Between the Assassinations [Paperback]

 

 

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This collection of short stories marked the debut of Aravind Adiga, who is quickly making his mark among top English-language writers. The stories give a candid and compelling look at Indian society during a key era in its national evolution, and the complex social drivers that were at work. Adiga is a great writer, and I particularly appreciate his tremendous use of "voice" in storytelling. The only thing that stopped me from giving it 5 stars was the last story in the collection, which doesn't meet the high standards set by the others.

After recommending The White Tiger to pretty much anyone who would listen to me, I was eagerly looking forward to reading Aravind Adiga's latest novel Between the Assassinations. And I'm left, well, a little bewildered.

What made The White Tiger such an awesome novel was the way it told a story. From start to finish Adiga managed to weave a tale that kept making me turn page after page. I never wanted to put the book down. The main character was compelling and I couldn't wait to read the story he was telling about his life.

Unfortunately Adiga doesn't quite achieve the same with his most recent novel. Between the Assassinations is more a collection of short stories than an actual novel. There is an underlying common thread running through each of the stories, namely the struggle between castes and classes/ However as for a regular cast of characters that one would find in a structured story, there is none of that. In fact I had a hard time finishing this book. None of the short stories really spoke to me and at no point was a really concerned with the people in the stories. This is in sharp contrast to The White Tiger, when I really wanted to know how the story ended.

So what's my verdict on this book? Well if you're interested in knowing what life in India is like, then I say read it. But if you're looking for another 'White Tiger' type of novel, then I'd have to say take a pass on this one.

I found Adiga's latest novel on the struggles of modern Indian society to be a stimulating and emotional read, and significantly different from his earlier block-buster and best-seller, "White Tiger". Here, the author offers his reader another way to appreciate the futility of subcontinent India's attempts to become fully democratized. Adiga pulls no punches in taking after India's caste system. It is the time-immemorial way, in which India continues to be stratfied into hundreds of impervious layers of social and economic status, that is the main culprit in India's failure to become a truly liberated country, sixty years after gaining independence. First, there is no focus in this story on one character alone, like in his earlier work but. Instead, it follows the lives of a number of young East Indians - Hindus and Muslims - who haplessly try to survive as social outcasts in a world full of people intent on exploiting and destroying them. Kittur is their secure little home village from which they all choose to move out into a world full of chaos, intolerance and corruption, chasing the illusion of a better life. Second, Adiga does an admirable job in underscoring the hopeless misery of many of the untouchables in modern India. He reserves his greatest scorn for the corrupt and broken-down political and social institutions of a country that has abandoned its dreams of freedom and justice, abandoned its children to poverty and created a false acceptance of poverty as a vow of religious piety. Third, this collection of stories takes a humorous jab or two at how the nation has failed to establish both its dream of nationhood and the authority to go along with it. The book's title refers to a country lost in a historical morass between two tragic moments in modern times: the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the advocate of a new and more centrally-controlled India that needed to turn its back on the caste system, and her son and successor, Rajiv Gandhi, the dynastic symbol of inherited privilege who failed to follow through on his mother's reforms. Tragically, during this period of anticipated change, India remained, as usual, a nation trapped in its own unwillingness to change its attitude towards the less fortunate - the sick, the uneducated and the poor - in society. The joke that plays out repeatedly in this story is that Indian snobbery amounts to nothing more than a good old case of the pot calling the kettle black, millions of times over. Life in both the city and the local village oozes with hypocrisy as higher caste Indians attempt, in their cruel and insensitive ways - like the old British imperialists of a bygone era - to lord it over their fellow citizens in an effort to stay on top. Yes, Adiga has written another masterpiece, worth reading if only to get you up to speed on how the caste system continues to bedevil India's experiment with democracy. His characters are so well developed that you can't help but feel their anguish, frustration and pathos as their dreams of succeeding are destroyed by prejudice and ignorance.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Rich Ironies Abound Concerning Human Nature from an Indian Perspective
My heart is in turmoil and cannot rest;
Days of affliction confront me.

-- Job 30:27

Between the Assassinations can seem like an insignificant book... Read more

Published on Oct 24 2009 by Donald Mitchell

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