The 2006 Booker prize winner, but I can't say that I was impressed with it. Omniscient viewpoint, with quite a distance from the characters, which kept me, as the reader, at a distance also.
A third of the book could be cut. Way too much detail in places. The tenth description of the setting is the same as the first - overdone. A little goes a long way in those cases.
There wasn't much to keep me reading either. No overarching plot device to direct my attention. Reading it got to be a chore.
Yet it won the big prize. There are also an embarrasing number of typos, usually extra consonants at the beginnings of words. I am certain the author did not intend those, they were not dialect, but in the narrative. I have no idea what happened, or who was at fault.
For a better treatment of the Indian diaspora, read the short stories of Jhuumpa Lahiri.
No comments:
Post a Comment