Genre Fiction
![Kiran Desai - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B000APFKLE.jpg)
The Inheritance of Loss
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. Kiran Desai's brilliant novel, published to huge acclaim, is a story of joy and despair. Her characters face numerous choices that majestically illuminate the consequences of colonialism as it collides with the modern world.
Editorial Reviews
Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2006
"If book reviews just cut to the chase, this one would simply read: This is a terrific novel! Read it!" –Ann Harleman, The Boston Globe
"One of the most impressive novels in English of the past year, and I predict you'll read it…with your heart in your chest, inside the narrative, and the narrative inside you." –Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune
"[An] extraordinary new novel…lit by a moral intelligence at once fierce and tender." –Pankaj Mishra, front-cover review in The New York Times Book Review
"If God is in the details, Ms. Desai has written a holy book. Page after page, from Harlem to the Himalayas, she captures the terror and exhilaration of being alive in the world." –Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan
"It's a clash of civilizations, even empires . . . The idea of an old empire, the British one collides against the nouveaux riche American one. The story ricochets between the two worlds, held together by Desai's sharp eyes and even sharper tongue. . . . This is a . . . substantial meal, taking on heavier issues of land and belonging, home and exile, poverty and privilege, and love and the longing for it." -Sandip Roy, San Francisco Chronicle (front page review)
"Briskly paced and sumptuously written, the novel ponders questions of nationhood, modernity, and class, in ways both moving and revelatory." -The New Yorker
"Editor's Choice … Kiran Desai writes beautifully about powerless people as they tangle with the modern world and in so doing she casts her own powerful spell." ––Elizabeth Taylor, Chicago Tribune
"An endearing view of globalisation . . . The Inheritance of Loss is a book about tradition and modernity, the past and the future-and about the surprising ways both amusing and sorrowful, in which they all connect. . . . A wide variety of readers should enjoy." -Boyd Tonkin, The Independent (London)
"Impressive . . . a big novel that stretches from India to New York; an ambitious novel that reaches into the lives of the middle class and the very poor; an exuberantly written novel that mixes colloquial and more literary styles; and yet it communicates nothing so much as how impossible it is to live a big, ambitious, exuberant life. . . .Desai's prose becomes marvelously flexible . . . always pulsing with energy." -Natasha Walter, The Guardian
"A magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and powerful political acuteness." -Hermione Lee, chair of the 2006 Man Booker Prize
"With her second novel, Kiran Desai has written a sprawling and delicate book, like an ancient landscape glittering in the rain. . . . Desai has a touch for alternating humor and impending tragedy that one ...
Readers Top Reviews
Nancy CooperX70DEVJo
Exhausting book to read. Wading through language that was vaguely linked and at times not sure where and what was author talking about. And then the ending? Really? Eehh
John D.
a very enjoyable read. The author has a marvellous vocabulary, which when combined with a wonderful understanding of human behavior keeps the reader in thrall with the colorful narrative.
William S Jamison
Images of India on the border of Nepal, meals, poverty, saving face, explanations of strangers. What is this book about? My interpretation of the title is that the colonial government demonstrated a form of civilization that created a social structure that gradually incorporated a few natives but that for the most part, even those, such as the judge, that went away to Cambridge and received a degree and became part of the bureaucracy - Indian Civil Service (ICS) they were not among the educated elite that understood the nature of the civilization or could maintain it. This becomes evident especially as the judge takes his oral exams and is asked about poets. Surprised by the question it seems it almost fails him but he makes the bottom passing ranks because the government wanted some Indians to pass - and he was the best they had in his class. So the judge takes his place in the ICS and lives his career there. But as the colonial bureaucracy leaves there are not enough to continue the civilization created and the social structure reverts to the inheritance of loss - the return to the pre-colonial conflicts. The police change from enforcement to corruption. Subplots reinforce the sense that none of the characters in the book, not even Sai, have a sense of how to prevent the loss from occurring. Nature takes back its own in more ways than one. I also get the sense that the naturally returning Indian culture does not understand the relationship that gives voice in the phrase "Dog is man's best friend" as the judge's relationship to his appears odd to everyone and this even becomes a foil to contrast a difference in values and enable the inheritance of loss to finally destroy the judge. A sad book. No postmodern characters. But a great book since it presents a society in the midst of this series of changes in beautiful language. We come to understand the characters even if our empathy for them is fraught with our own sense of loss as we realize there is nothing to be done. Even immigration to the US does not enable such growth as necessary but can even result in those characters returning with less than they had when they started. This was a great discussion book for our book group.
an interested reader
I listened to the book, did not read it. The reader was just right. I listened to each CD a few times to get the full flavor of it, and because there’s a lot going on. Beautifully written, well deserved the Booker prize. It did what novels I really admire do, showed characters bent by the worlds they inhabit, showed a sweep of history, a large social landscape. It’s grim, and frightening, but the grimness is alleviated by the warmth, wit, humor, geniality. The book begs for a sequel—I’m totally committed to these characters. Author, author: sequel, please! I don't get why the ranking isn't a lot higher than it is.
As I came to the last few pages of this awesome novel, I said to myself, If they do not find the dog, I am going to burn this book. This book is not one you will skim through. The story and the characters are complex as is the land and times they live in. So much of the book made me smile and laugh out loud. But there were numerous times I wanted to shout at the people and the situations. I have spent time in India and know its contradictions. I know how frustrating it is for a westerner to deal with its customs. But there is so much truth in this book that it was worth reading and rereading. I recommend it to those readers willing to make an effort, but not to anyone who reads solely for pleasure and entertainment. I think you will be rewarded.
