinations" is a collection interrelated vignettes with the common element that they are all about people who live in the small town of Kittur. Chapters begin with a brief guidebook-like description of a landmark or area of the town. What follows each of these is a story about the struggles of the people who live there as they deal with issues of religion, caste, poverty and corruption. It's as if the author has said "Now let me tell you the real story behind the pleasant guidebook description."
One story is about a man who owns a shirt factory. He is in despair about the bribes he is required to pay to a multitude of city officials in order to keep the factory open. At the same time he wonders if he should keep it running because the intricate sewing the women do is making them go blind. In this story, one of the characters says, "When it comes to three things - black marketing, counterfeiting and corruption, we are world champions. If they were included in the Olympic Games, India would always win gold, silver and bronze in those three."
While I found most of the stories profoundly sad, I would recommend this book if you want a glimpse of the real India. It is a country of such contradictions -- beauty and ugliness, amazing progress and ancient ingrained prejudices. Adiga has the talent of telling his characters' stories with compassion while never passing judgement on them.
One story is about a man who owns a shirt factory. He is in despair about the bribes he is required to pay to a multitude of city officials in order to keep the factory open. At the same time he wonders if he should keep it running because the intricate sewing the women do is making them go blind. In this story, one of the characters says, "When it comes to three things - black marketing, counterfeiting and corruption, we are world champions. If they were included in the Olympic Games, India would always win gold, silver and bronze in those three."
While I found most of the stories profoundly sad, I would recommend this book if you want a glimpse of the real India. It is a country of such contradictions -- beauty and ugliness, amazing progress and ancient ingrained prejudices. Adiga has the talent of telling his characters' stories with compassion while never passing judgement on them.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
A short collection of somewhat interrelated short stories set in a supposedly fictional city (closely based on Mangalore?) in the Karnataka state of India that never fails to be interesting, but feels as if it falls just short of enlightening.
A few of the short stories stand out as ambiguous and haunting: the story of a young Muslim boy who finds a job watching trains, the story of a privileged young man who toys with a little harmless nihilistic violence, and the story of the lesser half of an extremely small radical Communist party who is forced to confront the end of Communism and by extension what his life has meant. They're the sort of short stories that burrow into your mind and pop unbidden into your mind for years to come. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of all of them.
What's funny is that I can't think of any stories that I disliked. From the little girl, sweetly dedicated to her undeserving father and quite wicked and foul-mouthed to others, to the newspaper reporter who finds quite another world than the one he had been writing about, to the day-laborers who are mercilessly betrayed by fate, the characters do feel realistic and worth knowing. Many of the stories do not depict epiphanies or moments of action, though - quite a few do seem to describe an average day or week in the life of the characters.
I quite liked Adiga's writing, which is unsentimental and very direct, though not simple or minimalist. The closely-observed personal interactions are of particularly high quality. His penchant for black humor and picturesque turns of phrase makes for very entertaining reading in short spurts despite the dark and embittering subject matter. With extended reading, though, the sordidness and negativity tend to pile up and run together, leaving the reader emotionally exhausted and a bit queasy.
One weakness of the book is that the short stories do not seem to tie into one another meaningfully, thematically or in terms of plot. At the end, you do not feel as though a thread of plot has tied all the stories together. There's nothing wrong with that itself, but Adiga starts in that direction early in the book by having important characters reappear between stories. That it is suggested then abandoned feels sloppy. Though the travel guide excerpts (and the way the stories subvert them) help connect the stories, I just thought it could have been a little more cohesive. Perhaps more will fall into place with re-reading.
I'm skeptical that the book conveys the "true" India, or even the "real" Karnataka. From what I hear from Indian friends (mostly from the bordering but very different state of Tamil Nadu), corruption really is as widespread and poverty as much of a scourge as is depicted here. Nevertheless, I don't think that's any more real than the brighter side: of improvements in literacy, education, and the average standard of living through those years.
(It's worth noting that several of my criticisms above are discussed and addressed by the author - not through flashy fourth-wall-breaking, but very naturally in the course of the stories.)
This isn't a sociological text or a political tract, though, but a work of literature. It is interesting, worthwhile reading - not a great book, but truly a good book.
A few of the short stories stand out as ambiguous and haunting: the story of a young Muslim boy who finds a job watching trains, the story of a privileged young man who toys with a little harmless nihilistic violence, and the story of the lesser half of an extremely small radical Communist party who is forced to confront the end of Communism and by extension what his life has meant. They're the sort of short stories that burrow into your mind and pop unbidden into your mind for years to come. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of all of them.
