Customer Reviews

Shiva Dancing

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

This book started out beautifully- a wedding ceremony in desert India amongst 7-year olds. The bride- kidnapped and taken away by bad guys to the big city never to see her child/husband/friend again. And then- bam! We're in San Francisco with a very American main character named Meena who we're supposed to relate to as the child bride. But of course by now, she's educated, wears jeans and jogs, and has a great job in computer software. A Quantum leap into the future. Ms. Kirshner had the right beginning but took the story in the wrong direction. I kept reading the book, mainly because I was very interested in the Indian/Bengali cultural aspects of the story. Also. the "caught between two cultures" idea seemed realistic. The rest of the story ended up being a schmaltzy love story with a predictable ending. Everyone "adjusted" way too easily to the conclusion. Disappointing at best.

This was, by far, the most disappointing novel I have read by Bharti Kirchner. It was contrived, stereotypical and sappy. Though, the plot idea was intriguing--a seven year old Indian girl is married off to her best friend, is then separated from her groom, her mother is brutally beaten and she ends up adopted by a white, America couple--it didn't hold together.

One of the biggest flaws in the book was the stereotypical depiction of the characters. The worst is of Carlos, the main character, Meena's, good friend. Though he is from Mexico, he teaches her samba (from Brazil), Kirchner misspells his hometown of Oaxaca (she spells it Oxaca). He is macho and womanizing, and seemingly mindless. Also, Bharti's writing style seems half-baked and almost condescending to her readers. Kirchner ties up the complications a little too readily and unbelievably.

If you would like to read a far superior novel by Kirchner, my reccomendation is that you read "Sharmila's Book," which is also about a young Indian woman's bicultural sense of self. Far more interesting, compelling and well written!

If you're interested in a book about Indian culture, or a woman who is torn between cultures, then don't touch this book. If you're interested in formula romance and shallow one dimensional characters that would even make Danielle Steel cringe, then this is the book for you. Contrary to the title and the jacket blurb, this book has little to with India, and even less to do with the main character, Meena, trying to sort out her roots.

The first chapter was very promising, beginning with Meena's life in a remote village of Rhajistan and her wedding at age 7 to her best friend Vishnu. Then she is kidnapped by bandits, but she escapes, only to be kidnapped again by an arrogant and snooty American couple who feel that Meena would be much better off as their adopted daughter in America. They refuse to return her to her family and her village. Then the story suddenly moves 28 years into the present, where Meena at age 35 is toying with the idea of returning to India, and finding her lost love Vishnu. Here is where the author first hits us with the first of absolutely nonsensical and unbelievable aspects of the plot. In 28 years, out of deference for her adopted parents (the last of whom, has conveniently just died) Meena has never so much as picked up a pen and tried to send a letter to her family. That stretches the imagination just too far. First, from her descriptions of her adopted family, we get the impression of two arrogant, racist and odious adults who feel that they had captured a primitive Indian and were now going to transform her into a real American. The cruelty described in Meena's flashbacks make you cringe. And certainly, you never get the impression that Meena even liked them, let alone loved them. If anything, you felt that at age 18 she would have rushed out of their house as if it was on fire. The idea that even as a teenager, or living away from her parents at college, or later as an adult, she did not make one attempt to contact her family or go to India. She certainly didn't have to tell her adoptive parents anything, if she was so afraid of "hurting" them.

Right then, I should have known the book would be downhill, but I kept reading. The story alternates between Vishnu and Meena, telling what is happening in their lives. Meena is a software whiz, and the story goes on and on about her job, silly coworkers, some idiotic company plot against her, her project COSMOS--it got so that I was wondering when the real story was going to begin--that is, her search for Vishnu and going to India. Instead, I realized that I was almost done with the book, and this really was the story. This was a book about corporate intrigue and computers, and quite honestly, if that's what I wanted, then there are certainly much better books on the market!

In between, we get a dose of stereotyped friends, and an arrogant, shallow, totally unlikely hot shot author named Antoine, who Meena fall for. I thought that he was just another obstacle in the story, to make Meena hesitate about pursuing her India dream. But then suddenly, we start getting "Antoine" chapters, as though the author thinks that we are interested enough in this character to want to know about his thoughts and life. Wrong...I skipped the Antoine chapters, hoping that eventually he would just disappear!

