About The Book
Born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, often mistaken for the one in the other, in the Calcutta neighborhood where they grow up.
But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead. It is the 1960s, and Udayan—charismatic and impulsive—finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement: he will give everything, risk all, for what he believes. Subhash, the dutiful son, does not share his brother’s political passion; he leaves home to pursue a life of scientific research in a quiet, coastal corner of America.
But when Subhash learns what happened to his brother in the lowland outside their family’s home, he comes back to India, hoping to pick up the pieces of a shattered family, and to heal the wounds Udayan left behind—including those seared in the heart of his brother’s wife.
My Thoughts
The book depicts the lives of 4 people in their thick and thin times spanning almost 70 years.
The book starts with a controversial and one of the most bloodshed times of Indian history, Naxalite movement. The depiction of the Naxalite movement is good. There are many other books that depict this time period with much more depth, however as this book is not totally based on this time frame, hence I am not complaining.
The best part of the book is its characters. Not just in this book, I have read other books written by Jhumpa Lahiri, and she really put her heart into every character. Without giving any spoilers, just want to mention that there is one character who is going to surprise the readers in the end.
Now, this book is not for everyone, one needs a mature mind to understand the characters and their circumstances.
Overall, I enjoyed reading it.
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About the Author
Jhumpa Lahiri was born in London and raised in Rhode Island. Her debut, internationally-bestselling collection, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, the PEN/Hemingway Award, The New Yorker Debut of the Year award, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Addison Metcalf Award, and a nomination for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was translated into twenty-nine languages.
Her first novel, The Namesake, was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, and was selected as one of the best books of the year by USA Today and Entertainment Weekly, among other publications.
Author on the Web
Labels: BookLove, Books, Fiction
