Started David Davidar's first novel.
This is not a review. More like my thought processes while going though the book. [This is my Spoiler Alert!]
Parts of it reminds me of Marquez's'100 years of solitude'. This one is more grounded than Marquez's fable, but the moment with the kingfisher took my breathe away.
The beginning shook me a little because I assumed [very wrongly] the pace would be more like 'The house for Mr. Biswas'. Judging a book by the title I guess is equally misleading.
And I was not prepared for vividness of the history when he talks about 'as European historians later put more modestly, the breast cloth wars'. What struck me the most was how his women react. Set in roughly in the beginning of the 20th century, their reactions are uncannily like how women in the new modern Shining Indian still react.
But once I set myself to be a tad bit more objective reader and a bit less of an empathetic reader, it was delightful. With every page I turn I'm finding it more compelling. Esp. when he speaks though Padre [ as the English priest is called] and Charity.
Like the priest I know the mechanics of our culture, the caste system - but the emotional logic escapes me; in spite of having found my peace(?) with it, rather having lived all my life within the society which still clings on to it, it remains an alien concept to me.
As for Charity, it's funny that a 21st century, educated, employed, independent woman finds an echo in the thoughts and fears, especially the fears, of small town, uneducated house wife from the last century. How much of the world has really changed for women if I find myself facing the same fears? Sometimes I wonder if all the talk about women empowerment is merely another illusion of control we think we have over our lives?
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[edit on 13/9/11]
I'm not entirely sure why I'm surprised that the book should have a chapter entirely dedicated, rather obsessed with mangoes, given that the book itself is called House of Blue MANGOES!!?
I should have read it in summer. Now it's torturous to read about it and not be sinking in your teeth into lump of gold and sunshine! :-|
Parts of it reminds me of Marquez's'100 years of solitude'. This one is more grounded than Marquez's fable, but the moment with the kingfisher took my breathe away.
The beginning shook me a little because I assumed [very wrongly] the pace would be more like 'The house for Mr. Biswas'. Judging a book by the title I guess is equally misleading.
And I was not prepared for vividness of the history when he talks about 'as European historians later put more modestly, the breast cloth wars'. What struck me the most was how his women react. Set in roughly in the beginning of the 20th century, their reactions are uncannily like how women in the new modern Shining Indian still react.
But once I set myself to be a tad bit more objective reader and a bit less of an empathetic reader, it was delightful. With every page I turn I'm finding it more compelling. Esp. when he speaks though Padre [ as the English priest is called] and Charity.
Like the priest I know the mechanics of our culture, the caste system - but the emotional logic escapes me; in spite of having found my peace(?) with it, rather having lived all my life within the society which still clings on to it, it remains an alien concept to me.
As for Charity, it's funny that a 21st century, educated, employed, independent woman finds an echo in the thoughts and fears, especially the fears, of small town, uneducated house wife from the last century. How much of the world has really changed for women if I find myself facing the same fears? Sometimes I wonder if all the talk about women empowerment is merely another illusion of control we think we have over our lives?
---------------------
[edit on 13/9/11]
I'm not entirely sure why I'm surprised that the book should have a chapter entirely dedicated, rather obsessed with mangoes, given that the book itself is called House of Blue MANGOES!!?
I should have read it in summer. Now it's torturous to read about it and not be sinking in your teeth into lump of gold and sunshine! :-|
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