What do you think?
Rate this book
The White Tiger
Introducing a major literary talent, The White Tiger offers a story of coruscating wit, blistering suspense, and questionable morality, told by the most volatile, captivating, and utterly inimitable narrator that this millennium has yet seen.
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life—having nothing but his own wits to help him along.
Born in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for his village's wealthiest man, two house Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man's (very unlucky) son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram's new world is a revelation. While his peers flip through the pages of Murder Weekly ("Love -- Rape -- Revenge!"), barter for girls, drink liquor (Thunderbolt), and perpetuate the Great Rooster Coop of Indian society, Balram watches his employers bribe foreign ministers for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink liquor (single-malt whiskey), and play their own role in the Rooster Coop. Balram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell Johnnie Walker Black Label bottles (all but one). He also finds a way out of the Coop that no one else inside it can perceive.
Balram's eyes penetrate India as few outsiders can: the cockroaches and the call centers; the prostitutes and the worshippers; the ancient and Internet cultures; the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger. And with a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create virtue, and money doesn't solve every problem -- but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations.
The White Tiger recalls The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, and narrative genius, with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation —and a startling, provocative debut.
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life—having nothing but his own wits to help him along.
Born in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for his village's wealthiest man, two house Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man's (very unlucky) son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram's new world is a revelation. While his peers flip through the pages of Murder Weekly ("Love -- Rape -- Revenge!"), barter for girls, drink liquor (Thunderbolt), and perpetuate the Great Rooster Coop of Indian society, Balram watches his employers bribe foreign ministers for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink liquor (single-malt whiskey), and play their own role in the Rooster Coop. Balram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell Johnnie Walker Black Label bottles (all but one). He also finds a way out of the Coop that no one else inside it can perceive.
Balram's eyes penetrate India as few outsiders can: the cockroaches and the call centers; the prostitutes and the worshippers; the ancient and Internet cultures; the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger. And with a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create virtue, and money doesn't solve every problem -- but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations.
The White Tiger recalls The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, and narrative genius, with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation —and a startling, provocative debut.
276 pages, Hardcover
First published April 22, 2008
5,236 people are currently reading
86.8k people want to read
About the author
Aravind Adiga
20books2,388followersAravind Adiga was born in 1974 in Madras (now called Chennai), and grew up in Mangalore in the south of India. He was educated at Columbia University in New York and Magdalen College, Oxford. His articles have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, the Sunday Times, the Financial Times, and the Times of India. His debut novel, The White Tiger, won the Man Booker Prize for fiction in 2008. Its release was followed by a collection of short stories in the book titled Between the Assassinations. His second novel, Last Man in the Tower, was published in 2011. His newest novel, Selection Day, was published in 2016.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 13,336 reviews
January 21, 2021
This review contains what may be spoilers. Even though I do not think it will spoil your reading experience, I am putting the warning here because one reader pointed it out.
--------------------------------------
Before I begin my review, a statutory warning to all my patriotic Indian brothers and sisters... this is India-bashing, large scale. If you are the sort of person who gets all worked up when any aspect of India is criticised, this book is not for you.
That said, Arvind Adiga bashes India where it has to be bashed. No honest reader will be able to dispute that the picture of India he paints is a true one. You will find the majority of Indians embarassedly changing the topic when Bihar (the state Adiga names "Darkness") enters the conversation. Most of the things he mentions are not only possible, but probable and even likely. You only have to read any Indian newspaper over the period of a week to know it.
But I believe the author fails in the creation of Munna alias Balram Halwai, the protagonist, because his voice is totally out of character with the person. It is the supercilious voice of a Westernised Indian, detached from his home country by education and station in life that comes through. The street smart Munna who murdered his employer and set up his business in Bangalore will talk in an entirely different way (for example, he will never say "five hundred thousand rupees" - he'll say "five lakhs"). Here, the character just becomes a mouthpiece for the author.
Secondly, Adiga goes overboard in criticising India, so that some of his examples become rather extreme (the immediate one that comes to mind is the schoolteacher boozing and sleeping in the classroom). In some other cases, they are downright silly (Balram buys a dosa and throws out all the potatoes before giving to Mukesh, whereas he could have bought a dosa easily without the potatoes: these are two varieties). It also confirms the opinion I formed of Adiga from his bio that he is that type of Indian Lord Macaulay wanted to create: Indian only by birth but English in spirit.
Lastly, the story failed to hold my interest. Take out all the social criticism and it is nothing but a hollow shell. And the gimmicks, like framing it as a letter to the Chinese premier, are trite to the point of being nauseating.
The only thing that forced me to give two stars to this work is some of the pithy statements Adiga makes about Indian society. Especially the ones about how caste-ridden India was a zoo, with all animals in separate cages when the British let them all out, so now only the ones with the big bellies and the ones with the small bellies are left; about automobile horns during a traffic jam joining together to form a single wail like a lost calf wailing for its mother; and the one about how the major diseases India faces are cholera, typhoid and election fever (though I would also include cricket).
--------------------------------------
Before I begin my review, a statutory warning to all my patriotic Indian brothers and sisters... this is India-bashing, large scale. If you are the sort of person who gets all worked up when any aspect of India is criticised, this book is not for you.
That said, Arvind Adiga bashes India where it has to be bashed. No honest reader will be able to dispute that the picture of India he paints is a true one. You will find the majority of Indians embarassedly changing the topic when Bihar (the state Adiga names "Darkness") enters the conversation. Most of the things he mentions are not only possible, but probable and even likely. You only have to read any Indian newspaper over the period of a week to know it.
But I believe the author fails in the creation of Munna alias Balram Halwai, the protagonist, because his voice is totally out of character with the person. It is the supercilious voice of a Westernised Indian, detached from his home country by education and station in life that comes through. The street smart Munna who murdered his employer and set up his business in Bangalore will talk in an entirely different way (for example, he will never say "five hundred thousand rupees" - he'll say "five lakhs"). Here, the character just becomes a mouthpiece for the author.
Secondly, Adiga goes overboard in criticising India, so that some of his examples become rather extreme (the immediate one that comes to mind is the schoolteacher boozing and sleeping in the classroom). In some other cases, they are downright silly (Balram buys a dosa and throws out all the potatoes before giving to Mukesh, whereas he could have bought a dosa easily without the potatoes: these are two varieties). It also confirms the opinion I formed of Adiga from his bio that he is that type of Indian Lord Macaulay wanted to create: Indian only by birth but English in spirit.
Lastly, the story failed to hold my interest. Take out all the social criticism and it is nothing but a hollow shell. And the gimmicks, like framing it as a letter to the Chinese premier, are trite to the point of being nauseating.
The only thing that forced me to give two stars to this work is some of the pithy statements Adiga makes about Indian society. Especially the ones about how caste-ridden India was a zoo, with all animals in separate cages when the British let them all out, so now only the ones with the big bellies and the ones with the small bellies are left; about automobile horns during a traffic jam joining together to form a single wail like a lost calf wailing for its mother; and the one about how the major diseases India faces are cholera, typhoid and election fever (though I would also include cricket).
August 28, 2022
No country and human being in this world are perfect. There are negatives in every country and its people, and it should be criticized. I am happy that the author, who happens to be an Indian by birth, was brave enough to criticize some of these in this book. But there is a big difference between criticism and outright lambasting. If you are a patriotic Indian, there is a high probability that this book will permanently damage your feelings.
The amount of grandiosity that the protagonist possesses is preposterous.
I am wondering how can a human being write such a negative book. Everything is criticized in a harsh negative manner in the disguise of sarcasm in it like- Americans, Hospitals, Doctors, caste, vegetarians, Delhi and its people, drivers, law, court, millennials, and even books are shown negatively.
I can understand that the author was trying to create a dark humorous picture of modern India. But in my opinion, he utterly failed to connect it with a normal reader like me. The fact that this book is a Booker prize winner makes it more complicated. If you are a fan of dark humor, please try reading at least ten pages at random, and if it connects with you, you can go for this book. Otherwise, please keep yourself away from it- the farther, the better.
The amount of grandiosity that the protagonist possesses is preposterous.
“Don’t waste your money on those American books. They saw yesterday. I am tomorrow�
“I love my startup. I will get bored with it sooner or later. I will sell this start-up to other morons and head into a new line. I am thinking of real estate next. You see, I am always a man who sees tomorrow when others see today.�
I am wondering how can a human being write such a negative book. Everything is criticized in a harsh negative manner in the disguise of sarcasm in it like- Americans, Hospitals, Doctors, caste, vegetarians, Delhi and its people, drivers, law, court, millennials, and even books are shown negatively.
“Strange thoughts brew in your heart when you spend too much time with old books�
I can understand that the author was trying to create a dark humorous picture of modern India. But in my opinion, he utterly failed to connect it with a normal reader like me. The fact that this book is a Booker prize winner makes it more complicated. If you are a fan of dark humor, please try reading at least ten pages at random, and if it connects with you, you can go for this book. Otherwise, please keep yourself away from it- the farther, the better.
September 5, 2021
The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
The White Tiger is the debut novel by Indian author Aravind Adiga. It was first published in 2008 and won the 40th Man Booker Prize in the same year.
The novel provides a darkly humorous perspective of India’s class struggle in a globalized world as told through a retrospective narration from Balram Halwai, a village boy.
In detailing Balram's journey first to Delhi, where he works as a chauffeur to a rich landlord, and then to Bangalore, the place to which he flees after killing his master and stealing his money, the novel examines issues of religion, caste, loyalty, corruption and poverty in India.
Ultimately, Balram transcends his sweet-maker caste and becomes a successful entrepreneur, establishing his own taxi service. In a nation proudly shedding a history of poverty and underdevelopment, he represents, as he himself says, "tomorrow."
