Rating: 
Summary: unsurpassable
Review: I have never read a book about India before. I did not think I would like it. I loved it. I could not put it down. It was beautiful, sensetive, interesteting but never overstated; I lived it it was an education. I am so sorry to have finished it.
Rating: 
Summary: Is this for real
Review: I am very interested in indian culture and have enjoyed various books with and without the "magical" elements (i forget what its called). However, I had a little trouble believing that things could really be that bad there - i.e., the forced sterilization, "leaders" running villages and exacting revenge for no good reason (thakur), the abuse of the lower castes, etc. can someone please tell me this novel exaggerated those abuses - please!?!!?
Rating:
Summary: A real masterpiece
Review: A great, but very sad book. At the beginning I thought that I could never finish that book because of it's nearly 900 pages, but it was easy instead - I simply could not put it down. It was so interesting, but at the same time I felt so sorry - not only for the four main characters of the book (the two tailors, the widow and the young student) but also for all the others descibed so neatly in that book. I really began to sympathize and to "share their lives and their sorrow" during those days of reading and also after I finshed the book. In the end I also felt desperately sorry for myself having begun with Mistry's best book (that's what I heard from all the other readers) and having finished it so quickly. Therefore I highly recommand it to everyone, but be warned: it is an utterly sad and desperate story!
Rating:
Summary: Important to Keep Your Own Balance
Review: Mistry's masterpiece takes us to 1975 India, during Indira Gandhi's "Emergency," a time when the rule of law was suspended. Different troubles bring four people together from different parts of India and different walks of life, and as the story unfolds, we learn all about them and their family histories. Well told and beautifully detailed, the story flies by, and you may resent the need to stop for things like work, food, and sleep. That last may not matter so much, because reading this may disturb your sleep anyway. One of the minor characters tells us, "You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair," but the characters continually disturb the balance between rich and poor, men and women, young and old, and between progress and tradition. In Mistry's India, you can get away with pushing the balance a little bit towards your favor, but if you push it too far, the pushback always crushes you. This rule extends from the humblest untouchable trying to better the lives of him and his family all the way up to the powerful Prime Minister trying to remake India in her own image. The prose never fails to delight. Generally it flows smoothly and pulls you along with it, and it sparkles with occasional gems you have to pause to admire, e.g. a lawyer disapproves of a client resorting to help from underworld goons but sighs, "Who would want to enter the soiled Temple of Justice, wherein lies the corpse of Justice, slain by her very guardians?" The more you contemplate that remark, the more you realize it goes to the heart of almost everything else that's wrong, as well as foreshadowing Indira Gandhi's own assassination. Clever foreshadowing precedes every major event, and following it makes for one of the book's special pleasures. Just to give one example, on the eve of one of the untouchable characters attempting to vote in an election despite local officials who prohibit it, his father watches a moth trying to fly through a lamp glass to reach the flame inside. The reader realizes uneasily that although the glass frustrates the moth's ambitions, it also preserves its life - implying that the voting expedition the following day will end badly. And a lot of really bad things do happen in this book. We can see the victims as tragic heroes because their misfortunes come from their ambitions, but the penalty often so far exceeds the offense - to a Western reader, anyway - that even reading about it traumatizes us. Nevertheless, a great part of the novel's strength lies in this tragic element, and it cannot stand without it. Rather, to enjoy the book, the reader too must maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.
Rating:
Summary: The absolute resilience of the human spirit...
Review: To be living in the Asian subcontinent and see the misery, filth and abject poverty all around me, I was almost elated when I finished this novel - it was beautiful, and so hard at the same time. I put it down emotionally exhausted. Set in the mid-seventies somewhere in India (Bombay?) Mistry has built a complex and sociological masterpiece that is at once a slice of Dickens and another of Faulkner. The lives of four very different kinds of people: a Parsi woman (Dina) who lost her true love, her husband, at a young age and is determined NOT to remarry to anyone she does not love; A young man and only child, Maneck Kholah from the hills of northern India whose father invented a cola recipe and mother's family lost millions in land when partition occurred; and two tailors, Omprakash and Ishvar two tailors from an untouchable caste and a miserable village brutalized by the village feudal lord, Thakur. These four characters come together in the most happenstance of circumstances, Dina is eking out a living as a seamstress, Maneck needs to rent a room away from the nasty dorms at his school, and Ishvar and Om need work as tailors.The four of them begin to know each other, initially with a good deal of distrust and skepticism as Dina sets up shop with the tailors in her apartment and has taken on Maneck as a boarder (Maneck's mom and Dina were old schoolmates). They slowly get to know each other and learn about the horrors, pains, delights and lives of each other. As they grow closer and share deeper kinship they find their lives begin to stabilize. At that point, a number of incredible misfortunes cut out that stability and in a series of almost unbelievably cruel and miserable events their lives are brought to near-ruin.It sounds horrible and in fact, there are moments in the reading when you feel it would just be impossible for situations to get worse. It is in these moments that the reader will recognize just how resilient the human spirit is and be amazed at how far that is for these people. Mistry's writing is so easy to read, his dialogues flow at once with chatter and substance, and his descriptions will carry you into the very heart of the diseased slums. It is not the book we read that has the happy ending that will teach us anything or force us to examine our own lives - you will think about this book for days and days after you have finished it.
