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A Fine Balance (Oprah's Book Club)by Rohinton Mistry |
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With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.
As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.
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HelCris -  |
A Fine Balance Review |
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Good reading althought, as others reviews state, too much suffering, excessive tragedies, and when you think it is over, Mistry finds something even worse for his characters. It looks like the is NO balance afterwards, not even a "fine" balance. It's all too sad. |
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Devastating and Brilliant: Worth 600+ pages and more -  |
A Fine Balance Review |
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I have never encountered a book so moving as Mistry's A Fine Balance. Following the story of Ishvar and Om, I found myself so invested in what was happening to them - the injustice of India's government is infuriating, and the ways in which the overcoming of an obstacle only leads to another is simultaneously depressing and motivational, due to the resilience of each character.
A Fine Balance is not a light read, but once you begin, you will not be able to stop. Mistry maintains a balance between revealing the utter desperation of the homeless and the ways in which each character finds value in life, despite every force working against it. I was moved by this book as if I were watching a movie, laughing out loud and crying to myself during the ups and downs of the plot. The beauty of the book is in the conclusion, as Mistry does not employ any shallow devices to wrap things up in order to make the reader feel redeemed after the devastation. It is realistic, sad, and fulfilling all at once. I left questioning whether or not I would be able to live my life with the same optimism were I in the same situation. This book will force you to view your life through a different lens, and you will be better off for reading it. |
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A fine book! - |
A Fine Balance Review |
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One of the best books I've read in a very long time. The characters will stay with you for years. |
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Delectable and Disturbing -  |
A Fine Balance Review |
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This is not a book for the faint of heart. It relates the interwoven histories of four main characters and several peripheral individulas who impact on their lives. Try to imagine people who are floating together in one huge river in India, a river that is made up of currents of brutality, avarice, corruption and cruelty - all blending and separating and rejoining in a nonending and inescapable life force. The characters never get out. At times they may escape some, or all, of these currents, but only for a short while, and never long enough to be able to stand upright and make a break for the shore.
In the end, some of the characters are destroyd by their toxic environment; others survive and manage to keep (varying amounts of) their spirits alive; none of them are able to get what they wanted out of life. Both the most beautiful and the most terrible thing about reading this book is that Mr. Mistry's writing is so transcendent that the reader is sucked into the characters' river of despair, comes to know and love its inhabitants, and suffers with them. I had to put the book down several times and come back to it after I had time to catch my breath and regain my equilibrium. Perhaps it is worse if, like me, you have visited India and know that Mr. Mistry is not making this up. His characters may be fictional but their experiences are true. |
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Murphy's Law -  |
A Fine Balance Review |
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This book is the epitome of Murphy's Law- what can go wrong, will go wrong. It is so needlessly depressing. I am not one to only read books that are filled with sunshine and rainbows, but like many other reviewers have said, the problems faced by the characters in this book are SO numerous that as I read it, I became jaded. This book exhausted and numbed me and towards the end, the misfortunes of the characters had no affect on me.
I do feel like the author stereotyped India and Indian citizens to some degree. I feel like non Indians or non South Asians who read this book will walk away with an image of India that is not particularly accurate. While his writing style is quite good, it gets a bit claustrophobic. Overall, the depression just makes it unbelievable. I did not enjoy this book at all. |
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