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Summary: A Fine Balance
Review: The author was able to let me see an India that I did not reaizied existed. For that I am qreatful. I would like to read other books by this same author. The India that I was was so different then any pre-conconsived ideas that I had before reading this book. The India that I was aware of what i had seen in other books and was a white wash of the facts. Thanks for helping me to want to look furhter and deeper to find the facts.
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Summary: Stunned!
Review: This is one of the most astounding books I have ever read..I wept and cried with the characters and suddenly I miss them..I just finished the book about 2 hours ago but my heart aches and yearns for them..Do yourself a favour..READ this book ..you will actually live with the characters..Dina, Om , Ishvar and Maneck..I did..and as I put it down ..I wondered..Did I experience this or read this?
Rohinton Mistry..where have you been?In case you ever read this...I salam you!
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Summary: Delicate, Compelling and Insightful - An Instant Classic
Review: A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry In my mind, the mark of a truly great novel is that it compels you learn more about the world that exists within its pages. Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance is one such book. Set in a unamed Indian city in 1975, the year Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency and suspended basic human rights in an attempt to divert attention from a mounting political scandal, A Fine Balance tells the tale of four people whose lives are joined together in tightly woven, albeit somewhat frayed patchwork tapestry of history. The novel centers around the small flat belonging to Dina Dalal, a Parsi woman who turns to tailoring to retain her independence following her beloved husband's untimely death. Out of desperation Dina agrees to take on the son of a former school friend as a boarder, and to run a tailoring business out of the flat despite the looming threat of eviction from the unseen yet ever present landlord. The boarder, Maneck Kolah, is from a small hillside town south of the Himalayas. The tailors, Ishvar and Omprakash, are members of the Chamaar caste (the Untouchables) who use their talents to rise above their life station. The novel forces us to ask the question how one might maintain joy and love, hope and dignity in the face of a constant barrage of dispossession, degradation and cruelty. The "fine balance" that gives the book its title asks us where we draw the line between selflessness and self-preservation, yet offers no easy answers to this question. What sets "A Fine Balance" apart from any other novel is the way Mistry gives faces and voices to the untold suffering experienced by the downtrodden poor who live within India's cities. The characters are not one-dimensional character sketches planted throughout to advance the plot. He illustrates with unblinking detail how a woman has acid thrown in her face, how a man is forced to eat excrement, how another has molten lead poured into his ears as punishment for small infractions. He brilliantly captures the feeling of sheer helplessness the poor must feel when they're bused into the countryside and forcibly sterilized - and in some cases, emasculated. Mistry's greatest skill is revealed when you find yourself examining your own attitudes about the urban poor and homeless in North American cities. While there is a difference of scale between the two experiences, you may find it difficult to ever push blindly by a street kid or panhandler ever again. As the novel progresses, we see the metaphors of stitching together quilts, games of wits over chess and making clothing out of remnants come together to illustrate the interdependence of human life and the ways in which seemingly unrelated events become inextricably woven into the fabric of our lives. A Fine Balance, like Dina's quilt, is an intricately sitched work of art, created with love and tenderness, that gives warmth. It keeps us firmly rooted in the past, but as in Alice Walker's "Everyday Use", lives up to it's highest purpose when bringing us into the present.
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Summary: The dark side the India
Review: This book is entertaining, but depressing. Though I have no doubt that the dark and depressing side of portrayed by this book is true, it depresses me to see the ending of the characters of this book. I am saddened by the one tragic events after another that befall the main characters, yet I'm amazed by their acceptance of it. The American in me want to say how can such injustices happen in the modern world, and at the same time I know that is a naive and holier-than-thou attitude. It is not one world we live in.
Bottom line: read this book if you want to see how the none-privileged in India lives and be captured by descriptions of India.
