by Nancy,
‘Ma, I feel exhausted with consuming, with taking and grabbing and using. I am so bloated that I feel I cannot breathe any more. I am leaving to find some air, some place where I shall be able to purge myself, push back against the life given me and make my own. I feel I live in a borrowed house. It’s time to find my own … Forgive me …’
Calcutta, 1967. Unnoticed by his family, Supratik has become dangerously involved in extremist political activism. Compelled by an idealistic desire to change his life and the world around him, all he leaves behind before disappearing is a note…
The ageing patriarch and matriarch of his family, the Ghoshes, preside over their large household, unaware that beneath the barely ruffled surface of their lives the sands are shifting. More than poisonous rivalries among sisters-in-law, destructive secrets, and the implosion of the family business, this is a family unravelling as the society around it fractures. For this is a moment of turbulence, of inevitable and unstoppable change: the chasm between the generations, and between those who have and those who have not, has never been wider. [ Neel Mukherjee website]
Well ladies let us hope we are in for an interesting read, I am looking forward to learning much of a culture I understand very little of and contrasting it with something we are all familiar with, the dynamics, both good and bad of being part of a family.
Hello Ladies,
ReplyDeleteSo happy to hear you are both safe and well Sue, have a ball in London and I hope the tube strike doesn't prove any more costly to you. xx
Hello Ladies
ReplyDeleteToday, Monday, is a public holiday. Naturally, it's raining. Worse, this weekend the local rugby league team has been thrashed in a national cup final. A cowardly daughter anticipating the worst, I left my Dad to watch it and took Mum to a local, lovely garden for tea and cream scones. My brothers went to Wembley to support the team. We all are now in mourning now. Dad wanted o know why Jay was not wearing a black armband. However, these setbacks pale into insignificance beside those of the Ghosh family.
Don’t know about you, ladies, but I found this a very demanding read.
I was very grateful for the glossary of Indian terms, though not all the words I wanted defined were there. Personal reference to an English dictionary would have been useful on occasions, too – though I tended to fudge that and guess from the context. I didn’t even try with the math(s), though I’ve no doubt we were given clear and intelligent explanations. The cast of characters was convincing and wonderfully developed, but the sheer numbers meant it took me a while to work out who was who. I was grateful, again, for the family tree.
And it wasn’t just the surface level comprehension – much of what one did comprehend was very hard to bear. The torture scene is the obvious one – but dysfunctional (to put it politely) family relations, the shocking social inequalities, injustices and corruption . . . There just wasn’t any relief or redemption anywhere, unless one counts Sona and thus Purba’s eventual escape. Even there, Sona himself is dysfunctional. (Are all geniuses?)
However, I learned a lot about post-colonial Indian history. Though I knew that the social conditions to inspire the Naxalite movement existed, and could have guessed at the response to their activities, I had no idea of their existence, or that they are still active today
(Second half in next entry)
(Sorry ladies - my excuse is it is a big book)
ReplyDeleteThe depiction of family relationships was wonderful. Whether this is typical of Indian families, I can’t say. Though I’m married to an Indian, we’ve never lived geographically close to his family. However, the tales of other non-Indians (Singaporeans I’m thinking of here) married into Indian families suggest Mukherjee’s portrayal is horrifyingly accurate. And there is little of what Jay calls “British hypocrisy” to mitigate potential argument. Whereas I’ll keep quiet about what I may be feeling, exploding in private afterwards (believing you can’t take back what you’ve said and people don’t forget) Jay is of the view you lay it on the line there and then. To be fair, he observes “British hypocrisy” when with Brits, but I wouldn’t like to be present at a no-holds-barred Indian family set-to.
Having said that, Jay’s family is just marvellous – nothing they wouldn’t do to help. And I’ve never met kinder, more thoughtful and intelligent people than Indians with whom I’ve worked.
I do think, however, that in any society family relationships are never straightforward. There’s bound to be jealousy, resentment, etc. But it must be far worse in a stereotypical, conservative Indian family: the rigid allocation of authority and expectations based on family position and sex, its dreadful reflection in the wider society’s inequalities, like caste system, the abuse of the poor . . .
Interest in the lives of others is surely universal and timeless: from the encouragement of extreme right and left wing governments to spy on one’s neighbours, to the delicious tittle-tattle of Jane Austen’s characters, to modern social media. But Mukherjee’s novel is absolutely rooted in a specific time and place. Is the title meant to suggest that the features of family and society he describes are universal and timeless? I fear so – worse, I fear he maybe right.
Not a happy conclusion, ladies – but many of those in power in my own society abuse that power and do all they can to hold on to it. Human nature, I suppose. Perhaps as well I haven’t got power myself . . .
These last days of summer (until today that is) have been glorious here in Hornsea – we powerless, retired people have been sitting in our small but now colourful garden and putting the world to rights.
Hope all is equally well with your worlds, ladies.
Much love to you and your families
Sue
Hello Ladies!
ReplyDeleteHope you both are well. Summer is sadly ending. I’m not ready for another cold winter.
