The Age of Shiva: A Novel (Hardcover)

by Manil Suri (Author)
Key Phrases: salwar kameez, Karva Chauth, Indira Gandhi, Darya Ganj (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The second novel from Suri (The Death of Vishnu) follows Meera Sawhney from her unhappy 1950s marriage to aspiring singer Dev Arora through to her own son's coming-of-age. After an impulsive act forces Meera's marriage at 17, her complex, controlling father decries her tying herself (and, by extension, her family) to the provincial, lower-class Aroras. Meera soon finds herself pulled in different directions by her in-laws' religious orthodoxy, her father's progressivism (which doesn't run deep), her husband's self-pitying alcoholism and her own resentment. She finds salvation in the birth of a son, Ashvin; mother love, which Suri describes in intensely physical terms, gives her life passion and purpose, and overwhelms her adult relationships. But as India modernizes, Meera senses that Ashvin, and she herself, must live their own lives. Suri renders Meera's perspective marvelously, especially in small particulars (such as Meera's deliberations around the cutting of Ashvin's hair) and in the perils and conflicts Meera faces in her relationships with men. He also takes a close look at Hindu practices and charts the rise of religious nationalism in the years following Gandhi's death. Suri's vivid portrait of a woman in post-independence India engages timeless themes of self-determination.
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From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Michael Dirda

The Age of Shiva is a perplexing novel, though any sympathetic reader will recognize its obvious merits: a sure command of all the registers of prose, from the lush and poetic to the ironic and witty; an important historical theme -- the drama of Indian politics and Hindu-Muslim conflict between the mid-1950s and 1980; multiple perspectives on the tensions within Indian family life during this same period; an ingenious use of classic Hindu myths as a template for certain plot developments; and, not least, an unsettling account of the joys of motherhood. All these indicate a novelist of real scope and ambition.

But Manil Suri's greatest triumph is Meera Sawhney herself. For more than 400 pages -- from adolescence to early middle age -- we are continually inside the consciousness of this likable and long-suffering, if not particularly intelligent, woman. Yet, astonishingly, there isn't the least sense of imaginative strain in Suri's depiction of her interior life. This is not a male author imagining a female character; this is Meera herself before us.

Given so much that is impressive in The Age of Shiva, why, then, is the novel perplexing? The overall answer will seem completely shallow: The book simply isn't a page-turner. Not only does the narrative move slowly, sometimes it grinds to a halt. Suri will linger far too long over a scene, describing with guide-book precision a sports competition, a Hindu wedding ceremony or religious ritual, an erotic encounter. His descriptions often go beyond local color to dogged, anthropological exactitude. We weary of the onslaught of foreign terms and alien practices.

By burdening the reader with such laborious detail, The Age of Shiva loses any sense of urgency. The pace is leisurely, the action relentlessly domestic. Years go by, and nothing much happens. Meera, born to a well-to-do family, marries the poor but handsome Dev, after stealing him away from her older sister Roopa. She then goes to live with her new husband's clan in their crowded hovel and almost immediately realizes that she has made a terrible mistake. Meanwhile, Dev dreams of becoming a singing star. In due course, Meera's father cuts the young couple a deal so that they can take an apartment in Bombay. And on and on. Only Meera's brother-in-law Arya -- full of lust and anti-Muslim fervor -- provides a modicum of danger, of threat. Most of the time we just feel sorry for everybody.

Much of the novel focuses on Meera's complex feelings, first for her sisters and parents, then for her husband and finally for her child, Ashvin. When she looks at her beloved son, Meera launches into soliloquies that are half dithyramb, half goo and suffused with obvious sexual innuendo. For instance, the novel opens this way:

"Every time I touch you, every time I kiss you, every time I offer you my body, Ashvin. Do you know how tightly you shut your eyes as with your lips you search my skin? Do you know how you thrust your feet towards me, how you reach out your arms, how the sides of your chest strain against my palms? Are you aware of your fingers brushing against my breast, their tips trying to curl around something to hold on to, but slipping instead against my smooth flesh?

"Ashvin. Do you notice the wetness emerge from my nipples and spill down the slopes of my chest? Is that your tongue that I feel, are you able to steal a taste or two?"

