The Inheritance of Loss
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Review
'A whirlwind of a novel, rich and sad and funny'
Product Description
At the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas, lives an embittered old judge who wants nothing more than to retire in peace. But with the arrival of his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and his cook's son trying to stay a step ahead of US immigration services, this is far from easy. When a Nepalese insurgency threatens Sai's blossoming romance with her handsome tutor they are forced to consider their colliding interests. The judge must revisit his past, his own journey and his role in this grasping world of conflicting desires every moment holding out the possibility for hope or betrayal.
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First Sentence
All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
super prose, insightful reflections, but lacking in substantive plot,
By
This review is from: The Inheritance of Loss (Hardcover)
Reading the Inheritance of Loss i had an immediate feeling of deja vu - John Banville's 'the sea', seemed to deal with similar issues of loss, grief, unfulfilment, and fitting in with a strange culture. Both novels share a similar narrative voice, but overall the sea was more affecting.
Kiran Desai creates some beautiful sentences and insightful reflections, such that i found myself reading the same paragraph several times over as i basked in its glory. However, each time she creates an interesting scene, usually regarding Biju's difficulties surviving in America, she concludes the scene early before any really drama can occur. In fact the book is broken into zillions of mini-chapters which for me breaks up the unfolding drama, decreasing its overall effect. Generally the plot is fairly non-existant. Readers of 'the Sea' or some of ian mcewans work will be familiar with this concept i.e. that the book is an exploration of pop psychology and philosophy and doesn't possess an adrenaline pumping storyline. Overall i found it very enjoyable mainly because of the prose and its comparison of Hindi and Western culture, albeit superficially.
30 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Mythic battles of past and present, justice and injustice.",
By
This review is from: The Inheritance of Loss (Man Booker Prize) (Hardcover)
Writing with wit and perception, Kiran Desai creates an elegant and thoughtful study of families, the losses each member must confront alone, and the lies each tells to make memories of the past more palatable. Sai Mistry is a young girl whose education at an Indian convent school comes to an end in the mid-1980s, when she is orphaned and sent to live with her grandfather, a judge who does not want her and who offers no solace. Living in a large, decaying house, her grandfather considers himself more British than Indian, far superior to hard-working but poverty-stricken people like his cook, Nandu, whose hopes for a better life for his son are the driving force in his life.The story of Sai, living in Kalimpong, near India's northeast border with Nepal, alternates with that of Biju, Nandu's son, an illegal immigrant trying to find work and a better life in America. Biju, working in a series of deadend jobs, epitomizes the plight of the illegal immigrant who has no future in his own country and who endures deplorable conditions and semi-servitude working illegally in the US. As Desai explores the aspirations of Sai and Biju, the hopes and expectations of their families, and their disconnections with their roots, she also creates vivid pictures of the friends and relatives who surround them, creating a vibrant picture of a broad cross-section of society and revealing the social and political history of India. Though Sai's romance, at sixteen, with Gyan, her tutor, provides her with an emotional escape from Kalimpong, it soon becomes complicated by Gyan's involvement with the Gorkha National Liberation Federation, a Nepalese independence movement which quickly becomes bloody. Gyan's commitment to the insurgency offers an ironic contrast with the commitment of his family to the colonial British army in earlier times, just as the judge's hatreds, learned in England, are ironically contrasted with his British affectations in later life. A careful observer of behavior, with a fine eye for revealing details, Desai brings her narrative and characters to life, illustrating her themes without making moral judgments about her characters-creating neither saints nor villains, just ordinary people leading the best lives they can, using whatever resources are available. Her characters, like people from all cultures, make sacrifices for their children, behave cruelly toward people they love, reject traditional ways of life and old values, rediscover what is important to them, suffer at the hands of faceless government officials, and learn, and grow, and make decisions, sometimes ill-considered, about their lives. Dealing with all levels of society and many different cultures, Desai shows life's humor and brutality, its whimsy and harshness, and its delicate emotions and passionate commitments in a novel that is both beautiful and wise. Mary Whipple
55 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Half a classic,
By
This review is from: The Inheritance of Loss (Hardcover)
It took a while, but I've finally finished The Inheritance of Loss. Overall, I really enjoyed it, although the first half was really hard work.
Kiran Desai starts out narrating a number of stories. There is the life of Sai and her grandfather, the judge. Both are native Indians, living on the Nepali border, but have been of middle class stock. They have a fading grandeur: once they were influential but as chaos descends upon their part of India, they become increasingly irrelevant. Sai's maths tutor, and briefly a suitor, starts to become embarrassed by her as he becomes more involved in the Gorkha separatist movement. There is an engaging story of Biju - the son of the judge's cook. Buji is an overstayer in the USA, working illegally in a succession of fleapit cafes along with workers from all over the world. His father, the cook, dreams that Biju is having a better life. There are various back stories, including a Swiss cheesemaker, a pair of retired ladies of leisure, a dog and a little cat. For the first half of the novel, it is not clear exactly what direction things are going in. I found the Biju story quite captivating, but found events in India rather disjointed and, actually, rather dull. The frequent use of Indian words, in italics bit without a great deal of context, started to become irritating and there was a sense of drift. In the second half, though, Biju is left forgotten as events focus on the disintegration of Gorkhaland into anarchy. The westernized Indians found themselves threatened by the insurgents and unable to trust the loyalties of the police, neighbours and closest confidantes. This descent was really quite horrifying and balanced the personal detail with the general destruction to perfection. The pace picked up and plot, characterisation and detail all seemed to sharpen into focus. One was left wondering, though, why we had invested so much emotion in Biju. The ending, when it came, was sudden and not quite satisfactory. Too many threads were left hanging and I never really understood the significance of the final events. I thought this was a dense book - half of it brilliant - but that it fell just short of being a classic. It made an interesting contrast to Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown, which also drew on Indian civil unrest; tension between western and eastern values; and the struggle of the personal values against the epic struggle of history. I think Rushdie hit the balance more successfully and reached a more satisfying conclusion. But this shouldn't detract from what Kiran Desai gets right in Inheritance. We should celebrate the half that is a classic rather than lament the half that is not.
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