Rating: 
Summary: A Small Story - Fine Book
Review: The Death of Vishnu is a fine book. It tells the stories of the many inhabitants of an apartment building over the course of the few days their odd job man, Vishnu, slips into a coma and dies. There are many inter-familial conflicts that bring humor and levity to the story -- though that humor comes from our privileged position where the theft of a couple spoons of ghee in not a big deal, so we are amused by the pettiness of the squabbling. In the face of scarcity, however, these matters are not petty. It's humorous that a woman hauls out a long treasured imported gourmet food item to impress her friends -- and it turns out to be Kraft processed cheese. But for her, it was an unattainable, one-of-a-kind item of immense worth. The book falls apart by introducing several threads of story and failing to weave them together. There are several stories introduced and dropped, never caught back up and woven into the fabric of the novel. This is frustrating because some of those threads appealed more to me than the ones we ended up following. If you like challenging yourself with many novels about other countries in general, India in particular, then this is a fine book. and you should read it -- and enjoy it. If, however, you are unlikely to read more than 1 or 2 novels by Indian writers -- then skip this and go to the significantly better A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry or A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth.
Rating: 
Summary: Diappointed
Review: I had read wonderful reviews of this book and try to read as many books on India as I can. I found this book shallow, silly and disrespectful. A much better look at the communal dissenion in India is found in Vikran Seth's A SUITABLE BOY.
I grew bored and dissatisfed as long as I continued through the novel. wOULD NOT RECOMMEND.
Rating: 
Summary: A rich and dazzling tale
Review: The Death of Vishnu is a book to be experienced rather than simply read as Suri weaves mythology and psychology with Hindu and Muslim religious motifs. Each character in an Indian apartment building dances to the music of his/her position in life, caught up in the daily squabbles and sensuous pursuits that Hindu religion teaches are necessary until one becomes sated by that lifestyle and moves on to another stage. The book focuses on the fate of Vishnu who lies dying on the stairs, but I found Mr. Jalal's determined, almost comical, struggles to achieve a higher state of consciousness to also be central. When he takes his literal and precipitous leap of faith I held my breath for the outcome. The story of the resident at the very top of the building (top symbolizing most highly evolved) was equally suspenseful, while the spiritual status of the female characters goes unexplored except for their concern for tending to the prostrate Vishnu. What I began feeling was simply a conglomerate of social vignettes turned into a rich kaleidoscope of life from the perspective of Eastern religion. The book, like life, becomes a journey through complex terrain. If I have any criticism it is that some of the characters seemed like familiar types. Do not let this keep you from reading it, however, as the experience of Vishnu's demise is quite original and the writing is beautiful from beginning to end.
Rating:
Summary: Formulaic Indian Stuff
Review: In an apartment block in Bombay, the drunken handyman Vishnu lies dying on one of the landings whilst the inhabitants of the block try to decide among themselves what to do about the situation. We learn of the lives of the various people in the block, their pasts and the tensions which occur between them. The truly strange character is Vishnu himself - we get glimpses of his past, or what may be his past, or may be his fantasised past. But is he really a handyman, or is he the god Vishnu? This is the original and interesting part of the novel. The rest, I'm afraid, was pretty familiar stuff: for example, there's the usual Moslem-Hindu squabbles (and the now de rigueur forbidden love affair between the Moslem boy and Hindu girl - "A Suitable Boy"??), leading to communal violence and so on, and so on. It's all well-written and a good read in that respect - the author demonstrated a keen wit and could write poignantly. But that was about it as far as I was concerned. I did think that the author might have been trying to make a point about how "the larger scheme of things", or care for fellow human beings, was being lost as people become obsessed with petty squabbles and with their own lives. I'm not convinced that this was his real intention however. I'm just dipping my toes into Indian fiction and I hope that this novel isn't an indication that Indian writing is becoming too stereotyped (if you pardon the slight pun). Not a bad novel, but not one to go back to.
Rating:
Summary: magnificent, funny and touching.
Review: I came on line with the intention only of saying how much I enjoyed this book. It moved me and made me laugh aloud. Several of the characters are etched in my mind, this is a book that remains with you long after you've finished it. But having read through the customer reviews I thought I'd also take up the point made by the Bengali immigrant who asked why writers who were obscure in India were such successes in the west - I assume he included Manil Suri as one of the obscure. So I'll mention this, I went to hear Manil Suri read from his novel in Bombay, Suri read to a packed audience, people were roaring with laughter (Mr. Suri does an exceptionally good rendition of Mrs. Pathak). I bought his book while at the reading and I can't have been the only one who did so, I saw The Death of Vishnu on the bestseller list in Mumbai. This is an exceptionally good book, and it has entertained readers on both continents, sadly that appears to make some people jealous.
