17 out of 17 people found this review helpful.
The Next "Grapes of Wrath"
Date of Review: Nov 6, 2003
The Bottom Line: Although this book is depressing, it reveals something important about humanity and breaks you out of your comfort zone.
This book is the most depressing book I have ever read, but I'd still recommend it to you if you asked me.
The author masterfully sketches a number of characters living in India whose lives are slowly drawn together throughout the novel. It begins with two tailors on a train, full of hope about the job opportunity that they are heading for, fighting back the despair that has been growing in them since they left their home town to seek their fortunes.
Next we see through the eyes of their employer, a practical woman whose life was ruined twice over through situations out of her control, and who is hoping to get by as the middleman between a textile company and a pair of tailors. She also decides to have a live-in boarder, a son of a friend who needs to escape from the dormitories and his college life.
As each of their pasts unravel, and their presents bind together, it becomes more and more clear that as hopeful and happy as they are all growing, it cannot last. And it doesn't. The book ends in tragedy and tears, leaving behind it a trail of misery, suffering, and misfortune unlike anything the average American can imagine.
The most disturbing element of this story is that while it is fiction, it is based on fact. Real people do go through things this terrible even today.
As I read the last page, I cried and felt like humanity is a terrible thing, there is no hope, nothing can be good. But I feel better for having read it, and I don't mean some trite, glib statement about being grateful for what I have, either. I feel more appreciative to the entire body of humanity, not just the sphere I live in.
