Eduardo Santiago
Beautiful writing, ... but way, way too much of it. It grew wearisome. If the characters had been interesting, or the story, I would've devoured. A clever friend aptly suggested that it would make a good coffee table book: pick it up once in a while, read and appreciate a few lovely paragraphs, put it back down and forget it for a spell.
What I found most interesting was discussing the book with friends. It's a Rorschach test! Everyone I spoke to focused on different aspects of its many themes. For me, shallowness and classism stood out. Desai packs in a ton of cultural insight; I found it at times fascinating and at other times overwhelmingly dense.
Am I glad I persevered? Ambivalent. The Covenant of Water was another 700-page tome with exquisite writing, but in that one I cared about the people and the story. I still rave about it. This one, I found Sonia and Sunny mostly flat, and all (ok most of) the other characters were contemptible. But hey, there are all kinds of people. Some even liked Wuthering Heights. (This one isn't as bad as that. Nothing is as bad as Wuthering Heights).
Beautiful writing, ... but way, way too much of it. It grew wearisome. If the characters had been interesting, or the story, I would've devoured. A clever friend aptly suggested that it would make a good coffee table book: pick it up once in a while, read and appreciate a few lovely paragraphs, put it back down and forget it for a spell.
What I found most interesting was discussing the book with friends. It's a Rorschach test! Everyone I spoke to focused on different aspects of its many themes. For me, shallowness and classism stood out. Desai packs in a ton of cultural insight; I found it at times fascinating and at other times overwhelmingly dense.
Am I glad I persevered? Ambivalent. The Covenant of Water was another 700-page tome with exquisite writing, but in that one I cared about the people and the story. I still rave about it. This one, I found Sonia and Sunny mostly flat, and all (ok most of) the other characters were contemptible. But hey, there are all kinds of people. Some even liked Wuthering Heights. (This one isn't as bad as that. Nothing is as bad as Wuthering Heights).