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و یکم ماه ؤانویه سال 2009میلادی
عنوان: ببر سفید؛ نویسنده: آراويند آديگا؛ مترجم: نازنین میرصادقی؛ تهران، ایرانبان، 1387، بدون شماره گذاری، شابک 9789642980673؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان هندوستان - سده 21م
عنوان: ببر سفید؛ نویسنده: آراويند آديگا؛ مترجم: مژده دقیقی؛ تهران، نيلوفر، 1389، در 286ص، شابک 9789644484377؛
عنوان: ببر سفید؛ نویسنده: آراويند آديگا؛ مترجم: آزاده نوری روزبهانی؛ تهران، نشرگستر، 1389، در 271ص، شابک 9789645544902؛
عنوان: ببر سفید؛ نویسنده: آراويند آديگا؛ مترجم: مامک بهادرزاده؛ تهران، آوین، 1389، در 344ص، شابک 9789648148428؛
عنوان: ببر سفید؛ نویسنده: آراويند آديگا؛ مترجم: ابوالفضل رئوف؛ تهران، روزگار، 1389، در 334ص، شابک 9789643742713؛
نخستوزی� «چین» به «هندوستان» سفر كرده، تا درباره ی كارآفرینان «هندوستان» پژوهش كند؛ یكی از كارآفرینان «هندو»، نامه� ای به نخست� وزیر مینویسد� و در آن از تجربیات خود سخن میگوید� او كه از فقیرترین طبقات «هند» بوده، با صداقت كامل، مسیر رسیدن خویش به ثروت و قدرت را بیان میكند� داستان به صورت مجموعه� ای از نامه� هاست، و نگارنده در طول آن، خوانشگر را با مردمان، دین، آیین و ساختار سیاسی «هند»، آشنا میكن�
نقل از متن: («سرگذشت یک هندی خام.» اين عنوانی است که باید روی داستان زندگیا� بگذارم؛ من و هزاران نفر دیگر مثل من در این مملکت خام هستیم، چون هرگز به ما اجازه نداده اند تحصیلاتما� را تمام کنیم؛ کاسه سرمان را باز کنید، با چراغ قوه قلمی داخلش را نگاه کنید، و موزه عجیب و غریبی از فکرها را خواهید دید: جملاتی از تاریخ یا ریاضیات که از کتابها� درسی مدرسه در خاطرمان مانده -هیچ پسربچه ای به اندازه پسربچه ای که او را از مدرسه بیرون آورده اند، تحصیلاتش را به خاطر ندارد، باور بفرمایید-، جملاتی درباره سیاست که وقتی در اداره� ای منتظر آمدن کسی بوده ایم؛ در روزنامه ای خوانده ایم، مثلثها و هرمهایی که در صفحات پاره شده کتابهای هندسه قدیمی دیده ایم، که همه اغذیه فروشیهای این مملکت هله هوله هایشان را توی آنها میپیچند، تکه هایی از اخبار رسمی «رادیو آل ایندیا»، چیزهایی که در آن نیم ساعتی که طول میکشد تا خوابتان ببرد به ذهنتان خطور میکند، مثل مارمولکهای� که از سقف روی سرتان میافتند؛ همه ی این فکرها که نصفه نیمه شکل گرفته اند و درک شده اند و نیمه درست اند، با بقیه فکرهای نیمچه خام توی سرتان قاتی میشوند، و به گمانم این فکرهای نصفه نیمه همدیگر را از راه به در میکنند و فکرهای نصفه نیمه دیگری پس میاندازند و براساس همین فکرهاس� که رفتار میکنی� و با همین فکرهاس� که زندگی میکنید� داستان تعلیم و تربیت من داستان شکل گرفتن یک آدم خام است؛ ولی، آقای نخست وزیر، دقت کنید! آدمهایی که تعلیم و تربیتشان تمام و کمال بوده بعد از دوازده سال مدرسه و سه سال دانشگاه کت و شلوارهای شیک میپوشند، در شرکتها مشغول به کار میشوند و بقیه ی عمرشان از آدمهای دیگر دستور میگیرند� کارآفرینها از گِلِ خام ساخته میشوند.)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 03/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 13/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
The White Tiger is the debut novel by Indian author Aravind Adiga. It was first published in 2008 and won the 40th Man Booker Prize in the same year.
The novel provides a darkly humorous perspective of India’s class struggle in a globalized world as told through a retrospective narration from Balram Halwai, a village boy.
In detailing Balram's journey first to Delhi, where he works as a chauffeur to a rich landlord, and then to Bangalore, the place to which he flees after killing his master and stealing his money, the novel examines issues of religion, caste, loyalty, corruption and poverty in India.
Ultimately, Balram transcends his sweet-maker caste and becomes a successful entrepreneur, establishing his own taxi service. In a nation proudly shedding a history of poverty and underdevelopment, he represents, as he himself says, "tomorrow."
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و یکم ماه ؤانویه سال 2009میلادی
عنوان: ببر سفید؛ نویسنده: آراويند آديگا؛ مترجم: نازنین میرصادقی؛ تهران، ایرانبان، 1387، بدون شماره گذاری، شابک 9789642980673؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان هندوستان - سده 21م
عنوان: ببر سفید؛ نویسنده: آراويند آديگا؛ مترجم: مژده دقیقی؛ تهران، نيلوفر، 1389، در 286ص، شابک 9789644484377؛
عنوان: ببر سفید؛ نویسنده: آراويند آديگا؛ مترجم: آزاده نوری روزبهانی؛ تهران، نشرگستر، 1389، در 271ص، شابک 9789645544902؛
عنوان: ببر سفید؛ نویسنده: آراويند آديگا؛ مترجم: مامک بهادرزاده؛ تهران، آوین، 1389، در 344ص، شابک 9789648148428؛
عنوان: ببر سفید؛ نویسنده: آراويند آديگا؛ مترجم: ابوالفضل رئوف؛ تهران، روزگار، 1389، در 334ص، شابک 9789643742713؛
نخستوزی� «چین» به «هندوستان» سفر كرده، تا درباره ی كارآفرینان «هندوستان» پژوهش كند؛ یكی از كارآفرینان «هندو»، نامه� ای به نخست� وزیر مینویسد� و در آن از تجربیات خود سخن میگوید� او كه از فقیرترین طبقات «هند» بوده، با صداقت كامل، مسیر رسیدن خویش به ثروت و قدرت را بیان میكند� داستان به صورت مجموعه� ای از نامه� هاست، و نگارنده در طول آن، خوانشگر را با مردمان، دین، آیین و ساختار سیاسی «هند»، آشنا میكن�
نقل از متن: («سرگذشت یک هندی خام.» اين عنوانی است که باید روی داستان زندگیا� بگذارم؛ من و هزاران نفر دیگر مثل من در این مملکت خام هستیم، چون هرگز به ما اجازه نداده اند تحصیلاتما� را تمام کنیم؛ کاسه سرمان را باز کنید، با چراغ قوه قلمی داخلش را نگاه کنید، و موزه عجیب و غریبی از فکرها را خواهید دید: جملاتی از تاریخ یا ریاضیات که از کتابها� درسی مدرسه در خاطرمان مانده -هیچ پسربچه ای به اندازه پسربچه ای که او را از مدرسه بیرون آورده اند، تحصیلاتش را به خاطر ندارد، باور بفرمایید-، جملاتی درباره سیاست که وقتی در اداره� ای منتظر آمدن کسی بوده ایم؛ در روزنامه ای خوانده ایم، مثلثها و هرمهایی که در صفحات پاره شده کتابهای هندسه قدیمی دیده ایم، که همه اغذیه فروشیهای این مملکت هله هوله هایشان را توی آنها میپیچند، تکه هایی از اخبار رسمی «رادیو آل ایندیا»، چیزهایی که در آن نیم ساعتی که طول میکشد تا خوابتان ببرد به ذهنتان خطور میکند، مثل مارمولکهای� که از سقف روی سرتان میافتند؛ همه ی این فکرها که نصفه نیمه شکل گرفته اند و درک شده اند و نیمه درست اند، با بقیه فکرهای نیمچه خام توی سرتان قاتی میشوند، و به گمانم این فکرهای نصفه نیمه همدیگر را از راه به در میکنند و فکرهای نصفه نیمه دیگری پس میاندازند و براساس همین فکرهاس� که رفتار میکنی� و با همین فکرهاس� که زندگی میکنید� داستان تعلیم و تربیت من داستان شکل گرفتن یک آدم خام است؛ ولی، آقای نخست وزیر، دقت کنید! آدمهایی که تعلیم و تربیتشان تمام و کمال بوده بعد از دوازده سال مدرسه و سه سال دانشگاه کت و شلوارهای شیک میپوشند، در شرکتها مشغول به کار میشوند و بقیه ی عمرشان از آدمهای دیگر دستور میگیرند� کارآفرینها از گِلِ خام ساخته میشوند.)؛ پایان نقل
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 03/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 13/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
December 23, 2021
They remain slaves because they can’t see what is beautiful in this world. That’s the truest thing anyone said…Even as a boy I could see what was beautiful in the world: I was destined not to stay a slave.The White Tiger is a grim, biting, unsubtle look at 21st Century India, stuck in the mire of a corrupt, cynical past, and debauching and slaughtering its way into a corrupt and cynical future, told by a working class fellow who, through ambition, intelligence, and a willingness to be utterly ruthless is clawing his way up the rungs of the Indian class ladder. It paints a bleak picture, offering little optimism for an India that will be any cleaner, fairer or more humane than the India it is replacing.
Aravind Adiga - image from The Guardian
While the subject matter is dark, the novel is fast-paced and engaging, drawing the reader in to the cares and concerns of the servant class. The narrator, Balran, may not be the most well written character in literature, but he will do as a vehicle for showing an India in transition from one form of bad to another.
Adiga paints a sharp line between Darkness and Light. The first is represented by rivers, particularly the Ganges, fouled with filth of diverse sorts, while the ocean is considered The Light, pure, cleansing. This seems to correspond to internal versus external. What is Indian in origin is dark and corrupt while what comes in from the outside is pure. Does Adiga really think the product of India is a black muck of corruption and the incoming tides of social change is pure light? I doubt it. His entrepreneurial hotspot of Bangalore is clearly just as corrupt as the traditional world it is replacing.
Adiga goes into some specifics on the sociopolitical structures in India. His narrator’s village was essentially owned by four rich men, feudalism in effect, each named for an animal, each taking a piece of every bit of labor and product in their respective domains.
their children were gone but the Animals stayed and fed on the village, and everything that grew in it, until there was nothing left for anyone else to feed on.Class is written in flesh
A rich man’s body is like a premium cotton pillow, white and soft and blank. Ours are different. My father’s spine was a knotted rope, the kind that women use in villages to pull water from wells; the clavicle curved around his neck in high relief, like a dog’s collar; cuts and nicks and scars, like little whip marks in his flesh, ran down his chest and waist, reaching down below his hip bones into his buttocks. The story of a poor man’s life is written on his body, in a sharp pen.The old ways are a drag on the people of India - [regarding the cremation of his mother and the attempt to move her remains into the Ganges]
The mud was holding her back: this big, swelling mound of black ooze. She was trying to fight the mud; her toes were flexed and resisting; but the mud was sucking her in, sucking her in. It was so thick, and more of it was being created every moment as the river washed into the ghat. Soon she would become part of the black mound and the pale-skinned dog would start licking her.
And then I understood: this was the real god of Benaras—this black mud of the Ganga into which everything died and decomposed, and was reborn from, and died into again. The same would happen to me when I died and they brought me here. Nothing would be liberated here.
Rajkummar Rao as Ashok Shah, Priyanka Chopra as Pinky Madam and Adarsh Gourav asa Balram Halwal from the 2021 Netflix film - image from Radio Times
Class is seen as slavery, but how to cast off those chains, even if one sees what is beautiful? The Great Socialist is the only name of a party leader who proclaims his devotion to the working people but who is merely another corrupt politician. Still, he retains a certain appeal to the proles.
That was the positive side of The Great Socialist. He humiliated all our masters—that’s why we kept voting him back.Sounds like something with applicability across many nations and cultures. Adiga shows his sharp satirical sense, toward the use of religion in Indian life again and again. After Balram gains an advantage over another servant, the servant is forced to flee.
