Queen of Dreams (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: dream tellers, transforming dream, eucalyptus grove, Chai House, Kurma House, Bay Area (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Spiked with elements of mystery, suspense and the supernatural, Divakaruni's sixth novel is a pleasantly atypical tale of self-discovery. Rakhi, a single mother and struggling artist living in Berkeley, Calif., has always been vaguely aware of her own mother's unusual gift—the ability to interpret dreams. Between juggling a laundry list of other priorities—keeping her floundering tea shop afloat after a Starbucks-esque supercafe moves in across the street, battling her ex-husband for their daughter's affections, finding her artistic voice—Rakhi longs to know more about her mother's past and her own hazy Indian heritage. After a mysterious car accident claims her mother's life, Rakhi, with her father's help, sets out to decipher Mrs. Gupta's dream journals in hopes of unlocking the secrets of her peculiar double life. A shadowy man in white who appears at pivotal moments, a sinister rival and entries from Mrs. Gupta's dream journals all punctuate this cleverly imagined tale of love, forgiveness and new beginnings. Meanwhile, September 11 disrupts Rakhi's search for identity, and a vicious attack on her friends and family calls their notions of citizenship into question. Divakaruni (The Mistress of Spices; Sister of My Heart; etc.) does a good job working current issues into the novel and avoids synthetic characterization, creating a free-flowing story that will captivate readers.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The Washington Post

Our dream world overflows with confused images -- streets turning to quicksand, talking fish and so on. Yet dreams have a remarkable quality of seeming real. Once awake, we remain spellbound, muttering, "What did it mean?"

It's this gulf between dreams and reality that Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni seeks in her fourth novel, Queen of Dreams. (Her other books include the bestselling novels The Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart and collections of short fiction and poetry.) Divakaruni often focuses on characters balancing two worlds, particularly Indian immigrants struggling through life in America. Now she attempts to bridge the gulf in this affable yet frustrating story of a mysterious, reticent mother, gifted with the ability to interpret dreams, and the daughter yearning to decipher her.

American-born Rakhi, artist and co-owner of a funky Berkeley teashop, is the daughter of Indian immigrants whose silence haunts her: "I hungered for all things Indian because my mother never spoke of the country she'd grown up in -- just as she never spoke of her past." There's plenty that isn't talked about: Mr. Gupta's weekend drinking, Mrs. Gupta's dream interpretation, the mutual disappointment that Rakhi didn't inherit this gift. Yet Rakhi hides behind her own silence: She has told no one why she left her husband, Sonny, who shares custody of their 6-year-old daughter and longs for reconciliation.

After her mother dies in an inexplicable, late-night car crash, Rakhi discovers a collection of her "dream journals," written in Bengali. She's forced to rely on her father to translate, though "I cannot remember a single instance in my life when I felt close to him." Her father tells her the journals contain "lessons, stories from old books, famous dreams, clients, people she knew," and Rakhi demands, "Isn't there anything about herself?" That's exactly what these journals offer, all the words her mother couldn't speak.

Rakhi's struggles are engaging enough, but the language of the dream journals soars, momentarily transporting this book to another realm. The writing in these chapters evokes a life as believable and fantastic as one's own dreams: "Calcutta was full of dreams: not only the ones being dreamed by its present inhabitants but old, interrupted ones that hung motionless over the sluggish brown Ganga and colored the night with their confusions." Along with Mrs. Gupta's captivating history and rebellion leading to marriage, we're treated to study notes ("A mirror stands for a false friend") and difficult confessions ("Worst of all, I have not loved anyone fully, not my husband or child").

The terror of Sept. 11 strikes -- "Is it really real?" Rakhi whispers as she watches the horror unfold on TV. The teashop becomes the target of a brutal attack by self-professed "patriots" spouting anti-foreigner sentiments. While mourning the many losses of Sept. 11, Rakhi adds to her list, "And people like us, seeing ourselves darkly through the eyes of strangers, who lost a sense of belonging." While Rakhi's anger is justified, these moments feel forced, as if the author wanted something topical for the book jacket.

The book doesn't draw a firm line between reality and dreams: Shadowy strangers materialize in Rakhi's life, doing good and possibly evil; an unexplained package spurs Rakhi to rethink her art; Mrs. Gupta's death defies explanation. When reading the dream journals, Rakhi and her father speculate, "Did she only imagine it all?" as if Mrs. Gupta's extraordinary past were simply another dream. This deliberate blurriness suggests a sleeper awakening, mirroring Rakhi's gradual understanding of herself and her mother. The technique generally works. Readers accept a certain amount of coincidence when the story moves along smartly, as this one does. But this fuzzy reality can backfire. The episode at the heart of Rakhi's marital rift is sickening, but we learn the details impressionistically, and Rakhi wonders, "What really did happen that night? Could she, indeed, have been confused?" Luring readers into thinking this nightmarish incident might be a dream denies our emotional investment in Rakhi and provides a too-easy route to forgiveness.

