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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The God of Small Things dons a pundit's hat in her second book, and it's an awkward fit. This slim volume offers two previously published magazine articles. "The Greater Common Good," which appeared in Outlook, an Indian magazine, argues against the building of a controversial dam on the Narmada River in India. Roy notes that 60% of the 200,000 people likely to be uprooted by the project are tribal people, many illiterate, who will be deprived of their original livelihoods and land. Drawing on studies and government and court documents, Roy criticizes the World Bank, the Indian government and a political system that favors interest groups at the expense of the poor. In the second essay, "The End of Imagination," a criticism of India's decision to test a nuclear bomb that was published in the Nation in September 1998, Roy asks why India built the bomb when more than 400 million Indians are illiterate and live in absolute poverty. It's a good question, but fully a fifth of the article is devoted to a friend telling Roy that she has become so famous that the rest of her life would be "vaguely unsatisfying"Awhich is a fair description of this book. Roy surely has meaningful things to say about India. But she is not yet nearly as accomplished a political critic as she is a novelist. This effort, marred by general attacks on "the system" and personal digressions that distract a reader from the substantive issues at hand, is cursory and na?ve. That Roy anticipates this criticism doesn't render it any less valid. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The phenomenal success of Roy's Booker Prize winning first novel The God of Small Things (LJ 4/15/97) has metamorphosed her into an activist supporting unpopular causes. This book consists of two parts: "The Greater Common Good" attacks the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river in western India, while "The End of Imagination" denounces India's nuclear tests in May 1998. The Save the Narmada movement, a grass-roots, anti-dam movement that has been agitating for over a decade, believes that instead of being a solution to India's water and power shortages, the still-incomplete dam will cause immense distress owing to the displacement of 40 million people, the submergence of 245 villages, inequities in resettlement, and environmental disasters. Roy's polemical tract on their behalf, while not a dispassionate inquiry, raises some important questions about the real price of "development," whether in the form of big dams or bombs. For public and academic libraries.ARavi Shenoy, Hinsdale P.L., IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
The author of the Booker Prize-winning novel The God of Small Things dons a pundit's hat in her second book, and it's an awkward fit. This slim volume offers two previously published magazine articles. "The Greater Common Good," which appeared in Outlook, an Indian magazine, argues against the building of a controversial dam on the Narmada River in India. Roy notes that 60% of the 200,000 people likely to be uprooted by the project are tribal people, many illiterate, who will be deprived of their original livelihoods and land. Drawing on studies and government and court documents, Roy criticizes the World Bank, the Indian government and a political system that favors interest groups at the expense of the poor. In the second essay, "The End of Imagination," a criticism of India's decision to test a nuclear bomb that was published in the Nation in September 1998, Roy asks why India built the bomb when more than 400 million Indians are illiterate and live in absolute poverty. It's a good question, but fully a fifth of the article is devoted to a friend telling Roy that she has become so famous that the rest of her life would be "vaguely unsatisfying"Awhich is a fair description of this book. Roy surely has meaningful things to say about India. But she is not yet nearly as accomplished a political critic as she is a novelist. This effort, marred by general attacks on "the system" and personal digressions that distract a reader from the substantive issues at hand, is cursory and na?ve. That Roy anticipates this criticism doesn't render it any less valid. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The phenomenal success of Roy's Booker Prize winning first novel The God of Small Things (LJ 4/15/97) has metamorphosed her into an activist supporting unpopular causes. This book consists of two parts: "The Greater Common Good" attacks the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river in western India, while "The End of Imagination" denounces India's nuclear tests in May 1998. The Save the Narmada movement, a grass-roots, anti-dam movement that has been agitating for over a decade, believes that instead of being a solution to India's water and power shortages, the still-incomplete dam will cause immense distress owing to the displacement of 40 million people, the submergence of 245 villages, inequities in resettlement, and environmental disasters. Roy's polemical tract on their behalf, while not a dispassionate inquiry, raises some important questions about the real price of "development," whether in the form of big dams or bombs. For public and academic libraries.ARavi Shenoy, Hinsdale P.L., IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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