When I woke up he was gone—he had left all his images of gods behind, and I scooped them into a bag. You never know when those things can come in handy.And religion is not the only opiate of the masses.
just because drivers and cooks in Delhi are reading Murder Weekly it doesn’t mean that they are all about to slit their masters� necks. Of course they’d like to. Of course, a billion servants are secretly fantasizing about strangling their bosses—and that’s why the government of India publishes this magazine and sells it on the streets for just four and a half rupees so that even the poor can buy it. you see, the murderer in the magazine is so mentally disturbed and sexually deranged that not one reader would want to be like him—and in the end he always gets caught by some honest, hardworking police officer (ha!), or goes mad and hangs himself by a bedsheet after writing a sentimental letter to his mother or primary school teacher, or is chased, beaten, buggered, and garroted by the brother of the woman he has done in. So if your driver is busy flicking through the pages of Murder Weekly, relax. No danger to you. Quite the contrary. It’s when your driver starts to read about Ghandi and the Buddha that it’s time to wet your pants.There are upstairs/downstairs refrains as well. When Balram and his employer are living in Delhi, the master lives in a nice apartment in the high rise, while Balram is relegated to a tiny, roach-infested space in the basement.
Adiga sums up the have vs have-not relationship
Never before in human history have so few owed so much to so many…A handful of men in this country have trained the remaining 99.9 percent—as strong, as talented, as intelligent in every way—to exist in perpetual servitude; a servitude so strong that you can put the key of his emancipation in a man’s hands and he will throw it back at you with a curse.After Balram has committed his large crime, he takes care of his young cousin, but sees that their relationship is less one of kin than one of necessity:
Oh, he’s got it all figured out, I tell you. Little blackmailing thug. He’s going to keep quiet as long as I keep feeding him. If I go to jail, he loses his ice cream and milk, doesn’t he? That must be his thinking. The new generation, I tell you, is growing up with no morals at all.It is clear that while family is a glue that binds Indian together, Balram has abandoned his. In Balram’s brave new world, it is every man for himself.
There is more imagery of class fixity, but enough already. It might have been nice to have seen some rays of light, however faint, in this Stygian gloom. Alas. At least the old India offered some comfort in family and clan. The new India is, in this take, spinning individuals off from even those bases into separate cells, each one striving against all the others for the available scraps. We can only hope that Adiga is wrong.
Published 2008
Review first posted in 2008
September 11, 2024
It is only fitting that the novel which (momentarily) took me out of a reading slump was one of the less appreciated winners of the Booker prize (2008). Who cares though, I loved it.
“The story of a poor man's life is written on his body, in a sharp pen.�
Prompted by the Chinese Premier’s visit to India, Balram Halwai decides to write a (very) long letter to the politician, in which he shares his success story. Somewhere in the beginning, he confesses that he was an entrepreneur. “Apparently, sir you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, ‘’does’� have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology. And these entrepreneurs�"we" entrepreneurs—have set up all these outsourcing companies that virtually run America now.� Balram continues with his childhood, the death of his mother at an early age and of his father, a rickshaw driver, of TB. We learn about several jobs he held and that, at some point, he became a driver/servant for a rich Indian called Ashok and for his wife, Pinky Madam. He moves with them in New Delhi and there he discovers a new world full of corruption and crime. “It's amazing. The moment you show cash, everyone knows your language.� Balram learns to navigate that environment and to finally take what he wants, through nefarious ways.
The novel is a perfectly written satire. It is laugh out loud funny, until it is not funny anymore but becomes quite tragic. It is a novel about the Indian caste system, its family values, corruption , politics, crime, poverty and all that is wrong in that country. Or others as the following quote seems pretty valid in many places: “He can read and write, but he doesn't get what he's read. He's half-baked. The country is full of people like him, I'll tell you that. And we entrust our glorious parliamentary democracy�
I also loved the narration of Kerry Shale. He made the voice of Balram sound perfect. Even now, after 3 months, I still read the name of the characters in his accent.
“See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of?? Losing weight and looking like the poor.�
“The story of a poor man's life is written on his body, in a sharp pen.�
Prompted by the Chinese Premier’s visit to India, Balram Halwai decides to write a (very) long letter to the politician, in which he shares his success story. Somewhere in the beginning, he confesses that he was an entrepreneur. “Apparently, sir you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, ‘’does’� have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology. And these entrepreneurs�"we" entrepreneurs—have set up all these outsourcing companies that virtually run America now.� Balram continues with his childhood, the death of his mother at an early age and of his father, a rickshaw driver, of TB. We learn about several jobs he held and that, at some point, he became a driver/servant for a rich Indian called Ashok and for his wife, Pinky Madam. He moves with them in New Delhi and there he discovers a new world full of corruption and crime. “It's amazing. The moment you show cash, everyone knows your language.� Balram learns to navigate that environment and to finally take what he wants, through nefarious ways.
The novel is a perfectly written satire. It is laugh out loud funny, until it is not funny anymore but becomes quite tragic. It is a novel about the Indian caste system, its family values, corruption , politics, crime, poverty and all that is wrong in that country. Or others as the following quote seems pretty valid in many places: “He can read and write, but he doesn't get what he's read. He's half-baked. The country is full of people like him, I'll tell you that. And we entrust our glorious parliamentary democracy�
I also loved the narration of Kerry Shale. He made the voice of Balram sound perfect. Even now, after 3 months, I still read the name of the characters in his accent.
“See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of?? Losing weight and looking like the poor.�
April 9, 2009
The perfect companion piece to Slumdog Millionaire, and if you didn't like that movie, you won't like this book for the same reasons. It's a no-nonsense bulldozing mordant splenetic jackhammer of a story written as a tough slangy 300 page fast-reading monologue. It's a novel of information, not art. It tells you all about modern India with a traditional rags-to-riches fable. Our hero murders his employer unapologetically, and that's how he gets his riches. This is not rocket science. This is smashing a guy over the head with a broken bottle of Johnny Walker.
But 90% of the book is not really the story, it's an anguished howl of rage about a distance of eighteen inches. In India, and indeed in other places too, the Rich and the Poor inhabit different universes. But the rich hire some of the poor as servants. This novel is the story of a servant who was a driver. In the car, the driver is separated from his employer (the word used here is Master) by the short distance of 18 inches. But economically, psychologically, medically, it's really 400 light years, as we know. And yet, every day, there they are, cheek by jowl, 18 inches apart, the one regarding the other with irritated amusement or annoyance or contempt, depending on mood, and being reciprocated with fawning fear and even awe. Our hero Balram is the rare beast (white tiger) who does not succumb to this fear and awe. But it's a struggle, and I was glad to be along for the ride.
In the London Review of Books, Sanjay Subrahmanyam almost trashes The White Tiger. His main beef is the language of the novel :
"What of Balram Halwai? What does he sound like? Despite the odd namaste, daal, paan and ghat, his vocabulary is not sprinkled with North Indian vernacular terms. His sentences are mostly short and crudely constructed, apparently a reflection of the fact that we’re dealing with a member of the ‘subaltern� classes. He doesn’t engage in Rushdian word-play. But he does use a series of expressions that simply don’t add up. He describes his office as a ‘hole in the wall�. He refers to ‘kissing some god’s arse�, an idiomatic expression that doesn’t exist in any North Indian language. ‘Half-formed ideas bugger one another, and make more half-formed ideas� and the Chinese prime minister is advised never to ‘let that blasphemous idea into your yellow skull�. On another matter, he sneers: ‘They’re so yesterday.� A clever little phrase appears: ‘A statutory warning � as they say on cigarette packs � before we begin.� Dogs are referred to as ‘mutts�. Yet whose vocabulary and whose expressions are these? On page after page, one is brought up short by the jangling dissonance of the language and the falsity of the expressions. This is a posh English-educated voice trying to talk dirty, without being able to pull it off. This is not Salinger speaking as Holden Caulfield, or Joyce speaking as Molly Bloom. It is certainly not Ralph Ellison or James Baldwin, whom Adiga has claimed as his models in speaking for the underdog. What we are dealing with is someone with no sense of the texture of Indian vernaculars, yet claiming to have produced a realistic text."
and then devastatingly:
"The paradox is that for many of this novel’s readers, this lack of verisimilitude will not matter because for them India is and will remain an exotic place. This book adds another brick to the patronising edifice it wants to tear down."
He's right, it didn't matter to me that a guy who doesn't speak English is represented as using hundreds of idiomatic English phrases. But for me that problem is the same as the one posed by the question "how can this first person narrator remember conversations in detail which happened years ago and anyway, who the hell is she talking to?" - i.e. it's a device, we suspend our disbelief, we do it all the time : every time we watch a movie we could be asking ourselves (but don't) "whose point of view is this all from?". Who gathered all those documents together to form the text known as the novel "Dracula"? Well, no one, because Bram Stoker made it all up. How could Clarissa have found the time to write all those long, long letters in "Clarissa"? And so on. (note : Subrahmanyam was the only really dissident voice I found regarding The White Tiger so I thought his argument was worth considering.)
Postscript
The White Tiger is the 9th Booker Prize Winner I've read and redresses the balance between the Splendid (this one, Midnight's Children, Remains of the Day and Sacred Hunger) and the What Were They Thinking (Life & Times of Michael K, Hotel Du Lac, Possession, Life of Pi and especially, remarkably, horrendously, Vernon God Little).
But 90% of the book is not really the story, it's an anguished howl of rage about a distance of eighteen inches. In India, and indeed in other places too, the Rich and the Poor inhabit different universes. But the rich hire some of the poor as servants. This novel is the story of a servant who was a driver. In the car, the driver is separated from his employer (the word used here is Master) by the short distance of 18 inches. But economically, psychologically, medically, it's really 400 light years, as we know. And yet, every day, there they are, cheek by jowl, 18 inches apart, the one regarding the other with irritated amusement or annoyance or contempt, depending on mood, and being reciprocated with fawning fear and even awe. Our hero Balram is the rare beast (white tiger) who does not succumb to this fear and awe. But it's a struggle, and I was glad to be along for the ride.
In the London Review of Books, Sanjay Subrahmanyam almost trashes The White Tiger. His main beef is the language of the novel :
"What of Balram Halwai? What does he sound like? Despite the odd namaste, daal, paan and ghat, his vocabulary is not sprinkled with North Indian vernacular terms. His sentences are mostly short and crudely constructed, apparently a reflection of the fact that we’re dealing with a member of the ‘subaltern� classes. He doesn’t engage in Rushdian word-play. But he does use a series of expressions that simply don’t add up. He describes his office as a ‘hole in the wall�. He refers to ‘kissing some god’s arse�, an idiomatic expression that doesn’t exist in any North Indian language. ‘Half-formed ideas bugger one another, and make more half-formed ideas� and the Chinese prime minister is advised never to ‘let that blasphemous idea into your yellow skull�. On another matter, he sneers: ‘They’re so yesterday.� A clever little phrase appears: ‘A statutory warning � as they say on cigarette packs � before we begin.� Dogs are referred to as ‘mutts�. Yet whose vocabulary and whose expressions are these? On page after page, one is brought up short by the jangling dissonance of the language and the falsity of the expressions. This is a posh English-educated voice trying to talk dirty, without being able to pull it off. This is not Salinger speaking as Holden Caulfield, or Joyce speaking as Molly Bloom. It is certainly not Ralph Ellison or James Baldwin, whom Adiga has claimed as his models in speaking for the underdog. What we are dealing with is someone with no sense of the texture of Indian vernaculars, yet claiming to have produced a realistic text."
and then devastatingly:
"The paradox is that for many of this novel’s readers, this lack of verisimilitude will not matter because for them India is and will remain an exotic place. This book adds another brick to the patronising edifice it wants to tear down."