Divakaruni's use of a plot that relies on coincidence and happenstance creates a similar problem. Mrs. Gupta says, "A dream is a telegram from the hidden world." Here dreams are filled with portent and daily lives are laden with hidden meaning. "And what's a coincidence?" Rakhi notes; "And what is an accident?" asks her mother. Perhaps each detail of existence is taut with significance. One could almost be persuaded by the book's final, transcendent moments, when Rakhi finds the perfect web of connection that interpreters of dreams seek. Yet for all that beauty and hope, the ultimate frustration of Queen of Dreams is that its connections have come too conveniently: packages, unexplained strangers, journals with answers, as if life were but a dream.

Reviewed by Leslie Pietrzyk
Copyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Anchor (October 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400030447
• ISBN-13: 978-1400030446
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #334,706 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another good book from Divakaruni, October 3, 2004

By	Ratmammy "The Ratmammy" (Ratmammy's Town, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Queen of Dreams: A Novel (Hardcover)

QUEEN OF DREAMS by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
October 3, 2004

I became a fan of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni when I read SISTER OF MY HEART. QUEEN OF DREAMS is the fourth novel by Divakaruni that I've read and it did not disappoint. For those who have read her books, this one resembles VINE OF DESIRE the most, with both taking place in the Bay Area of Northern California, but at the same time has references that lead back to India. Both books relate to the immigrant's life in California, and how their life has changed since leaving their homeland.

But that is where the resemblance stops. In QUEEN OF DREAMS, the focus is on relationships, mostly between a mother, Mrs. Gupta, and her adult daughter Rahki. While VINE OF DESIRE was rooted in the physical world, QUEEN OF DREAMS flows into the world of dreams, as Mrs. Gupta has the ability to decipher them, be it her own or others. She has the ability to help others through their dreams, and this is what drives her. While mother and daughter are close, this is one area that Rahki is not allowed to trespass. She desires her mother's talent, but it was not passed on to her. It leaves Rahki bitter and resentful that she cannot share in this part of her mother's life.

The book follows Rahki's attempts to understand her mother better, and at the same time the reader, and later Rahki, are allowed to see what Mrs. Gupta's dream journal confesses. The journal tells Mrs. Gupta's story, from her days in India to her dreams that foretell her death.

Rahki, in the meantime, is newly divorced and living with her young daughter Jona. She is trying to survive by running a coffeehouse and selling her paintings, hoping to be "discovered" one day. She also has to deal with her ex-husband Sonny, who is in her life almost every day because of their daughter. She has not forgiven Sonny for something that happened during their marriage, and she has never told her family about this incident, which led to their divorce.

I enjoyed QUEEN OF DREAMS as much as I have enjoyed her other novels. I love how she blends in the culture of India, the Old World, with life in California. She does a good job describing what it feels like to be an immigrant in the United States, as well as being the children of immigrants, not quite belonging to the new country and certainly not belonging to the homeland. The segments on dreams were done well enough that Divakaruni had me believing in them.

She also did a good job showing how the characters related and reacted to September 11, which was the climax of the book. It brought back memories for me, showing how those of Middle Eastern descent and Indian descent, living in America, were treated due to the color of their skin, shortly after this horrific event. It again displayed the immigrant experience in America, one of the themes in QUEEN OF DREAMS.

For those who enjoy reading about other cultures living in America, or those who enjoy stories of mothers and daughters, this book is for you. I recommend this book heartily.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The power of the past to shape the future, September 15, 2004

By	Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Queen of Dreams: A Novel (Hardcover)

From the domestic to the mystical, Divakaruni has a unique talent for blending the daily lives of Indian-Americans with the myths of a distant homeland.

In a story that examines the relationship of a troubled young mother, in the middle of a divorce, with her own mother, a dream teller, we learn of the indecision and self-doubt that haunts Rakhi. Fascinated by her mother's past, the years spent in India training to counsel clients by reading their dreams, Rakhi is obsessed more with the known than the unknown, convinced that if she can solve the riddle of a distant mother, she will locate her own missing pieces.

