Customer Reviews

Family Matters

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As Mistry makes clear in this novel, the "one important story [is] of youth, and loss, and yearning for redemption...Just the details are different." With these themes as the bedrock of his story, he depicts the world of a multigenerational Parsi family in Bombay, their world changed forever when Nariman Vakeel, a 79-year-old former professor and sufferer from Parkinson's disease, falls and breaks his leg, effectively ending any possibility of an independent life. His stepchildren, Coomy and Jal, quickly dump Nariman in the two-room apartment of their younger half-sister, Roxana Chenoy, her husband Yezad, and two sons, supposedly for only three weeks, while his leg heals. Beset with financial problems, lack of space, and resentment of Coomy and Jal, who remain in their father's 7-room apartment, the family does its best, but tensions rise and slowly erode their relationships, precipitating intense personal crises for each family member.

Concentrating more on the world writ small than on the broader, more expansive views of A Fine Balance, Mistry creates a number of vibrant and fully drawn characters. Nariman Vakeel, recalling his dreams and disappointments, his 11-year love for Lucy Braganza, and his disastrous arranged marriage, is touching in his neediness and in his apologetic helplessness. His grandchildren delight in his stories and seek ways to help out; Roxana makes do in every way possible, tending to Nariman's most personal needs; and Yezad, frustrated by the lack of financial support from Coomy and Jal and a job in which he is underpaid, feels jealous of the old man's claims on Roxana. Mistry's dialogue, the subtle and not-so-subtle undercurrents it reflects, the often humorous interactions, the honest but naïve motivations of some of the characters, and the meticulously depicted and subtle decline of the family are the work of a master.

The one jarring note for me was the use of Shiv Sena, a fanatic political/religious group, as a motif thoughout the novel, their threats, extortion, violence, and fundamentalist rhetoric intruding periodically (and often dramatically) on the lives of the characters. While this obviously broadens the scope of the novel and offers a context in which to evaluate Coomy's religiosity, the fears of small businessmen like Yezad and his boss, and Yezad's eventual conflicts with one of his sons, it felt contrived to me, too strong and too obvious in what is otherwise a novel of more subtle interactions. Mary Whipple

Mistry's latest novel, Family Matters, is a flawless gem and is a worthy successor to his equally impressive A Fine Balance. At the heart of Family Matters is the aging Nariman Vakeel who is in rapidly deteroriating health due to Parkinson's. Nariman is haunted by dreams of his ex-girlfriend, Lucy Braganza, a girl his parents forced him to renounce. He is cared for by his children Coomy and Jal. Coomy is a cranky woman with "too much anger" within her to care for her father well. When Nariman slips and hurts himself seriously on a walk, Coomy and Jal transfer custody of their bedridden father to their half-sister, Roxana Chenoy. Roxana's is a happy family with a doting husband, Yezad, and two wonderful sons, Murad and Jehangir. The arrival of Nariman in an already cramped apartment, though, puts enormous financial and emotional burdens on the family. As Nariman puts it, "People have their own lives, it's not helpful when something disturbs those lives." Family Matters portrays the daily play of emotions with remarkable acuity.

Mistry paints all of his characters very realistically with real strengths and failings. Roxana cares for her aging father with amazing grace. Yezad, who once dreamt of emigrating to Canada, tries valiantly to keep the cheer. And who wouldn't want to have Murad and Jehangir, two of the most amazing kids, as their own! There are many side players in the story-Daisy, who lives downstairs in Pleasant Villa, and who regales Nariman quite often with her violin. Also portrayed well is Mr. Vikram Kapur, Yezad's boss at Bombay Sporting Goods Emporium.

Mistry's love for his old city, Bombay, shines through loud and clear in the words of Mr. Kapur: "Bombay endures because it gives and it receives. Within this warp and weft is woven the special texture of its social fabric, the spirit of tolerance, acceptance, generosity. Anywhere else in the world, in those so-called civilized places like England and America, such terrible conditions would lead to revolution."

These words of high praise for Bombay, however, come with a warning against the radical political party, Shiv Sena, trying to gain control of the dynamic city. As with Fine Balance, Mistry uses his platform to make a couple of political statements-a frequent rant against the Shiv Sena and another subtle one against the pro-lifers in America, the "empty talkers" who prevent research into Parkinson's.

Mistry warns against fatalism: "In a culture where destiny is embraced as the paramount force, we are all puppets." Despite that, his primary characters often accept fate as the only graceful alternative. Family Matters ends without strong closure and that is just as well. For we have learnt along the way that even in a culture riddled with fatalists, the common man holds his head up high and always emerges from battle, relatively unscathed.

At one point in the narrative, Yezad and his boss peer into a mirror and Mr.Kapur asks, "See that? The faces of ordinary family men, not heroes." I respectfully beg to differ.