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Summary: The best thing I've read in years
Review: I can't say enough good things about this book. It looks like a long and daunting task, but I promise you that once you pick up this book, you'll wonder where the hours went. I'm so glad that Oprah chose to include this title in her Book Club as I know that I never would have picked this one up on my own. It's been a long time since I've read anything as special as this one. It is the sort of book that had me thinking about the characters long after I was finished with the book. It's basically about four strangers who become friends and eventually housemates and all of the obstacles they had to overcome just to survive. The story takes place in India during the early 1970's amidst serious political upheaval. This book was a real eye opener for me and it reminds me once again of how little I know about other parts of the world, especially countries like India. Read this book, you'll be glad you did.
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Summary: An incredible book
Review: I read tons of literary novels, both old and new, and this is one of the best I have ever read. Mistry is a genius. He beautifully tells the tale of ordinary men and women to outline the life and times of many. The plot is gripping, always keeps you interested and the writing is smooth and intelligent. Mistry fills the book with analogies and metaphors that really will make you think about your own life and situation. I also thought he did a masterful job with the dialogue and the interaction bewtween the characters. He did a great job making the characters real and beleiveable, yet still able to tell an almost incredible story. While this does take place in a real-life setting of the past, its not an in-your-face historical novel. You don't even have to be interested in India to enjoy this book, but you will be interested in India after your done.
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Summary: Next Step After PASSAGE TO INDIA and KIM
Review: The immense, magnificent sprawl that is A FINE BALANCE probably has as much in common with Charles Dickens as with Forster or Kipling. India -- and especially India during the turmoil of 1975 -- is as much the protagonist of the story as any one of its huge cast, especially Dina, Maneck, Om, Ishvar, and the people who come into contact with them. Here are riches in terms of characters, from Dina, the spirited girl who fights what her brother, her country, and what seems like fate have decreed for her to preserve her independence and her self-respect; from the two Untouchables, or children of God, whose families are brutally murdered because they've managed to win their children a trade above the grasp of their caste; to Maneck, like Dina, a Parsi, who cannot withstand the violent changes he faces. Then, there are others, like Dina's husband Rustom, her friend Zenobia, her appalling brother; or the Beggarmaster, an amoral, but loving twentieth-century interpretation of Fagin crossed with a ward heeler; the saintly Narayan; the Muslim tailor who gives Om and Ishvar a home and training and whose life they -- briefly -- save; to Shankar, a beggar... The cast is as complex as Dickens' BLEAK HOUSE, which this book resembles. That's not always a compliment: if the book has a flaw, it's the overuse of what really are Victorian-style coincidences: in a country as vast as India, the chances of Maneck seeing -that- particular headline, or the proofreader's turning up in everyplace Dina seems to be, or several other coincidences strike me as highly unlikely. And yet, stranger things have happened. As in BLEAK HOUSE, politics plays a major role in A FINE BALANCE, which is set during the administration of Indira Gandhi, a formidable daughter of a family whose very mention calls to mind first independence from England, and then the Raj itself. They were extraordinary times, and, at times, extraordinarily brutal; and indeed, this book becomes almost unbearably painful. Yet, in most cases, the life in the characters fights to go on: when they die, it's by violence, after long, long suffering; when they live, it's with as much energy and zest as possible. Two things I noticed in particular: first, I was profoundly impressed by how Mistry has portrayed the various religions in India. Dina is a Parsi; you see various castes of Hindu, from Brahmin to Untouchable; and then, you also see the sizable Indian Muslim population. Whatever, officially, these groups are supposed to be to one another, what Mistry has created is the accommodations of "little people" trying to get by, and working fearfully hard to do so. In such circumstances, where brutality is too often the rule, any kindness, any attempt to be more than one is stands out like a good deed in a naughty world: and there are plenty of astonishingly good deeds to light the gloom. And above all, you get the land: the color, the smells, the foods, the bustle that Kipling describes in KIM. Mistry shows us a hill station with its slopes and rhodododendrons; rural villages; and the terrifying bustle of Bombay. Astonishingly vivid and vibrant, this book is as much a cry for justice as BLEAK HOUSE or LES MISERABLES. I don't know if the writing will stand the test of time and make it a classic, but, while you're reading it, you're turning pages, you're empathizing, and you just don't CARE if it's a classic or not. The saddest aspect of human tragedies such as A FINE BALANCE shows is the intermittent flashes of love, joy, and comfort -- right before the fall.