When Rakhi's mother dies in an accident, the daughter is left with a failing tea shop, her mother's Dream Journals and unresolved questions about her failed marriage. When even her painting hits a brick wall and inspiration disappears, Rakhi is bereft. But as Rakhi's father translates the dream journals, painful truths are revealed to father and daughter, bringing them closer in grief and understanding. The journals are an unexpected parting gift, an opportunity for Rakhi and her father to reawaken their long-dormant relationship and heal past misunderstandings.

Through the journals, we learn of the despair of an intuitive Indian girl, forced to choose between her talent for dream telling and the love of the man she marries. The seemingly complacent wife, who has helped so many through difficulties, is a multi-layered, complex woman beset by her own inner challenges, searching for peace and contentment, faced with untenable choices. This mother is warm and accessible, her deep conflicts and passions revealed.

While the attacks on 9/11 throw the Indian-American community into the same confusion as other American citizens, they are later attacked because they look like terrorists, outcast in their own neighborhoods.

All of these things create the impetus that forces Rakhi into the necessary changes to get her life back on track. Questioning her most basic assumptions and motives, the true nature of love and the capacity to forgive, Rakhi makes an extraordinary journey, guided by the constant presence of her mother's loving spirit. Steeped in the ramifications of diversity, cultural identity and the importance of family, Divakaruni once more proves herself an inspiring and master storyteller. Luan Gaines/2004.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A story of family, relationships, & pride in one's heritage, October 15, 2004

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Queen of Dreams: A Novel (Hardcover)

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's latest novel QUEEN OF DREAMS is another tale of East meets West. She writes what she knows best, about the world of the Indian immigrant living in America. In this novel, as in THE VINES OF DESIRE, Divakaruni takes the reader to northern California. Rakhi, a divorced mother of one, is trying to deal with life as a single mother and understand her own mother, who is able to interpret dreams.

Divakaruni blends both the metaphysical with the tangible physical world. Mrs. Gupta, Rakhi's mother, had kept a journal throughout her life. The chapters of QUEEN OF DREAMS are interspersed with these journal entries that describe her dreams and her everyday waking thoughts. One gets a glimpse of her life, from her days in India where she learned to be a dream interpreter to the day she met her husband, Rakhi's father. Mrs. Gupta continues her journal after she settles in America with her new husband and child, revealing a different perspective from what Rakhi sees as reality. The dreams themselves take on a poetic feel, filled with symbolism and folklore that reveal to the reader an image of India; not the physical aspects, but the cultural beliefs, the myths, and the legends. It's a contrast between Western Civilization and the Old World of the East.

The story opens with Mrs. Gupta's dream of a snake, the foreseer of change. She tries to guess what the snake is telling her, whether he is foretelling a birth or a death. She senses a bad omen and finally understands that it is her own death the snake is warning her about. The snake reassures her that, although death means an end to life, it can also mean a new beginning. It is snippets of dreams like this that help shape the mood of the book and prepares the reader for what is yet to come.

Unlike her mother, Rakhi is totally rooted in the physical world of Northern California. She knows very little about her parents' lives in India and wishes she knew more. She makes her living by running a coffeehouse called The Chai House with her best friend Belle, but Rakhi's real goal is to become an artist. She paints when she can, and her latest obsession is a painting that involves a man dressed in white. She doesn't know who he is, but he hovers just beyond her reach. She searches in vain for this man that she instinctively feels may have the key to some of the unknowns in her life.

One of the main themes is that of the relationship between mother and daughter, and it is done very well through the characters of Rakhi and her mother, as well as through Rhaki's six-year-old daughter Jona. Rakhi feels close to her mother, but there is a wall that prevents them from ever becoming truly close. Her mother refuses to discuss the dreams or her life in India, and Rakhi is bitter, unhappy that she does not understand this part of her mother's life, a life that is so guarded that it causes a rift in their relationship. Her divorce is another sore point between them. Her parents still love Sonny, but she can never explain to them why she had to leave him. Her daughter Jona loves both her parents, and as the novel progresses, Rakhi encounters problems with her own daughter because of her muddled relationship with Sonny.

Things change when Mrs. Gupta dies in a tragic automobile accident, and the dynamics of some of Rakhi's important relationships are changed forever. She notices her father for the first time, and he's not the same indifferent man she thought she knew. Together they read her mother's journal, an act that will change both of them forever. She also finds herself in a maturing relationship with Sonny, while she herself is changing and growing too.

QUEEN OF DREAMS is ultimately a story of how one woman touches those around her during her life and into death. Divakaruni's talent is not only good storytelling, but also creating characters that are dynamic and real in one way or another. One may not truly believe in the power of dreams, but that isn't the point of this book. The focus is on family, relationships, pride in one's heritage, and how one may not truly understand another as well as they think. Highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Marie Hashima Lofton ([e-mail])