Within Bombay's Towers of Silence, the Parsis expose their dead to hungry vultures-a practice as environmentally friendly as it is macabre. Ethnic Persians who had migrated to India, the Parsis have traditionally led Bombay's commercial class. And though they have become an endangered species due to stagnating birth rates and miscegenation, their Zoroastrianism has largely removed them from the constant squabbling of Bombay's Hindus and Muslims, which a decade ago erupted into carnage and fire.

Behind the riots was the Shiv Sena, a Hindu supremacist band of thugs, whose agenda includes abolishing Valentine's Day, razing mosques and, according to writer Rohinton Mistry, "subjecting innocent letters and postcards to incineration if the address reads Bombay instead of Mumbai." Such is the cultural and political backdrop of this exciting new novel by Mistry.

Any novel set in Bombay must be as vast as the city. Mistry's knowledge of its customs, locales and languages is encyclopedic, his cast of characters panoramic, and his portrayal of Indian attitudes spot on. Indians perceive the use of toilet paper as unhygienic; they often converse in trite proverbs, and their attitude toward the West is decidedly conflicted. So is their attitude toward India, a great country and a "hopeless" one. Indians writing in English are producing some of today's most inspiring and original fiction, and I strongly recommend this one.

This is the first great novel of the 21st Century that I've read. I think FAMILY MATTERS is a masterpiece. I don't use that term often. But this is the real McCoy. The quality of the writing is up there with Tolstoy and Victor Hugo. There is no "magic realism" here. Everything that happens comes out of character and obeys the Law of Cause and Effect. Nothing is arbitrary. This is a novel of karma. Others have summarized the plot. What they don't tell you is how moving this book is. There were several times in the book I found tears streaming down my face. My tears were never for the big moments in the book, but for the small deeds of love among family members: a father for his sons, a boy for his brother, a woman for her father, a small boy for his grandfather. Dickens was really good at writing mean people. So is Mistry, but unlike Dickens, his mean people have a human side, too. You can understand why they are mean and what has made them that way. His good people can be petty and unreasonable at times, too. I ended up loving them all. With his fellow Indians, Mistry shares a kaleidoscopic power of description, but he's also got a strong sense of structure. Whereas all the other Indian books I have read fell apart around ¾ of the way through (GOD OF SMALL THINGS, MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN, RED EARTH AND POURING RAIN, etc.), FAMILY MATTERS is solidly and logically constructed from beginning to end, making it a work of art. This is a great book by a great writer. I want to read everything Mistry writes. Five stars.

One of the characters mentions having read a book about events in India which was "full of horrors, real as life. But also full of life and the laughter and dignity of ordinary people". That is not a bad summation of what Mistry attempts to achieve in his novels and achieves once again in "Family Matters". The problem is that Mistry is not as talented at portraying family life as he is in writing about characters struggling with the challenges of a poor, corrupt society. He has a good theme for the family story part of the novel, centered around the burdens of caring for an impoverished, helpless father, but Mistry does not pull it off that well. For me, the best character in Family Matters was Yezad, and he was of least interest when relating to his family. Only with the younger grandson does Mistry make the family story really come alive. If you have read "A Fine Balance", I would not discourage you from reading "Family Matters", although Mistry's first novel, "Such a Long Journey", might be a better choice.

I was initially attracted to Rohinton Mistry's fine novel "Family Matters" (2002) because its central characters are adherents of the Zoroastrian (Parsee) religion living in Bombay. Zoroastrianism and its practitioners are rarely treated in fiction. The religion is ancient, one of the world's first monotheistic faiths, and small with a dwindling number of adherents. As emphasized in Mistry's novel, Zoroastrianim is threatened by assimilation and intermarriage, and there are currently factions between the more traditional and the more reformist elements of the faith. In reading Mistry's book, I was reminded of a nonscholarly but still good introduction to Zoroastrianism that I read some time ago, Paul Kriwaczek's "In Search of Zarathurstra: Across Iran and Central Asia to find the World's First Prophet". This book is available in paperback, and I recommend it to readers of this novel who may wish to explore Zoroastrianism. It more than merits studying.

With that said, Mistry's novel is less about Zoroastrianism per se than about common and intimate human concerns that, in this book, arise in a Parsee family in Bombay but, with allowances for place and culture, could arise frequently elsewhere. I was struck with the painful and in part intractable themes in this book. The story deals with questions of religious intermarriage, problems arising in a "blended" family between parents, steparents, children, and stepchildren, the difficulties of caring for an aged and ailing parent, and questions of guilt and change that can result in a family member as a result of dealing with these dilemmas.

