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The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga


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How did this win the booker prize, I wonder. Really, how did it win? It's not as bad as The Inheritance of Loss, but it's pretty much as shallow. It's better than, say, Atonement or Life of Pi, but I can see where the value is in those books.

 

That said, it's not actually a bad book. It's the fun, romping, easy to read, tale of Balram Halwai, a boy from a lower caste from the North of India who, by various machinations - most of which are telegraphed throughout the book - made his way up to being an entrepreneur in Bangalore, the exciting new capitalist face of India.

 

The writing style is really easy, and full of humorous wryness.

 

Really, I have no complaints about the book. But it just isn't very deep, and doesn't say very much we haven't heard before. All the blurb on the back, and in the reviews, tells us how it presents the seedy dark underbelly of India, rather than the mellifluous, spices and saris and mughal palaces that we have in our mind. And yet, I think of the Indian novels I've read, that have been literary successes, I think of Inheritance of Loss, or of God of Small Things, or of Q&A, or even of A Suitable Boy (although, perhaps not of Midnight's Children), and they all do the same thing. Look - India is large and full and filthy and corrupt and the respect for life is limited and the caste system isn't that great.

 

It tells me very little that's new about India.

 

Ironically, perhaps the best thing about the book is the snide dig at the leaders of China - something, oddly, I've not seen mentioned elsewhere. The book is written in the form of letters to the Primeminister of China, who is visiting Bangalore that week. And we get to see, in Balram's rise up, someone of the oppressed poor who finds the keys to revolution against his capitalist overlords, and yet he ends up, in many ways, as a capitalist himself, nearly as corrupt as those who came before him, helping out his people and his friends.

 

I'm not sure it's deliberate, although I suspect it must be, but it appears that Balram's life is a bit of a reflection of the communist rule of China.

 

Anyway, all in all a fun and readable novel. But, all in all, not really substantial enough to think of it as a Booker winning kind of thing.

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Your review makes me want to read the book.

I must admit, the fact that it won the Booker Prize put me off as the only other two winners I have read (The Blind Assassin and The Bone People) I thought were as dull as dishwater. (No offence to anyone who thinks they are masterpieces)

Do you find the book being written in the form of letters disruptive? I have never liked this style of writing as I find it harder to get into the swing of the story. Does the book flip between narrators or is it the same letter writer all the way through?

Cheers

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To me, at least, the style was no problem at all. The letters are really just a way of explaining the narrative. But apart from the paragraph or two of intro at the start of each letter, it's all really the same story, from start to end. All written by a single narrator, on consecutive days.

 

So it's not, really, structurally messy or difficult or clever. It's a pretty easy book to read.

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  • 11 months later...

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Synopsis (from Goodreads)

Set in a raw and unromanticized India, The White Tiger---the first-person confession of a murderer---is as compelling for its subject matter as it is for the voice of its narrator: amoral, cynical, unrepentant, yet deeply endearing.

I had been wanting to read this for a long time, and when I came across it in the library I quickly snatched it off the shelf. And boy am I glad I did! The story is narrated by Balram - a boy from the country, as he works his way up the social rankings in India. Yet there is a twist: he is a murderer, and that is how he managed to achieve his current status.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked how the book was set out. It was narrated by Balram in the form of a series of letters. In these letters he explains his life in India. He explains politics and draws sharp comparisons between the poor and rich in his country. I found this a fascinating read - really informative, and I guess quite shocking. The book reminded me of both Q & A by Vikas Swarup and My Father's Notebook by Kader Abdolah. Although these three books are set in different Middle Eastern countries all of them highlight the differences in the way of life between the upper and working classes; and I enjoyed all three books. They have ignited an interest in me for political novels and novels set in poorer countries.

I can't say I liked Balram but he was an interesting narrator and he told an interesting story. He is ambitious and gets what he wants - even if murder is his only way forward, and he does not care about others. But I was fascinated by him and his life, and that made the story worth reading.

I really enjoyed this and happily recommend it to others. This is a political novel, not my usual genre, but a novel I really enjoyed.

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