Rating: 
Summary: Slow and ponderous...
Review: I did not enjoy "A Fine Balance" one bit. It is reasonably well written, the language flows from one sentence to the next, the characters and their situations are painted in minute detail, creating a vivid atmosphere. It is, however, an epic length novel that tested my patience with its endless, repetitive storytelling. The suffering of these characters is as relentless as cold rain in "Angela's Ashes". I am certainly not trivializing the suffering of others, but one can sympathize without pretending to have gotten anything out of this overstuffed, self-indulgent novel. I never would have thought a novel with this subject could be boring, but it was.
Rating: 
Summary: A master at work
Review: Rarely have I come across a work which deals in with a myriad of human emotions with such profound intensity and care....Mistry writes of a India in chaos--of a country that is caught in the maelstrom of political emergency,social decadence, and economical deprivation.Being an Indian,I could easily identify with each of Mistry's characters.I think Mistry's characters are universal---for emotions like pain,happiness,love,failure and success are universal.Mistry has hewn his characters not with just words but with soul and I think that is the biggest asset of this work.Go ahead and invest in this work...I say invest coz the returns by way of happiness will be life-long.After reading this work,you too would agree with me that Mistry is a "master at work".
Rating: 
Summary: I'd rather read a novel than a polemic.
Review: I must give this book credit for being well written, having interesting characters, and certainly plenty of plot twists. That said I felt that the details spent too much time trying to prove a point, to show us all just how bad it was, and how ... the Indian government could be. Maybe letting the characters lives speak for themselves without throwing in so much political agenda would have worked just as well and made me feel more invested in the characters. I'd rather read a novel than a polemic, so this depressingly accurate book is staying on the shelf for me.
Rating:
Summary: "There Is No Such Thing as an Uninteresting Life"
Review: Why is it that some of the best fiction writing in English comes from India? Is it the educational system? the Commonwealth background? the adoption of English as a unifying language in a country that has so many languages? I wish I knew.Years ago, I started by reading R K Narayan at the suggestion of none other than Graham Greene. The more Indian fiction I read (Desai, Jhabvala, Roy, Seth), the more I became convinced that perhaps we must look to India for great English literature. I picked A FINE BALANCE up at the library and took it home because there was something about the book's cover that caught my eye. Needless to say, I was hooked by the richness of the book, which rivals Dickens in its multiplicity of characters and the love that is lavished on each minor character. This is a story of a young widow who takes in boarders and starts a home business to become independent of her controlling brother. We begin with two lower-caste tailors who escape from an oppressive village life to work for the widow, then the student who is to become her boarder, then the widow Dina herself. We travel back in time to see their lives up to that point, and then we are launched into the uncertainties of the present. A note: This is the India of Indira Gandhi around 1975-1980. Before her assassination, she instituted a number of Potemkin-style "reforms" that caused widespread suffering among the poor. At a number of points, her characters are ripped untimely from their everyday lives to create political theater that makes the powers that be look good to their Congress Party supporters. One of the minor characters is the wandering Vasantrao Valmik, a former proofreader into whose mouth Mistry puts his own thoughts about life. "There is no such thing as an uninteresting life," he tells the student at the end of the book. He urges him to tell him his complete story, "unabridged and unexpurgated." He continues: "It's extremely important because it helps to remind yourself of who you are. Then you can go forward, without fear of losing yourself in this ever-changing world." One feels that Mistry, who now lives in Canada, uses writing to help remind himself of who he is. He brings his unnamed city -- which is undoubtedly Bombay -- to life with all its smells, its peeling paint, its worms in the shower drain, and its wealth of poor, but colorful characters. Colorful, yes, but also sad. Not everyone comes off well, even though you the reader may come to love these characters, and God knows I did, be prepared for many reverses. Although life is a game played for keeps, the love we meet along the way makes it all worthwhile. Rohinton Mistry is a major talent, and A FINE BALANCE is a great book.
