What the Body Remembers [Hardcover]

Shauna Singh Baldwin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2000

Told through the stories of two Punjabi women, Shauna Singh Baldwin's award-winning novel is a rich and multi-layered portrait of India's bloody struggle into independence.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Shauna Singh Baldwin's What the Body Remembers begins and ends with rebirth--an apt metaphor, perhaps, for the tragedy of Indian partition that forms the backdrop for her story. Though politics overshadows the lives of all the characters, the heart of this first novel is in the home where Sardarji, a middle-aged Sikh engineer, has brought his new wife, 16-year-old Roop. The only problem is, his current wife, Satya, is less than thrilled about sharing hearth and husband. Satya's inability to bear a child has led to Sardarji's recent marriage, and this fact, combined with jealousy has turned her heart "black and dense as a stone within her." Her rival is not only 25 years younger, but of considerably lower social rank, and her husband's obvious infatuation with Roop rankles considerably:

Can a young woman ever know his friends and laugh with them in that rueful way? How will a young woman know that he breathes deeply when he thinks too much, that he wipes his forehead in the cold heart of winter when the British settlement officer approaches to collect his yearly taxes? How can a young woman know how to manage his flour mill while he is hunting kakar with his English "superiors"? How will she know how to give orders that sound as if she is a mere mouth for his words? How will she know that his voice is angry with the servants only when he is tired or hungry? How can she understand that all his talk of logic and discipline in the English people's corridors and his writing in brown paper files about the great boons of irrigation engineering brought by the conquerors are belied by his donations to the freedom-fighting Akali party?

The rift between the two wives widens when Roop gives birth, first to a daughter and then to a son, and both children are sent to Satya for rearing. Eventually the younger wife demands the ouster of the elder from the household, and Satya is sent away. But her spirit is not exiled entirely, and years later, when Roop and Sardarji find themselves swept up in the bloody partition of India and Pakistan, it is memories of the elder woman's strength and wisdom that Roop draws on to survive. Baldwin develops her characters' personalities and interactions against the backdrop of changing Anglo-Indian relations; sometimes the political bleeds into the personal, as the novel juxtaposes India's struggle for independence with the smaller outrages and betrayals Satya and Roop suffer at their husband's hands--and each other's. What the Body Remembers is a powerful combination of historical and domestic drama, marking a promising debut for Shauna Singh Baldwin. --Sheila Bright --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The dramatic and brutal story behind the 1947 partition of India, as played out in the region of Punjab, is the compelling backdrop for this stunning first novel that entwines the fate of three remarkable characters: Sardarji, a wealthy Sikh landowner whose heart is in India, but whose head is in England; Satya, his constantly scheming, feisty wife who lives for her husband but cannot give him children; and Roop, Sardarji's second, much younger wife, married for the express purpose of providing the family with an heir. Intensely atmospheric, the novel contains lyrical descriptions of daily life in a village with dusty fields of maize and clusters of homes; the cinnamon, anise and fennel smell of Satya's kitchen; Sardarji's Oxfordian attire and his spindly-legged English furniture. Baldwin, who grew up in India, skillfully creates an exotic milieu where women are sheltered from the outside world and struggle for influence over their families. As headstrong Satya, more involved in her husband's affairs than most of her peers, and demure Roop, trained to exercise traditional feminine wiles, battle for Sardarji's favor and the children Roop soon produces, Sardarji is increasingly distracted by the furor over independence and the future of the Indian state. Baldwin achieves an artistic triumph on two levels, capturing the churning political and religious history of modern India and Pakistan as she explores memorable transformations: of Satya, from a dominating force in her family to a lonely outsider; of Sardarji, from an idealistic, ambitious engineer to a hardened, more realistic civil servant; and finally, of Roop, from an arrogant, self-centered daughter to a selfless wife and mother who becomes the backbone of her family. 6-city author tour; simultaneous publication in the U.K. and Canada; rights sold in Germany, Italy, France. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Transworld Paperbacks (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0552999601
• ISBN-13: 978-0552999601
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (32 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Charecters that linger in your mind!, December 11, 1999

By 

Champa Bilwakesh (Andover, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What the Body Remembers: A Novel (Hardcover)

"It was the moment when his beard scratched her cheeks and his falcon eyes looked directly down upon her, held her eyes until he must have seen how very small his face was, how very tiny, reflected in her gray eyes. And in that long, long moment, she knew Sardarji expected her to lower her eyes before him."

