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Review
'I was absolutely mesmerized by this novel, and think that Aravind Adiga is already, with this, his second book, the most exciting novelist writing in English today.' - A. N. Wilson. 'Beautifully done... Last Man in Tower is as honest a book as it is entertaining: funny and engaging as he can be, Adiga never forgets the seriousness of his subject.' - The Times 'A funny yet deeply melancholic work, Last Man in Tower is a brilliant, and remarkably mature, second novel. A rare achievement.' - The Economist 'The story of a struggle for a slice of shining Mumbai real estate brings all of Adiga's gifts for sharp social observation and mordant wit to the fore... His scope, in this novel teeming with life and skulduggery, is Dickensian... [Adiga is] a writer who is evocative, entertaining and angry.' - Daily Telegraph
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21st Century Mumbai is a city of new money and soaring real estate, and property kingpin Dharmen Shah has grand plans for its future. His offer to buy and tear down a weathered tower block, making way for luxury apartments, will make each of its residents rich - if all agree to sell. But not everyone wants to leave; many of the residents have lived there for a lifetime, many of them are no longer young. As tensions rise among the once civil neighbours, one by one those who oppose the offer give way to the majority, until only one man stands in Shah's way: Masterji, a retired schoolteacher, once the most respected man in the building. Shah is a dangerous man to refuse, but as the demolition deadline looms, Masterji's neighbours - friends who have become enemies, acquaintances turned co-conspirators - may stop at nothing to score their payday...
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
44 of 44 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Sometimes a book is so good it's hard to do justice to it in a review. This is one of those books.
As the Vakola area of Bombay (as the author usually calls it) begins to come up in the world, the inhabitants of an apartment block are offered money by a developer to move out. One man, Masterji, a retired teacher, wants to stay. This is the story of how the promise of wealth changes and corrupts a community. But it's also so much more than that. The author takes us into the lives of Masterji and his neighbours, letting us see their thoughts and dreams and fears. With humanity and humour he paints a picture of the friendships, favours and shared histories that bind a community together; and then shows how small envies and old grievances are magnified when that community is divided.
Bombay itself is a major character in the book. There is a real sense of how the city is changing as India becomes richer. The contrasts between the lucky rich and the frightening hand-to-mouth existence of the very poor are woven into the story, but subtly, so that the reader accepts these contrasts as easily as the inhabitants. The author also highlights the cosmopolitan nature of the city, the differing religions and cultures all forming one vibrant whole.
This book made me laugh and cry. It is full of warmth and the characters are drawn sympathetically and affectionately. In many ways an intimate portrait of a small group of people, but also an in-depth look at the strengths and frailties of human nature. By a long way, this is the best book I have read this year. Don't miss it!
As the Vakola area of Bombay (as the author usually calls it) begins to come up in the world, the inhabitants of an apartment block are offered money by a developer to move out. One man, Masterji, a retired teacher, wants to stay. This is the story of how the promise of wealth changes and corrupts a community. But it's also so much more than that. The author takes us into the lives of Masterji and his neighbours, letting us see their thoughts and dreams and fears. With humanity and humour he paints a picture of the friendships, favours and shared histories that bind a community together; and then shows how small envies and old grievances are magnified when that community is divided.
Bombay itself is a major character in the book. There is a real sense of how the city is changing as India becomes richer. The contrasts between the lucky rich and the frightening hand-to-mouth existence of the very poor are woven into the story, but subtly, so that the reader accepts these contrasts as easily as the inhabitants. The author also highlights the cosmopolitan nature of the city, the differing religions and cultures all forming one vibrant whole.
This book made me laugh and cry. It is full of warmth and the characters are drawn sympathetically and affectionately. In many ways an intimate portrait of a small group of people, but also an in-depth look at the strengths and frailties of human nature. By a long way, this is the best book I have read this year. Don't miss it!
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
Your sympathy goes out to Aravind Adiga. Your first novel is a success, selling over a million copies and landing the 2008 Booker. Second novels are hard; bad examples lie thickly on the ground. This novel would have to follow on from The White Tiger, attempt a larger picture of Mumbai society, high and low, and present a greedy developer vs. downtrodden people story, and do it all without becoming a mere 'message novel'. The stakes couldn't seem higher.
