Book Review: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

Book: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Published :  2006, Penguin Books
Rating: 2/5

Summary

"In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas lives an embittered judge who wants only to retire in peace, when his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, arrives on his doorstep. The judge’s cook watches over her distractedly, for his thoughts are often on his son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one gritty New York restaurant to another on an elusive search for a green card. 

 When an Indian-Nepali insurgency in the mountains interrupts Sai's romance with her Nepali tutor, and causes their lives to descend into chaos, they are forced to consider their colliding interests. The cook witnesses the hierarchy being overturned and discarded. And the judge must revisit his past and his own journey and role in their intertwining histories."

 (Source: Back cover of the book)

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai is like an incomplete painting. I picked up this book with great expectations. After all, it is a Man Booker Prize Winner. But sadly it didn't match my expectations. I tried hard to like it but wasn't able to. It felt absurd and incomplete when I finished the book. The characters are not well-sketched and leaves you wondering. For long I contemplated 'is it me who is not intelligent enough to understand the depth of the story' as Booker Prize winning books are assumed to be difficult to understand and read). But turns out it is not the case. It didn't stir any emotion in me except portions where the political tension in the hills is described and also some level of disgust.  

Take for instance the way she described the consummation (read - martial rape) of Judge's marriage with Nimi: 

"in a dense frustration of lust and fury -- penis uncoiling, mottled purple-black as if with rage, blundering, uncovering the chute he had heard rumor of -- he stuffed his way ungracefully into her.... Jemubhai was glad he could disguise his inexpertness, his crudity, with hatred and fury -- this was a trick that would serve him well throughout his life in a variety of areas -- but, my God, the grotesqueness of it all shocked him: the meeting of reaching, suckering organs in an awful attack and consumption; maimed, bruise-colored kicking, cringing forms of life; sour, hair-fringed gullet; agitating snake muscled malevolency; the stench of urine and shit mixed up with the smell of sex; the squelch, the marine squirt, that uncontrollable run -- it turned his civilized stomach."

The characters are real but very regular and uninspiring. An argument can work against me that reality is unavoidable and not always pleasant and inspiring. But for me reading is an escape. An escape to something that moves me and transports me into another world, for better or worse. I don't necessarily mean that give me a fantasy or hypothetical world. But the characters need to evoke some emotion besides disgust. There have been books, which didn't had an happy ending but at least it managed to make me sad. This book didn't do it for me.

As an amateur writer, I commend her language skills. Narration is great, writing is lovely and a lot to learn from her style. Kiran Desai describes beautifully and in detail the grim, poverty and scenic beauty of North-east India. It also generated some curiosity to explore the history of North east India and Nepal.

But I read this book and is reviewing it only from the perspective of a reader. The details in the book can be enjoyed by a foreigner for whom India is a mystical country and such level of poverty or dirt is an alien concept. But for someone like me, who has lived in India all her life, the detailed descriptions about poverty, tension around the borders, obsession with West, how people shit on the railway tracks or something like that doesn't shocks, excites or intrigues me. I see, experience, read, hear enough about all this via other sources like television, newspaper and life itself. It will move and enthrall someone who is not familiar with such environment. Or an Indian immigrant. But for me it is a way of life.

Even when I tried to read as a neutral reader, keeping aside what nation I belong to..the love angle between Gyan and Sai didnt touch me. The angle between the cook, Nandu and his son, Biju didn't move me. Judge Jemubhai, the two Bengali sisters, Father Booty, left me with absolutely nothing. 

It is not a bad book but definitely not one of my favourites.