The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (15 of 166)

One Sentence Summary: Balram Halwai, hailing from one of many (any) villages in the great swath of neglected rural India, becomes the first driver to the son of a coal magnate and, desperate for real opportunity, murders him.

Excerpt:

“Go to Old Delhi,and look at the way they keep chickens there in the market. Hundred of pale hens and brightly colored roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages. They see the organs of their brothers lying around them.They know they are next, yet they cannot rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. The very same thing is done with humans in this country.” 

I spent six months in India last year and am still processing the experience. The White Tiger is disturbing, but even more disturbing when you know how frank and completely possible it is. Spending time in the head of Balram Halwai, you could be in the head of any number of individuals whose lives are placed in the careful boxes of caste and class. The more you think about it, the less solid any ground becomes. While this book is most definitely a tale that seeks to pull back the veil from modern India specifically, it also makes simple, human observations that extend to the infrastructure of any nation where class designation makes us see each other as less or "more than".  Being in Balram's head made me a bit queasy because, while he is certainly corrupt and ultimately wicked, you can see how he became that way and it is very hard to blame him completely. You sympathize with him and you don't want to, but you must.

Adiga's narrative is sharp and quick and I would have been disappointed had it not been, as it did bring home the Man Booker Prize in 2008. Because of this fluid and accessible writing style, the whole book gives off the feeling of a car crash that you are watching take place, complete with the little building scream at the back of your head. The author's choice to let us in on Halwai's trespass right at the beginning of the story sets up the entire story for a feeling of momentum so intense that you almost want to jump and roll off the train. He pulls no punches in confronting the reader with a harsh underworld that is chaotic and of a darkness that feels well-like, but seems to avoid blatant exaggeration. That being said, I read one review that said that The White Tiger was not a work of literature, but a collection of facts. That puts words to what I was trying to articulate throughout reading. While I do not completely agree with the claim that it is not literature, I also sometimes spotted the profusion of information, it betrayed itself by becoming significant to the point of being noticeable- still, I think it a small price to pay for the level of immersion that Adiga creates. You get all the way to say, the seventh circle of Delhi. Certainly, sometimes this book can come across a bit of a crash course- but I stick to my guns when I say that it ultimately avoids the dreaded feeling of "information dump".

This is one that I would like to abstain from "rating", per se. How would I go about rating it? Did I enjoy it. No, not really. I was glad to finish it, but also glad for having read it. Did I think it was significant and important and worth reading? Oh yes, definitely. On a more personal level, I may never completely understand the unrest that still comes upon my soul when I think of India, but reading brings me closer and I think that this book tapped into that need for me. Still, it is heavy and if you are seeking a happy-go-lucky guru road trip tale, this is not going to be it.

I am now off to go read more heavy literature because I said so in my last post. I think that after Beloved, The Color Purple, and Snow Falling on Cedars, I will be ready for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix- really, really ready.

Thanks, Hannah South, for the recommendation!

Shelf Status: Off to a book tarp in Connaught Place
You May Enjoy The White Tiger if you enjoy: The Invisible Man (Ellison, not Wells), Interpreter of Maladies

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson (11 of of 159)

One Sentence Summary:

 1) The dignified Mr Utterson investigates the mysterious connection between his friend, the esteemed Dr. Jekyll and his new, grotesque paramour, Mr. Hyde.

2) The trader Wiltshire arrives at his new station to find the goings-on of the island being manipulated by the conniving Mr. Case.

3) Three ne'er-do-wells of varying morality set out to improve their fortunes and end up invariably worsening them. 

Quote (from the dedication):

It's ill to loose the bands that God decreed to bind;
Still will we be the children of the heather and the wind;
Far away from home, O it's still for you and me
That the broom is blowing bonnie in the north countrie.

The dedication feels like the correct thing to include because there is a reason that Stevenson chose to include that little verse. What follows are more or less morality tales which dabble in some seriously major questions: is there any such thing as absolute morality? Do we endanger ourselves by completely denying our inherent darkness? Is a person with no dimensions or conflicts of conscience even a person at all?

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was a great tale, just as I'd hoped, and definitely one that you think you know, but probably do not. There have been so many iterations of the story in pop culture that it has strayed from the root- this wonderful, lengthy short story. Stevenson has a great appreciation of tone and it is consistently his portrayal of a dank, mist-suffused London that give you the shivers. It is not difficult to imagine yourself alongside Utterson on a midnight amble to track down the deplorable Hyde. You can feel Stevenson's personal conflict surging beneath the surface of this story. I have to wonder how much of himself he saw in the fallible, mostly well-intentioned Jekyll and how much that writing this took out of him.