The central character of the book is Nariman Vakeel, a retired professor of English, 79 years old at the outset of the story and suffering from Parkinson's disease. In middle-age, Nariman fell in love with a non-Parsee woman, Lucy, but reluctantly gave her up based upon objections from his family. He married instead a widow whom he did not love, Yasmin, with two children, a daughter, Coomy and a son, Jal. Nariman has never lost his feelings for Lucy who haunts and follows him incessantly during the early years of his marriage to Yasmin.

At the outset of the book Coomy and Jal, unmarried, live with each other and their stepfather. Nariman and Yasmin have their own daughter, Roxanna, who is married to Yezad with two young boys, Jehangir and Murad. They live in a small flat Nariman has purchased for them with his retirement savings.

When Nariman breaks his ankle and become bedridden, Coomy and Jal resent having to care for him -- particularly for the need of tending to his bodily function which are intimately and fully described in the book. They foist Nariman's care onto Roxanna and Yezad. The book deals with the difficulties the couple and their children encounter in their tiny flat in caring for their grandfather and in finding space and money. Roxanna and Yezad begin to quarrel and each member of the family engages in compromising, questionable practices to bring in more money, to the detriment of their views of themselves.

The novel details the fighting between Roxanna and Yezad and thier relationships with Coomy and Jal. The characters are admirably individual and well-differentiated in this troubled story. There are many well-drawn secondary characters, including Yezad's boss, Mr. Kapur, the owner of a sporting-goods store, and Daisy a violinist in the Bombay Symphony Orchestra and a neighbor of Roxanna and Yezad who befriends the family and Nariman. She visits the flat to play the violin to comfort him.

As the story progresses, events with Nariman and between Rozanna and her siblings come to a sharp climax and denoument. The plot line is melodramatic in places. Yezad, guilt-ridden and needing consolation from the difficulties resulting from caring for Nariman, becomes increasingly attracted to Zoroastrian observances, seeking the consolation of religion. As the book progresses, he moves from skepticism and secularism to a traditional form of Zoroastrian practice, to the distress of his family. In the long epilogue to the story, Yezad becomes highly critical of his adolescent sons for dating and becoming involved with non-Zoroastrian young women. In a sense, "the wheel has come full circle" as Yezad comes to adopt the behavior of Nariman's family, with their strong discouragement of Nariman's romantic interest in Lucy.

The book deals with common matters but not easy matters with a realism (in spite of some plot machinations) both provocative and wrenching. There are places in the book where each of the characters could have behaved differently. But I came away from the book with a feeling that I didn't want to judge any of the characters too harshly or to impose "shoulds" on them.

I want to mention two thoughts that stayed with me upon completing the book. First, the book left with me with a feeling of compassion for human frailty -- and with the vague impression of the importance of some form of religion for teaching a sense of compassion. (There is a wonderful passage in the book in which Yezad and his family discuss having pictures and memorabilila of all the great religions of the world in one's home -- to promote a sense of tolerance and to remind oneself that each religion has something to teach in approaching transcendent reality.) Second, and with a more secular bent, the book reminded me of the power or art, coupled with compassion, to ease the difficult problems of human life. I found Daisy, who faithfully comes to soothe Nariman with music from her violin exemplifies both art and compassion. In the book, Daisy realizes her dream of playing the solo part in Beethoven's violin concerto with the Bombay Philharmonic. In this great work of music, and in the book, there is a timeless message of the power of art to transcend human suffering.

Robin Friedman

"Family Matters" is a story about all that goes on behind the closed doors of a family home - lust and love, anger and betrayal, sickness and death. Set in Bombay, it centers on Nariman, a former professor grown old and sickly, and his progeny. His stepchildren Coomy and Jal, still bitter over 30-year-old wounds, refuse to care for him when he becomes bedridden. Instead, they send him to live with his daughter Roxana and her family in a two-room apartment. Roxana's husband, Yezad, must somehow provide for this newly enlarged family, and her children, Murad and Jehangir, must assimilate the lessons the new situation brings into their home.

The Indian setting is integral to the book: the languages, the politics, the religion, and the lifestyle are all important elements of the story. Mistry does an admirable job of making the setting appear realistic without becoming obscure and intimidating.

"Family Matters" has a number of different plots. Nariman, Jal, Coomy, Roxana, Yezad, Murad and Jehangir all undergo their own personal evolution, and the lives and stories of their friends, colleagues, and neighbors are interwoven with their own. The plots are interspersed in an admirably smooth fashion; however, the lack of a singular driving action makes the book less than compelling.

After 430 pages of meandering, the book reaches an end. It's unclear, from a narrative standpoint, why the conclusion is necessary or inevitable; some elements of the book's closing appear to be out of place or even random, and others would be greatly enhanced by further development of aspects of the book's plot. This finale seems like a meager reward for so many pages of buildup; pleasant as the book is to read, it does not seem complete without a more significant denoument.