He's right, it didn't matter to me that a guy who doesn't speak English is represented as using hundreds of idiomatic English phrases. But for me that problem is the same as the one posed by the question "how can this first person narrator remember conversations in detail which happened years ago and anyway, who the hell is she talking to?" - i.e. it's a device, we suspend our disbelief, we do it all the time : every time we watch a movie we could be asking ourselves (but don't) "whose point of view is this all from?". Who gathered all those documents together to form the text known as the novel "Dracula"? Well, no one, because Bram Stoker made it all up. How could Clarissa have found the time to write all those long, long letters in "Clarissa"? And so on. (note : Subrahmanyam was the only really dissident voice I found regarding The White Tiger so I thought his argument was worth considering.)
Postscript
The White Tiger is the 9th Booker Prize Winner I've read and redresses the balance between the Splendid (this one, Midnight's Children, Remains of the Day and Sacred Hunger) and the What Were They Thinking (Life & Times of Michael K, Hotel Du Lac, Possession, Life of Pi and especially, remarkably, horrendously, Vernon God Little).
June 12, 2017
I'm not sure what I expected going into this book but it wasn't really this. The book was very tongue in cheek and I could completely sympathize with our narrator even at the end. The idealistic part of me was a little horrified and upset by a lot of it but I think it's pretty realistic and really made me think about the servant/master dynamic in a way I hadn't considered before. I'm just torn about whether to rate it four stars or five because the ending felt a little anticlimactic but at the same time I feel that endings are always the hardest to write and a lot of times end up falling short so...
September 24, 2023
- ما اروع ترجمتك يا "سهيل نجم"، لو غيرنا الأسماء (المدن والناس) الى اسماء عربية لكان من المستحيل على احد ان يعرف انها ترجمة لنص آخر (بعض الكتّاب المشهورين فعلوا ذلك بالمناسبة وافتضح امرهم لاحقاً).. ترجمة مقتدرة.
- الرواية... الفقر يتكلم من جديد، وهذه المرة من الهند... نوع جديد، يتشابه مع فقرنا العربي، لكن لديه مميزاته الخاصة تبعاً لتقاليد مجتمع لا تشبه تقاليدنا، لكن الرابط المشترك يبقى حاضراً في الأمعاء الخاوية والذل!!!
- يعرض الكاتب بسخرية جميلة، لاذعة في اماكن وتهكمية في اماكن اخرى، قصة طفل من المستنقعات الفقيرة، كيف تعلّم نصف تعليم، وعمل في عدة اماكن بالذل والهوان، الى ان فهم الحياة جيداً وانتقل من فئة "المقتول" الى فئة "القاتل"!!
- الفكرة والتدرج الروائي والأسلوب المستعمل، كلها اتت لتشكل رواية كبيرة الحجم لكنها متسلسلة وسهلة الفهم ولا تبعث الملل!
---
اعتقد ان الرواية قد مرّت بهذه الافكار حتى وصلت لخاتمتها:
"يمكنه القراءة والكتابة، لكنه لا يستوعب ما يقرأ. انه نصف مخبوز"
"اتسأل اذا كان بوذا قد مشى في لاكسمانغار،.. احساسي يطالعني انه قد ركض فيها- بالسرعة الممكنة- ووصل الى الجهة الأخرى، ولم ينظر خلفه"
" ان قصة الرجل الفقير مكتوبة على جسده بقلم حاد"
" في الأيام الخوالي كانت هنالك الف طائفة ومصائر مختلفة في الهند. اما هذه الأيام فليس هناك الا طائفتان: طائفة ذوي الكروش الكبيرة وطائفة ذوي البطون الضامرة"
"ليس هنالك الا مصيران: ان تأكل او تؤكل"
"مثلما يناقش المخصيون فن الحب، كان المصوتون يناقشون الانتخابات"
"انه ليس غاندي، انه بشر، ولكنه في قفص الدجاج. إن امانة الخدم (العبودية) هي اساس الإقتصاد الهندي برمته"
"هل نشمئز من سادتنا خلف واجهة من الحب، ام اننا نحبهم خلف واجهة الإشمئزاز؟"
"كان لدي شعور بأنه يتحتم عليّ ان اكون قريباً من قدميه" (الدونية والاستعباد)
"كان قن الدجاج يفعل فعله. لا بد للخدم من يمنعوا الخدم الآخرين من يصبحوا مبدعين او عمليين او رجال اعمال"
" القن محروس من الداخل"
" كنت ابحث عن مفتاح لسنوات ولكن الباب كان موصداً دائماً"
"ان كتاب ثورتك ايها الهندي الشاب يكمن في بطنك. ابرزه واقرأ"
"مدرسة لا يسمح لك فيها بإفساد رأس اي احد بالقصص عن غاندي"
"لقد فعلتها! لقد حطمت القن"
"سأقول ان يدرك المرء، ولو ليوم، او ساعة، او حتى لدقيقة، ماذا يعني الا يكون خادماً، امر يستحق ذلك"
"اظنني مستعد ليكون لدي اطفال، سيدي رئيس الوزراء"
- الرواية... الفقر يتكلم من جديد، وهذه المرة من الهند... نوع جديد، يتشابه مع فقرنا العربي، لكن لديه مميزاته الخاصة تبعاً لتقاليد مجتمع لا تشبه تقاليدنا، لكن الرابط المشترك يبقى حاضراً في الأمعاء الخاوية والذل!!!
- يعرض الكاتب بسخرية جميلة، لاذعة في اماكن وتهكمية في اماكن اخرى، قصة طفل من المستنقعات الفقيرة، كيف تعلّم نصف تعليم، وعمل في عدة اماكن بالذل والهوان، الى ان فهم الحياة جيداً وانتقل من فئة "المقتول" الى فئة "القاتل"!!
- الفكرة والتدرج الروائي والأسلوب المستعمل، كلها اتت لتشكل رواية كبيرة الحجم لكنها متسلسلة وسهلة الفهم ولا تبعث الملل!
---
اعتقد ان الرواية قد مرّت بهذه الافكار حتى وصلت لخاتمتها:
"يمكنه القراءة والكتابة، لكنه لا يستوعب ما يقرأ. انه نصف مخبوز"
"اتسأل اذا كان بوذا قد مشى في لاكسمانغار،.. احساسي يطالعني انه قد ركض فيها- بالسرعة الممكنة- ووصل الى الجهة الأخرى، ولم ينظر خلفه"
" ان قصة الرجل الفقير مكتوبة على جسده بقلم حاد"
" في الأيام الخوالي كانت هنالك الف طائفة ومصائر مختلفة في الهند. اما هذه الأيام فليس هناك الا طائفتان: طائفة ذوي الكروش الكبيرة وطائفة ذوي البطون الضامرة"
"ليس هنالك الا مصيران: ان تأكل او تؤكل"
"مثلما يناقش المخصيون فن الحب، كان المصوتون يناقشون الانتخابات"
"انه ليس غاندي، انه بشر، ولكنه في قفص الدجاج. إن امانة الخدم (العبودية) هي اساس الإقتصاد الهندي برمته"
"هل نشمئز من سادتنا خلف واجهة من الحب، ام اننا نحبهم خلف واجهة الإشمئزاز؟"
"كان لدي شعور بأنه يتحتم عليّ ان اكون قريباً من قدميه" (الدونية والاستعباد)
"كان قن الدجاج يفعل فعله. لا بد للخدم من يمنعوا الخدم الآخرين من يصبحوا مبدعين او عمليين او رجال اعمال"
" القن محروس من الداخل"
" كنت ابحث عن مفتاح لسنوات ولكن الباب كان موصداً دائماً"
"ان كتاب ثورتك ايها الهندي الشاب يكمن في بطنك. ابرزه واقرأ"
"مدرسة لا يسمح لك فيها بإفساد رأس اي احد بالقصص عن غاندي"
"لقد فعلتها! لقد حطمت القن"
"سأقول ان يدرك المرء، ولو ليوم، او ساعة، او حتى لدقيقة، ماذا يعني الا يكون خادماً، امر يستحق ذلك"
"اظنني مستعد ليكون لدي اطفال، سيدي رئيس الوزراء"
December 11, 2008
Well the stories of murderers and psychopaths are generally like cakes to most of us(and i am no exception). I either love such protagonists or hate them whole-heartedly. Coming to Balaram, the situation is different. I had never felt anything for him even after reading 300 pages. I didn’t even hate him and I was completely indifferent towards him mainly because I felt that his character is artificial and inconsistent.
Every time I read a cynical work or a satire I feel that I have become a bit more intelligent. But coming to White Tiger, the situation is again different. I don’t think I have become intelligent by reading the book’s take on corruption and class inequalities in India.
Though I didn’t like the book much, the one thing I really liked about it is the author’s keen observations and it is the only thing which kept me going. In my view I don’t think his social commentary on Contemporary India comes as surprising to any Indian. Maybe Westerners may find it interesting reading about the so called “real India� or “The Other Side of India�.
P.s:- Why is it that the authors who overplay the negatives of India are so popular? Maybe because they write books about India for foreign senses and maybe it’s because they are doing a social service by bringing the “real unknown India� into limelight. Then why is Satyajit Ray accused of “exporting poverty� by the Indians for his lively and real Indian works
Every time I read a cynical work or a satire I feel that I have become a bit more intelligent. But coming to White Tiger, the situation is again different. I don’t think I have become intelligent by reading the book’s take on corruption and class inequalities in India.
Though I didn’t like the book much, the one thing I really liked about it is the author’s keen observations and it is the only thing which kept me going. In my view I don’t think his social commentary on Contemporary India comes as surprising to any Indian. Maybe Westerners may find it interesting reading about the so called “real India� or “The Other Side of India�.
P.s:- Why is it that the authors who overplay the negatives of India are so popular? Maybe because they write books about India for foreign senses and maybe it’s because they are doing a social service by bringing the “real unknown India� into limelight. Then why is Satyajit Ray accused of “exporting poverty� by the Indians for his lively and real Indian works
August 16, 2020
The "White Tiger of Bangalore" is cunning, fast, intrepid-- the perfect symbol for this perfect novel that reminds the reader of characters like Scarface & friends-- Antiheroes all. Adiga's yarn is utterly engrossing; it's a mystery unraveled in the purest tradition of classic storytelling. It has that picaresque quality (which is one of the hardest tricks for a novelist to pull off, truly, really) needed to balance out all the heaviness of a constant train of melancholic events (violence and tenderness masterfully intermingled), an oppressive setting (modern day India), & a tale that when stripped of its resplendent coat of heavy whites and blacks, is all pulpy, red, meaty, nasty-- still retaining a beauty that is more than the reader expected or felt entitled to. Coincidentally, it has hints of some of my favorite books/film: Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day", Indra Sinha's "Animal's People" & Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire."
I wholly give FULL endorsement to this marvelously universal yet blissfully irreverent novel.
I wholly give FULL endorsement to this marvelously universal yet blissfully irreverent novel.
July 16, 2009
Balram Halwai grew up in the Darkness -- the immense swath of rural India where the poor vastly outnumber the rich and where the right of the rich to oppress the poor is rarely questioned.
By dint of his intelligence and ambition, he becomes the No. 2 driver to a local landlord nicknamed The Stork, and when he discovers the No. 1 driver has been hiding a secret, is able to displace him and eventually move to Delhi with the landlord's Westernized son, Mr. Ashok, and his modern wife, Pinky Madam.