What's funny is that I can't think of any stories that I disliked. From the little girl, sweetly dedicated to her undeserving father and quite wicked and foul-mouthed to others, to the newspaper reporter who finds quite another world than the one he had been writing about, to the day-laborers who are mercilessly betrayed by fate, the characters do feel realistic and worth knowing. Many of the stories do not depict epiphanies or moments of action, though - quite a few do seem to describe an average day or week in the life of the characters.
I quite liked Adiga's writing, which is unsentimental and very direct, though not simple or minimalist. The closely-observed personal interactions are of particularly high quality. His penchant for black humor and picturesque turns of phrase makes for very entertaining reading in short spurts despite the dark and embittering subject matter. With extended reading, though, the sordidness and negativity tend to pile up and run together, leaving the reader emotionally exhausted and a bit queasy.
One weakness of the book is that the short stories do not seem to tie into one another meaningfully, thematically or in terms of plot. At the end, you do not feel as though a thread of plot has tied all the stories together. There's nothing wrong with that itself, but Adiga starts in that direction early in the book by having important characters reappear between stories. That it is suggested then abandoned feels sloppy. Though the travel guide excerpts (and the way the stories subvert them) help connect the stories, I just thought it could have been a little more cohesive. Perhaps more will fall into place with re-reading.
I'm skeptical that the book conveys the "true" India, or even the "real" Karnataka. From what I hear from Indian friends (mostly from the bordering but very different state of Tamil Nadu), corruption really is as widespread and poverty as much of a scourge as is depicted here. Nevertheless, I don't think that's any more real than the brighter side: of improvements in literacy, education, and the average standard of living through those years.
(It's worth noting that several of my criticisms above are discussed and addressed by the author - not through flashy fourth-wall-breaking, but very naturally in the course of the stories.)
This isn't a sociological text or a political tract, though, but a work of literature. It is interesting, worthwhile reading - not a great book, but truly a good book.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Words with flavor
One can almost smell the streets of the village, the aroma of emotion and thoughts that Mr Adiga portrays of the characters in this well written collage of life. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Ajay Bhatia
3.0 out of 5 stars
Vignettes from the sub continent
OHHH! India!
Like watching a train wreck!
I seem to have a fascination with the sub-continent.
What a complex, chaotic, yukky place! Read more
Like watching a train wreck!
I seem to have a fascination with the sub-continent.
What a complex, chaotic, yukky place! Read more
Published 8 months ago by Bibliophage
3.0 out of 5 stars
disappointing after The White Tiger
Every now and then we see the unfortunate phenomenon of a first-time novelist winning wide acclaim, then following it up with a disappointing lesser novel or a collection of... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Paul A. Mastin
3.0 out of 5 stars
Bleak, loud and pedestrian
I picked this up because I found Adiga's debut (Booker prize winning) novel, The White Tiger, a fascinating read. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Anush Moorthy
4.0 out of 5 stars
Intriguing form
Aravind Adiga's White Tiger won the Booker Prize and was notable for its intriguing form. I thought it would be a hard act to follow. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Philip Spires
4.0 out of 5 stars
Short stories with an emotional connection
Let's get this straight. Aravind Adiga is really good at narration. I read this book after I have read The White Tiger and Last man in tower, and in each of his books, he knows... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Praveen Krishnan
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointed after White Tiger.
I had loved Adiga's White Tiger. What happened here? There seemed to be no story-end for most of the collection, just fairly well-written vignettes that left me feeling frustrated,... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Van
5.0 out of 5 stars
Only wish some of the stories went on longer
If you read The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, as I did, then you won't be disappointed in this collection of short stories. Read more
Published on April 30, 2011 by jessbcuz
3.0 out of 5 stars
ok
I so loved White Tiger that I was thrilled to discover Between the Assassinations.
This book is effectively a collection of short stories told from the perspective of... Read more
This book is effectively a collection of short stories told from the perspective of... Read more
Published on April 18, 2011 by Julie Barnard
3.0 out of 5 stars
Read this before living in India for a year, you'll understand it at...
Such a wicked writer. About a town with secrets and bubbling urges that it strains to handle. Adiga has the same crackling energy as in White Tiger but since this is mainly a... Read more
Published on April 2, 2011 by Michelle Mount
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