Rohinton Mistry has done it again. Family Matters is a novel about the emotional, physical, and financial strain of caring for someone who has Parkinson's disease. Family Matters is also a portrait of India and the problems that exist there. Nairman Vakeel is a retired English professor who suffers from Parkinson's disease. He is the father of one biological daughter named Roxana, one stepson named Jal, and one step daughter named Coomy. Mistry writes about the physical effects Parkinson's has on the body with such detail. The harsh effects Parkinsons has on a person's speech and physical mobility is well described in this novel. The stress of caring for someone with Parkinsons disease can be great. This is clearly evident when Coomy and Jal thrust the responsibility of caring for their father to Roxana and her family after it becomes unbearable for them.

There are many themes in this novel, but perhaps the strongest is religious prejudice. In India, it is important to marry and even associate with people of the same faith to avoid scorn by one's family. Nairman belongs to the Parsi faith and falls in love with a Catholic woman named Lucy. Their relationship is strongly discouraged, but their very public affair continues long after Nairman gets married to a widow of the same faith. Nairman has dreams about Lucy and his wife through the novel that reflect a sense of regret and loss about both women.

Mistry describes the declining physical effects that Parkinson's has on a person's speech and mobility. All his characters are so well developed. He puts them in situations that reflect the problems of his country well. With Nairman's medical cost soaring, his son in law Yezad is forced to turn to illegal gambling to make ends meet. Yezad refuses to help his wife Roxana in caring for her father in the beginning of the novel. It is very interesting to see how Yezad's attitude and personality changes after some life altering events. There is another character in the book named Vila who writes and reads letters for people who are unable to write and read for themselves. In one of his letters, he describes how a young man for a lower caste was killed for associating with a woman from a higher caste. Poverty is so prevalent in India that even children take bribes and money from their classmates.

There are many different characters in the novel like the violinist Daisy who dreams to be a professional musician. Edul is a interesting character. He is an inept handyman who just yearns to be helpful. Mr Kapur is the owner of a sporting goods store and Yezad's boss. He yearns for the India of old where citizens did not have to live with the threat of violence and riots depicted clearly in the novel.

Family Matters is a wonderful book with many themes and characters. I enjoyed it very much.

Family Matters is a solidly written and engrossing book which I literally could not put down. I read it compulsively over the course of two days and resented time spent on the mundane things like eating and family.

The story is a familiar one-- an aging father with Parkinsons falls to the tender mercies of his family. Unresolved past issues, insufficient pension, and a host of unrealized dreams combine to create a story that is moving and very relevant. Mistry writes with clarity and compassion and never consdescends to either reader or characters. It is not always an easy book to read, but it never gives in to either bleakness or despair.

Given the theme, and the remarkable number of sources from which it draws (Lear, etc.) it is amazing that Mistry does not fall into the trap of using stereotypes or cliches. Family Matters successfully avoids complaisance and completion, managing a satisfying ending without giving into the temptation to tie up too many loose ends.

Although there is a great deal of detail in the book that is specific to Indian culture and the contemporary politics of Mumbai/Bombay, there are still enough issues of general human import that it should appeal to readers from every culture. Very highly recommended.

Rohinton Mistry is well on his way to receiving a major literary award. Shunning postmodern experimental deconstructionalism, political correctness, and all the modern shibboleths that litter the cultural landscape, Mistry has seen fit to write straight from the heart in a voice that creates verisimilitude with reality. His characters are alive, his choices of details are correct, his moral dilemmas are true, and he brings us from the personal to the political, from the individual to a whole social, economic, and living world. He gives us a small situation, a family in conflict, a once vital man now struggling with illness, and he shows us all the connections to the past, to youth, to loss, to a struggle for redemption. His themes are those of great nineteenth-century novelists, of Tolstoy and Proust, and these themes live in today's world as well. Why have so many writers abandoned them for an easier self-indulgence of their egos? Because it's so much harder to be an artist, to write well, to tell a story that carries universal meaning, and it takes great courage to stand on one's principles, to take a risk and perhaps appear out of fashion.
Mistry is in the tradition of Turgenev, Chekhov, and Tolstoy. But he is his own voice and brings something unique to us. He brings Bombay, decrepit in its current state, but with a rich past that now is only remembered in photographs treasured by those who still care, although they too are a dying breed. He brings a family to us, replete with economic struggles, childhood struggles, marital struggles, political struggles, and spiritual struggles, but Mistry's talent is to take us to a far higher level, a universal level where we can see ourselves very clearly.
That is the talent of a true artist, one whom you shouldn't miss.
I read recently that Mistry canceled his book tour to the U.S. because he was constantly being harassed at airports due to his "foreign" appearance. What a shame. I would love to say hello to him, just once.