Quite early in this debut novel, Balram -- writing a long letter to Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, who is about to visit India -- confesses that he has murdered Mr. Ashok, a crime that enabled him to move to Bangalore and set himself up as an entrepreneur.
The flashback journey he relates in his letter describes how he came to that point, and in the process, it lays out a sardonic, seriocomic saga of the plight of India's poor. At one point, Balram tries to explain why the poor don't rise up to overwhelm their masters, and the best metaphor he can come up with is the chicken market in old Delhi, where live roosters sit powerless in cages beneath the carcasses of their freshly slaughtered brothers. He writes:
"Every day, on the roads of Delhi, some chauffeur is driving an empty car with a black suitcase sitting on the backseat. Inside that suitcase is a million, two million rupees; more money than that chauffeur will see in his lifetime. If he took the money he could go to America, Australia, anywhere, and start a new life. He could go inside the five-star hotels he has dreamed about all his life and only seen from the outside. He could take his family to Goa, to England. Yet he takes that black suitcase where his master wants. He puts it down where he is meant to, and never touches a rupee. Why?
"Because Indians are the world's most honest people, like the prime minister's booklet will inform you? No. It's because 99.9 percent of us are caught in the Rooster Coop just like those poor guys in the poultry market."
This novel won the Booker Prize this year, sparked outrage among many in India, but more than anything else, it tells an entertaining tale with the strong, distinctive voice of a man whose soul has had to move from servitude to independence, and who, despite his horrific deed, finds the freedom to live by his own standard of decency.
By dint of his intelligence and ambition, he becomes the No. 2 driver to a local landlord nicknamed The Stork, and when he discovers the No. 1 driver has been hiding a secret, is able to displace him and eventually move to Delhi with the landlord's Westernized son, Mr. Ashok, and his modern wife, Pinky Madam.
Quite early in this debut novel, Balram -- writing a long letter to Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, who is about to visit India -- confesses that he has murdered Mr. Ashok, a crime that enabled him to move to Bangalore and set himself up as an entrepreneur.
The flashback journey he relates in his letter describes how he came to that point, and in the process, it lays out a sardonic, seriocomic saga of the plight of India's poor. At one point, Balram tries to explain why the poor don't rise up to overwhelm their masters, and the best metaphor he can come up with is the chicken market in old Delhi, where live roosters sit powerless in cages beneath the carcasses of their freshly slaughtered brothers. He writes:
"Every day, on the roads of Delhi, some chauffeur is driving an empty car with a black suitcase sitting on the backseat. Inside that suitcase is a million, two million rupees; more money than that chauffeur will see in his lifetime. If he took the money he could go to America, Australia, anywhere, and start a new life. He could go inside the five-star hotels he has dreamed about all his life and only seen from the outside. He could take his family to Goa, to England. Yet he takes that black suitcase where his master wants. He puts it down where he is meant to, and never touches a rupee. Why?
"Because Indians are the world's most honest people, like the prime minister's booklet will inform you? No. It's because 99.9 percent of us are caught in the Rooster Coop just like those poor guys in the poultry market."
This novel won the Booker Prize this year, sparked outrage among many in India, but more than anything else, it tells an entertaining tale with the strong, distinctive voice of a man whose soul has had to move from servitude to independence, and who, despite his horrific deed, finds the freedom to live by his own standard of decency.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 14, 2020
Really enjoyed this book and it goes in my top five favorite in a very cramped literary category, along with City of Thieves. Highly recommend this one.
David Putnam author of the Bruno Johnson Series.
David Putnam author of the Bruno Johnson Series.
July 29, 2020
Ambition
The White Tiger is a contemporary fictional account of ambition in an unbridled corrupt Indian society, where rigid social class dictates what options are available. Aravind Adiga arrived with the wave of fantastic Indian authors providing insights into their country and the restraints that shackle them to their caste system. As India transitions from a developing country to a world leader in science and technology output, it is struggling to modernise with regards equal opportunity, and equal quality of life for many of its citizens. An interesting statistic is that by 2025 it is estimated that India will surpass China as the largest populated country in the world. India’s transformation in technology, population and equality is on a major societal collision. A collision where dispassionate and amoral exploitation and hardship festers and grows.
Balram Halwai, known as The White Tiger, writes a series of letters to the Chinese President on the eve of his visit to India. In the letters he explains the differences between the two countries in terms of democracy and economic vision, then his letters unfold into a confessional statement of how he has tried to advance his career.
Balram is a chauffeur to a rich businessman in Delhi where he is exposed to wealth and a lifestyle that he believes he can only obtain if he commits certain crimes. The extremes of wealth and opportunities are so clearly presented and the book does not hide from these disparities. The story is cleverly written with great dialogue that treats us to dark humour with striking rawness. The characters and backdrop are vividly written to create sympathy and encouragement for the entrepreneurial Balram in a narrative that pulls no punches.
The White Tiger is the 2008 Booker Prize Winner and while many may feel it doesn’t deserve that accolade, including me, it is still a book well worth reading. It portrays an India in its rudimentary form, and its polarised societal structure illustrates how ambition, corruption, and values attributed to life, are so unique. It is a powerful contemporary story that I would recommend.
The White Tiger is a contemporary fictional account of ambition in an unbridled corrupt Indian society, where rigid social class dictates what options are available. Aravind Adiga arrived with the wave of fantastic Indian authors providing insights into their country and the restraints that shackle them to their caste system. As India transitions from a developing country to a world leader in science and technology output, it is struggling to modernise with regards equal opportunity, and equal quality of life for many of its citizens. An interesting statistic is that by 2025 it is estimated that India will surpass China as the largest populated country in the world. India’s transformation in technology, population and equality is on a major societal collision. A collision where dispassionate and amoral exploitation and hardship festers and grows.
Balram Halwai, known as The White Tiger, writes a series of letters to the Chinese President on the eve of his visit to India. In the letters he explains the differences between the two countries in terms of democracy and economic vision, then his letters unfold into a confessional statement of how he has tried to advance his career.
Balram is a chauffeur to a rich businessman in Delhi where he is exposed to wealth and a lifestyle that he believes he can only obtain if he commits certain crimes. The extremes of wealth and opportunities are so clearly presented and the book does not hide from these disparities. The story is cleverly written with great dialogue that treats us to dark humour with striking rawness. The characters and backdrop are vividly written to create sympathy and encouragement for the entrepreneurial Balram in a narrative that pulls no punches.
The White Tiger is the 2008 Booker Prize Winner and while many may feel it doesn’t deserve that accolade, including me, it is still a book well worth reading. It portrays an India in its rudimentary form, and its polarised societal structure illustrates how ambition, corruption, and values attributed to life, are so unique. It is a powerful contemporary story that I would recommend.
February 4, 2011
Why would a book like this win any award whatsoever? Sigh...
March 2, 2018
رواية حائزة على جائزة البوكر
شرح مفصل لاوضاع الطبقات في الهند ونحن في القرن الحادي والعشرون.
اعجبني وصف الطبقات الفقيرة بأن وضعها مثل "قن الدجاج" لا تخرج منه الا للذبح.
فالعائلة منذ ان تولد يحدد لها مسارها ولا تستطيع ان تخرج من هذا المحيط الا بشيء خارق.
وركز على نقطة ان الاديان العديدة والمتنوعة في الهند تستغل لتكريس هذه الطبقية او العبودية.
صراع بين الظلام "المناطق الفقيرةاو الفقراء في منطقة ما" والنهار "مناطق الأغنياء" فالهند خليط عجيب بين الظلام والنهار. فخلف عمارات وفنادق راقية. تجد العشوائيات وبيوت الفقراء الذين غادروا قراهم للعمل في المدن.
النمر الأبيض الذي لا يتكرر الا كل عقد . خرج من قن الدجاج ولكن بان دفع ثمنا كبيرا بارتكاب جريمة قتل وسرقة وضحى بعائلته من اجل هذا الخروج.
رواية جميلة ممتعة
شرح مفصل لاوضاع الطبقات في الهند ونحن في القرن الحادي والعشرون.
اعجبني وصف الطبقات الفقيرة بأن وضعها مثل "قن الدجاج" لا تخرج منه الا للذبح.
فالعائلة منذ ان تولد يحدد لها مسارها ولا تستطيع ان تخرج من هذا المحيط الا بشيء خارق.
وركز على نقطة ان الاديان العديدة والمتنوعة في الهند تستغل لتكريس هذه الطبقية او العبودية.
صراع بين الظلام "المناطق الفقيرةاو الفقراء في منطقة ما" والنهار "مناطق الأغنياء" فالهند خليط عجيب بين الظلام والنهار. فخلف عمارات وفنادق راقية. تجد العشوائيات وبيوت الفقراء الذين غادروا قراهم للعمل في المدن.
النمر الأبيض الذي لا يتكرر الا كل عقد . خرج من قن الدجاج ولكن بان دفع ثمنا كبيرا بارتكاب جريمة قتل وسرقة وضحى بعائلته من اجل هذا الخروج.
رواية جميلة ممتعة
July 16, 2020
Another one of those books that I never would have read without ŷ reviewers.
Told in the first person, this was an engaging, funny, at times not funny, and an interesting read throughout. I read it in two sittings. After the first sitting I was thinking 4 stars just because the writing was so damn good, and after I finished I couldn’t give it anything less than 5 stars. My compliments to Aravind Adiga! 😊
An interesting gaggle of characters. This novel is nothing about white tigers…it’s a nickname given to the chief protagonist, Balram. He’s in his twenties. His mother dies early in the novel, his father is a rickshaw driver and dies of TB. He lives in the slums of Laxmangarh (northeast India). He ends up rising out of that misery by being employed in Bangalore and then New Delhi as a chauffeur/servant of rich Indians, Ashok and his wife Pinky Madam. Ashok and his brother (The Mongoose) and his father (The Stork) make money by doing shady things. Corruption is an accepted way of life in this novel. Everybody is corrupt, even Balram’s grandmother. The Stork knows where Balram’s family lives so in case Balram tries to hoodwink the clan that he works for, the clan will kill every member of his family. But somehow and someway Balram manages to make for himself a better life when all is said and done, and now we can add him to those who are corrupt, but at least he has a little more heart than those other corrupt folks around him. At least I think so. 🧐
The book is divided into 7 chapters, The First Night through The Seventh Night. He is writing a letter (pretty damn long!) to the Premier of China, Wen Jiabao, because the premier is visiting India and he wants to give the premier a heads up about life in India before hears a lot of propaganda from the Indian leaders on his official visit. Balram keeps on getting interrupted by this or that and ends up writing the letter over a week.
The back of the book has praise for the book from a number of other authors and reviewers and several of them comment on the wittiness, sarcasm, and hilarious aspect of the book but at the same time you are introduced to abject poverty that exists in different sections of India in cringing detail. Remind me not to bathe in the River Ganges, okay?
This novel won the Man Booker Prize in 2008.
