Read-a-thon: One book down!(The White Tiger)

Wow, I loved being the blogger of the hour together with Chris!
So many of you, thanks so much especially for the Halloween's party suggestions. Some very cool ideas there, I will have to try some.


I've just finished The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. I believe this is the first time I blog about a book I've just finished. I normally have plenty of time to think about what to write. So I'd say I skip "normal" reviews for this Read-a-thon and will just give you a general feel of the book.
The White Tiger was an unusual read for me. At first I had no idea how it was going to be like. You don't get the idea of what the book is going to be about till after few pages...At first you can only understand that an Indian guy is writing a letter to the China's Premier, Wen Jiabao (I had to google his name to check if he is actually the Chinese's Premier!) telling him about the truth about India and about Entrepreneurship. Through a series of seven letters, written during the night, The White Tiger tells him his story. Of how he became the man he is now, an entrepreneur in Bangalore, after being born from a poor family, on a small village along the river Ganga. Of how he managed to escape the Darkness (that's how the area along the river is called) and become the driver of a rich man. And of how he manipulated his future and became a business man.
This is not a pleasant read. It's about the darkest side of India. Its corruption, its poverty, its contradictions. For a while I wasn't sure when the book was supposed to take place. I supposed a long time ago. But then mentions of Internet, Harry Potter and mobile phone brought me back to reality. This is the 21st century India. Not a forgotten past. This is how things work now. I know it's a work of fiction, but as the author said, his fiction draws from the reality he experienced. I hope it wasn't in any way autobiographical though, but only inspired by what he saw.
I could never identify with the narrator. Although you might feel pity for him and for his fate that made him grow up in such poverty, he is a repulsive man, most of the time. He is sly, selfish, unpleasant, a liar with little heart for anyone except himself. He is not the worst man that you'll encounter in the book, no. Unfortunately. The book is full of rich corrupted men who would do anything to keep their power, poor helpless people who can't do anything to change the system, and rich cowards with no guts to say no to what's going on around.
So, it's hard to blame Balram, the narrator, for what he does to liberate himself.
I've read this book was anti-capitalist. It probably is because of the way it reveals India's dirty secrets and because it blames everything on the rich. It didn't have any answer to what could be done, though. It couldn't, because who told the story didn't want to change the system, but only find a safe spot in the world for himself. But you can tell where the heart of the writer is.
So, in conclusion, it was an interesting read. Not my favourite, but definitely worth it. I can't tell if it deserved to win. I haven't read the others and I'm not sure I will.
It sure helped me to understand India a lot more. It felt so drenched in reality I almost forgot it was fiction. It also had the merit to be easy to read. No struggling through the prose here, just straight to business. That's why I could finish it so fast.

That's all. I think I'm ready for something much much lighter now! It's getting dark already here and it's only ten to 7...but still many hours to go!

other reviews:


Caribousmom

Michelle at 1More Chapter

Marie at The Boston Bibliophile

Susannah at 7th Decade Thoughts

Karen at Bookbath

Mystic Wanderer at What I Am Reading

Dovegreyreader Scribbles

Raidergirl at An Adventure in Reading

Redhead Ramble

Paddy Clarke ha ha ha - Roddy Doyle

Paddy Clarke is ten years old. He lives in Dublin, in the fictional north side Barrytown, with his little brother Sinbad, who wears a patch on one eye to help the other lazy one, a mother always busy with his two baby sisters, and a father always busy reading his newspaper. It's the 60's and a child's life takes place mostly outside, in the streets or in the fields which still surround the area, playing football, stealing from the shops just for the dare, exploring the near building site, always looking for danger.

It's a tough world. Teachers can still beat kids up. Bullies are respected and even emulated. But for Paddy the scariest threat is at home, where the fights between his parents are whispered, night after night, while he's in bed, trying to shut them out, or to magically make them stop with his thoughts.

This book is a trip in Paddy's mind. A sort of childish stream of consciousness. Facts, memories, events, questions and dialogues, all follow one another with no apparent logic. It's a truthful way of capturing a child's world, his way of thinking, his heroes (Geronimo, the leper priest, George Best...), his fears.
Specifically, what Roddy Royle does really well is showing how incomprehensible the grown up world seems to a child. How senseless and illogical.