Lucky for us, Adiga's talents survive expectation, and deliver more of what he excels at: realistic fables. Unlike many authors who write about India, Adiga shuns the ornamental and the overblown for precision and grit. The milieu is the same - Mumbai, seen from above the heights of its towering new centres of enterprise and commerce, to the slums where headless animals, 'a smear of pink imprinted with a tyre tread, an exclamation mark of blood' slump next to playing infants. He has sympathy for the downtrodden, but seems them clearly; he can present a ruthless developer's backstory with flashes of humanity; he can command variety of character and mood. If not quite an ensemble piece, the novel boasts a a larger cast, and to its benefit. However seemingly unimportant a person may seem, Adiga reminds us how we each carry a piece of our country's story within us, the imprint it makes:
'In old buildings truth is a communal thing, a consensus of opinion. Vishram society retained mementoes, over forty-eight years, of all those who had lived in it; each resident had left a physical record of himself there, like the kerosense handprint made by Rajeev Ajwani on the front wall on the day of his great tae kwon-do victory. If you knew how to read Vishram's walls, you would find them covered with handprints. These handprints were permanent; but they could move; a person's record was alterable. Now Masterji felt the opinion of him that was engraved into the building- in its peeling paint and 40-year old brickwork - shift. As it moved, so did something within his body.'
Thoughts like these keep the novel grounded firmly on the human level, and prevent drifts into weightless symbolism.
My few gripes are that the novels sags in the usual place - i.e. the middle, and that he might have done a little more with the promising material offered by the female tenants of his doomed tower block. (Perhaps, admittedly, Adiga is trying to avoid emulating The Women of Brewster Place.) I would prefer it if Adiga would call the city either 'Mumbai' or 'Bombay', and stick with his choice throughout.
Adiga is India's answer to Maxim Gorky, highlighting social injustice with both unsentimental compassion and an eye as clear and restless as a strobe light. He has nowhere to stay but put.
Lucky for us, Adiga's talents survive expectation, and deliver more of what he excels at: realistic fables. Unlike many authors who write about India, Adiga shuns the ornamental and the overblown for precision and grit. The milieu is the same - Mumbai, seen from above the heights of its towering new centres of enterprise and commerce, to the slums where headless animals, 'a smear of pink imprinted with a tyre tread, an exclamation mark of blood' slump next to playing infants. He has sympathy for the downtrodden, but seems them clearly; he can present a ruthless developer's backstory with flashes of humanity; he can command variety of character and mood. If not quite an ensemble piece, the novel boasts a a larger cast, and to its benefit. However seemingly unimportant a person may seem, Adiga reminds us how we each carry a piece of our country's story within us, the imprint it makes:
'In old buildings truth is a communal thing, a consensus of opinion. Vishram society retained mementoes, over forty-eight years, of all those who had lived in it; each resident had left a physical record of himself there, like the kerosense handprint made by Rajeev Ajwani on the front wall on the day of his great tae kwon-do victory. If you knew how to read Vishram's walls, you would find them covered with handprints. These handprints were permanent; but they could move; a person's record was alterable. Now Masterji felt the opinion of him that was engraved into the building- in its peeling paint and 40-year old brickwork - shift. As it moved, so did something within his body.'
Thoughts like these keep the novel grounded firmly on the human level, and prevent drifts into weightless symbolism.
My few gripes are that the novels sags in the usual place - i.e. the middle, and that he might have done a little more with the promising material offered by the female tenants of his doomed tower block. (Perhaps, admittedly, Adiga is trying to avoid emulating The Women of Brewster Place.) I would prefer it if Adiga would call the city either 'Mumbai' or 'Bombay', and stick with his choice throughout.
Adiga is India's answer to Maxim Gorky, highlighting social injustice with both unsentimental compassion and an eye as clear and restless as a strobe light. He has nowhere to stay but put.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I agree that it must be hard to produce a novel after reaching the unexpected heights of a Booker win so early in one's career as a novelist.
