Customer Reviews

The Mistress of Spices

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(23)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This book was a very satisfying read. Using lyrical prose, the author tells her protagonist's story in past and present. I've noticed other reviewers have commented on how artificial the book's narrative seemed, but I thought it was beautiful. It felt like the story was being told directly to you, making the story more immediate (for me at least). Although the story is told through the protagonist's association with Indian spices, its not only about Indian and Indian-American perspectives and issues. The author does a wonderful job using this setting for her story but it can be told in any cultural context I think. But in using this context, she effectively shows that (what white Americans consider) "ethnic subcultures" experience the same trials of life everyone else on the world does. Generational misunderstanding and racial intolerance are a few of the problems her characters encounter, but not in an especially overblown or melodramatic way. The story is told emotionally, but that's because it is in first person narrative. In this sense I agree with other reviewers that women may enjoy it more than men. My husband also agrees, but thought the story was compelling nonetheless.

Altogether I felt this was a gorgeous and modern usage of fantasy, emotion and cultural representation. I doubt it will change your life forever, but its consciousness and beauty has really touched me.

(PS: if you want to learn more about Indian spices buy a cookbook, this is fiction)

I picked up this book after hearing that it would soon be adapted into a film starring Aishwarya Rai (as Tilo) and Dylan McDermott (as Doug aka Raven).

Having recently 'discovered' India and Ms. Rai in the delicious film "Bride and Prejudice" and having just returned from a trip to San Francisco, I became intrigued by the plot of this book: an immortal Indian woman, Tilo, has the power to manipulate spices in order to help others. She keeps a shop in Oakland, CA, and administers the spices to those who ask for help. She is faced with a dilemma, however, when she meets the mysterious American, Raven...should she stay true to her purpose and remain immortal or give up everything for the man she loves?

More than just a story of choices, sacrifice and love, several wonderful characters also populate this novel:
- Haroun, the taxi driver who dreams of 'making it' big in America;
- Geeta, the young woman who faces opposition and estrangement from her family when she falls in love with wrong man;
- Geeta's grandfather, who at first opposes Geeta but later relents and tries to rebuild the relationships within his family;
- Lalita who is trapped in a loveless marriage with her brute of a husband;
- Jagjit, a promising young man who makes friends with the 'wrong crowd;'
- Hameeda, a single mother who secretly yearns for love;

..and, of course, there is Tilo - a young woman trapped in the body of an elderly woman who has the power to help those around her. Her fate becomes entwined with Raven, a young man with a secret past and who is the only person who sees Tilo for what she really is.

I breezed through this book and could hardly put it down. By the end I wished it would go on and on. Though the story does have a conclusion (and doesn't leave you hanging like other books), I just wanted Tilo's story to continue. Finishing it was like saying goodbye to an old friend. I applaud Ms. Divakaruni for creating such memorable and endearing characters and for effortlessly weaving fantasy and reality in one entertaining story.

I highly recommend this book to romantics everywhere and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished film. I am optimistic that the talented Aishwarya Rai and Dylan McDermott will do justice to Ms. Divakaruni's fabulous prose.

Divakaruni's first novel reads like a fable, as she blends Old World India with New World America. An aged woman, Tilo, an Indian immigrant, serves as the "mistress" of spices. She unravels her mythic past to set the stage for the present. Highly fantastical, it is necessary to suspend belief in the reasonable as Tilo describes her early life, training for this unusual vocation. Using traditional Indian spices, some with particularly healing properties and required rituals, to attend to the various physical and emotional ills of her customers, Tilo carries on a constant dialog with the spices, and each chapter introduces another spice and its uses. The language is often poetic, her descriptions full of visual impressions: "my cloak dragging in salt dust like a torn wing".

Divakaruni cleverly uses her story line as a vehicle for exposing the social stigma of immigration, as well as the ills of modern cities riddled with poverty and crime. Where it could be strident, instead the writer introduces her character's problems and complexities in the context of understanding. In the course of her conscientious ministrations, Tilo unwittingly falls in love with a man she calls the "American". She cannot fathom his motives in their mutual attraction, as she is "disguised" as an old woman and he is a man in his prime. Soon the present pulls as strongly as the past, and desire clashes with duty. Her serenity shattered, Tilo is forced to make life-altering decisions, agonizing over her choices; in the end, the direction is clear, without doubt.

With the aura of a fable, I often felt too aware of the transition from the believable to the unbelievable; the author's device should not have been so obvious. In her following work, however, particularly Sister of My Heart, Divakaruni is able to overcome such flaws without losing her power or her poetry.

