Sunday, September 20, 2009
Why Did It Win the Booker?
I finished The White Tiger last week. It was a fast read; a narrative push drives the book. I found it to be a fairly simple, if not simplistic, novel. Not that I didn't enjoy it, but I do wonder why it won the Booker prize. I found the structure and story to be fairly mechanical and predictable. The social justice themes were also fairly stock. A review I read on line called it an Indian novel without the overdone style of most Indian novels (I guess a jab at Rushdie), but what I wanted was a bit more "beauty in the writing. There are some good lines and description, as noted in the two previous posts, but not enough for my tastes. I would write more, but Horn has my copy so I can't refer to the text, or use it as a jumping off point for my rambles. Maybe more later if I can get the book back.
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4 comments:
You know, I feel the same way. I'm about half way, and I've only sat down once to read it. Very, very fast, and somewhat juvenile in tone.
to answer your question about why it won the prestigious award - I think that it evokes something, an awakening to a world that we are unfamiliar with, maybe. I like the book on one level because it moves very fast, very simple, like you said. But I don't like it because everyone has talked about how this book has done wonders for opening eyes to that area of the world in a more simplistic way (unlike Rushdie.) I guess with such sagacity in our book club, we expect something more wrought, like Loise Erdrich. (Insert imperceptible chortle here.)
Hmmm, not so sure about the sagacity of our book group. Except for the wisdom to meet at the Gingerman.
Personally, I vote for the sagacity of imperceptible chortling and guzzling.
Seriously, as with books that seem 'simple' on the surface, I wonder if the beauty of this was to capture so much of a particular aspect of India in so few and disarming words.
The humor is juvenile, yet deadly. I actually came to like the sister-fucking murderer.
And, while I did not completely finish Erdrich, I did finish this in a few sittings. I will never think of India in the same way.
One of the main things I got from the book was the destructiveness of fast capitalism, or just capitalism in general. I liked the way the "bosses" complained about taxes, yet paid huge amounts to the politicians in bribes. "You say tamato. . ."
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