Sue, I agree. This book was a very challenging read. As you did Sue, I only skimmed over most of the math. However, this was not what I found most challenging in the novel. I think the break down of the family unit and the subsequent bickering between in-laws contributed to my difficulties. I was incredibly grateful for the family tree in the beginning and the glossary in the back.
I know it is naïve to believe that a family as big as the Ghoshs could be completely perfectly happy with one another at all times. That also makes for uninteresting reading. But at times the fighting between in-laws was too much. The constant cruelty and bitterness of Chhaya was almost unbearable. I found Priyo's wife's greed (sorry I do not have my book in front of me) and the family's horrific treatment of Purba and her children disgraceful. I agree, Sue, that the characters were well developed but that didn't make me like some of them.
My biggest struggle with this book was trying to determine Mukherjee's purpose with this novel. Was it to teach his readers about the social inequalities of his country? Or was it merely a story about a family and its eventual break down? If the latter, than I felt that there was no conclusion to the Ghosh's tale. Am I being limited in what I've read? What do you ladies think?
In addition, what do we think happened to Sona's sister? Was she left to suffer at the hands of her terrible extended family or did she get to flee with her family to a new country? The epilogue makes no mention of her. And how much of a life do Sona and Purba really have in America if they are so reclusive as the epilogue implies?
Such a sad story over all. But I did learn much about a piece of India's political history. And Sue, I'm glad Jay's family has always been so warm to you! My sister-in-law has told me some stories about how a daughter-in-law is treated in a traditional Chinese household. I'm glad to say Franklin's family is modern enough that I've not faced any torments like Purba!
Happy reading!
Hello Ladies,
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear all is going well with you and your families. I have just returned from a few days in Brisbane celebrating Father’s Day and Sam’s 23rd birthday we had a wonderful time although I am amazed how fast time flies, I’m surely not old enough to have a twenty three year old son !!!!
Today is pretty exciting here, we have the big excavator in the back yard digging our new pool. Hopefully all will be operational for some Spring swimming, can’t wait !!
However, not quite as excited about this month’s novel, it has taken me so long to finish ,and honestly I skipped more than the Math, but I feel it was quite an important story and I feel Mukherjee has made it very relevant to now and some of the crisis facing us today.
I always assumed his “others” were the poverty stricken farmers and labourers Supratik was living amongst and writing about. At one point he refers to them in that way and on page 241 [in my copy] he says,
‘ what use did it serve to emphasise the unbridgeable gap between the lives of these people and people of our kind? it only consoled and comforted the middle classes that their lot was better. They will tell you they want to know the details of the daily hardships of rural life in order to be aware, in order to be moral, but the appetite really was for propping up their idea of themselves as people with sympathetic souls and sensitive social consciences. It was not awareness they were after, it was reinforcement of the separation between ‘us’ and ‘them’.
I felt his involving us so intimately in the lives of the Ghosh’s middle class existence and the worries that befell them, a lot due to the own predilections and prejudices was to highlight this divide .
It made me very aware of the images flooding our media lately of the humanitarian crisis in Syria and Europe and how easy it is for me to feel such sadness and sorrow for these poor people seeking refuge, yet then go about my day in my world.
I learned a lot of Indian culture from this story and found that very interesting although I was often baffled by terms and as you say Sue found the glossary helpful yet not quite extensive enough.
I was also interested to read of the Naxalite movement and it is interesting that to this day they still pose the biggest internal threat to India’s security. The birth of the movement out of poverty and the fight against oppression becoming such a violent terrorist group today and killing for killing also paralleled for me other organisation in the middle east born of oppression but quickly escalating into killing cults.
I found this novel difficult and It took me so long simply because I dread picking it up knowing some new horror would be in store for me, but I am glad I did persevere .
love to all,
Nancy
Hello again Ladies
ReplyDeleteCouldn't agree with both of you more. What did happen to Sona's sister? Was the main thrust family or society? (I think perhaps it's both, Katie - they are inextricably intertwined - British society is changing rapidly because of the breakdown of the traditional family, but why did it break down in the first place? Chicken and egg thing.)
And the quotation you provide, Nancy, together with your reaction to it, is absolutely mine. My horror at my government's response to the refugee crisis (terming everyone economic migrants, for example) and the relief when that shocking picture on the beach turned the whole policy around (what a way to run a country, basing policy on the public response to a picture . . . ) was in part my own guilt for doing nothing myself. And there's no question but what I feel a huge relief that it's not me suffering the same fate as the Syrians. We are so lucky.
A.S Byatt (writer of "Possession") loved this book.
"One of Mukherjee's great gifts is precisely his capacity to imagine the lives of others. He can move from inside one head to inside another in a conversation or conflict and take the reader with him. He isn't really an omniscient narrator, there's no authorial voice - just an imagination that is more than adequate to its task."
I took some consolation from her statement that the head servant, Madan, is the most sympathetic character. She quotes Madan's statement: "Boro-babu, the world does not change, you destroy yourself trying to change it, but it remains as it is. The world is very big and we are very small. Why cause people you love so much misery because of it?"
Worth thinking about, ladies.
Love to you and your families
Sue