Rating:
Summary: Nothing Short of Fine
Review: One of the minor characters in A Fine Balance surfaces several times in the novel discusses, at various times, the importance of keeping a fine balance between hope and despair and that is what all characters in this novel must do in order to survive. The story revolves around Dina Dalal, a widow struggling to survive on her own in a nameless Indian city in 1975. Although relatively young, her eyesight is failing her from years as a tailor. She hires on two untouchable tailors, Om and Ishvar, nephew and uncle, to continue with her work and takes in a boarder, Maneck, a college student and son of an old friend. After many mistakes and miscues, the four form a bond stronger than any familial bond they may have ever experienced. The circumstances and lives of these four characters are fascinating, illuminating and at times, depressing. Mistry's novel is superb and well-written and manages itself to keep a fine balance between pathos and humor for an excellent reading experience. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Must Read for every descendent of Indians
Review: A Fine Balance is an absolute must read for all those who's families immigrated away from India in seach for opportunity. It helps provide insight into the drive that many Indian immigrants exhibit. From a literary standpoint, the author has worked in storylines at several levels. There is symbolism throughout the novel. For those who understand hindi/sanskrit, even the names of the authors have meaning. For example, Ishwar is another name for God, while Om (another character) for Hindu's is a recitation to help focus oneself on his sould and experience "realization of self" in a larger 'dharmic' sense. If you understand the meanings of the names, you can read deeper into the symbolism and often the ironic parts of happenstance. Lastly, the book provides insight into why so many Indians cannot climb out of the grip of poverty. My only wish is the author had included a vignette on a rich person - the people who actually win the game and control the system.
Rating:
Summary: Beauty and cruelty crafted in the same pages
Review: Whoa !! This book belongs to those you do not want to end. The author provides a soul to each one of its characters, whereby, no matter how dark or alienated it grows, we can still find some simpathy for him/her. Its like a permanent reflection about how fragile we are, how odd is this existence where uncertainty is the only constant feature and why our judgment of others, is a waste of time, because none of us is in a moral ground above the rest. The topic is really a tragedy set upon the 70's India, but made no mistake, it can happen everywhere not just in a far away land. The Patriotic Act enacted by the US Government is not that different from the Emergency Laws of Indira Ghandi, both are driven by the need to rob the individual of its fundamental rights, while preaching that they are doing so for the good of the nation. So let hope that in ten years time the same events of this novel are not somewhere in the U.S.A.
Rating: 
Summary: Minus one for publishing error
Review: The only reason that I didn't give this book all five stars is that there is a place, approximately 3/4 of the way into the book where part of the book is missing and part of an earlier chapter appears to have been mistakenly inserted in it's place. The edition is the paperback First Vintage International Edition, March 1997. So for those considering purchasing, please be aware of what edition you are getting. As for the novel itself, I found it superb. I have never before read anything about India and didn't know quite what to expect. What I found was a story that creates India in it's full beautiful, tragic detail. In A Fine Balance, the reader is introduced to four characters. Om and Ishvar, from the caste of untouchables, have caste off their inherited roles as cobblers to become tailors and seek their fortune in the city. Their story illustrates the horror of the caste system and the daily reality that the untouchables live. Dina Dalal, a widow struggling to maintain independance from a domineering brother and hold onto her apartment, a precious commodity in a severely over-crowded city, fights daily to make enough money by hiring the tailors and stay ahead of the landlord - who wants to evict her and rent the apartment at a much higher rate than she pays. Dina's struggle is that of so many people in India at the time, trying desperately to find just a few feet in which to survive. For Dina, this struggle is made worse by the fact that she is a woman in a society that treats women as little more than chattel. Finally, there is Maneck, a college student come to the city to study and living as a boarder with Dina Dalal. Maneck comes from a beautiful mountain village and has, until now, lead a fairly sheltered life. The horrors of the city, and India in the 60's and 60's try his soul and burden him with hopelessness. Their story is compelling, horrific, and heartbraking. They are brave, even when broken. Their lives demostrate the incredible capacity of humans to live, love, laugh, and ultimately to just keep going. They are the India created by Indira Ghandi. Those who enjoy compelling drama will love this book, though it isn't for those who need to feel uplifted or require a happy ending. Many readers will find this to be a rich, if shocking, introduction to the India of it's time. I was fully impressed with this novel. I had expected that it might be a challenging read for me, having been compeletely unfamiliar with anything Indian, but I was pleasantly surprised. The novel is truely a page turner. It kept me up at night thinking about how these people lived, and wondering if I could have survived.
Rating:
Summary: Relentless
Review: This book was quite long, but made you want to turn the pages just so you could see what more could possibly happen to the characters! Be warned, it's quite a depressing novel, and will leave you emotionally drained at the end. This is a story about struggle and the human spirit, set against a backdrop of the Emergency in India (early 1970's). It is a little bit of a political statement, with a lot of emotional plot twists for the main characters as they build familial bonds for survival and then we get to watch those bonds torn apart by the chaos of the outside world. I didn't take much away from this book, but it's a good read, with interesting and engaging characters and a fully developed world.
Rating:
Summary: A Fine Balance
Review: Coming from India with a family who have gone through similar hardships, Mistry's story is neither unfamiliar nor exaggerated. The fortitude of the characters, their hope and despair is common in third world countries where corruption is rampant and poverty is prevalent. Mistry's story is effortlessly emotive and brings the reader closer to real people by sketching true-to-life characters, true-to-life drama against a true-to-life backdrop.
|