Then when Meena finally decides to find Vishnu (and it is very near the end of the book), it's done with one swift email to a friend in India. Bingo, Vishnu is found. Very conveniently, she loses her job right at the time she finds Vishnu, so she is free to go off to India. She goes straight to her village, and impatiently asks for her mother. What's the hurry, she's only waited 28 years. She spends about 10 minutes in her village, not even wanting to spend the night, then shoots over to Calcutta to find Vishnu. After spending 10 seconds with him, she realizes that he doesn't excite her, knows exactly what kind of wife he would want, and that India isn't for her. She's been in India all of 48 hours, and probably is exhausted and jetlagged, but yet she can see all of these things. She knows for sure she's American now, as well. And then arrives Antoine, who followed her to India, knows exactly where to find her. He has broken off his engagement, and the two of them fade into the sunset together, to explore India together as two Americans. This story is about as ad nauseum as it gets.

This book is about as silly as it gets...all I can say is I'm glad I took it out of the library!

To her credit,Kirchner is able to keep a comfortable level of suspense throughout the book, so that you do keep reading. She writes prose and dialog very well, but she constructs immaturely. She falls into the traps that await first authors (and that her editor should have helped her overcome): shallow and awkward characterizations, too much time spent on situations or conversations that do not advance the real story, way too much detail (you know what everyone is wearing and what they are eating and how the color yellow makes their eyes a deeper blue, and gobs of advice on marathon running, etc., etc.) and telling us a fact/feeling rather than showing us through plot or character.

Shiva Dancing starts off dramatically, with an intimate picture of the village Indian culture, during which Meena is kidnapped from her wedding at seven years of age and ends up with adoptive parents in San Francisco. Exciting, but downhill from there. Rather than beginning by returning Meena to India when she is an adult, to search for her past and her future among her people, family, and child-groom, Meena and the author do their best to avoid that storyline (it would have been a good one) and get bogged down in unimportant details and relationships in the US. Meena is a woman focused on her job, finding a man, distance running, finding a man, patio gardening, and finding a man. She has only a mild background interest in India, her past, and her child-groom Vishnu. She is not a haunted, lonely, longing woman lost between the two cultures that join within her spirit (which would have been a good character). The major portion of the book is filled with Meena's friendships; her flirtation with Carlos, a charming, manipulative commitment-phobe; and her love affair with Antoine, a less charming, more manipulative commitment-phobe. Antoine is about to get engaged to his long-time girlfriend but now he wants a fling with Meena to avoid the commitment. Meena, who the author keeps reminding us is 35 and very intelligent, should know better. An opportunist is easy to spot. But Meena falls for it because Antoine has such sadness and suffering in his eyes. What's he got to suffer about? Well, nothing. He's wealthy, famous, acutely handsome, engaged to be married and playing around with Meena. No, there's no trauma or torment in his life -- just that he's a louse. Meena falls for it, though she should be focused on her own pain, confusion, and needs, but she is too shallow to let her own life truly affect her. The romance advances as, about halfway through the book, Kirchner suddenly shifts into Antoine's head, showing him to be a tender, teary-eyed, aging man who is soooo confused about his life. Oh, please.

The plot is also bogged down by Meena's work place and career, which is in peril. Here again the characters are shallow and awkward, drawn to suit the situation rather than made real and driving the situation. However, there are just too many characters and too many subplots throughout, so when the real story gets going in India, finally, after nearly 300 pages, it is told sketchily, with no real significance except that Meena flatly states she finds she is American, not Indian. Meena's story is intercut occasionally with Vishnu's, her long-lost child-groom. He too is awkwardly characterized, and his situation is supposed to lend mystery to the book. It doesn't -- his passages are uninteresting and tell little about life in India, so it becomes a pleasure to return to Meena's and Antoine's silly romance.

Shiva Dancing is not a bad book -- it was entertaining, though overwritten with detail and more about San Francisco culture or computer programming than Indian culture. It is no follow- up to M.M. Kaye's The Far Pavilions or Shadow of the Moon, which were so rich with Indian culture that it was awesome, or Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's novels and short stories (double-awesome!). I have hope for Kirchner. Her writing style is good and readable, but the substance needs a lot of revision. Despite having too many characters in Shiva Dancing, she is still in control of her story. This shows real promise. It is not easy to write a novel, a first novel or a subsequent one, but Kirchner has the talent. She is capable of writing intelligent and memorable novels if she will make the effort and discard this sort of silly, shallow fluff.

