A story that challenges us with writing that rocks.

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	• The Inheritance of Loss Kiran Desai Grove Press, 2006 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 157 reviews view larger image
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A story that challenges us with writing that rocks.

With its detailed descriptions, humour, hate, and a delicate tenderness, this book confidently shuttles readers between cultural collision and insurgency in West Bengal and exploitation of new immigrants in Manhattan. Three generations from the 1940's to late `80's languish in a post-colonial malaise stiffened by war, poverty and obsession with the West. Their cultural identity eroded, they no longer know who they are or could be. It's impossible for us to relate to them except superficially, and frustrating to even attempt. They wouldn't understand you were you to tell them that some `culture-distinct' novels spin filaments of a shiny oneness that join the rich here with the poor there. And you would insult their reality if you suggested that hope without supportive policies could soften their disintegration. That these characters don't share our ideals or notions and haven't produced for us a hero from dust are vital aspects of this story. This is the author's clear intent. Commenting on a deadly protest, she pinpoints why we can't empathise with this community:

"This was how history moved, the slow build, the quick burn, and in an incoherence, the leaping both backward and forward, swallowing the young into old hate."

By casting her characters as unresponsive, the author has left herself space to do something astounding. Entranced into innocence by her delightful narration and descriptions of regional life, perspectives and natural phenomena, we joyfully skip alongside her straight into personal and social cruelties so crushing and senseless that we naturally turn to her characters for solace and tips on coping. But they have none to give us. Stranded, all readers can do is be aware of the displacement and exclusion that have stagnated this community. If, disgusted by the characters' inaction, we throw the book down, then we are tasting more directly than dialogue could impel the shock and desperation this community must have felt before it descended into self-doubt, loathing and revenge. I opted to continue reading and was later struck by how unrealistic my earlier wish to find a connection through this book's characters had been. It's irrational to expect fictional creations to redress injustices that in real life, no person, group, authority or system yet has.

T. S. Eliot posited in his 1937 introduction to Djuna Barnes' "Nightwood" that contemporary novels of his time gypped readers on reality, that the little of it they provided came from authors' accurate renditions of noises humans make, bundled together with passable prose. He added, "A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader".

"The Inheritance of Loss" requires readers to look beyond their need to empathise with characters and to relax into a story that may change their perspective by increasing their intimacy with the dilemma itself. This is a highly effective story written in a style that somehow spangles wisdom with innocence, a luxury at any time but especially now.

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My favorite book of the past year

Lyrical prose, excellent eye for detail, and great depth of insight and sense of nuance in human behavior. Don't bother with this book, though, if you regularly find yourself complaining about other works of 'high literature' that "nothing much happens" or "it's too depressing" -- you'll surely feel the same way about this book (but it is a wonderful piece of fiction, nonetheless).

reviews: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, page 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

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