It has been a while since I reviewed a translated work I think. And if you are doing the Year of Asian challenge, read this review of One Part Woman and then the book right away.
Set in the southern part of India, the story revolves around Kali and Ponna who have been married for twelve years. They are ridiculed and ostracized for not conceiving a child by their family, friends and the entire village. They have been called names and shamed about their fertility at every instance. Despite having doubts about having a baby, they try to save their face in front of the society.
They have met with many astrologers, made offerings to the Gods and done every ritual sacrifices to their deities but to no avail. As a last resort, their families ask Ponna to take part in a specific festival celebrating the half-man-half-woman deity, when any man and woman can consensual sexual relationship with one another.
Will the couple take up the offer? What effect would this offer have on their relationship. You should read One Part Woman to know more.
Book review of One Part Woman
Though initially written in my mother tongue Tamil, I read One Part Woman in English and I am glad I did that. While I have heard high praises about the original, I am not sure if I could have digested the rawness in the story.
One Part Woman portrays emphatically the society’s stand towards a couple who are childless, or God forbid choose not to have one, especially in the rural areas.
There are a lot of racial and sexual slurs (not more than other novels of the genre though), but nothing that called for the riots and calls for banning the book. I think the political and casteists should leave the literary world alone.
Things that worked for me:
I loved the layered and flowery writing style of the author.
All the characters are well thought and fully developed. I loved Ponna’s strong and fierce character.
The book ends in a kinda cliffhanger and continues in the next part, the end worked for me.
The rural life in the south India is perfectly etched.
Things that didn’t work for me:
The rawness in writing goes in hand with a lot obscene sexual and racial slurs. That is one reason I am glad I didn’t read it in my mother tongue.
I didn’t get many of the slurs and slang, despite it being my mother tongue.
There are times the flowery writing might seem overdone and drags the pace.
Bottom-line:
If you want to read a translated work that portrays rural south India then One Part Woman should be your choice. I am definitely reading the part two soon.
I read The Vegetarian a while ago as a part of the A-Z challenge 2018 and yet I couldn’t post a review as soon as I would usually. I can blame my erratic blogging schedule but the truth is The Vegetarian by Han Kang left me so confused and perplexed that I had to step back and mull over what to say.
Watch out for my 100th review!
Yet I can’t think of a better fitting book that I have read in the recent times than The Vegetarian to be my 100th review on my blog. Yes, you heard it right. This would be my ONE HUNDREDTH review on this blog.
The Vegetarian talks of how cultural and societal norms make or break a person’s individuality and define one’s perspective. The Vegetarian consists of three parts Yeong-Hye’s past, present and future, from the perspectives of her husband, her brother in law and her sister Kim In-Hye.
In a country where meat is a staple food, Yeong-Hye stops eating meat, a reaction to the bloody nightmares that she had been facing every night. Until then a passive and unassuming wife, Yeong’s decision is criticized by everyone in the family including her father who even tries to force feed her some meat.
My initial thoughts
The more I read, the more intriguing (bizarre, even?) the book became. And given that it is such a short book, I finished it fairly fast, even when I had to re-read some parts to make sure ‘that’ really happened. Let us get on with the review, shall we?
The Vegetarian is the winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2016 among many other awards. If this had gone by my usual luck with award books, I would have been bored by about 20% of the book and still be compelling myself to continue to struggle to the end. WELL, THAT DID NOT HAPPEN.
Just like that Yeong turns from ordinary, according to her abusive and shallow husband Mr. Cheong, to aberrant. What follows is the aftermath of her decision (to be become a The Vegetarian, rather a vegan) and how her family reacts to it. Watch out, The Vegetarian is not an easy read. It will make you question your fundamental assumptions.
The Vegetarian is on the surface a parable on how far can one go to stay put on one’s belief.
But it talks more about the sexism and status of women in a patriarchal society like Korea and other South Asian countries in a pliable and compliant role. The men in Yeong’s life, and thus the novel, are all disgusting in one form or the other and maybe that played a part in her decision to change her life into a ‘plant like’ being.
Bottom-line
If you want to read something that has a simple yet lyrical writing, yet will make you think about your judgmental self you should pick The Vegetarian by Han Kang. But be wary of triggering content – like sexual and physical assaults, extra marital affairs and mental illness. You won’t be disappointed.
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Let us talk
Have you read this book earlier? Does this book depict life in South Korea? Are there any other books set in South Korea that you have read? What books have you read this week?
Like most readers my to be read list seems never ending, and I have lost hope that I would ever clear it off. On the other hand, my to be reviewed list is not too long but as I do not follow any hard rules in picking the book from that list to review, the books I loved too much or the books that I might find difficult to write about tend to settle farther and farther down the list.
So here I am, picking one of those books that I read a long time ago (read as almost two months) and yet was hesitant to review. Mostly for the fear that I would not be doing any justice to it or that I might be a tad partial in my critique. Someone suggested me, Zadie Smith, when I was talking about feminism and related topics. On the quest to finding her much-acclaimed debut ‘ White Teeth’ or ‘On Beauty,’ I stumbled upon Swing Time her newest release.
