Eccentric Musings (jakaEM)

(read a different edition)

A better understanding of the political events occurring in the background would have enriched my reading of this, but even without, Mistry was able to catch and hold my attention, weaving layers of story and symbolism together, creating a sometimes farcical, bittersweet domestic tale.

I felt like I got to know this group of (self-declared) middle-class Indians and their microcosm of that larger world a little bit better. I certainly got to smell it - from frangipani and sandalwood to rotting garbage and gutters full of sewage.

Mistry is such a sensual writer - he really has the capacity to bring you right into the world of his novels with these amazing details, characterizations and juxtapositions: superstition with philosophy, cruelty with kindness, great beauty with great ugliness. And his characters are so alive, so large, containing multitudes, as Whitman would say.

Really lovely and awful and fantastic and real - all at once.