Book Review: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
You don’t need a book to learn that Loss is an integral part of life, but to read a book which includes this plain lesson with a deeper meaning of life, embedded with humor, common sense, knowledge and a fairly decent amount of scuttling between very diverse people, environments and situations is, SUCH a delight.
Diverse – life in a remote corner of India in a palatial, yet dilapidated house near the foot of Himalayas overlooking the Kanchenjunga, then life in the illegal alien track in the unkempt kitchens of New York fast food restaurants to life in the pre and post-colonial England where Indian civil servants were trained to be sent back to British India. Training apart, the newly westernized civil servant came back with distaste for most things Indian – food, wife, bathroom, social manners and language and, to add to the medley – unrest in the remotest part of India by Nepali-Indians fighting for a separate Gorkhaland for Gurkhas (Gorkhas?).
Five primary characters, the judge, his cook, the cook’s son – Biju, the judge’s grand-daughter – Sai, her tutor and love interest Gyan. And an assortment of characters across three continents – Saeed Saeed, Harish-Harry in America, Uncle Potty, Father Booty, Mutt – the judge’s pet dog, all in India and some insignificant characters in England, where the judge learns to embrace solitude and develop a hatred for everyone and everything.
Every character has a story to tell, the Judge having learnt to love loneliness and trying to come to terms with having his 17 year old grand-daughter Sai, being imposed upon him, the cook living a typical servant-ish life in the judge’s home. Biju, the cook’s son running from restaurant to restaurant in New York making out his living escaping from the INS and saving his money in the soles of his shoes, Sai deeply attracted to her tutor Gyan and Gyan himself torn between youthful romance and the call from his kukri waving community for a separate Gorkhland.
Some stories are hard to explain, Kiran Desai the author, mentioned in an interview that she took 7 years to write this 1500 page book and then condensed it into 300 pages. I started this book a couple of times over the last one year after a sweet gift from Dabbu for ‘Raakhi’ and was overwhelmed by the intensity of the book. In some ways, this book is not just another enjoyable read. I had to struggle a little sometimes to keep myself motivated and, often went over some paragraphs more than twice gasping at the beauty of the words woven into sentences. There are instances where each character’s story running in 5 different tracks, is presented in bits in a page or two. And then the humor, subtle and powerful, the reader might as well shake his head in disbelief at the sudden injunction of humor in the story.
The book begins with a majestic view of Kanchenjunga and ends with the same view of Kanchenjunga in a different season. Not everyone gets what they want, but every one tastes Loss. And the Loss is – inherited.
And to quote Borges’ poem – Boast of quietness ; the lines of which are mentioned in the epitaph of the novel:
……………………………Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn’t expect to arrive.”
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January 2, 2008 at 12:48 pm
hey! Sorry for the delay! Should I still post on my blog? what did you do for new yrs?