As most of my typing is one-handed these days (thankfully reading is possible at least with a new baby) this will be a short blog and probably a bit scatty and not very informative.
I had a busy month of May and so did not get to re-read The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, which I'd read not that long ago but even still have subsequently forgot most of! I had enjoyed it at the time, in fact I think it's a great read, but I was in the minority among the babe in arms readership this time round. The other readers found it dense and confusing, that the cast of characters was a bit big and that you didn't feel you knew what was going on with them even at the end and that in general it was an unsatisfying read. We were in agreement though that the most memorable storyline was that of the immigrant to America, I found it fascinating, and heartbreaking and infuriating all at once.
The author's view of India as an Indian living abroad and returning home with a jaundiced eye was discussed, and everyone was in agreement that she has a very cynical take on her homeland. She certainly doesn't depict the colourful fascinating place that lucky backpackers get to experience, even with the shock of extreme poverty thrown in; in fact it seems boring at times, as any place can be I suppose, when you live there. It's interesting though that her first novel Hullaballoo in the Guava Orchard seems to tick all the boxes of the colourful Indian story; it's funny with crazy characters and a plot that 'could only happen in India' as they say, but even in that story there are darker elements at work.
The theme of people being trapped by their circumstances suggested by the slightly clever clever title means that there is a stifling nature to the story, an air of claustrophobia. Characters are trapped by caste, by social pretension, by failed hopes and poverty and it doesn't seem like there's much hope for them to be released from one generation to the next. Some of the themes pursued by the author in this novel were similar to those of The God of Small Things, which drew a much more positive response, despite not being at all a straightforward read. The quality of the prose in this novel was also praised, so it is hard to say why readers didn't like it...in the end they just didn't find that the characters were drawn deeply enough to click with and understand or even care about. I think I'm going to have to read it again...
Our book for July is the joyful summertime read We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.
By the way if anyone still has any Inheritance books still out can they drop them back to the library asap please.