Book Name: Swing Time
Author: Zadie Smith
Genre: Fiction – Literary, drama
Characters: Tracey, Aimee, Lamin, Fern and unnamed narrator
Setting: The USA
Accolades:
2017 Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
2017 Finalist, Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
The story follows two little ‘mixed race’ girls who grow up in the not so rich part of London Tracey, the dancer, and our unnamed narrator. Tracey stands out in everything they do together – she is confident, rebelling and imaginative and a better dancer of the two, while the narrator is a good student and hopes to get out of the neighborhood. Her mother’s upbringing makes sure she realizes that only hard work pays, while Tracey’s home-life is almost ungoverned.
She joins as an assistant to the super star singer Aimee and travels worldwide as her works demands. She loves the job as she shuttles between the UK and a downtrodden country in the West Africa where Aimee was building a girls school. She feels alienated in the Africa as much as she does in London.
Our narrator is quite taken with strong characters right from her childhood while she is happy being invisible in the backdrop. She doesn’t have any talent like Tracey or an ambition like her mother or the drive like Aimee. This makes her a less compelling character to love or remember.
How do the friends gravitate towards each other when things go south? How long could she live in the shadows of others or if she did, would she happy? Read Swing Time to know more.
The story oscillates among various time frames and places and does a brilliant job in weaving a quite fascinating tale. Though there are a few parts of the story that might have been little dragging and I admit to skimming a bit here and there, the author’s literary skill makes it all worth the while.
I found Swing Time to be a solid piece of social commentary, rather than a piece of fiction that talks about two friends, which is what it is primarily. Zadie deals a variety of themes like different races and the privileges that come with them, parenthood and the importance of family, poverty and classes, that add up succinctly into the coming of age tale.
I particularly liked the thread of dichotomies between the haves and have nots, coloured and uncoloured, the Americans and the British, the talented and privileged and the ones that aren’t, that ran throughout the novel. This is the first time I am reading Zadie Smith. I am not entirely in love with the book, but I am ready to read more of hers, like White Teeth and On Beauty that everyone has been raving so far.
Swing Time is not your typical summer reads. It has little hard to get into and harder to stick to especially in the middle. If you love reading prose that promises you insights about the society and the world as a whole accompanied by beautiful and strong writing – Swing Time should be your pick.
After a long time, I am writing a review… In fact, after a long time have read a book worth reviewing – Eat Pray Love… Not that it is a classic or must read… But it just is closer to my heart in many terms…
Title: Eat, Pray, Love
ISBN: 0143038419 (ISBN13: 9780143038412
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Genre: Memoir
Setting: Italy, India, Bali
Simply I loved the way the term GOD has been dealt with… My philosophy of God is also more similar to Liz’s, maybe less compulsive and more forgiving… But that’s how God is supposed to be… I hate the clutter around the term GOD and since there was none found in her world, things seemed more acceptable…
Secondly, the lucid style in her narration that wasn’t too hard to imagine, yet very pleasant… Her stay at Bali as well as India were just as fresh in our mind as hers… I simply loved the cheeky Richard from Texas and the plumber/poet though they had not much to give the story in terms of substance or the usual clichés…
Wayan and her simple daughter would easily touch anybody’s heart but the reality in them, in terms of being practical enough to squeeze whatever one could from Liz, was much needed in the “too good to be story”… Because this what is the real life is all about, isn’t it?
But again a year taken as sabbatical, is too much to dream of even, so I am happy enough for Liz… God knows none of us could afford it…
Bottom-line: I loved it – not for the writing style or for the wonderful language or any of the technical stuff – but for the realism maintained in an unrealistic environment… J I could not stop imagining Julia Roberts in every scene, even when I have not seen the film yet, So definitely an “one time read” rating for the surreal fairytale…
Here is my long pending review on The God of Small Things. Though I was a little skeptical through the first few pages, the description of the story through the eyes of children got me all geared up.
Title: The God of Small Things
Author: Arundhati Roy
Genre: Fiction – Drama,Historical
Main Characters: Rahel, Ammu, Mammachi, Chacko, Estha
Setting: Kerala, India;
The God of Small Things narrates the story of a divorcée mom Ammu who raises her twins Estha and Rahel in her family estate in Ayemenem. Her brother Chacko is the family’s new head and her aunt spews contempt towards her divorced niece and her kids. Chacko, a party member of the Communists, in 1970s the post Independence era, is pining over his daughter Sophie Mol who grows up at England.
Ammu is a free spirit and is not ready to live as an outcast in her own father’s house. Does she find a new love? And how does her respectable family accept it? Esther does not talk anymore. What happened in the childhood that changed their lives forever?
The story alters between the present day and flashback. The tragic tale is supported by the strong and poetic prose. Roy draws out the lives of Indians in the 1970s in a lucidly. The political scenario and the caste system were depicted honestly.
Roy has compensated the strong voice about the big picture well with the smaller things. Even though the big picture didn’t end up so well for the family or the twins, as long as the small things were in place, everything was okay to the kids. The concept of forbidden love might put off some people, though it makes so much sense.
Small Things like the way she had described “Accurate Estha”, “Thimble drinker Sophie Mol”- made the reading enjoyable. The way the children read the words backward reminded my childhood nostalgically, I wonder if everyone went through the same phase. There were several places that I had people staring at me because I was grinning too much, while reading the book in public places. Especially the innocence of the children in reasoning the death of Ms Mitten, about Rahel being loved but a little bit lesser etc.
If you want to read about the intricate lives of the Indians in 1970s, The God of Small Things could be your choice. If you love The Virgin Suicides, you will love this.
Swing Time 
