Escape to India - Philippa J Kaye

Fiction

Read it

I believe this is the first novel I can say that I know the authoress first hand. Philippa is a kick-ass lady.  Her situation is in some ways very similar to mind, and it was a joy to meet her and read her book. 

Escape to India is about a woman who finds out her boyfriend is married - not divorced like he said - and literally just bounces to spend some time in India to gain space and perspective. She is going to run a wild life lodge and encounters some crazy and heartwarming characters along the way. There's romance, a surprise appearance of the boyfriend, and lots of fun info about jungles. It's a fun novel. I almost thought it was biographical until I almost reached the end and figured out my assumption was wrong.

What I loved about this novel was that Philippa gets India. The characters, the situations, they're all true to someone who would have gone to do what the heroine does. Probably because Philippa has spent a great amount of time here. It's not a tourist novel, and that's amazingly refreshing. Yet it comes across as quite accessible. I also loved that her main character was flawed - as we all are to be honest - but you root for her none the less. Screw the boyfriend, even I wanted to drop kick him.

To be sure, the jungle/safari/tourism sector of India isn't all of it. India is fucking huge and the variety is mind blowing. But I felt like I understood better about it - which for me is what I'm usually after in a book. 

Leave alone my personal admiration for Philippa, I can't wait to read what she writes next. I would love to hear more accounts (fictional or not!) about her exploits here. 

Read it!

~Becky~

Estuary - Perumal Murugan

Fiction

Read it

I know that as I read and write reviews, I use the word favorite quite often. I simply can't help it - there are so many reasons for having favorites and having them for different reasons. To be quite trite, Perumal Murugan is also a favorite author of mine. I had read One Part Woman and Poonachi previously and greatly enjoyed myself. It's been a joy to watch his writing evolve. The BookWorm clerk - a brilliant salesman and always handing me more books I simply must read - suggested this. As I know I enjoy Murugan, I readily agreed. That and the book cover is beautiful. I'm a sucker for beautiful covers. Please don't inform the BookWorm clerk.

Estuary is a story about a family of Asuras (loosely in mythology creatures that are humanoid with extra powers). A government clerk father, a home making mother, and a college aged, spoiled son. Murugan takes us through a stunningly accessible journey of a family trying to send their son to college and make peace with the new technologies and changing world. The father is the main character, and the one who struggles the most. Their son was born after years of trying and superstitious intervention. As with all parents, he is dismayed to find out that his son is not longer the happy child who wanted all the attention and has now developed strong opinions of his own. The son's ever increasing financial demands and increasing distance cause the father great pain and he struggles to re-connect. As he is introduced to the technologies that his son is most comfortable with, the father is overcome with panic that his most precious son may go down the wrong path and completely wreck his life. After a small mental breakdown, a kind friend brilliantly works with him to see the positive sides that technology can bring and helps him learn to use the things so that it isn't an amorphous scary entity.

The brilliance of Murugan is how accessible he is. Anyone with children can identify easily with the anxiety that these parents feel and how real the fear of technology, losing the child to the wrong path, and losing touch are for every parent. I'm not quite sure why Murugan chose to use Asuras as a theme and he hasn't really clued us in to why this is important. Perhaps it's simply my lack of understanding of Asuras that is the problem. Either which way, I very much understood and empathized with the main character.  It was a breath of fresh air and very refreshing to read after the previous two challenging novels.  His portrayal of college visits and putting young adults in horse harnesses and blinders so that they only study, and how the parents fell in line without thought was particularly brilliant and hilarious.

I cannot wait to see what Murugan has up next. 

Absolutely read it.

~Becky~

The Princess and the Political Agent - Binodini

 Fiction

Verdict: A difficult one, but Read it

As I mentioned, when one wanders through Indian novels and writers, each brings a specific flavor that can help the reader understand the culture that the novel stems from. Binodini's novel is no exception. While my daughter had a Manipuri boyfriend for a while and I have had some...acquaintances from Manipur and Assam as well, I have had very little exposure to Manipuri Culture and no exposure to literary works from there. To be quite frank, when i picked this up, I mistakenly thought that this was a Bengali novel. I was thrilled to find out otherwise. As with my previous post on Attia Hosain, the introduction to Binodini at the beginning was intimidating as hell. Related to the royal family of Manipur and quite the literary influence, Binodini has published just one novel, but many other poems and short works.

The novel follows one one of the Manipuri Princesses during the British Raj, when the Manipuri king was removed and sent into exile,  and through her life. The author has created a treasure trove of culture, court intrigue, and romance. As title suggests, the Princess ends up being a common law wife of an English Political agent. While he is portrayed as a compassionate and caring person, one cannot help but wonder why the princess would accept someone who is widely recognized as being a face of the enemy and not one of them. Binodini never really answers this question. While it is a fiction novel, she has based it on actual people and events. The princess actually was with the political agent.  

This was a difficult novel for me to follow. The author does her own thing and tells her story exactly as she wishes to - no apologies, very few explanations.  While the cultural value this novel has is quite something, it's not easily digestible. I found myself having to do additional research into words and such while I was reading. I don't fault the author for this, but those who do not invest in helping themselves understand will probably miss a great deal. I also found the characters very difficult to understand and identify with. As someone who loves Indian literature, this was frustrating for me. I also would have loved to have had further insight into interpersonal relationships between the characters. Many of the relationships were confusing at best, down right confounding at worst. True to form, Binodini has just presented the story, she does not explain. 

Manipuri literature is a new one for me, and I fully plan to see what else I can find to read from there. Hopefully I can develop my knowledge enough to fully appreciate the story Binodini has told. 