I wasn't terribly fond of the second story. Certain unlikeable characters can be survived for the sake of the story, but I didn't feel powerfully compelled enough by the plot to get over how obnoxious Wiltshire was. 

I was feeling a bit downtrodden by the time that I reached the third story, but it sucked me in- perhaps even more so than Jekyll and Hyde. My heart went out to Herrick, a hapless sort who has never applied himself enough to anything to amount to much. His moral compass is still in there, harkening to North, if weakly. Then there is Davis, pursued by his personal demons of failure and yet unwilling to adjust the habits and mentality that led him there in the first place. And, of course, Huish, the human leech. Setting the three together on their common course begins a game of the moral, immoral, and amoral that reaches its climax on the island of a dapper tyrant who is a dizzying combination of the three. The action moves along at a clip and it seems as if Stevenson found, in The Ebb-Tide, a way to combine his more exalted literary inclinations with his natural penchant for adventure tales. I wish it were a more famous work- it has the power to be a more fitting legacy.

Reading these three stories, so far from the clear-cut good and evil adventure tale of Treasure Island makes me wonder if Stevenson was feeling pigeon-holed in his career by his reputation for "ripping good reads". I think differently of him now, though, as a literary force in his own right, instead of merely a talented man with the imagination of a naughty boy.

"You must suffer me to go my own dark way."

- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Note: I could not finish The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, which makes this eleven, instead of ten.

Neverwhere (4 of 145)

One Sentence Summary: Ordinary good guy Richard Mayhew's life dissolves around him when he saves a
panic-stricken young girl on the streets of London and is thrust into the midst of a sinister plot in an alternate underside London as a result.

Subtitle: Some doors should just stay closed.

Excerpt: 

“There are four simple ways for the observant to tell Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar apart: first, Mr. Vandemar is two and a half heads taller than Mr. Croup; second, Mr. Croup has eyes of a faded china blue, while Mr. Vandemar's eyes are brown; third, while Mr. Vandemar fashioned the rings he wears on his right hand out of the skulls of four ravens, Mr. Croup has no obvious jewelery; fourth, Mr. Croup likes words, while Mr. Vandemar is always hungry. Also, they look nothing at all alike.” 

My love-hate relationship with Neil Gaiman continues. My brother has literally been trying to get me to read Neverwhere for years. He knew I would love nearly everything about it: the beautifully cultivated darkness of the atmosphere, the quest oriented story-line, deception, betrayal and, most importantly, the character of the London Underground. I have this thing about trains and subways that will become increasingly apparent because if there is even the slightest mention of either in a book, I am more likely to forgive other trespasses. Not that there were so many things wrong with this story- it was actually pretty damn wonderful in most of the ways that counted.

Neil Gaiman always makes me feel a strange when I've finished reading- stuck in the strange indiscriminate place between like and love, wondering why you aren't feeling more sure of the latter. All of the pieces are there, the great plot, unforgettable characters, witty bits, a world you can hunker right down into and stay for a while, so you start rooting through your pockets for the bitter seed that keeps you from really and truly loving it. I think I finally know what it is, for me, at least. I find Neil Gaiman to be a good writer, but a truly great story-teller. This is a man I would love to sit across the campfire from, having him regale us long into the night- or someone I would set out on a great journey with, letting him wear my ears down with the passing miles and enjoying every second of it. What he lacks in technical genius, he makes up for in a creative muscle that is so finely tuned that it is has carried him to the top of more than one genre. So yes, upon thinking it through more thoroughly, I really do love Neil Gaiman. I read The Ocean at the End of the Lane recently and it occurred to me that I had rarely read a stand-alone story with such a beautiful sureness of story, character, and its elements of magic. Gaiman's fantasy comes straight from the heart, from that basic part of being that spurred the first storyteller to stand up and hold an audience captive. That comes across in Neverwhere, just as it does in all of his work.

I absolutely loved the world he created, the dark London seething beneath the surface with all of its bizarre denizens, whacked out versions of nobility and perfectly sinister assassins. It has been such a long time since I read a book until two in the morning, but that is where I found myself this very dark AM, looking at the clock on my phone and being earnestly confused about when, you know, time happened. I am going to have to read this again in London. Maybe I'll just hope on the Underground and consume it cover to cover in the very place where it most belongs. I actually don't know what I'm quibbling about. This book was awesome. Go read this book.

Sidenote: Speaking of spooky books, my current read is Rebecca, which is apparently something I must expose myself to if I am going to continue in the vein of writing ghost stories or thrillers of any kind. I'm extremely excited. After that, I am going to read the fourth Harry Potter, so it will be a little break in the project.

I Recommend To: anyone who likes a well-crafted world, anyone who likes a good chill
I Do Not Recommend To: people who like happy, shiny books with happy, shiny endings, people who are afraid of the dark