Satya recalls, in Shauna Singh Baldwin's book What the Body Remembers, the single moment when she knew what her husband wanted but that she could never do: lower her gaze in front of him. It is this quality of hers to look him in the eye and tell him the way it is that also eventually separates him from her. That and the fact that she could not bear him a son.

With the 1947 Partition of India as the backdrop, WTBR is a loving portrait of the Sikhs - the community of people from the Northwest corner of India. Baldwin has used research and her own experiences as a Sikh to draw the three main characters: Sardarji, his wife Satya, and her nemesis Roop, the young girl Sardarji marries secretly so she could give him a son. They linger in your mind long after you close the book. Using minute layers of details of Roop's life as the ground, Baldwin has drawn Roop's character, her longings, her fears, her courage, and most importantly, her endurance. Satya and Roop, the two women married to Sardarji, so different in their personality and character, yet live under the same fear and belief: the fragility of their security. From different levels of prosperity and status they each see with clarity the ease with their lives can be blown all away at the slightest show of free will, of disobedience. It is a story lived by many women in all cultures. The Sikh women in Baldwin's story surprise us with the strength they show in adversity, the way they bend without breaking when their world falls apart and reshapes in permenantly altered states.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engrossing, involving, fascinating, October 23, 1999

By 

Candace "thepageturner" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What the Body Remembers: A Novel (Hardcover)

A wealthy Sikh engineer takes a young village girl as a second wife. His first wife, a fierce, beautiful woman who runs most of his properties, has not given him children. The relationship between these three stretch from the final days of Britain's Indian Empire, through the brutal and bloody partition of India, and into, the reader suspects, the next life. `What the Body Remembers" works on several levels. The characters are fully drawn, and live in a believable, richly imagined. English-minded Sardarji (he even has a name for the little British voice that reminds him what is and is not done) can put aside his European teaching when it suits him to take a second wife. Brilliant and manipulative, first wife Satya is his political conscience and his connection to his ancestral lands. Unformed sixteen-year-old Roop, brought on the scene to produce children, will discover the strength of her weakness and may save her family from destruction following the terrifying birth of Pakistan from India.

As a political lesson, the novel is also fascinating reading. The characters in "What the Body Remembers" are Sikhs, the religious segment left out in the splitting of the subcontinent into Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. Who can they rely on when the bloodshed of Partition begins?

This is the kind of book that pulls you in quickly, and does not release you from its spell until the last page. Another wonderful novel about India for those who want to spend more time in the country is Vikram Seth's "A Suitable Boy"-1,100 pages of pure joy.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Really, Really Good, January 25, 2002

By 

Leigh Munro - See all my reviews

This review is from: What the Body Remembers: A Novel (Paperback)

There many novels around that cover the same territory as this book: the bloodshed that surrounded Partition and the devastation wrought by the British upon India. There are many other books as well which discuss the experience of Indian women.

This book is interesting because it deals with both of these subjects and from the perspective of two Sikh women. I have many Indian friends and know a little of Hindu and Moslem culture but of Sikhism I was ignorant and this novel has been a ssuperb introduction. The story focuses to a large extent upon the experiences of Satya and Roop, married to the same man. Both of their lives and their happiness are dependent on his and it is interesting to see how the two women manage to carve their own niches within this restriction.

Major themes of this book are jealousy and fear. The fear of men, the fear of one's own body, the fear of strangers and of other religions. Jealousy and avarice too. The opening scene embodies all of these emotions as Satya inspects the young Roop, newly arrived at her husband's home wearing Satya's jewellry. It is a fantastically written introduction. However, despite his insensitivity and self-centredness, one of the wonderful things about this novel is observing the gradual transformation of Sardiji, a traditional and dominant male figure at the beginning of the novel into a thoughtful and generous one at the end. His political and personal journey is directly attributable to the influence, and destinies, of his wives.

This book is not at all formulaic and is a worthy addition to the canon of modern Indian literature. I have read many of these books and, as recommended by another reviewer, this is the best novel about India I have read since A Suitable Boy.