This continues the theme of how rapid change and exposure to western materialism is corrupting traditional Indian society and values, and rightly seeks a different theme from the prize-winning "The White Tiger", which highlights the gulf between rich and poor. In this case the community of residents in a proudly "middle class" Bombay tower block are split apart by the lure of a businessman's very generous offer for them to leave, to enable him to redevelop the site for luxury apartments. The story is also a study of human nature - the way in which formerly decent people turn on the one moral - and perhaps foolishly stubborn - soul who persists in refusing to be bought, thereby sabotaging their one off chance to get their hands on the windfall which they imagine will transform their lives.
Although I want to admire and enjoy this book, it seems to me to lack the sharp wit and verbal imagery, combined with creative imagination and originality of "The White Tiger". Despite the large cast of potentially interesting and moving characters, I found the scenes too plodding and pedestrian to sustain my interest. The opening pages also read more like a journalist's article, than a piece of creative writing in which the reader gradually works out what is going on, who the characters are and what they are like.
I may return to this book and try the author again with another title, but was a little disappointed.
This continues the theme of how rapid change and exposure to western materialism is corrupting traditional Indian society and values, and rightly seeks a different theme from the prize-winning "The White Tiger", which highlights the gulf between rich and poor. In this case the community of residents in a proudly "middle class" Bombay tower block are split apart by the lure of a businessman's very generous offer for them to leave, to enable him to redevelop the site for luxury apartments. The story is also a study of human nature - the way in which formerly decent people turn on the one moral - and perhaps foolishly stubborn - soul who persists in refusing to be bought, thereby sabotaging their one off chance to get their hands on the windfall which they imagine will transform their lives.
Although I want to admire and enjoy this book, it seems to me to lack the sharp wit and verbal imagery, combined with creative imagination and originality of "The White Tiger". Despite the large cast of potentially interesting and moving characters, I found the scenes too plodding and pedestrian to sustain my interest. The opening pages also read more like a journalist's article, than a piece of creative writing in which the reader gradually works out what is going on, who the characters are and what they are like.
I may return to this book and try the author again with another title, but was a little disappointed.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
what would you do...
after reading white tiger i decided to read another book by the same author to see, if like so many authors, he was a one horse trick - i was proved wrong. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Gcrikey
Ego vs Greed
A good book, good story and setting. The author goes in good detail on the residents of Vishram Society and how they respect the main character known as Masterji and how in the end... Read more
Published 2 months ago by abhishek.d77
How evil happens.
I read "White Tiger" a while ago and remember being impressed even though I can't recall anything about it now.I doubt that I'll forget this engrossing novel very quickly. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Valentine Gersbach
Exactly what you expect from Adiga and better!
This novel is rich in detail and characterisation. What I loved about The White Tiger is still present in Last Man in Tower: people and place. Read more
Published 3 months ago by bethanchloe
wonderful affectionate picture of life in mumbai
A moving, affectionate, often humourous portrait of life in Mumbai with a 'Lord of the flies ' take on the impermanance of the veneer of civilisation in the face of human... Read more
Published 3 months ago by meg keir
Like 'Lord of the Flies' for Adults
Aravind Adiga's latest book `Last Man in Tower' explores what it takes to turn ordinary respectable middle-class people into evil, devious, greedy beasts prepared to contemplate... Read more
Published 4 months ago by boingboing
Good but over-long
This book was a good story but suffered from being a bit too long and, in places, pedestrian. It gives a picture of modern day Mumbai/Bombay (the author sometimes uses one name and... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Paulus
third party
Regret being unable to either give a rating or comment on the book published as it was purchased for a third party. Sorry!
Published 4 months ago by Mr. A. C. Cooper
Greed and amorality
'Last Man in Tower' continues with the themes Adiga pursued in his earlier book 'The White Tiger' - corruption, greed, injustice, the extremes of poverty and wealth, duplicity and... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Marand
It's Location, Location, Location
"Last Man in Tower," comes to us from Aravind Adiga, Man Booker Prize-winning author of The White Tiger and Between the Assassinations, the latter a compendium of short stories... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Stephanie DePue
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