The Inheritance of Loss was a Booker Prize winner in 2006 so it had been on my list for awhile to read. Once I started it, I read it quickly, and emerged at the end feeling mostly saddened by the hopelessness that infused some of the story lines.
This book takes place in the mid 1980s in India right at the time of the Nepalese independence movement. The story features a teenage girl named Sai who lives with her grandfather and their cook in a rural area of India. She was orphaned at a young age and spent several years in a convent school where she learned very British mannerisms from the nuns there. Her grandfather had studied in England, and even while shunned and belittled while there, he kept many of his English traits and was never fully able to adjust back to Indian life.
The judge has been lonely most of his life, and while feeling he has more in common with his granddaughter than with anyone, he has a hard time showing his affection. Sai falls in love with a tutor who comes to her home to teach her math and physics. It is a mutual love affair for some time until he joins the Nepalese uprising and sees Sai as representing all that is wrong with her wealth and English mannerisms.
The hardest story of all, for me, was that of Biju, the cooks son. The cook sends his son to America to live a better life. He overstays his visitors visa and is forced to move from one low paying job to another to stay one step ahead of immigration. He sleeps in rooms shared with many, infested by rats. He describes the New York restaurants saying, “On top, rich colonial, and down below, poor native. Colombian, Tunisian, Ecuadorian, Gambian.” He also speaks of how hard it is to belong, that everyone in the world seems to dislike Indians, and he is never able to relax and feel at home. He misses his home and his father but fears deeply of disappointing him by returning without a green card, without money.
This is a story about people striving in different ways towards goals…towards something in life that they desire. It discusses the play between the classes, different races, and how to try to adapt in a modernized, globalized world.
29/08/2009 at 9:42 am Permalink
Sarah,
I can’t really tell if you liked this book. You said you read it quickly which might mean that you found it engrossing, but was the sense of hopelessness you describe enough to make you not like the book much? Would you recommend reading it?
Erin
29/08/2009 at 1:59 pm Permalink
I would probably recommend it… I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5. It probably isn’t a book that I’ll read again but I’m glad that I did… hope that helps.