This is, again, a mother and her baby son, and Meera's dreamy account of nursing goes on for another page and a half, all of it made slightly yucky by the erotic suggestiveness. No doubt, some women will testify to such a sexual component in their physical connection to an infant. Yet whatever the truthfulness of these feelings, and however much Meera's attitudes may be modeled after the relationship of Shiva's wife, Parvati, to her son Andhaka, such gushing, lyrical effusions embarrass and annoy.

To my mind, the novel is also too earnest, made over-symbolic by just such analogies to Hindu myth and slightly burdened by info-dumps about Indian politics and Hindu-Muslim conflict. While Meera eventually reenacts aspects of the Parvati story, her friends and family repeatedly scrape up against momentous historical events -- the separation of Pakistan from India, the ambiguous reign of Indira Gandhi, periods of martial law and repeated riots in the streets. After the Partition, families like that of Meera's sister-in-law Sandhya endured harrowing death marches to refugee camps in Hindustan. Right-wing groups, like that to which Arya belongs, trained for civil war and spread racist hatred. Certainly, the interlacing of actual history with archetypal patterns is a central ambition of the modern novel and should be applauded. Nonetheless, Suri's book feels just slightly programmatic, its developments somewhat forced.

Not least, there's precious little fun for the reader in The Age of Shiva. Only Paji, Meera's father, reveals a dry wit and flair for irony that recall Mr. Bennet of Pride and Prejudice. (Both men regularly retreat to their libraries and are sadly disappointed in their daughters.) When we first meet Paji, he is recalling his early days in publishing, when his father's printing business was mainly devoted to religious calendars -- "garish pictures of Lakshmi and Ganesh (Guru Nanak for the Sikhs), at the bottom of which were stapled a year's worth of tear-off dates." He adds: "Imagine my horror -- I, who had always fancied myself an atheist -- suddenly surrounded by these divine elephants and goddesses and their dozens of arms all day. I was so depressed I could barely drag myself to the factory. I got my clothes caught in the machinery. I developed allergies to the smell of ink. Fortunately for me, the Partition came." Paji may be overbearing but he brightens the novel whenever he appears.

Similarly, Dev's younger sister, Hema, is delightfully thoughtless and cruel, and her chatterbox ways bring a little vibrancy into a gray and gloomy household. Here she is on the day after Meera's wedding, finally sitting down to talk to her new sister-in-law:

" 'Even Arya bhaiyya was upset. He said Babuji should never have agreed to the marriage. He called you' -- again, Hema giggled -- 'a tramp. He said your sister was trying to mesmerize his brother, was doing magic on him, and casting tantric spells. And when that didn't work, the family set you instead upon poor Dev bhaiyya.' Hema's eyes widened: 'Do you really know magic? Will you teach me your tricks?' "

Suri's deftness with Paji and Hema makes clear that he can be sly and amusing. The critical and popular success of his first novel, The Death of Vishnu, further attests to his gifts. So it feels almost churlish to be disappointed in a book that is obviously the product of hard work and much thought: Its longueurs must be deliberate. I hope that my experience of Meera's story is an aberration, that others may not crave as much excitement in their fiction as I do, or will find what I judge tiresome to be rich with subtle Jamesian insight and historical understanding. Unquestionably, Manil Suri has written an ambitious and even admirable book. Still, I found myself unable to do more than pick up The Age of Shiva with dutiful resolve. Alas, this is not how one wants to read a novel.

Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co. (February 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393065693
• ISBN-13: 978-0393065695
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #431,054 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "To be a parent is to be guilty.", February 2, 2008

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

The Partition, Indian Independence and war with Pakistan serve as a dramatic background for this tale of happily-ever-after turned bitter disappointment as Meera finds herself wed to Dev, a young man infatuated with her older sister, Roopa. Thanks to her naive miscalculations, the new bride leaves a comfortable home with a domineering father and religiously devout mother for the humble quarters of her in-laws. Not only is Dev as immature as he is handsome, but his older married brother casts covetous eyes on the newest member of the household. Raised in a male-dominated society, an unfair tug-of-war between a conditionally generous father and young husband who desires a singing career, Meera succumbs to pressure, making a fateful decision that alters her life and poisons her marriage, deeply unhappy until the birth of her son, Ashvin.

