REGRMBKS

• Rated 5 stars

“I loved this book. It is a spiritual story which perfectly Illustrates the Indian caste system and Hindu vs. Muslim mentality with both humor and tenderness.
This intricate portrait is set in Mumbai, in an appartment building where the central Character Vishnu lies dying on the lower staircase landing, imagining himself ascending to Heaven as the Hindu God Vishnu, by envisioning the colorful Mythology his loving mother told him as a child. He also has memories of his life's love interest, Padmini, a narcisistic prostitute.
Vishnu has served each family in the building as a servant of sorts for many years and is also in love with Kavita Asran, the spoiled and Bollywood obsessed 18 year old daughter of the Asranis.
The story revolves around Kavita and Salim, the only son of the Muslim Jalal family who live upstairs, and plan to elope.
The Jalal's are dispised by the Hindu Asranis and Pathaks for being Muslim when in fact the Husband has no religious beliefs and is searching for an easy entry into heaven, without too much pain, sacrifice or suffering, to great comic effect.
The depiction of Asranis and the Pathaks also provides much humor. Aruna Asrani and Mrs. Pathak share a kitchen and are constantly bickering and plotting against each other. Both families have to figure out what to do about the embarassment of the dying Vishnu, but most of all who will pay for his care.
On the top floor there resides a lonely greiving widower Vinod who is so depressed he is unable to function normally. He is visited only by the Ganga ( domestic female servant) who serves the building, and brings him food. She alone has any tenderness for him.
Manil Suri has blended these characters and their deeply human stories into a rich and satisfying tale which I enjoyed on many levels and would highly recommend.”

REGRMBKS wrote this review 2 days ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“ This is a very engaging story, depicting India's exotic and colorful traditions through everyday life, with familiar characters whose family bonds are continually being tested. I learned a lot about the modern day matchmaking and marriage culture as this charming romantic tale played itself out. ”

REGRMBKS wrote this review 3 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“Joan, is a gifted writer and impressionable Smith College student. Joe Castleman adored by all the young co-eds, is her Lit professor. He recognizes Joan's talent, and singles her out.They have an affair, although he is already married, with a newborn. She decides to flee with Joe to Greenwich village when their tyrst is exposed, and they have a loving and idealistic bohemian life, at first. Joan soon discovers, to her dismay, just how uninspired Joe's writing is and decides she must support him. Because she was discouraged early on by the lack of women role models in the male dominated literary world of the 50's , she lacks the confidence to compete with the men who have all the power, Joan helps Joe succeed with his first novel, by going to work at a publishing house and submitting his finished manuscript. She tells herself she will have her chance after his career is set. Of course she never gets that chance and settles into married life with three children, happily devoting herself to them and Joe and his rising career. She follows him, and his whims, for years and It is not until the children are grown that she begins to allow the jealousy and bitterness she feels rise to surface. habitually sidelined as "The Wife" Joan feels uncomfortable, unappreciated and unfullfilled , forced to stoicly watch her openly filandering husband get all the attention, respect and admiration year after year. Both Joe and Joan are willing partners in this deception,and each harbors resentment but continues to cling to the other as if by habit, long after the relationship has soured. Although I suspected from the beginning of the book that Joan was the actual author I enjoyed the unfolding of events leading up to the eventual revelation. I felt much empathy for Joan and exasperation with her predicament, rooting for her to finally get the recognition she denies herself.”

REGRMBKS wrote this review Thursday, April 4, 2013. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 4 stars

“This was my first DH Lawrence Novel and I found it very absorbing. I enjoyed the Oedipal theme evoked by Lawrence through these intense characters. Wonderful vivid descriptions of the provincial setting. A fascinating evolution of The Morel family. Gertrude as a young woman who marries Morel, a lively but uneducated collier she is attracted to. They have little in common and she is soon frustrated at her station in life. She grows to hate him and he stops trying to please her when her sons take over her soul and vice versa. Mrs Morel is fiercely controlling and pocessive with first William and then Paul. In the end this bond proves too strong for either of the sons to find happiness with any another woman. Gertrude's disapproval of Paul's soulmate Mirriam eventually forces him to leave her behind, along with all the joy they shared in their surroundings, poetry and literature and the creativity she encouraged in his painting. His mother persuaded Paul that angelic Mirriam who loved him unquestioningly, would swallow his soul. As it turns out, it was she Gertrude who did that in the end, leaving Paul alone, bitter and loveless, when she died. ”

REGRMBKS wrote this review Monday, March 25, 2013. ( reply | view 1 replies | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“
Camus' final thoughts in his quest to find who he is through knowing who his annonymous father was. In his attempts to solve the mystery of this unknown man of poverty who had no past, he finds no one able to to fill in any details, least of all, his illiterate, passive, detached, and nearly deaf mother to whom Camus is desparately and passionately devoted.
Though unable to reveal this man who had no history, Camus is able to find himself through the process of examining his own past.
A boyhood full of delightful adventures, comaraderie, joy and overwhelming optimism despite the somewhat desperate poverty of his familiar life in Algiers, which he describes in great detail throughout the book. The details of the harshness of living in a ghetto in tiny dark apartment with a domineering, uneducated, hardworking grandmother, whose beatings he accepted as inevitable, with the deaf but lively and encouraging uncle, and the close yet distant mother. is juxyaposed with the lively descriptions of the multiple boyhood pleasures he experiences, described in great sensual detail with humor and pathos.
It was the crucial relationship that he developes with his beloved father figure, schoolteacher M. Germain that changed Camus' destiny. M. Germains loving support , guidance and attention provides the eager learner with an escape from his circumstances which leads to his academic awakening. A journey into adulthood and inevitable academic success and self awareness.”

REGRMBKS wrote this review Thursday, January 31, 2013. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“A fascinating take on the turn of the century in France Highlighting the customs, beliefs, fashions and attitudes of both the provincial as well as the Parisian lifestyles in times of war and peace in Europe. A study in contrast of a century, with a beginning , a middle and an end. Insights into the changing views and adaptations of The French during this turbulent era, with much discussion on the analysis of a century. Many memorable, descriptions and anecdotes of people seen through the magnifying glass of that grande dame, Gertrude Stein. ”

REGRMBKS wrote this review Wednesday, January 23, 2013. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“I love David Sedaris' caustic wit and even though I had read this book about 10 years ago, I enjoyed it even more this time, relating to it from a slightly different perspective in my own life. it managed to keep me laughing from cover to cover. ”

REGRMBKS wrote this review Monday, January 21, 2013. ( reply | permalink )