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The Inheritance of Loss

By Kiran Desai

(65)

| Mass Market Paperback | 9780802165053

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Critics

Mutt and the maths tutor

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai 336pp, Hamish Hamilton, £16.99 This impressive novel, longlisted for the Man Booker prize, produces a strange effect. It is a big novel that stretches from India to New York; an ambitious novel that reaches into ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

Uncle Potty and other guides to the truth

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai Hamish Hamilton £16.99, pp336 Sai lives with her grandfather, a former judge, in a decaying house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the north-eastern Himalayas. Orphaned at a young age, she has grown up in is ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

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7 Reviews

5 people find this helpful

I have to say I am quite disappointed with this book, given its 2006 Man Booker Prize winner status. The story deals with a tumultuous period in the history of India through the lives of a retired judge, his cook and his granddaughter, who was besotted with her physics tutor. This side of the stor ... (continue)

I have to say I am quite disappointed with this book, given its 2006 Man Booker Prize winner status. The story deals with a tumultuous period in the history of India through the lives of a retired judge, his cook and his granddaughter, who was besotted with her physics tutor. This side of the story is also juxtaposed with the tale of the cook's son struggling as an illegal immigrant in the US.
The story does bring out a lot of issues about racism and colonialism and makes you question about whether the colonial legacy of the West brought more harm than good to the developing countries. But the lives of the characters in the book are just not intriguing and you won't care about them as you plod along. Also, the story is not presented chronologically, and it goes back and forth between the main plot and flashbacks of individual characters, between India and the US. It's quite confusing and sometimes you wonder what and when the event you are reading took place. The language of the book is quite pompous and laborious, and it's difficult to get to the end.
It took Kiran Desai 8 years to write this book. It's not surprising as reading the book is already such a daunting task ...
I am curious about what made the Booker judges choose this book. I haven't read the other 5 shortlisted books yet, but am quite sure some work out there must be better than this one.
I have been reading the Booker winners for many years and I must say this is the most unworthy one.

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Tracy W said on Apr 15, 2007 | 1 feedback

3 people find this helpful

A book that is more an excercise in style than a story. Where on one side there are beautiful descriptions of the places in which it is set, on the other, there is no passion and the characters are so empty that, by the end of it, you dont really care what happens to them.

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Dylaniata said on Nov 25, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

2 people find this helpful

Riveting story, but a bit tragic

This book by Kiran Desai won the 2006 Booker. Set in the 1980s in Kalimpong (this is distant Himalayan India, where India blurs into Bhutan and Sikkim) the story is mainly about 3 eccentric characters -- a retired judge, his granddaughter Sai and his servile cook. While Desai goes about deliciously ... (continue)

This book by Kiran Desai won the 2006 Booker. Set in the 1980s in Kalimpong (this is distant Himalayan India, where India blurs into Bhutan and Sikkim) the story is mainly about 3 eccentric characters -- a retired judge, his granddaughter Sai and his servile cook. While Desai goes about deliciously setting the life stories of these characters and their friends in breathtakingly beautiful Kalimpong through flashbacks and forwards, the region itself slowly falls into chaos due to the Nepalese-Indian demand for a separate nation/state of Gorkhaland. And this movement rips apart their bucolic lives revealing how gray and vulnerable they all are.
The book is lovely, the setting is beautiful and the characters remain etched forever. The prose strongly reminds me of R K Narayan and Enid Blyton. In describing the idyllic setting of Cho Oyu (the judge's home which overlooks the mighty Kanchenjunga) and Kalimpong, I'm strongly reminded of Blyton (even Ruskin Bond) and her rustic settings. In the characters and their confusing mess of lives (like most of us), it is Narayan who shows through. I can't help but feel that Kalimpong and it's residents share a lot with Malgudi. It feels nostalgic of a time gone by in our childhood.
The narrative is not linear, it keeps going backward and forward. Desai takes her time in revealing the details about the 3 interesting characters in the book. It's one of the reasons the books really pulled me in, titillating all the time, to know one more bit about the judge or Sai, to understand why they are what they are in the current time. There's this whole parallel narrative about Biju, the cook's son who's an illegal immigrant in NYC. IMO the book could've done without this entire arc.
The story takes a whole plethora of tones: British Raj, nationalism, love, hate, economic/social disparities, nature and so on. The characters seem innocent at first, but as more about their past is revealed and their lives become affected by the Gorkhaland movement, we discover they're mortal too, with all kinds of gray. Full marks to Desai for bringing this about well. All the main characters have lost something in the past, and the sad part is that (this novel doesn't have much of a happy ending) they won't gain it back. I almost felt a bit of hate for Desai, for she slowly pulls apart their happy lives into a tragic puddle.
Terrific prose and setting, unforgettable characters, but a bit tragic. Recommended read.

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Ashwin Nanjappa said on Apr 7, 2008 | Add your feedback

The most beautiful language I have ever read! The turn of words and the rhythm of the language are magnificent.
It is a pity that the story disintegrates somewhat towards the end and becomes less interesting, at least for me.

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Concupiscor said on Sep 28, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

*** This comment contains spoilers! ***

this book grew slowly on me. at first it was a bit hard to get back to reading it, even if i liked it.
the first part is very slow, not much happens, but if you keep reading then you'll see that it's a preparation for the second, in which a lot happens and the situation unravels.
the author is ve ... (continue)

this book grew slowly on me. at first it was a bit hard to get back to reading it, even if i liked it.
the first part is very slow, not much happens, but if you keep reading then you'll see that it's a preparation for the second, in which a lot happens and the situation unravels.
the author is very good at recreating the atmosphere of isolation that you can feel in a place like Cho Oyu during monsoon, with the jungle right behind you and complete silence and darkness overwhelming you at night-time. i particularly enjoyed these descriptions.
the way she portrays ethnic tension in a small village - as a mirror of larger events in India at the time - is very accurate. the parts about the cook's son, a migrant in the US, are also very good: bitter and funny, and thought-provoking.
i would recommend it, especially to those who know the region and have been there for a while, it's a good read.

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natalia said on Aug 21, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Disturbingly realistic, a dire commentary on colonialism, immigration and the search for a better life.

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guiltlessreader aka screamingbanshee said on Aug 19, 2008 | Add your feedback