I feel that I must agree with the reviewer who describes this as an immature first novel. It feels that way when you read it. Too many unnecessary descriptions that are irrelevant (I feel) to the main issues at stake such as dislocation of onself and ones cultural history. I agree that it starts off marvellously but it degrades into cringeworthy descriptions of marathon running, man hunting and computer programming. I find it hard to sympathise with the main character Meena who appears as a shallow, vain woman with no real sense or purpose. A dissapointing read.

The novel starts of with a bang and promptly loses itself in weak harlequin romance-type prose. As an Indian-American woman that is Meena's age, I found Meena's character to be utterly unrealistic. Meena's voice was not that of a woman that migrated from India between at age 7, but rather of an Indian immigrant my mother's age (or Ms Kirschner's age) who obviously idealizes the India because it was home. The about-face in attitude towards India that Meena experiences towards the end of the book is abrupt and not consistent with the character as she is described. Neither the story nor the manner in which it is told is praiseworthy. An example of the pitfalls a first-time author falls into...

I at first was drawn in by the opening chapters of this book---the description of her wedding at the age of 7, her kidnapping, the description of Calcutta. But as the story went on, found Kirchner's story overly dramatic, with such implausible events---her female coworker suddenly bursting into tears after being accused of stealing company secrets, saying she was always jealous of thte progagonist's beauty is one of many examples. I think Miss Kirchner needs to stop putting her proganist (aka herself) on such a high pedestal and actually put more reality into her plotlines.

I did my best to finish this book, honest. But this is one book that is so utterly boring, that it begs to be tossed out of the window. The author is not able to depict either India nor the US accurately - as an Indian American I could not identify with either of her descriptions. There are too many unreal coincidences and loose ends in the story. There is this weird feeling that the author is contradicting herself in every chapter. If you really want this book, I have one to give away.

Yes, Kirchner falls into some first-time author traps, but it was still an excellent read. I have read a lot of Indian fiction, and compared to the book I had just finished (The Blue Bedspread), Shiva Dancing was a page-turner. It does seem to start out better than it ends, and she does pack quite a lot of characters into the story. The software industry storyline was dissatisfying...we don't really get a good end to that whole plot.

Some of the characters were pretty one-dimensional, especially the Gossetts. What were they doing in India at all if they were so anti-India? What was the deal about their son getting killed there?

When Meena leaves Karamgar, she doesn't seem to want to return there...yet then at the end she wants to go back and do computer training.

The love story might have been a bit contrived, but I'm a romantic at heart I guess.

Even in spite of all these critiques, I really enjoyed this book. I liked reading about modern India, the perspective of a village child transplanted in cosmopolitan India and the U.S., and the life of a single woman with a dog-eat-dog career in San Francisco. I think this was great as a first novel. I have confidence that Kirchner will continue to refine her novel-writing skills. I look forward to reading her other work.

I found "Shiva Dancing" to be an excellent book. It helped me get back into reading and it also encouraged me to get back in school again. I just felt so scholarly reading Bharti's books that I just could not put them down. I am now reading "Sharmila's Book" which is very good from what I have read so far. Shiva Dancing took an approach to where it related to me. I am also an East Indian young woman who was brought up in the states and many times I do feel partial identity problems because in the states I am considered an East Indian and in India i am considered a foreigner. I really dont feel like i belong anywhere so it was nice to read about Meena, (The main character in "Shiva Dancing"). I felt her character was so much like me. It just felt too real. I couldnt believe how Kirchner knew exactly how to pinpoint my difficulties as to being raised in the US. It was amazing how she transforms her characters from being in India to the states. I felt as if i were going through the characters' experience. Infact, I fell inlove with the Meena so much, that when the book was over I almost really wished that Meena really did exist. It would be so nice to actually speak to someone like that. Anyhow, Also it being a love story was amazing. I loved how she intertwined a cocasion man to be inlove with an indian woman who knew more about some cultures of India than she did herself. It was almost as if Love struck on the first sight. It's nice to know that Romance can still be kindled in such few details.

Kirchner did an excellent job and I am more than happy to be reading her new book now, "Sharmila's Book". I have recommended these books to my friends and they have also been delighted... "KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK MRS.KIRCHNER"!