A Reverse Passage to India Filled with Wit

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	• The Inheritance of Loss Kiran Desai Grove Press, 2006 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 141 reviews view larger image
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A Reverse Passage to India Filled with Wit

If you like humorous books about how people live self-sabotaging lives to preserve their illusions of superiority, The Inheritance of Loss will delight you. If you prefer a novel that carries a strong plot line and significant developments you cannot predict, you'll wonder why anyone would read this book.

As I read the book, I was reminded of P.G. Wodehouse's writing. Mr. Wodehouse's novels were all rather similar, silly, and filled with predictable situations. But on each page there was a sentence that was so novel, fresh, and intriguing that it would stop your eyes while you thought about what you had just read.

Ms. Desai demonstrates a similar ability to create startling writing, but in her case the writing brings out loud laughter . . . at least it does for me. My wife said she hadn't heard me laugh so much while reading a book in years.

Here's an example. A group of young men is demonstrating in favor of independence. One talks about a better world he wants to create: "We will provide jobs for our sons. We will give dignity to our daughters carrying heavy loads, breaking stone on the road." That vision of male liberation has to make you laugh.

The other genius of the book is demonstrated by the ironies that Ms. Desai shares with us to suggest that our dreams are pretty dangerous. Why are they so dangerous? Dreams assume we control what happens to use. Ms. Desai is describing a world where someone with a sense of humor is running the show. For example, her father strives hard to become an astronaut . . . but loses his life in a mundane accident in a country he would never have visited if he hadn't had such a dream.

You could draw the conclusion from that example that Ms. Desai is a cynic. Actually, she loves people and finds them comically naive when it comes to pursuing their dreams. Her prescription would be to get some good information and then choose a direction that is practical for accomplishing something you want. Too many of the dreams she portrays are about class, status, and envy. Those dreams should always be suspect. Her vision is of a world where those perceptions should be no longer relevant, as A Passage to India taught.

I liked the way that she combined the ideas of people traveling to other countries and to other parts of Asia in search of something that they thought they couldn't find at home. That's why I called the book a reverse Passage to India. The most developed characters in this book are Indians who left India for at least a time in search of their dreams.

Be prepared for much fun. The book's main drawback from my perspective is that the humorous sentences thinned out considerably in the final third of the book, giving the ending a tone that didn't match the earlier fun. The marvelous ironies continue but they aren't so much fun.

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A series of poetic still lifes

Desai has a wonderful way with words, both poetic descriptions and dialogue. The book describes a time of conflict and even revolution in India. So what could possibly go wrong?
There is almost no sense of motion in the book. A scene is described; characters talk and emote and consider; then we start the next scene. There is very little that carries the reader from one scene to the next. As the literary equivalent of a "still life" the scenes can be quite good, but for a reader hoping to be swept along by a flowing plot, the book can be stilted and disappointing.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Published to extraordinary acclaim, The Inheritance of Loss heralds Kiran Desai as one of our most insightful novelists. She illuminates the pain of exile and the ambiguities of postcolonialism with a tapestry of colorful characters: an embittered old judge; Sai, his sixteen-year-old orphaned granddaughter; a chatty cook; and the cook?s son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one miserable New York restaurant to another, trying to stay a step ahead of the INS. When a Nepalese insurgency in the mountains threatens Sai?s new-sprung romance with her handsome tutor, their lives descend into chaos. The cook witnesses India?s hierarchy being overturned and discarded. The judge revisits his past and his role in Sai and Biju?s intertwining lives. A story of depth and emotion, hilarity and imagination, The Inheritance of Loss tells a story of love, family, and loss.

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