Something that stuck with me: “The dreams of the rich, and the dreams of the poor—they never overlap, do they? See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what to the rich dream of? Losing weight and looking like the poor. (p.191)
Reviews:
Wow, so much for my review. This reviewer from The Kenyon Review and a History Professor at Kenyon College lambasted the novel:
Hmm, another lukewarm review from The New York Times:
Told in the first person, this was an engaging, funny, at times not funny, and an interesting read throughout. I read it in two sittings. After the first sitting I was thinking 4 stars just because the writing was so damn good, and after I finished I couldn’t give it anything less than 5 stars. My compliments to Aravind Adiga! 😊
An interesting gaggle of characters. This novel is nothing about white tigers…it’s a nickname given to the chief protagonist, Balram. He’s in his twenties. His mother dies early in the novel, his father is a rickshaw driver and dies of TB. He lives in the slums of Laxmangarh (northeast India). He ends up rising out of that misery by being employed in Bangalore and then New Delhi as a chauffeur/servant of rich Indians, Ashok and his wife Pinky Madam. Ashok and his brother (The Mongoose) and his father (The Stork) make money by doing shady things. Corruption is an accepted way of life in this novel. Everybody is corrupt, even Balram’s grandmother. The Stork knows where Balram’s family lives so in case Balram tries to hoodwink the clan that he works for, the clan will kill every member of his family. But somehow and someway Balram manages to make for himself a better life when all is said and done, and now we can add him to those who are corrupt, but at least he has a little more heart than those other corrupt folks around him. At least I think so. 🧐
The book is divided into 7 chapters, The First Night through The Seventh Night. He is writing a letter (pretty damn long!) to the Premier of China, Wen Jiabao, because the premier is visiting India and he wants to give the premier a heads up about life in India before hears a lot of propaganda from the Indian leaders on his official visit. Balram keeps on getting interrupted by this or that and ends up writing the letter over a week.
The back of the book has praise for the book from a number of other authors and reviewers and several of them comment on the wittiness, sarcasm, and hilarious aspect of the book but at the same time you are introduced to abject poverty that exists in different sections of India in cringing detail. Remind me not to bathe in the River Ganges, okay?
This novel won the Man Booker Prize in 2008.
Something that stuck with me: “The dreams of the rich, and the dreams of the poor—they never overlap, do they? See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what to the rich dream of? Losing weight and looking like the poor. (p.191)
Reviews:
Wow, so much for my review. This reviewer from The Kenyon Review and a History Professor at Kenyon College lambasted the novel:
Hmm, another lukewarm review from The New York Times:
February 12, 2021
3.5 Stars
I have had this book on my real life bookshelf for the past 10 years and although it came highly recommended to me the premise or the cover just never drew me in enough to actually read it. However lockdown does funny things to a reader and forgotten books are getting dusted off and finally read.
Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008, The White Tiger is Aravind Amiga’s first novel and it is quirky, heartbreaking and witty and you cant help but get drawn into this story.
Born into horrendous poverty in rural India, Balham Halwai sees his hopes of a scholarship dashed. Orphaned at a young age, Balham wants to escape his village for the city and make something of himself . He become the driver for the son and daughter-in-law of the village landlord. His time in employment creates resentment in Balham and he cant help but get drawn into the world of crime.
A fiction story that manages to engage the reader while also highlighting the poverty and corruption that is a reality for many of India’s poor.
This could have been a very depressing and difficult book had it not been for the humour. I enjoyed the characters and the bizarre situations they found themselves in. It is well written, engaging, dark and disturbing and yet a somewhat witty read. A short novel that manages to transport the reader to another world.
I just watched the Netflix movie and it was excellent and stays very true to the book, but without the humour.
While not a book for my favourites shelf I did enjoy the read and will return this one to my real life bookshelf.
I have had this book on my real life bookshelf for the past 10 years and although it came highly recommended to me the premise or the cover just never drew me in enough to actually read it. However lockdown does funny things to a reader and forgotten books are getting dusted off and finally read.
Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2008, The White Tiger is Aravind Amiga’s first novel and it is quirky, heartbreaking and witty and you cant help but get drawn into this story.
Born into horrendous poverty in rural India, Balham Halwai sees his hopes of a scholarship dashed. Orphaned at a young age, Balham wants to escape his village for the city and make something of himself . He become the driver for the son and daughter-in-law of the village landlord. His time in employment creates resentment in Balham and he cant help but get drawn into the world of crime.
A fiction story that manages to engage the reader while also highlighting the poverty and corruption that is a reality for many of India’s poor.
This could have been a very depressing and difficult book had it not been for the humour. I enjoyed the characters and the bizarre situations they found themselves in. It is well written, engaging, dark and disturbing and yet a somewhat witty read. A short novel that manages to transport the reader to another world.
I just watched the Netflix movie and it was excellent and stays very true to the book, but without the humour.
While not a book for my favourites shelf I did enjoy the read and will return this one to my real life bookshelf.
January 24, 2021
It is about stark poverty and unbridled opportunism,a wonderful story,brilliantly told.
Balram Halwai,the protagonist is a dark character,with sinister motives He comes from a background of desperate poverty,starts off as a servant,ends up as a criminal but gets what wants.
It is disturbing,and all too realistic, because there are plenty of real life parallels in the stories of servants turned criminals in the subcontinent.
This book won the Booker Prize and is a worthy winner.Usually,I'm not too keen on Booker winners,but I loved this one.It is clever,funny and very inventive.
While reviewing Mohsin Hamid's How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia,which is on a similar theme,I was reminded of The White Tiger.Adiga has clearly done a better job than Hamid.
While living in Pakistan,where domestic servants commit all kinds of crimes,reading The White Tiger made me shudder.
And the newspaper here are full of incidents where the worst kinds of crimes including murder and armed robbery are committed by domestic servants.
Still,labour is so cheap here that most middle class households cannot resist the temptation of hiring servants,regardless of the potential security risk they pose.
Balram Halwai,the protagonist is a dark character,with sinister motives He comes from a background of desperate poverty,starts off as a servant,ends up as a criminal but gets what wants.
It is disturbing,and all too realistic, because there are plenty of real life parallels in the stories of servants turned criminals in the subcontinent.
This book won the Booker Prize and is a worthy winner.Usually,I'm not too keen on Booker winners,but I loved this one.It is clever,funny and very inventive.
While reviewing Mohsin Hamid's How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia,which is on a similar theme,I was reminded of The White Tiger.Adiga has clearly done a better job than Hamid.
While living in Pakistan,where domestic servants commit all kinds of crimes,reading The White Tiger made me shudder.
And the newspaper here are full of incidents where the worst kinds of crimes including murder and armed robbery are committed by domestic servants.
Still,labour is so cheap here that most middle class households cannot resist the temptation of hiring servants,regardless of the potential security risk they pose.
March 11, 2017
To begin with, let me tell you first, of my association with this novel. I had never finished any contemporary novel, to put it bluntly, Who cares!..was my attitude towards the contemporary writers, by the time I had bought this novel.
This was my first ever contemporary novel, mainly of an Indian origin author, which I read complete. This had got that years Booker and was getting highlighted in the media. I used to think by that time that writers, worthy of reading, were only those, who were either Dickens or Shakespeares (I mean only greats of past). I constantly ignored writers of present time. I remember I had finished this book quite fast. This book was simple in language but catchy in flow.
When I talk about this book today, I’ll say, it’s a dark novel, without any interesting and exciting story, written in a first person narration, addressing to Chinese Premier. A long monologue, I can say. The theme of novel is class conflict in an emerging nation, embroidered with evergreen issues of disparity, poverty and corruption. Narrator of Novel, the protagonist, Balram Halwai, comes from the region of Darkness, He defines India as�
“Please understand your excellency, that India is two countries in one; an India of Light and an India of Darkness. The ocean brings life to my country, every place on the map of India near the ocean is well-off, but river brings the Darkness to India-The black river.�
His disliking for the river Ganga is clear from the passage when body of his dead mother was lying on the pyre at the bank of Ganga in Benaras�
“As then fire ate away the satin, a pale foot jerked out, like a living thing; the toes , which were melting in the heat, began to curl up, offering resistance to what was being done to them, Kusum shoved the foot into the fire, but it would not burn. My heart began to race, My mother was not going to let them destroy her.�
Sunday Telegraph said about this book, “Blazingly savage and brilliant�.
I’ll say only blazingly savage but never a brilliant book, because being an Indian, I could not really recognize, Balram as someone who was from the region of darkness and deprived. Like many other readers, I also found his voice and tone superfluous and that of an outsider’s.
Otherwise book is good and can influence the reader strongly with its flow and pace!
This was my first ever contemporary novel, mainly of an Indian origin author, which I read complete. This had got that years Booker and was getting highlighted in the media. I used to think by that time that writers, worthy of reading, were only those, who were either Dickens or Shakespeares (I mean only greats of past). I constantly ignored writers of present time. I remember I had finished this book quite fast. This book was simple in language but catchy in flow.
When I talk about this book today, I’ll say, it’s a dark novel, without any interesting and exciting story, written in a first person narration, addressing to Chinese Premier. A long monologue, I can say. The theme of novel is class conflict in an emerging nation, embroidered with evergreen issues of disparity, poverty and corruption. Narrator of Novel, the protagonist, Balram Halwai, comes from the region of Darkness, He defines India as�
“Please understand your excellency, that India is two countries in one; an India of Light and an India of Darkness. The ocean brings life to my country, every place on the map of India near the ocean is well-off, but river brings the Darkness to India-The black river.�
His disliking for the river Ganga is clear from the passage when body of his dead mother was lying on the pyre at the bank of Ganga in Benaras�
“As then fire ate away the satin, a pale foot jerked out, like a living thing; the toes , which were melting in the heat, began to curl up, offering resistance to what was being done to them, Kusum shoved the foot into the fire, but it would not burn. My heart began to race, My mother was not going to let them destroy her.�
Sunday Telegraph said about this book, “Blazingly savage and brilliant�.
I’ll say only blazingly savage but never a brilliant book, because being an Indian, I could not really recognize, Balram as someone who was from the region of darkness and deprived. Like many other readers, I also found his voice and tone superfluous and that of an outsider’s.
Otherwise book is good and can influence the reader strongly with its flow and pace!
September 5, 2021
کتاب را دوست داشتم. عالی بود. پس از خواندن متوجه شدم یک فیلم اقتباسی جدید توسط "رامین بحرانی" از آن ساخته شده است که بلافاصله آن فیلم را هم دیدم و فیلم نسبتا خوبی بود. اگر علاقمند بودید ببینید:
The white tiger (2021) 7.1 Meta: 76
کشور من از آن کشورهاست که صرف میکن� آدم دودوزه بازی کند: کارآفرین هندی باید در عین درستکار بودن متقلب باشد، هم به سخره بگیرد و هم اعتقاد داشته باشد، هم آب زیر کاه باشد و هم صادق. ص 11 کتاب
در روزگار قدیم هزار کاست و تقدیر مختلف در هندوستان وجود داشته. این روزها دو کاست بیشتر نداریم: شکم گندهه� و شکم کوچکه�. و فقط دو تقدیر: خوردن- یا خورده شدن. ص 60 کتاب
توی این مملکت سه بیماری مهم وجود دارد: حصبه، وبا و تب انتخابات. این آخری از همه بدتر است؛ باعث میشو� مردم مدام درباره� مسائلی حرف بزنند که هیچ اختیاری در مورد آنها ندارند. ص 90 کتاب
چرا پدرم هیچ وقت یادم نداده بود دندانهای� را طوری مسواک کنم که مثل شیر کف کند؟ چرا مرا مثل حیوان بار آورده بود؟ چرا فقیرها همه در میان این همه کثافت، این همه زشتی زندگی میکنند�
مسواک. مسواک. تف.
