Chain Reading

This book broke my heart into a thousand pieces. It is not "fast paced", but the slow build up and the incredible history of India entwined with the character's stories is the stuff of BRILLIANT authors. Before you realize it, you deeply love the characters. The subtelty is superb, each hardship and small victory of the characters is shaded with a deft hand. The ending is sucker punch to the gut. One of my all time favorite books. The only drawback? I cannot find a copy without the ANNOYING Oprah Club sticker.

I stayed up all night to finish this book, because the climax is simply unputdownable. I am hesitant to formally review it because it's one of those few books that can't be confined within the bounds of a critique or summary, and one that is so magnificent and moving that the idea of reviewing it makes me feel insolent already! So I'll just note what I feel about the book, and the kind of effect it's had on me.

It's grim. Very grim. There are moments of tragicomedy, of overjoyed glimpses of the sun on a very grey day, but it's not a happy story, and it makes no pretensions to being one. The heartwrenching ending had me involuntarily wondering what kind of person would want to write a bleak tale like that -- and then I understood Mistry's message through the book, that this is fiction, but not made-up; this is a novel, but larger-than-life; this is yesterday, persisting into today and reaching out its long clammy fingers into tomorrow.

Life's vicissitudes toss four unlikely companions into one living space, a dingy little flat, in the "City by the Sea," Bombay. Widow Dina Dalal has lived for decades in solitude, barely making ends meet, watching the sun rise and set everyday with the same transparent indifference; college-student Maneck Kohlah has left his much-loved life and his family's little general store in the Himalayas to study air-conditioning and refrigeration in the city, a course that his father believes will equip him to deal with a world that is hell-bent on destroying nature to further technology; tailors Ishvar and Omprakash Darji, uncle and nephew, have left their village, and their traditional "untouchable" occupation of tanning animal hides to seek their fortunes in this city of dreams and earn enough money to go home and live more comfortably. This is the story of how these four people find family in each other, find friendship, laughter, and a courage to struggle and persevere despite all their troubles. This is the story of shattered dreams, of Indira Gandhi's cruel Emergency, of how each person's life is webbed and entangled in its own drama, of caste, poverty, and a positive survival instinct corroded into a dog-eat-dog mentality that strangulates, just as time itself does.

Many parts of the book brought tears to my eyes, but by the time I finished it, I was actually sobbing. Somewhere in these six hundred pages the reader becomes friends with the characters, begins to share their joys and sorrows, and desperately wish for a happy ending that he/she knows, deep down, is not to be.

This is a life-changing read, and one that I would be truly sorry to see anyone miss out on.

In 1970s India, Dina, a widow in need of money, sets up a sort of mini-sweatshop in her small apartment. She hires two tailors to work for her, Ishvar and his nephew Om. She then takes in a boarder, Maneck, a college student, to make more money. This is the story of these four central characters and their struggles to survive during the 'Emergency' under Indira Gandhi. Despite their differences in caste, etc., the four develop a sort of kinship. The books demonstrates just how rigid and harsh the caste system is (was?), as well as drawing a clear picture of the political climate of the time. I preferred the characters' back stories to their current lives of misery. I found the endless string of tragedies that befall the characters, Ishvar and Om in particular, a bit too draining. It was as if they took one step forward, only to be knocked back three steps each time. Sometimes the atrocities they suffered were almost enough to make me put the book down. But still, they persisted. And at the end, it was Maneck (who seemingly had everything going for him) who gave up and killed himself. In spite of all the misery in this book, it ended on a slightly amusing note. Dina, now living virtually as a servant with her brother and sister-in-law, still feeds Ishvar and Om during the day. She then washes their dishes and puts them aside ready for her brother and sister-in-law that evening. Dina, my favourite character in the book, still kept a speck of mischief even after losing her home, business, etc. I wouldn't say I enjoyed reading this book - it was too horrific for that - but it was worth reading.