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Summary: A brief sojourn in the afterworld
Review: This is an incredibly satisfying novel. It provides the reader a glimpse of the quotidian existence of middle class India: its social stratification, priorities and prejudices, and religious stratification. However, it is also a fantasy and intertwines that culture's distinctive lingering concern about possible immortality and life after death with the relative importance and differing perspectives based on social standing and religious affiliation.The author creatively weaves the present, recollections of the past, and fantasies about the future throughout the plot. The lens for the focus on three distinctly different sets of middle class characters is an underclass vagrant named after a God. Both thought provoking and exotic yet also an effortless read. I look forward to getting more out of it with each subsequent review.
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Summary: What a debut!
Review: This was simply one of the best books I have ever read. Having been born in Bombay, and lived in an apartment building in the area that Mr. Suri's book is set in, made it an even more wonderful experience. I especially enjoyed Mr. Suri's ability to describe even the smallest acts in a way that made the reader almost able to taste the golgappas or samosas or paan (especially the sweet kind that Sheetal loved!). In addition, Mr. Suri managed to weave together a multitude of things pertaining to Indian daily life: The movies, songs and stars of "bollywood"; the politics of husbands and wives; the politics of living in close quarters with other families; the psychology and realities of arranged marriages; love and all it's meanings at each life stage, whether maternal, physical or emotional; hope and hopelessness; and of course life and death. Mr. Suri also gives a wonderful lesson in Indian Mythology, through Vishnu's dreams. He weaves all the stories of my childhood throughout the book and then brings it all together at the end. Very well done. This is an incredible debut, I can't wait for Mr. Suri's next book.
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Summary: colorful writing that leaves you delightfully uncertain
Review: You'll want to read "The Death of Vishnu" with the wonderful cover photo that is written, most interestingly, by a mathematician. I read the book quickly but it took me several hours to decide whether or not I thought it was good or even liked it. The female characters were familiarly (considering some other examples of Indian fiction) one-dimensional: obsessions with social climbing through kitty parties and the conniving/injustice of a joint kitchen.... There was far more depth and struggle (and here religious questioning is the equivalent of depth) in the male characters which makes for a contrast that is not explored. I usually hate books in which there is scant redemption or sympathy at all for the characters but I guess this focused on their interwoven plight(s) in a way that was (darkly) comedic. I like the premise, only because the execution is not really cliched: as an 'everyman' dies, his life flashes before his eyes. He climbs from the landing he inhabits in a building proliferated by middle-class Bombayites, and as the point of view switches back and forth from the building's other residents the question of whether this Vishnu (the drunk and good-fer-nothin' sometimes servant) is an avatar of THE Hindu god Vishnu is raised. There are some vibrantly written flashbacks of the child Vishnu being assured by his mother that he is not just an ordinary villager but Divine and sensual and poignant descriptions of Vishnu's love for the prostitute, Padmini. Hindi films nicely resonate through the collective imagination of the characters as all the significant points in their lives are compared to scenes or songs from film. Ultimately, I did like it because I wasn't sure whether laugh at the absurdity or allow myself to be stung by the irony.
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Summary: a compelling new voice
Review: While my tastes tend to favor suspense novels or thrillers, I found 'The Death of Vishnu' to be funny, compelling, and enlightening. Mr. Suri's way with language is subtle, opening up layers of his characters' obsessions, dreams and biases, all set in one Bombay apartment building. The clear structure of the novel serves to give equal time to each voice, although Vinod is largely unseen until late in the novel. Vinod's experience and inner world are heart-breaking, and Suri evokes his loneliness in ways I can idenitfy with all too clearly. I have always been fascinated by India and Hinduism, and although this novel is not a primer on either, it uses both to evoke Vishnu's journey and that of the others. (You do not need to be an expert on either to enjoy 'The Death of Vishnu'.) And Suri does build suspense in an understated manner; it's clear he has learned something about telling a good story. Read 'The Death of Vishnu' for its language, its metaphysical journey of the spirit, but mainly for the reasons we all love reading: people and stories that go to the heart of human experience, and illuminate us all.