Rating:
Summary: A well written, but banal effort
Review: The prose here is lyrical, the details rich; atmospherically one does get transported to an apartment complex in Bombay. The question arises, however, why are there three books out this season about middleclass apartments in Bombay in which the occupants have private lives that resemble soap operas, books told in a similar realist, detached style? Is the great Indian subcontintent so homogenious? Or is this a reflection of white New York's current sheep like interest in all things Indian, but only insofar as we are depicted in a manner which conforms to their own preconceptions and tastes. I am myself a Bengali immigrant living in NY, and I find it interesting that all these Indian writers you see in the New Yorker and pushed by the publishers are so obscure in India. I am somewhat happy, of course, that all this attention is being given to my country of origin, however, the inauthenticity of this movement discomforts me. There is something false about books like Death of Vishnu, whose author has admitted his religoius symbolism came not from his upbringing, since he was not given a good religious education, yet rather from research. He might as well have been an American graduate student. This bandwagon reminds me of the early 1990s when so many books by Chinese Americans dealt with mother-daughter narratives, written as interconnected stories. The book gets four or five stars for prose and craft, a zero for authenticity and originality. I look forward to seeing the publishing industry bidding on Indian books of a different subject matter and tone.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Saga Continues...
Review: I was blown off my feet as i finished this wonderful book. I am now reassured of the fact that the litrary penchant of India has got a replacement for RKNarayan in Manil Suri. Absolutely marvellous piece. Keep more of them coming!!! :-)
Rating:
Summary: A superb social novel by a gifted, ambitious writer
Review: First off, let me confess that I was predisposed to like this book. I've been enjoying the latter-day Golden Age of South Asian literature for some time now, and I picked up Mr. Suri's novel with the expectation that it would be filled with colorful characters, comical arguments, and telling details of domestic life, all conveyed in exuberant prose. Such elements are de rigeur in post-Rushdie Indian fiction, and if those are what you're after, The Death of Vishnu does not disappoint.
Indeed, after the first few chapters, I had settled in for what I fully expected to be a somewhat predictable read about a battle of wits between two middle-aged couples over what to do with the dying Vishnu, interspersed with scenes from the dying man's life. But then the book took some unexpected and delightful turns and became much better in the process. New characters were introduced who complicated all the various relationships and greatly expanded the social reach of the novel; Vishnu's spirit separated from his body and started to climb the stairs; a few of the characters' fascination and identification with film stars became increasingly pronounced; things started to get, shall we say, a little trippy. (Believe me, I'm not giving away anything here.) Toward the end, as the book becomes by turns suspenseful, mythic and surreal, I could not stop turning the pages.
As I write this, it's been a couple of weeks since I finished the book, and I still find myself flashing on particular scenes, as if I'd seen them happening before my eyes. (Try to go to sleep after reading the description of the man dangling by his fingertips off the edge of a balcony--go ahead, try!) Unlike most first novelists, Suri does not even attempt to resolve all of the plot issues by the end of the novel--indeed, he leaves one woman's story in particular agonizingly unsettled--but nevertheless the book left me with a remarkable sense of completeness. That is the mark of a truly gifted writer, which Manil Suri surely is, and I look forward to his second novel with bated breath.
Rating: 
Summary: Humor & Tragedy
Review: This book was one I avoided at first, fearing perhaps that I would fail to adequately comprehend or appreciate its Indian philosophy or understand the motives of its characters. I knew little of life in Bombay, but I have been reading more Indian authors lately and have been impressed by the timeless and universal apeal of their works. "The Death of Vishnu" is such a story. The plot involves the petty concerns of two families who don't quite know what to do with Vishnu, the homeless man who lies dying on their stairway landing, but it also involves the spiritual journeys of several other characters, including Vishnu himself. Everything is here: concerns of physical well-being, fear of death, affairs of the heart, the complexity of social interaction, as well as the dark side of religious conflict and the toll it can take on society and on the individual. This is a clever social satire, as well as a compassionate look at our human weaknesses. The reader can laugh and lament on the same page, and while it is comforting to know that we are all, at heart, so much alike, it is also discomforting to know that, in spite of our best intentions, we can also be quite self-centered. I wholeheartedly recommend this book, especially to any reader who may be shying away from Indian literature. It is an accessible and fascinating introduction to the genre, as well as a crash course in the social and religious conflicts that have plagued India for years and that continue to cause problems even today.
Rating:
Summary: From the heart of Mumbai
Review: The thing that impressed me the most was the use of English as spoken by people in the middle class family of India. It may be hard on some people who have not been brought up in such an environment. I specifically liked the duels between Mrs. Asrani and Mrs. Pathak that stemmed from the socio-lingual structure of the Mumbai society. The plot that is woven out of the daily lives of simple souls is indeed very realistic. Mr Suri deserves the credit for excellent character protrayal of each character in the novel, whether it was the Tall Ganga or Vishnu himself. At times I think the mythology part was a bit too much and hard to corelate. Overall, it is an excellent novel to read.
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