My best intentions about getting back into reading have been thwarted by other pressing activities. Like redesigning this blog, taking up photography and the miscellaneous priorities of being a Domestic Executive. I have a goodie to report on though and thoroughly recommend you reading The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.
This book won the Man Booker Award this year. For a first novel that’s an impressive achievement. I think it was a bit of a surprise for many and the more I think about this book I can see how it may have been dismissed by some as just not a worthy winner.
I loved it. In the end.  It did take me a bit of time to get going, three attempts in fact. It wasn’t anything to do with the book but rather the tired circumstances in which I was trying to read it.
In summary this book is written as a series of letters to the Chinese Premier who is going to visit India. It’s a confessional and polemic by Balram Halwai, the key character, about India in the modern age. It was this format that I found a bit confusing but when you get through the book you can see that it is written as an expose of what India is really like for some people rather than the glossy foreign relations propaganda that accompanies such visits.
It’s a story of the haves and the have nots in India. The gap between rich and poor. Corrupt policitians. And how all this is justification for Balram to commit murder to get the life he wants.
There are plenty of book reviews around you can check out if you’d like to get more detail on the story. All these reviews give a much more eloquent synopsis than I ever could.
I really enjoyed it although it is a bit harsh at times. In terms of language, graphic detail and the sinister thinking of the narrator. I switched back and forth between sympathy to dislike of Balram. It’s a good read. I think I’ll read it again as it’s cleverly written and so many layers to explore beyond the basic story line.
Thanks for this recommendation Julie. I can recommend ‘The Forgotten Garden’ by Kate Morton, her second book. You recommended her first to me ‘The House at Riverton’ and this is just as good. Sx
Have just finished listening to The White Tiger on Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime. I did miss a few episodes through falling asleep and I found Balram a difficult character to empathise with but I’ll try and get it from the library to read properly. When I was going thruogh a phase of not sleeping I heard all of Slum Dog Millionaire as the 12.30 book before I had even heard of the film. Good old Radio 4.