Read it, but unless you are Manipuri, plan on investing some time to investigate. If you don't, you'll miss the richness of this novel.

~Becky~

Sunlight on a Broken Column - Attia Hosain

Fiction

Read it

One of my favorite parts of books is the introduction - and even better an explanation of the author. They help open up the author's world to the reader. I had never heard of Attia Hosain before I started reading this novel. To say the least, the introduction on her was intimidating and I very much looked forward to reading her one and only novel. Anita Desai, another favorite authoress of mine wrote the forward which helped me on my way through the novel. When one investigates Indian novels, and if he or she is careful, the nuances of different locations and sub-cultures soon becomes very easily seen. This is very easy to see in Hosain's novel.

Sunlight on a Broken Column follows a young Muslim girl and her family from British era Lucknow to more modern times. The family struggles to change from a house where ladies are in purdah to learning to accept new norms. To say the least, it's not an easy transition and many struggle. It's difficult to avoid certain stereotypes when one talks about the Muslim community in India, however some of those spring from history and it's good to look at the historical attitudes to understand current culture. Hearing this from someone in the community, and in my opinion a neutral person, helps the reader get an accurate picture.

If my description doesn't tell you too much, it's because the author portrays ideas and everyday life. There's no story arc per say to follow. It's just everyday life and how it slowly changes. While this isn't always easy to follow, it's culture rich. 

I wish Attia Hosain had written other books. I would have like to delve a bit further into her mind.

Read it if you have the time to wander slowly and contemplate the breadcrumbs and cultural tidbits she lays out for you to find.

~Becky~

The Crows of Agra - Sharath Komarraju

Fiction

Verdict: If you like this sort of thing

There's a certain genre in India where people take historical figures and build fictional stories around them with just enough facts (or many facts) to make them plausible. In fact, I think this happens everywhere. I happen to enjoy them. They make history come more alive for me and make it accessible, not to mention interesting.

The Crows of Agra is a murder mystery. A pretty well done one at that. The novel starts with a very immature Akbar ruling with a regent. As he grows, and court intrigues prevail, it looks as though the regent is gunning for power and the throne. When he gets murdered, a random Brahmin (who isn't actually a Brahmin at all) who saved the king's life is called upon to unravel the mystery. And he does just that. 

There's not too much surprising that happens, though the author does manage to preserve the solution right to the very end. The only nice twist (Spoiler alert) that I found was the culprit's explanation at the end. I won't say more than that because it's no fun if you already know who dun it. 

This is a relatively short book and is an easy read. It drags a little in some places, but is overall well done. If this is your cup of tea, enjoy.

~Becky~

The Wasted Vigil - Nadeem Aslam

Fiction

Read it

This is my second book by Nadeem Aslam. I was prepared for another Pakistani in England story, but that is not what I got. What I found was even better than the first novel. 

Aslam takes us through a tragic story of a mixed family - a White Father, Afghani mother, and child - and how their lives have been linked to a Russian woman who came looking for her long lost brother. Afghanistan's history and war with Russia color the novel in the darkest of shades - you just know there are no happy endings here. And indeed you find out at the end that's true. 

The novel is fascinating, and very well done in terms of the author's understanding of Afghan culture and the reality of culture and how things are done in Afghanistan. He knows just how much hope and despair to balance to keep you moving on, desperate to prove yourself wrong that it's just that bad. But it is. 

I personally have not had much exposure to the effect that the Russians had on Afghanistan and vice versa, so that was interesting to learn about.  I most definitely look forward to reading more from Nadeem Aslam. 

It's not an easy read in terms of social niceties, but it is well worth it. Read it.

~Becky~

Moving On - Shashi Deshpande

Fiction

Read it

Shashi Deshpande is a new authoress for me, though not at all a new author for many Kannadigas, and I'm glad I tried her novel out. It's always a joy to find amazing authors.

Deshpande's novel centers around a family who's legacy is death. She slowly unwinds each death through the course of the novel, drawing the reader in to each scenario. It's not necessarily a sad novel, though the characters grieve in their own ways, but it is a reflective one. What gripped me most while reading this is that the main character is in a constant state of analysis when her father dies. He has left a conspicuous journal that leads her to understand him (and her mother and sister) better than she ever had when they were alive. 

A widow with nearly grown children, she wanders into a sexual affair and then a romance after years of denying herself contact with others. The marriage she had treasured, we come to find out through the book, was not as healthy nor functional as we thought in the beginning. Her husband also gave in to suicide for the vaguest of reasons.  Her romance at the end of the book doesn't feel like one and goes through some difficulties, though the reader ends up feeling that it may go in a positive direction.

While all of this unwinding is happening, the character is tasked with helping her daughter decide what to do with her father's house - as he has left it to his grand daughter. She deals with people breaking in, trying to strong arm her into selling it a certain way, and all the difficulties a property owner faces - not to mention a woman alone. In the end, they decide to keep the house and the guilty parties are caught. One twist is that her sexual affair ends up to be the very person who is trying to get her out of the house. 

Deshpande does a masterful job of bringing us through some of the more abstract questions and scenarios that follow death, but are far more common than we think. How well do we actually know our parents? How functional were our relationships and how much of that was just gloss that we applied because we wanted them a certain way? The author doesn't really give us answers, but she does show how the main character makes peace with her own discoveries. She also does a terrific job of portraying a woman who has incredible strength and won't be made to fall in line with what others want. 

I highly recommend this book. There are only a few things that people outside of India would struggle to understand, and the questions that Deshpande brings up are ones that we all face and can relate to. 

~Becky~