September 26, 2014
I finished this book last night, but it got a little late to blog. TGIF! It's been a very long week for me, but with my reading at the gym, I'm always able to get a little time in. I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend, though...
So this is the second full-length book I've read by Pulitzer Prize-winning Lahiri. Like The Namesake, it takes place in both the U.S. and India, and follows a family over a long period of time (about the mid-1940s, as India's independence occurred when Subhash and Udayan were young boys, to present day). I have mixed feelings about this book overall, so I'll examine the good and the bad here.
The Good:
I have mentioned before my appreciation for books that can teach me about the history of other countries. In spite of the fact that India is the second most populated country in the world, its history is barely touched on in your typical American curriculum. The average American teen has probably heard of Gandhi, and maybe knows how the British once colonized it...and that's probably it. The poverty in India, and the on-going influence of the caste system, is known, so the fact that there was much political turmoil in India after it became independent makes a lot of sense.
The book opens with a scene from the brothers' childhood. They snuck onto a country club golf course, and when caught by security, Subhash was beaten. This event seemed to traumatize Udayan, the younger and feistier of the two brothers. As a young man, he becomes involved with a group of pro-Communists who might be called terrorists. He started by vandalizing public property with political slogans, but as he became more involved, he became part of this like underground network. He eventually takes part in killing a police officer; he also has the fingers on one hand blown off when he's building a bomb that unexpectedly explodes. When caught by the police, he's shot and killed in the lowland, a field in his neighborhood that is suspeptible to flooding during the monsoon season. His parents and his bride Gauri witness this.
I found myself thinking that I would have found this book a lot more interesting if it were told from Udayan's perspective. But it wasn't. Which leads me to...
The Bad:
The story covers such a long span of time, yet I don't feel like I really knew the characters much. Subhash, who leaves Calcutta to attend grad school in Rhode Island, is the central character, but his personality "is like, so whatever." He's mild, and kind, and dutiful. That's about it, I guess. He's definitely not driven much by his passions. He's probably meant to serve as a foil for his daring if misguided brother, but I only found myself wishing that there was more Udayan, less Subhash. Kind of sad, considering that their parents kind of felt the same way! But Subhash has the personality of a piece of toast.
Now, I did feel like I knew Gauri, but I never liked her much. I came to like her more when the details of her involvement with Udayan's political comrades became clear. Her relationship with Udayan was complex, as she grapples with being involved with his political comrades (even providing the information that led to the stabbing of the police officer), yet loving him and being deeply affected by his violent death. Again, if there'd been more of that, and less of her time in the U.S. as Subhash's wife and Bela's neglectful mother, we'd really have a story here. But mostly, she's shown as being cold and academically driven, finally leaving Subhash to care for Bela when she takes a job in California. I tried to like Gauri, but I couldn't.
Bela grew up in a flash. Like Udayan (her real father, killed when she was only a few weeks in the womb), she is driven to aid people in poverty. But she does it through farming and support of small farms, not terrorism. I might have liked her, had I known her, but her life is a blur.
The whole book overall felt rushed in time. Characters, as people, change and evolve in their lifetimes, but I barely saw enough of the characters at any one point to track these changes. I think that this book fell short for this reason. Had it taken place in the first thirty years of the brothers' lives, and been more focused, it would have been much better.
The story was also lacking any joy. Everything seems hopeless, sad, especially for Gauri. I wondered how anyone could live that way, aways feeling sad or guilty, not allowing yourself to see the good, to embrace life. I'm glad I read this book, if only it gave me a perspective on 20th century Indian politics, but otherwise I would not recommend this particular text.
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