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Summary: Converting the ordinary into the extraordinary
Review: I read this book in one sitting. (Okay, I stopped to sleep from 2 am to 9 am.) And this is my first review on Amazon.com. What can I say ... the book inspired me. Because of the incredible character details, Suri converts the the mundane into the sublime, the logic of his characters makes the impossible possible. Rarely have characters populated a world so foreign, yet so accessible. I am a filmmaker and realize the difficulty of the task that Suri succeeds at so effortlessly; his absoulute control of the visual images he invokes on every page. Radiowala's styrofoam, Mrs. Asrani's TruTone, the mango goddess and her sap-filled scars, and the glucose biscuits dipped in tea; fleeting images are immortalized in these pages. I have already recommended this book to friends and am on this site to order some more copies as gifts. Read this one, you can't go wrong. And Mr. Suri, if you do read these reviews, I eagerly await your next book. I congratulate you on your act of creation and thank you for it.
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Summary: Superb character-driven fiction
Review: Manil Suri's THE DEATH OF VISHNU is a bittersweet, often humorous, tale of a dying man's last hours and of the dramas that thrive around him. Vishnu is an alcoholic who lives on the landing of a small apartment building, much to the chagrin of the tenants, who had hoped for a better, more subservient type. But Vishnu is Vishnu, and they are familiar with his presence, afraid of how he will act if they throw him out into the street. They give him stale chapatis (flat breads) and ask him to pass love notes, but there's no way they are going to pay for an ambulance or his hospital bills now that it seems he has fallen into the coma of imminent death. While Vishnu and his dying remembrances form the core of this book, the people around him, bustling with their daily routines, form the flesh. They bicker, and they love, and they flail about selfishly. Each individual story is a gem unto itself, allowing the reader to see inside to the true character. Suri writes with a deftness that takes the reader from sadness to laughter in just a few strokes of his imagination. While he sometimes approaches too familiar territory (at times the arguing wives seem too much like characters I've seen in other Indian novels), he has crafted a skilled tale of life and death that celebrates the absurdities and ironies of both. This book has been hyped for months before its publication, so I suspect many people will have heard of it without understanding its thrust. This is a pure literary novel driven by characters and not plot, with insight and detail rather than page-turning suspense. We know from the title and first page that Vishnu is dying, so the conflict lies much deeper and with greater subtlety in the vagaries of human relationships.
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Summary: Enjoyed it tremendously!
Review: Given the title and the cover picture, I thought that this might be a serious and philosophical book but I was pleasantly surprised to see it filled with an interesting mix of comedy, pathos, and thoughtful observations set in an apartment building in Bombay. While many Indian novelists spend time discussing background and scenery of India, this novel focuses on characters and individuals which, if some of the details were changed, could be located anywhere. This is a book that I could have read in one sitting (if it were not for my children!) and have already recommended it to my friends. A wonderful debut for the author!
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Summary: A Quiet Flash of Brilliance!
Review: Difficult to believe - that this is a first novel! Manil Suri has chosen a theme both timeless and extraordinarily unique as he sculpts the life of a dying man (the proces is not morbid, just a fine substrate for weaving a tale) through the overheard conversations of the folk living in the boarding house on whose steps he lies. In many ways this short novel is like extending that flash of light when all of our life appears before us just at the moment of death - extending it long enough to relish the myriad aspects of living. This is a last gasp...but filled with so much treasure that you'll find yourself hoping it never ends. Suri's writing style is unfettered, concise, colorful, and always maintains a simplicity of style that begs for revisiting. An auspicious debut. Highly recommended.
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Summary: A remarkable first novel
Review: This is the kind of book you discover and tell your friends to read. It is the sure-footed, funny, and heartbreaking tale of the inhabitants of an apartment house in India. But it's also much more, an examination of spirituality and ethnic conflicts. Entertaining, lyrical, and moving, this book is a must read, enjoyable and richly literary at the same time.
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Summary: Highly recommended
Review: This is mesmerising book that I read in one afternoon and have been thinking about since. Suri has condensed the human cosmos into an Indian apartment building and to the journey of the dying Vishnu as he rises from the landing to the top of the building. The inhabitants of the apartment building are all very well drawn in all their human shortcomings and with their imperfect souls. As the story evolves tragically through the inevitable entwinement of the lives of the apartment dwellers, we witness, step by step, how evil unfolds in ordinary human experience. Although very much Indian in terms of its setting and the mythology it draws from (as far as I can tell, since I am not from India and have never been there, although I am from the east), I think this is a piece of writing that is universal in its appeal as its focus is really the human psyche. However, it does give us a very vivid window into the Indian society through the voices of the apartment dwellers. Suri's writing is like a woodland stream, light and appealing to the senses. His story takes you to another realm, to the River of Life, as you close to book.
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