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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
230 of 252 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Caught up in the mythic battles of past and present, justice and injustice.",
By
This review is from: The Inheritance of Loss: A Novel (Man Booker Prize) (Hardcover)
Writing with wit and perception, Kiran Desai creates an elegant and thoughtful study of families, the losses each member must confront alone, and the lies each tells to make memories of the past more palatable. Sai Mistry is a young girl whose education at an Indian convent school comes to an end in the mid-1980s, when she is orphaned and sent to live with her grandfather, a judge who does not want her and who offers no solace. Living in a large, decaying house, her grandfather considers himself more British than Indian, far superior to hard-working but poverty-stricken people like his cook, Nandu, whose hopes for a better life for his son are the driving force in his life.
The story of Sai, living in Kalimpong, near India's northeast border with Nepal, alternates with that of Biju, Nandu's son, an illegal immigrant trying to find work and a better life in New York. Biju, working in a series of deadend jobs, epitomizes the plight of the illegal immigrant who has no future in his own country and who endures deplorable conditions and semi-servitude working illegally in the US. As Desai explores the aspirations of Sai and Biju, the hopes and expectations of their families, and their disconnections with their roots, she also creates vivid pictures of the friends and relatives who surround them, evoking vibrant images of a broad cross-section of society and revealing the social and political history of India. Though Sai's romance, at sixteen, with Gyan, her tutor, provides her with an emotional escape from Kalimpong, it soon becomes complicated by Gyan's involvement with the Gorkha National Liberation Federation, a Nepalese independence movement which quickly becomes violent. Gyan's commitment to the insurgency offers an ironic contrast with the commitment of his family to the colonial British army in earlier times, just as the judge's hatreds, learned in England, are ironically contrasted with his British affectations in later life. A careful observer of behavior, with a fine eye for revealing details, Desai brings her narrative and characters to life, illustrating her themes without making moral judgments about her characters--creating neither saints nor villains, just ordinary people leading the best lives they can, using whatever resources are available. Her characters, like people from all cultures, make sacrifices for their children, behave cruelly toward people they love, reject traditional ways of life and old values, rediscover what is important to them, suffer at the hands of faceless government officials, and learn, and grow, and make decisions, sometimes ill-considered, about their lives. Dealing with all levels of society and many different cultures, Desai shows life's humor and brutality, its whimsy and harshness, and its delicate emotions and passionate commitments in a novel that is both beautiful and wise. n Mary Whipple
111 of 122 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Moments of brilliance, going nowhere,
By
This review is from: The Inheritance of Loss (Paperback)
There are moments I love in this book... poignant observations that made me smile and think how brilliantly she'd nailed some unshakeable truth in life. There were details I enjoyed, such as on insects: "entire nations appeared boldly overnight." I loved the gentleness and clever vagueness with which she writes of Uncle Potty and Father Booty's relationship. She captures rage very well, showing how it's usually founded on something terrible from within, rather than on the acts of the target.
But as I read on, I became increasingly frustrated with the one-sided view of a country I've come to know and love. Yes, India has what she portrays, but it has so much more. There is kindness and tenderness amidst the poverty and rage. There are people with next to nothing who will give what they have to help a stranger - gave what they had to help me. Generosity and kindness exist alongside the indignities she portrays. Why not show that balance? I felt at times she was trying so hard, wanting so badly to shock the reader with her tales of vermin and vomit. Yes, that's there too. But it is not at the heart of the matter, and I think Ms Desai has missed that point. Finally, Ms Desai should fire her editor for the many anachronisms in the book. The 1985-6 was not the time of the Macarena, baggy pants on teenage boys, or the negative use of the term "PC" (politically correct), to name a few. All that came later. Add to that, it appears that no one proofread the last third of the book. This carelessness coincided with how the prose itself progressed. It started wonderfully, and slid like a Himalayan landslide into negativity and caracature. The ending was utterly pointless, and I was left with moments of brilliance that ultimately went nowhere.
31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Making more with less,
By
This review is from: The Inheritance of Loss (Paperback)
Reading The Inheritance of Loss made me uncomfortable. On several occasions I drifted off, thinking about the implications of unfettered immigration both on the quality of life for the immigrants and for people in host countries. The sheer size of India's population is staggering, and its rate of growth can only spill into other countries. From the perspective of Kiran Desai's New York immigrants, Saeed and Biju, the entire world is full of Indians struggling to survive, competing with each other and anyone else for the few available resources. One readily sympathizes with the struggles of Indians both abroad and at home, but just when liberal salve seems about to soothe the reader into thoughts of the romantic poor, we see the rich get disinherited by liberation soldiers, homeless people on the edge of starvation, and the lower class desperate for a step up. Desai's rich characters are never so sympathetic that we make the mistake of thinking they deserve their comfort and wealth, even if they haven't earned the suffering that becomes their lot. More than once I found myself making an inventory of those possessions I could lose without bitterness or decline in the quality of life. It's one thing to acknowledge your good fortune and quite another to part with it in the name of equality. We all inherit loss, however, and the pace of change in Desai's India seems a harbinger of the changes we'll feel in the US.
Luckily, the story isn't all grim. The author's eye for detail is extraordinary: small miracles appear on each page. The field of her prose is so studded with gems that one reads quite slowly. My feelings didn't flow too freely - even though I was fascinated by her close attention to the world, her satirical descriptions of character, the play of ideas, and the relevance of many of the issues - I seldom cared deeply about the fate of the people in the novel. Impending doom made me wary, callous behavior made me judgmental, and the writer's eye was on details both smaller and larger than the emotional life of one or two people. I loved Sai, the young girl at the heart of the story, who seemed to be an innocent version of Ms. Desai. The most emotionally wrenching aspect of the story concerned the judge and his pampered dog, Mutt. Even as I condemned him for abuse toward people, I recognized the pathos in his love for his pet. Those characters who sneer at him for loving an animal more than people may have a righteous point, but his dilemma comes too close to home for readers like me. We're glad just to see that his love has some outlet, which makes the plot all that much harder to bear. The more I've thought about it, the more I enjoyed this novel. While I was reading I wished for something funnier, lusher, or more romantic, but in the end I was challenged, enlightened, and heartened by the novel. I'm glad to be living in a time when I can depend on Kiran Desai to reveal the world to me.
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