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Summary: Such perseverance in the face of misery!
Review: This book is incredible on so many fronts. Aside from showing us India and it's history, it shows us how some people can adapt to difficult circumstances...and how others struggle. Ishvar is the rock in this book. He accepts everything and optimistically looks to the future. The widowed Dina grows from being risk adverse and learns to trust people and forms friendships with Maneck and the tailors. Maneck isn't able to handle the changes that occur in his absence and takes the easy way out. Sad at times, but so beautiful at the conclusion that I re-read the last pages several times. I was just so thrilled that Ishvar and Om still had their same banter going despite all the hardships they had been through. Keep making Chipatis for them, Dina!
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Summary: Informative and compelling
Review: Quite an interesting book set in India in the 1970's. It begins with the chance meeting of four characters, then delves into the background of each to explain where they come from and how they came together. Much of the book is tragic, but offers glimpses of hope and love, although in very small doses. Excellent depiction of the wide variety of Indian life. It depicts the differences in class, age, gender, and region. It also describes the Indira Gandhi years and "The Emergency" which stripped many freedoms from the lower classes. All in all, a very engaging book, albeit somewhat depressing. As much as I wanted to at times, I couldn't put it down!
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Summary: Great literature of the history of India
Review: Rohinton Mistry's multiple award winning "A Fine Balance (AFB)" is a magnificent novel, a must read for anyone interested in India and its rich cultural heritage and history. It is also a big, though not difficult, novel. Told in straightforward narrative, it is a story of an independent minded Parsi widow struggling to keep her garment contracting business afloat, two poor village tailors she employs illegally and a middle class undergraduate boarding with her. The plot is set in an unnamed location in India during the Emergency Law years in the 70s under the regime of a unnamed female prime minister. The use of an anonymous setting is a masterful stroke of genius as it opens up the canvas for Mistry to telescope and paint the vast history of India in all its multifaceted complexities onto 500 or more pages of living, breathing prose of the finest order. The India we see through the entwined lives of these four protagonists is characterised by ethnic strife, religious intolerance, caste bound prejudices, and sexual inequality. Notwithstanding differences in their social backgrounds, they suffer the same cruel fate and gross indignities of an ancient values system painfully at odds with a progressive world. Just as the courageous Dina fights an uphill battle against her brother's smug chauvinism and the forces of a corrupt public administration, the tailors Ishvar and Omprakash sink under the deadweight of a caste ridden society that considers any attempt at social mobility an anathema. Then there is Maneck, the poor little rich boy who appears to be having it relatively easy compared to the rest until the last frame when we find ourselves agape and numb with shock, contemplating his damaged soul and the pitiless horror of his final act. The impact is simply devastating. The novel's bleakness and despair deepens as the plot draws to a close. By then, our tears would have been flowing fast, yet we'd also have witnessed acts of heroism (big and small), self sacrifice, and common decency that restores our faith in humanity. These four characters and several memorable others who populate and enrich the novel's vast human landscape, wrestle with and finally overcome tradition bound prejudices to be united through suffering in love. Mistry's message of hope is not "love conquers all". Who would believe him ? But without love, what hope is there that humanity will continue their fight to free the millions enslaved by cruel institutions of ancient customs and beliefs which can have no place in modern civilised societies ? Mistry is a classic storyteller. In AFB, he has produced a stunning masterpiece, an astounding work of breadth and vision. It is great literature at its most relevant and powerful and one of the most important novels to have been published in the past decade.
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