Why didn't he like Ma? She liked him, it was him that didn't like her. What was wrong with her? Nothing. She was lovely looking, though it was hard to tell for sure. She made lovely dinners (...) There must have been a reason why he hated Ma. There must have been something wrong with her, at least one thing. I couldn't see it. I wanted to. I wanted to understand. I wanted to be on both sides. he was my Da.

The child's perspective feels so real, Doyle sticks to it so firmly you almost think that a child wrote it.
Maybe this was also the reason why I couldn't enjoy it completely. I struggled to finish it even though I enjoy some parts very much. What it lacked was fluidity. It felt fragmented, there was no common thread that usually keeps me interested and wanting to read more.
Sometimes I wished the flashes of stories that were told would go on longer, that became part of a whole. But to me they never did.
Some dialogues were really funny and reminded me why I love his other Barrytown books so much. But with this, I never felt completely absorbed and I was glad when I read the last page.
That said I didn't give up on him. I still have to read two of his books. "The woman who walked into doors" and "Paula Spencer". One day, when I'll read them, I'll let you know if they lived up to the expectations.

Other Blog Reviews
Nymeth at Things mean a lot
Kristi at Passion for the page

The God of small things by Arundhati Roy

I have mixed feelings about this one. I had hoped to loose myself in it and be completely absorbed by the story, but that never happened really. At first, I was intrigued by the use of the language, so experimental and new. But after a while it started to be an obstacle, it didn’t let me enjoy the story freely. I had to stop many times to actually figure out what she meant and what was going on. It didn’t help that the timeline was mixed up constantly, making it hard at the beginning to follow the narration. The first chapters were hard to get into because of all the Indian names and words I didn’t know. There were so many characters and each seemed to have a story of their own. I normally like these family sagas, so I stopped and started reading it again from the beginning. That helped. Soon though, her style became somewhat annoying. Not because it didn’t sound beautiful. It did. But it was overdone. She kept repeating some words and phrases like a chant, or a refrain. And if that’s good in a song, I found out it doesn’t sound as pleasant in a novel. It stopped the story from flowing into me.
However, I kept reading. Partly because I was hoping that I would gradually accept her style and then just enjoy it. But mostly because I liked the story, I liked the little twins, who embodied the real meaning of the word “soul-mates”. I just wanted to know was going to happen to them. You can sense since the beginning that something had happened to this family, something terrible, unspeakable. How did the little cousin Sophie Mol died? Why had Estha, one the twins, been returned, like an unwanted parcel? Who is this Velutha that’s mentioned at the beginning, and what was his role in the tragedy? The author keeps the suspense on till the end, when in few chapters everything unravels and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. Normally stories like this would depress me. I’d feel powerless in front of the inevitability of faith. But the way the author decided to end it, twisting the timeline again, leaves you with a happy, tender feeling, even if it’s a hopeless one. So I’m glad I read it and I made till the end. I’m not sure if I could handle another book with the same style, but it was interesting at least. It took me an awful lot of time to read, which is never good. But it left me some beautiful metaphors (she really has a talent for them) like this one:
He began to look wiser than he really was. Like a fisherman in a city. With sea-secrets in him.
New verbs like smiling out loud.
And a Banana Jam recipe that I might try one day!

The Complete Booker Project

The Complete Booker

I've joined this VERY ambitious project, whose aim is to read every single book that won the Man Booker Prize. The good thing is that there's no time limit, and that it's shorter than the other Pulitzer project :P
I really like the idea of reading all those books that are supposed to be the best in their year. I don't read enough adult books, many people could say, so this way I'd be able to say, proudly "Hey, I don't read only children's stuff, I've read this and this and they all won The Booker Prize!"

The first book I'll read is Paddy Clarke ah!ah!ah! by Roddy Doyle, which I guess is a compromise between adult and children's fiction. I also loved The Barrytown trilogy by Doyle so I'm sure I'll enjoy this one too.

But I was wondering, is there anyone who started the same kind of project for the Carnegie Medal or the Newbery? That'd be great too, I might start one of the two,if nobody does before me...