The Mistress of Spices is written with a masterful mix of flights of fancy combined with everyday grittiness. The author, Chirtra Banerjee Divakaruni mixes her images with the same skill as an Indian housewife her special masala curry mix--unique, complex, and delicious.

The story is a fable-like tale of a Mistress of Spices, a woman trained in the art of using the everyday spices of Indian cooking and Ayurvedic medicine to solve the spiritual crises of daily life; family troubles, heartbreak, loss. But the Mistress herself must conform to a rigid code of behavior that is in constant conflict with the passions that surround her. Tilo, the Mistress who plies her craft in a dusty, typically Indian grocery store in Oakland, CA, is empathetic with the passions she heals with her spices. Maybe too empathic--and the price she might have to pay is very high.

The outcome of the novel is touching and the entire books is a wonderful movement from the mythic to the real. If you liked the novel Like Water for Chocolate, you will love this book.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's book, The Mistress of Spices, is a luminous and heart rending excursion into the human spirit.

A magical tale, twisting with threads spun from the purist colors of love and emotion, it delves deep into the place where true healing lives, and unfolds the most human of hearts.

It is rare that a novel even approachs this end.

I bought this book because of the sheer fantasy and escapism I knew it would bring me - I wasn't disappointed; It was wonderful!

I love the way the book reflects the shame of domestic abuse still felt by today's woman; the ostracism felt by a teenager; cross-cultural love; the older woman and a love that's meant to be. All this in a short book!

The beauty of this book is that it manages to encompass so much with so few words! I've read this book so many times and I can't get tired of it!

Why! If your imagination is as wild and fruitful as mine, you will be able to smell the herbs and spices in that little shop!

Sheer escapism - fantasies exist to make them come alive!

I believe!

A highly evocative piece of prose, "The Mistress of Spices" was the first book I've read of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, and I'm going to find more.

The blend of spice-centric folklore, deep emotional sacrifice, and the clashing worlds of things city and things cultural create a sense of counterpoint in this novel. You follow the Mistress herself, a woman to whom the spices sing, and in whose hands their tastes and uses are magickal. This is a woman who shed her youth to an immortal aged form to aid the world around her.

As the Mistress grows more and more involved in the lives of those around her, she might just risk everything, including not only her immortality but maybe her life as well, on the chance of love, passion, and the urge to care and help those around her. It is often said, 'with great power comes great responsibility' and this cultural exploration of that notion is just phenomenal.

If you like the works of Alice Hoffman (of "Practical Magic" fame), or "Like Water for Chocolate," for example, I would reccommend this book highly.

What a joy to read this book. Tilo, the "Mistress of Spices", comes to America - Oakland, California - where she opens her own spice shop after completing an arduous apprenticeship on a remote, mysterious island. But Tilo is no ordinary woman. She's headstrong, rebellious AND a natural born mystic with incredible psychic powers. Ms. Divakaruni creates a world of sheer poetic magic where everything is bursting with life and nothing is as it seems. Even the spices are alive, their tiny voices both soothing and dominating Tilo. They demand her absolute loyalty which naturally drives Tilo crazy. Can you imagine having to explain yourself to a sack of sesame seeds? Then when a hansome stranger shows up Tilo has to choose: the seeds or the guy? I don't know. Those seeds look pretty tasty. I loved it. The story's warm, funny, and at times, heartbreaking.

This book had hills and valleys. Sometimes it was entertaining and other times very silly. It took me almost a week to get through the last 30 pages- I kept falling asleep. I was also at times embarrassed for the characters because of the dialogue.
The best parts of the book were the chapters dealing with how the different spices could help the different customers. I also enjoyed the parts in the begining when the main character was describing her training on "the island".
Raven or "my American" (the love interest) had no appeal and he had alot of ridiculous things to say.
I love fantasy and I really was looking forward to reading this book. It started out good and then slide into the land of the sillies

I recently re-read this book because I vaguely remembered liking it. I realize know why the feeling was a vague memory. The first half of the book is well-written and fabulistic in the best sense. The writing style fits the way the secondary characters and their experiences are introduced. Tilo's mythical story is also fascinating.

But, with the introduction of the rich, handsome, exotic Raven, the story completely flounders. Tilo breaks many of the rules assigned to her. And the Old One and her return to the island are abandoned at the end without a second thought. I agree with a previous reviewer that it resembles a Harlequin novel. It made me want to throw the book across the room.

A great first half, undermined by a flaccid 2nd half.