Rating:
Summary: A Truly Fine Balance
Review: Unreservedly recommended. The author treads a truly fine balance between heartbreak and hilarity. As other reviewers have remarked, the story is about India and the struggle of some of its people for survival. But, as with any fine writing, the theme ultimately transcends the bounds of place and deals with the heart of the human condition. Each of us has or will find ourselves in places similar to those encountered by characters in the book. That is not to say that we share the poverty or the difficulties, but we do share the small triumphs and the tragedies that make up a life. And, as with the characters, we have a choice about how we face them. We can either pick up and move on, or we can succumb to dispair. What is most interesting in the novel is a hypothesis that emerges and needs to tested--but which rings true. The most privileged, those with the best life and the least loss, seem less able to cope with the defeats that life hands all of us. Read the book, both for the revelation of what a poverty-stricken life can be, and for an insight into what our own lives are like. One thing this novel did for me was reacquaint me with what a privileged, wonderful country I live in.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful, Moving Story
Review: I tend to favor nonfiction over fiction in my reading, but this novel won me over early, and held my interest throughout. I found it easy to care about these characters, and to root for them to prevail against seemingly hopeless odds. Even though it has been some time since I finished the book, many of its characters and events have stayed with me. Be forewarned, it is a long and mostly depressing book, with tragedy heaped upon misery heaped upon disaster. Do the main characters indeed prevail in the end? Frankly, no. Oh sure, one can rhapsodize about their pluckiness and their ability to absorb suffering, but they all end up dead or severely physically or emotionally crippled. They are indeed fortunate in one key respect. The four protagonists discover the value of--and briefly get to experience--love and true friendship and human connection. Unfortunately, they're still stuck in a world in which the vast majority of people have no appreciation for such things, and in the end, as in real life, the bad guys end up on top, and these more enlightened folks are simply crushed. For that is one of the messages the book brought home to me--just how much their travails, and human suffering in general, do not come about by chance or through the agency of blind nature, but as a direct and indirect result of countless evil and misguided human decisions. These fine people are destroyed by greed-driven capitalists, corrupt politicians, criminals, and ignoramuses who favor adherence to custom and religious superstition over basic human decency. When selfishness and stupidity reign supreme, lives like those depicted in this book are the inevitable result. Interestingly, most third world countries provide even more miserable existences for their citizenry. India is actually a democracy of sorts. Much like the United States was historically fortunate enough to have the likes of Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, and other extraordinary personages come together at just the right historic moment at the founding of this country, India was blessed with Gandhi, and with Nehru and others that were far above the norm for the leaders of a new nation. Unfortunately, judging from the Indian society depicted in this book, much of whatever head start such leadership gave them has seemingly been frittered away. Certainly no one in this book pauses to consider whether their approach to life and to their fellow man is consistent with the Mahatma's insistence on pure truth and nonviolence, and this is to their discredit. I would mention also that I read this book as part of a book club which consisted of myself and about ten women. The majority--though not all--of the women did not care for it. The near-consensus was that it was a clear "guy book" rather than a "chick book," given its violent and depressive elements. I say this not because I necessarily agree (in fact, I would venture to say that it is a finely written story with complex and interesting characters and many positive and moving interactions among the main foursome especially, and thus should appeal to readers of either gender), but merely to report what seemed to be the common response from this particular group of women readers. In any case, I give this book a strong recommendation. Rohinton Mistry is a writer who brings honor to his craft.
Rating:
Summary: Sad, sad, sad
Review: I finished this book a month ago and still find myself thinking about the characters almost daily. The ending was not what I expected, but nonetheless I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
Rating:
Summary: what can I say!
Review: I read the books...put it down...and cried my heart out...
Rating:
Summary: A Punch in the Heart
Review: This book will demand you full emotional attenton. Not recomended for the getaway vacation crowd or the light-hearted, this books holds you by the guts and does not let go. True, the plot is a bit too neatly organized , but the breadth, depth, color and reliability of the characters is totally overwhelming. All the characters sway back and forth accross the thin line between hope and dispair - the main theme of the book. The decay and unmanagable chaos of India and the ruthlessness of the caste system form the background to the characters constant struggle with their faith. Although I found the descriptions of the brutality of the Emergency period and the helplessness of Om, Ishvar, Manneck and Dina quiet depressing, I found hope in the compassion displayed by the supporting roles, especially Shankar and Beggarmaster. The ability to maintain compassion in the midst of misery is the pearl in heap of darkness surrounding this book - a true reward to the devoted reader.
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