مسواک. مسواک. تف.
کاش میش� گذشتها� را به همین راحتی تف کنی بیرون. صفحات 136-137 کتاب
بروید به دهلی کهنه پشت مسجد جامع و ببینید آنجا مرغ و خروسه� را توی بازار چطور نگه میدارن�. صدها مرغ پریده رنگ و خروس رنگ و وارنگ را تنگِ هم توی قفسها� تور سیمی چپاندهان� و مثل کرمها� داخل شکم توی هم میلولند� همدیگر را نوک میزنن� و روی هم میرینند� و همدیگر را هُل میدهن� تا بلکه جایی برای نفسکشید� باز شود؛ تمام قفس بوی گند وحشتناکی میده�- بوی گند گوشتِ پَردارِ وحشت زده. روی میز چوبی بالای این قفس قصاب جوانی با نیش باز مینشین� و گوشت و دل و جگر مرغی را که تازه تکهتک� شده و هنوز آغشته به خونِ تیره رنگ است با افتخار نشان میده�. خروسها� توی قفس بوی خون را از بالای سرشان احساس میکنن�. دل و جگرِ برادرهایشان را میبینن� که دور و برشان ریخته. میدانن� بعد نوبت خودشان است ولی شورش نمیکنن�. سعی نمیکنن� از قفس بیرون بیایند. توی این مملکت دقیقا همین بلا را سر آدمه� میآورن�. ص 155 کتاب
در این مملکت یک مشت آدم 9/99 درصد باقیمانده را- که از هر نظر به همان اندازه نیرومند، به همان اندازه با استعداد، به همان اندازه باهوشان�- طوری تربیت کردهان� که در بندگی ابدی زندگی کنند؛ و این رابطه� بندگی چنان محکم است که ممکن است کلید آزادی یک نفر را توی دستش بگذارید و او ناسزایی بگوید و آن را پرت کند توی صورتتا�. صفحات 157-158 کتاب
آیا ما پشت صورت ظاهر دوست داشتن از اربابهایما� متنفریم- یا پشت صورت ظاهر نفرت دوستشا� داریم؟ ص 168 کتاب
عالیجناب� آدم وقتی دور و بر کتابها� حتی کتابها� خارجی، میپلکد� احساس میکن� یک جور الکتریسیته وزوزکنان از پایین به سویش میآی�. پیش میآی� دیگر، مثل وقتهای� که دور و بر دخترها میپلکی�. منتها اتفاقی که در اینجا میافت� این است که مغزتان شروع میکن� به وزوز کردن. ص 185 کتاب
Standing around books, even books in a foreign language, you feel a kind of electricity buzzing up toward you, Your Excellency. It just happens, the way you get erect around girls wearing tight jeans. Except here what happens is that your brain starts to hum.
خواب پولدارها و خواب فقیرها- هرگز با هم تداخل ندارد، دارد؟
ببینید فقیرها تمام عمرشان خواب میبینن� که غذای کافی گیرشان میآی� و شبیه پولدارها میشون�. و پولدارها چه خوابی میبینند�
که وزن کم میکنن� و شبیه فقیرها میشون�. ص 201 کتاب
مردم این مملکت هنوز منتظرند نبرد آزادیشا� از جای دیگری بیاید- از جنگلها� کوهها� از چین، از پاکستان. چنین چیزی هرگز اتفاق نمیافت�. هر کسی باید بنارس خودش را بسازد. ص 271 کتاب
The white tiger (2021) 7.1 Meta: 76
کشور من از آن کشورهاست که صرف میکن� آدم دودوزه بازی کند: کارآفرین هندی باید در عین درستکار بودن متقلب باشد، هم به سخره بگیرد و هم اعتقاد داشته باشد، هم آب زیر کاه باشد و هم صادق. ص 11 کتاب
در روزگار قدیم هزار کاست و تقدیر مختلف در هندوستان وجود داشته. این روزها دو کاست بیشتر نداریم: شکم گندهه� و شکم کوچکه�. و فقط دو تقدیر: خوردن- یا خورده شدن. ص 60 کتاب
توی این مملکت سه بیماری مهم وجود دارد: حصبه، وبا و تب انتخابات. این آخری از همه بدتر است؛ باعث میشو� مردم مدام درباره� مسائلی حرف بزنند که هیچ اختیاری در مورد آنها ندارند. ص 90 کتاب
چرا پدرم هیچ وقت یادم نداده بود دندانهای� را طوری مسواک کنم که مثل شیر کف کند؟ چرا مرا مثل حیوان بار آورده بود؟ چرا فقیرها همه در میان این همه کثافت، این همه زشتی زندگی میکنند�
مسواک. مسواک. تف.
مسواک. مسواک. تف.
کاش میش� گذشتها� را به همین راحتی تف کنی بیرون. صفحات 136-137 کتاب
بروید به دهلی کهنه پشت مسجد جامع و ببینید آنجا مرغ و خروسه� را توی بازار چطور نگه میدارن�. صدها مرغ پریده رنگ و خروس رنگ و وارنگ را تنگِ هم توی قفسها� تور سیمی چپاندهان� و مثل کرمها� داخل شکم توی هم میلولند� همدیگر را نوک میزنن� و روی هم میرینند� و همدیگر را هُل میدهن� تا بلکه جایی برای نفسکشید� باز شود؛ تمام قفس بوی گند وحشتناکی میده�- بوی گند گوشتِ پَردارِ وحشت زده. روی میز چوبی بالای این قفس قصاب جوانی با نیش باز مینشین� و گوشت و دل و جگر مرغی را که تازه تکهتک� شده و هنوز آغشته به خونِ تیره رنگ است با افتخار نشان میده�. خروسها� توی قفس بوی خون را از بالای سرشان احساس میکنن�. دل و جگرِ برادرهایشان را میبینن� که دور و برشان ریخته. میدانن� بعد نوبت خودشان است ولی شورش نمیکنن�. سعی نمیکنن� از قفس بیرون بیایند. توی این مملکت دقیقا همین بلا را سر آدمه� میآورن�. ص 155 کتاب
در این مملکت یک مشت آدم 9/99 درصد باقیمانده را- که از هر نظر به همان اندازه نیرومند، به همان اندازه با استعداد، به همان اندازه باهوشان�- طوری تربیت کردهان� که در بندگی ابدی زندگی کنند؛ و این رابطه� بندگی چنان محکم است که ممکن است کلید آزادی یک نفر را توی دستش بگذارید و او ناسزایی بگوید و آن را پرت کند توی صورتتا�. صفحات 157-158 کتاب
آیا ما پشت صورت ظاهر دوست داشتن از اربابهایما� متنفریم- یا پشت صورت ظاهر نفرت دوستشا� داریم؟ ص 168 کتاب
عالیجناب� آدم وقتی دور و بر کتابها� حتی کتابها� خارجی، میپلکد� احساس میکن� یک جور الکتریسیته وزوزکنان از پایین به سویش میآی�. پیش میآی� دیگر، مثل وقتهای� که دور و بر دخترها میپلکی�. منتها اتفاقی که در اینجا میافت� این است که مغزتان شروع میکن� به وزوز کردن. ص 185 کتاب
Standing around books, even books in a foreign language, you feel a kind of electricity buzzing up toward you, Your Excellency. It just happens, the way you get erect around girls wearing tight jeans. Except here what happens is that your brain starts to hum.
خواب پولدارها و خواب فقیرها- هرگز با هم تداخل ندارد، دارد؟
ببینید فقیرها تمام عمرشان خواب میبینن� که غذای کافی گیرشان میآی� و شبیه پولدارها میشون�. و پولدارها چه خوابی میبینند�
که وزن کم میکنن� و شبیه فقیرها میشون�. ص 201 کتاب
مردم این مملکت هنوز منتظرند نبرد آزادیشا� از جای دیگری بیاید- از جنگلها� کوهها� از چین، از پاکستان. چنین چیزی هرگز اتفاق نمیافت�. هر کسی باید بنارس خودش را بسازد. ص 271 کتاب
February 15, 2009
I have just this minute finished this book and I can already tell that it will be one of those books that I will think about often. It's not a book whose plot I can easily explain, or a book that I can easily fit into a particular genre on my shelves, but my God did it pack a powerful punch. I have hardly been able to put it down between sittings.
The books is narrated via a letter from Balram Halwai, a slum-dweller-turned-driver-turned-murderer-turned-entrepreneur, to the Chinese President before the latters' trip to India and it is here that we follow Balram on an amazing journey through his life (I say "amazing" but undoubtedly typical of many in India). Although the slums of India and the government / police etc curruption is nothing I haven't come across before in books or films I still found myself shocked on almost a page-by-page basis. I liked the fact that there was no real hero in this book. There are no winners in a society like this.
This book is engrossing, shocking, humbling and eye-opening but it is narrated in such a way that there were laugh-out-load moments too. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I feel a little sad now it has come to an end. I will be watching for more of Adiga's work in the future.
The books is narrated via a letter from Balram Halwai, a slum-dweller-turned-driver-turned-murderer-turned-entrepreneur, to the Chinese President before the latters' trip to India and it is here that we follow Balram on an amazing journey through his life (I say "amazing" but undoubtedly typical of many in India). Although the slums of India and the government / police etc curruption is nothing I haven't come across before in books or films I still found myself shocked on almost a page-by-page basis. I liked the fact that there was no real hero in this book. There are no winners in a society like this.
This book is engrossing, shocking, humbling and eye-opening but it is narrated in such a way that there were laugh-out-load moments too. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I feel a little sad now it has come to an end. I will be watching for more of Adiga's work in the future.
January 26, 2013
I've read this book while it was still unpublished manuscript and fell in love immediately... Because it gave me the same pleasure as Vikas Swarup's Q&A...
May 22, 2008
Best contemporary novel I've read this year. Antidote for the pastel lyricism of most mainstream novels coming out of India and a wonderful social satire with savage bit. Kind of like Terry Southern's best work if he hadn't been all weeded up and goofy.
An image from it that sticks with me is how Ghandi's image gets appropriated by the current Indian bureaucracy. Whenever the narrator encounters the hanging Ghandi portrait he sees it as a symbol of "bribes work here, corruption at work". Perhaps a statement that passive non-resistance is just what a huge corporate government wants to see in its citizenry.
Also poignantly captures the vast differences between the two Indias. The upper class world of Bangalore computer outsourcing money and the servant class that still lives in the middle ages.
An image from it that sticks with me is how Ghandi's image gets appropriated by the current Indian bureaucracy. Whenever the narrator encounters the hanging Ghandi portrait he sees it as a symbol of "bribes work here, corruption at work". Perhaps a statement that passive non-resistance is just what a huge corporate government wants to see in its citizenry.
Also poignantly captures the vast differences between the two Indias. The upper class world of Bangalore computer outsourcing money and the servant class that still lives in the middle ages.
