Most helpful customer reviews
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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Living in a Decadent Society, Nov 21 2008
"The White Tiger" is this year's latest recipient of the Man Booker Prize for the best novel of the year. While the judges don't always get it right when selecting for this award, I think they made a fair choice this time. The story oozes with a sense of what it must be like for a young person growing up in a modern Indian village with no familial support or economic means to make it in life. The main character is an intelligent and literate young man named Balram, who was born an outcast but has miraculously risen to become a richman's driver in the capital city of Dehli. Upon hearing a radio broadcast of his Prime Minister telling his Chinese counterpart that India is a very civilized and virtuous society, he decides to do the unthinkable and write the Chinese premier and tell the real side of the story. What the reader gets here is the rough and rude reality of what it means for many Indian children growing up in an irrational environment that uses and abuses them for criminal and sexual purposes. While the government has banned the caste system, where people are perpetually assigned to hold menial jobs, it still flourishes in all parts of Indian life. "White Tiger", the name given the young boy while at school, becomes his moniker as he makes his way into the nefarious world of corrupt officials and crime bosses. Because he is literate, he has become groomed to be a driver and lackey for a rich family in Delhi. While some might see this as a step-up in terms of ascending the social ladder of Indian society, it is anything but. Balram becomes quickly acquainted with, and be expected to handle, the nastiest of situations that involve murder, cheating, bribery, and stealing. It is from behind the wheel of a Honda Civic that this keenly intelligent young man tells this engrossing story as he wends his way from place to place in the big city, doing his masters's bidding. His fellow chauffeurs, meanwhile, are simply pawns who are not aware of the role they play in the bigger picture. They are the helpless ones who are being exploited by a very unjust and dishonorable society intent on making them its doormat. The reality of all this is that even the virtuous like Balram need to stoop to conquer. We find him gradually getting sucked into the routine of committing the odd venial misdeed in order not to be ostracized by his fellow drivers. If anything, this book is really a profound study of how corrupt practices can destroy good intentions in any society.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Indian Crime and Punishment Done with Tongue-in-Cheek Humor, Dec 8 2008
Is this novel bitter, acid, sardonic, mocking, disillusioned, scornful, disrespectful, satirical, witty, or ironic? It displays, by turns, all of those qualities. The narrator's style perfectly captures the way that my Indian friends describe how government and personal privilege work in that country. While reading, I felt like I was sitting across from one of them having a cup of tea in a friendly Indian restaurant, and that reaction made me smile.
From this element, a false note creeps into this book. The people I know who express such views are highly educated Indians who have spent a lot of time outside of India. To make the book work, however, we have to believe that the writer is intelligent but has little education and experience outside of being a servant and driver.
Why did this debut novel win the prestigious Man Booker prize? I can only attribute the basis for that award to the obvious allusions to Crime and Punishment as Aravind Adiga explores how an impoverished Indian develops the consciousness to perform a great crime in a memoir-style novel filled with unrestrained humor. I've certainly read more humorous books by Indian authors in recent years.
As the book opens, we read a letter addressed "For the Desk of: His Excellency Wen Jiabao, The Premier's Office, Beijing, Capital of the Freedom-loving Nation of China From the Desk of: 'The White Tiger,' A Thinking Man, And an Entrepreneur, Living in the world's center of Technology and Outsourcing, Electronics City Phase I (just off Hosur Main Road, Bangalore, India." It begins, "Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English." The epistle is sent off in responses to the news that the premier is scheduled to arrive in Bangalore the following week. The White Tiger has been told on the radio that the premier wants to learn the truth about Bangalore, and the White Tiger is willing to fill him in.
As you will quickly spot in the first few pages, China and India come in for their fair share of satire in this work as well . . . providing contextual humor to keep the book from becoming too serious in its focus on India and its corrupt democracy that pretends to offer more.
The nightly letters continue for a week as The White Tiger (aka Balram Halwai) explains how he became an entrepreneur and how he conducts his business. If the humor starts to weigh on you, stick with it. The final part expresses a view that the new entrepreneurial class can choose to behave better than the old ownership class did. It's that hope that makes this book rise above the kind of satire that we all enjoy in newspaper columns about government corruption.
The book's great strength is that Mr. Adiga is able to pull together so many different aspects of Indian society into one novel. It's an imaginative concept backed up by solid writing underpinned by deep insight into this complex and interesting nation that presents so many apparent contradictions to those who aren't Indian.
One of the things I liked a lot about the book is that I could imagine The White Tiger living in Washington, D.C. and talking about the politicians there. That thought added a lot to my delight.
Have fun!
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely loved it!, Mar 1 2009
This book, winner of the Man Booker Prize was a fantastic book! As soon as I started reading it, I found that I couldn't put it down. The book, written from the perspective of Balram Halwai, tells the story of how Balram started his life out as a servant only to end up running one the of most profitable companies in Delhi.
I understand that the novel has taken a lot of flack because it doesn't paint India in very favourable light. For example there are lots of references to the corruption of government officials. Author Aravind Adiga has been steadfast in his portrayal of his India. He says that if this is the way India is, then why try to hide the truth? Nevertheless it is probably safe to say the controversy surrounding Adiga's novel hasn't hurt sales.
As I've already stated, I had a hard time putting this book down. I think I read it in three days straight, and I probably could have read it in one day had I not forced myself to slow down and take my time. The writing style is very easy to understand and digest. There are not a lot of complicated concepts for the reader to understand and Adiga does an excellent job of leading the reader from one plot development on to the other. I particularly liked how he would reveal a small bit of information relating to Balram and then say 'but more on this later'. Thus as a reader, if you wanted to know what that tid bit related you, you had no choice but to continue reading.
This was one of the better books I've read in a long time, and I can't wait for Adiga's next book.
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