A Book Review: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

it's been my ambition to read novels that won the booker prize. my most favourite so far are Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (which won the Booker Prize 1981 and Booker of the Booker prize, for the best novel of all the booker prize winners in 25 years) and Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance (poor mistry, the novel has been shortlisted 3 times for the booker prize...but he's good!).

The Inheritance of Loss won last year's booker prize. if Kiran's surname sounds familiar, that's because her mother is the world-renowned writer Anita Desai (whose novel Fasting, Feasting is currently in the syllabus for cycle 7 of Literature in English). disappointed with The Kite Runner, i read this book with much trepidation. but, i'm much pleasantly surprised to find that the book has a lot of substance and is meatier and flavourful, thus reading it is as fulfilling as eating a piece of caramel cheesecake.

unlike Khosseini, Desai is a serious writer as she brings forth the postcolonial issues. she discusses the issues of displacement - displaced Indians in Western countries which is personified by Biju, the cook's son, who goes to America with no proper documents and has to dodge the immigration and suffer the displacement, being so far away from home. the book also portrays displaced expatriates and locals in Nepal. we have the judge, Jemubhal Patel, the anglophile judge who lives a strict life and expects English tea and scones, and dines on Western cuisines. his neighbours - Nimi and Lola, Father Booty (an expatriate whose visa expired for 25 years) and Uncle Potty- are all closeted anglophiles who are wary of the locals' intentions.

desai also raises the issues of the concept of a country, (which reminds me of Homi bhabha's the location of culture) if a country is a concept, is it real? is a country made up of locals who shun away foreign cultures, especially the colonial culture, or is it a hybrid nation?

so why the title? the characters all suffer a loss - the judge, who loses his real self and covers himself with a facade of an austere demeanour and refusing to acknowledge human compassion and love; his granddaughter who has never felt love (having lost both parents in a car crash) even from her grandfather, father booty who loses his land and sheep to the state, the 2 sisters who suffer a loss of identity - after being in the small upper crust of society, they're downgraded because of their race; Biju, who finally realises that working in the land of milk and honey is not worth it because he misses his father.

yes, this book is thought-provoking. it doesnt really appeal to the crude emotions, but rather it subtly questions us. if there is a flaw, i'd say that there are too many characters to focus on. however, the diction is wide-ranging, accurate and beautiful.

no wonder this book won the man booker prize of 2006.