In a society with clearly proscribed roles, Meera is torn between the secular demands of a domineering father and religiously rigid in-laws, her husband clinging to a past that fails to translate into a viable future. But it is the evolving relationship with the innocent child that colors Meera's days, petty jealousies and a yearning for unconditional love long denied, the family's struggle played out in Bombay, isolated in their tiny flat where Dev faces the loss of his dreams and war with Pakistan shatters the city. Yet there is more destruction inside the home than in a country writhing in revolution, from Nehru to Indira Ghandi; Meera's painful tread along the edge of motherhood leads to a nearly tragic denouement: "For once I would matter most in someone's life".

While the political landscape of India is changing, Meera undergoes her own revolution, thanks to the birth of her son. Mirroring her country's, it is this private journey that Suri so beautifully captures. Not content with the ready complications of married life, the author takes Meera's plight one step further, unhappy days with Dev in Bombay and a sacrifice that returns to haunt the marriage relieved only by the joyful child that stands between his beleaguered parents. Through domestic disharmony and war, Meera charts a difficult path through motherhood, seeking a balance that eludes her. The son who saves Meera from despair offers her the most difficult challenges: Meera's dearth of affection from elsewhere presents unique problems that loom larger as the boy grows from childhood to adolescence. That her desperation leads this mother to shameful manipulation is the sad result of an unfulfilling marriage, natural affection twisted by crippling fear.

Rather than be constricted by the predictable struggles of his female protagonist in a repressive society, Suri takes Meera to darker places, her emotional maturity crippled by a cruelly controlling father and a weak husband, Ashvin the repository of her dreams. Meera tormented by conflicting desires, Ashvin becomes the object, the measure of her worth, a disturbing element that adds another layer to the brilliant depiction of a woman trapped between her need for love and the independence of the son who inhabits her every waking moment. This delicate balance tips more than once into dangerous territory, a precipice where Meera hovers, buffeted by warring emotions and a suddenly unbearable future, facing the most pivotal decision of her life. Luan Gaines/2008.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, after "Death of Vishnu", June 4, 2008

By	didi02453 (Waltham, MA United States) - See all my reviews

I was very excited to see a new novel by Manil Suri, since I was completely taken by his first novel, "Death of Vishnu." The novel is completely focused on the female protagonist, Meera... including every nuance of her thoughts and feelings. And although individual sections are well-written (when Suri writes about food cooking, you can almost smell the chapattis... ), the book moves very slowly. And most striking for me.... I found her completely inappropriate relationship with her son... well, creepy.

"Death of Vishnu" was an extraordinary novel. To me, "Age of Shiva" is just another Indian novel which leaves the reader feeling sad and sorry for most if not all of the characters.

17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Unsympathetic Narrator, February 14, 2008

By	Mary Lins (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been anxiously awaiting the publication of "The Age of Shiva" by Manil Suri, because I was a huge fan of "The Death of Vishnu", his first novel. And while it's interesting and well paced, I had a hard time sympathizing with any of the characters, particularly the narrator/protagonist, Meera. From the beginning she continually makes horrifically self-destructive choices in her life. Every single time. Early on she is coerced into a tragic choice and then spends years blaming others for that decision that was ultimately hers to make.

Throughout her life Meera tries to take a stand for strength and reason in her life, only to capitulate every time to her husband, father, brother-in-law, or son. Frustratingly she by-passes every opportunity to say "no" and then finds herself in a mess and whines about being "powerless". Her motivations for making the stupid choices again and again just aren't made clear. Ironically, in the end it's her inability to make a resolve and then follow through with a plan that saves her life.

Despite my consternation I realize that Meera is likely to be an allegory for the country India herself. (Similar to Rushdie's "Midnight's Children") I am not educated enough on Indian history and politics to agree or disagree with the comparison. I will leave that to savvier critics. But reading about India, the culture, the religious identities, the Partition and the Emergency was very interesting and informative.

In addition to frustration with Meera's passivity, there is the entirely inappropriate relationship with her son. If you cringe in the beginning reading her sexually-charged descriptions of breastfeeding, well, that's only a foreshadowing, so be warned.

And still, it held my interest to the end, so I'm giving it 3 stars.