December 28, 2020
**3.5 stars**
An Unpopular opinion about A Popular novel:
Before starting, it’s better to say that nothing in here is a reminiscence of what I felt about the book when I read it when it first came out. At that time, I was just beginning to read books by Indian authors in English, and was bluffed by it entirely and recommended it to everyone. It is still recommendable, with exception of the two types:
1) Those who love India so much that they can't tolerate a single word against the country's culture, economy, social and caste difference; or to summarize indiscrimination in every bloody aspect you can think of. (Personally, I hate those lousy patriots.)
2) Those who want to form an opinion about the entire of India by reading, say 2-3 books.Opinion: Image.
"I am India's most faithful voter, and I still have not seen the inside of a voting booth."
So let's now come to the novel. On the positive part there's hardly anything new to add. The story does serve, though I daresay not fully, the purpose that it supposedly intended to. On the aspect of satire, it receives 4 out of 5 stars. However, I don't know how some people find it humorous, for not a single topic in the entire novel is even slightly funny. So Satire: Flout( I don't know for sure if it's the correct term). Not with too much dark humor either, the book is quite a direct (and rightful) attack to the Indian Government, society, administration and all that. A perfect pace, with no bragging anywhere. And Balram isn't a psychopath, either. Whatever he did was only a consequence of how the society moulded his mind. And it does ignite a fire. Most of the time people are just too sucked in the
"Rooster coop"
, as the author explained.
"Being called a murderer: fine, I have no objection to that. It's a fact: I am a sinner, a fallen human. But to be called a murderer by the police!
What a fucking joke."
If it’s so praise-worthy, then why the 'low' rating?
Firstly the storytelling isn't good enough. Actually not good at all, I think. I'm not demanding some masterpiece or even a language on the par with , please understand that. But the way Balram speaks isn't just the way some 'half-baked' (nearly illiterate, poverty driven) halwai Indian talks. Also the illustration of the so-called photogenic poverty is extremely poor and bare of words. Poor, I say, for I have seen alike places. You talk with any member of any lower(economic) class of family, and you will know the depicted image here is only half-complete. In other words I have felt that the book could have been capable of (if the author wanted obviously) carrying a picturesque image of corrupted India and her browbeaten poor. The scope is so unutilized. Also the story is disgustingly sexist. That would have been digestible if it was only so for Balram, but it wasn't so.
If you read this as the first Indian novel on the concept, you are definitely going to love this. But the fact remains that there are numerous other better underrated books out there, sadly many of which haven't even been translated for the outer world. So just don't read this expecting to be entirely blown away with sheer brilliance. I did. I was disappointed. However I wasn't when I read it without knowing the hype or awards. Hope that makes sense.
"Keep yours ears open in Bangalore - in any city or town in India - and you will hear stirrings, rumours, threats of insurrection. Men sit under lampposts at nights and read. Men huddle together and discuss and point fingers to the heavens. One night, will they all join together - will they destroy the Rooster Coop?
Ha!"
An Unpopular opinion about A Popular novel:
Before starting, it’s better to say that nothing in here is a reminiscence of what I felt about the book when I read it when it first came out. At that time, I was just beginning to read books by Indian authors in English, and was bluffed by it entirely and recommended it to everyone. It is still recommendable, with exception of the two types:
1) Those who love India so much that they can't tolerate a single word against the country's culture, economy, social and caste difference; or to summarize indiscrimination in every bloody aspect you can think of. (Personally, I hate those lousy patriots.)
2) Those who want to form an opinion about the entire of India by reading, say 2-3 books.
"I am India's most faithful voter, and I still have not seen the inside of a voting booth."
So let's now come to the novel. On the positive part there's hardly anything new to add. The story does serve, though I daresay not fully, the purpose that it supposedly intended to. On the aspect of satire, it receives 4 out of 5 stars. However, I don't know how some people find it humorous, for not a single topic in the entire novel is even slightly funny. So
"Being called a murderer: fine, I have no objection to that. It's a fact: I am a sinner, a fallen human. But to be called a murderer by the police!
What a fucking joke."
If it’s so praise-worthy, then why the 'low' rating?
Firstly the storytelling isn't good enough. Actually not good at all, I think. I'm not demanding some masterpiece or even a language on the par with , please understand that. But the way Balram speaks isn't just the way some 'half-baked' (nearly illiterate, poverty driven) halwai Indian talks. Also the illustration of the so-called photogenic poverty is extremely poor and bare of words. Poor, I say, for I have seen alike places. You talk with any member of any lower(economic) class of family, and you will know the depicted image here is only half-complete. In other words I have felt that the book could have been capable of (if the author wanted obviously) carrying a picturesque image of corrupted India and her browbeaten poor. The scope is so unutilized. Also the story is disgustingly sexist. That would have been digestible if it was only so for Balram, but it wasn't so.
If you read this as the first Indian novel on the concept, you are definitely going to love this. But the fact remains that there are numerous other better underrated books out there, sadly many of which haven't even been translated for the outer world. So just don't read this expecting to be entirely blown away with sheer brilliance. I did. I was disappointed. However I wasn't when I read it without knowing the hype or awards. Hope that makes sense.
"Keep yours ears open in Bangalore - in any city or town in India - and you will hear stirrings, rumours, threats of insurrection. Men sit under lampposts at nights and read. Men huddle together and discuss and point fingers to the heavens. One night, will they all join together - will they destroy the Rooster Coop?
Ha!"
October 21, 2019
Couldn't put this down. It's engaging, endearing, and beautifully written. Such a fantastic read.
March 25, 2022
SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!!
Balram Halwai was just called Munna (boy) when he was a child, because his relatives were 'too busy' to give him a real name.
Balram was renamed by his school teacher, a dishonest man who taught almost nothing and stole the lunch money and uniforms provided for the students.
This conduct is emblematic of Balsam's village of Laxmangarh, which Balsam calls 'the darkness' - a part of India where the majority poor population is mercilessly exploited and misused, especially by corrupt landlords.
The landlords, who bribe authorities and rig elections, live in luxury.....
�..while the poor have little money; bad hygiene; ramshackle homes; crappy schools; deplorable healthcare; and so on.
Moreover the downtrodden - who work as servants, rickshaw pullers, cleaners, etc. - seem to be trapped in what Balsam calls the 'Great Rooster Coop.'
They're unable to better themselves because outside forces keep them hemmed in AND they keep themselves hemmed in with lassitude and hopelessness.
As it happens Balram was a smart boy, one of the few students in his class who learned to read. However Balram's education was cut short by a family debt - money borrowed for a wedding. When the loan was called in.....
�..part of the repayment was young Balram's services in a tea shop.
Ironically, this was a blessing in disguise because Balram used the opportunity to eavesdrop and spy on the patrons, learning things that (in time) helped him get a leg up.
As the story opens, Balram has come a long way from the streets of Laxmangarh. He's now an entrepreneur in Bangalore, running a taxi company that caters to call centers, whose schedules conform to business hours in the west.
Balram learns that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is coming to India to discuss business and entrepreneurship, so he decides to tell the Premier the story of his life. Balram narrates his biography in a long letter, written over seven evenings, under the light of a large chandelier.
Balram immediately confesses that he murdered his last employer and stole 700,000 rupees, which permitted his current success.
Though much of Balram's story is grim, he tells it with forthrightness and humor. Balram begins his tale by writing about his childhood - which is bleak, and his family - which is poor and under the thumb of his domineering grandmother Kusum.
Balram goes on to explain that he's an ambitious fellow who - by dint of his planning, scheming, and powers of persuasion - manages to become the junior driver for a rich family in Dhanbad. The family is composed of a father - the Stork; older son - the Mongoose; younger son - Mr. Ashok; and Mr. Ashok's wife - Pinky Madam.
The Mongoose is the most unpleasant of the bunch, frequently shouting orders and treating the servants like thieves.
Balram's duties in Dhanbad include chauffeuring, taking care of the car.....
�..cooking, cleaning, buying liquor for his employers, and massaging the Stork's feet - an activity he describes in cringeworthy detail.
The family members aren't cruel, but they treat Balram like a low class serf. A moment's lethargy earns Balram a bonk on the head and harsh words; an invitation to 'make yourself comfortable' means Balram may squat on the floor; Pinky Madam derides Balram for his rotten black teeth and dirty clothes; Balram is instructed not to listen to music or use air conditioning when he's alone in the car - often for hours, while he's waiting for a family member; the Mongoose is infuriated when he thinks Balram found a one rupee coin on the car floor and kept it; Balram sleeps in a smelly hovel shared with the senior chauffeur; etc.
Worst of all, when a member of the Stork's family is involved in a deadly hit-and-run accident, Balram is told to sign a confession and take the blame. In the end the family is able to smooth things over with bribes, but if they couldn't, Balram would have gone to prison - which is chock full of servants 'taking the rap' for their bosses.
To add insult to injury, the 'lower classes' aren't allowed to enter malls or shop in 'nice' stores.
Instead, shopping areas for poor people are tucked out of sight, where beggars and knife sharpeners congregate.
Balram's situation improves a little when Mr. Ashok and Pinky Madam move to Delhi. Balram wants to go along as their chauffeur so he blackmails the family's senior driver - who's secretly a Muslim - into quitting. In Delhi, Mr. Ashok and Pinky live on the upper floor of a luxurious apartment building.....
.....while Balram sleeps in the basement, under a mosquito net, in a hot space crawling with cockroaches.
Balram does get a higher salary in Delhi, and the opportunity to scam money on the side. Coached by a friend Balram calls Vitiligo-lips (for a skin condition) Balram learns to siphon gas from Mr. Ashok's car and sell it; use Mr. Ashok's car as a taxi; sell Mr. Ashok's empty black label liquor bottles to people who re-use them; and more.
Balram also observes some of the family's more unsavory activities, like bribing politicians and public officials so their businesses won't have to pay taxes.
When Balram contrasts the hundreds of thousands of rupees the family gives away in bribes to the one rupee coin he supposedly stole, the inequity of his situation is very clear.
As we've known all along Balram finally commits homicide and theft, knowing this will be avenged on his entire family - who'll pay with their lives. Balram doesn't care, though, and happily uses the stolen money - and lessons he learned from the rich - to become a success.
In the course of the story we also learn about Indian marriage customs.....
gods.....
family responsibility.....
red light districts.....
eating habits; and more.
On the downside, we read about the massive corruption that permeates Indian society.
I'm sure there are many fine people in India, but none of them show up in this book, which presents an unflattering portrait of India and it's population. The country's inequities result, at least in part, from India's historical caste system, and change is probably inevitable as the country matures.
I found the book enlightening and engaging, and was on tenterhooks to see how Balram committed his dastardly crime and got away with it, all of which is quite dramatic. I'd recommend the book to readers who enjoy literary fiction.
This book won the 2008 Man Booker prize, which is awarded to the best original novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom.
Author Aravind Adiga won the 2008 Man Booker Prize
You can follow my reviews at
January 23, 2024
Winner of the 40th Booker Prize, 2008, the same year it got published; a debut novel by Aravind Adiga, it turns out as one of the best few books I have read in decades by an Indian author.
"The book of your revolution sits in the pit of your belly, young Indian. Crap it out and read."
In no way it's perfect perfect.
In no way it can be that easy for a nobody to become that crazy but yes, it happens in real. And crazier things keep happening like this everyday here.
The plot is nothing that dramatic or unheard of that would happen in the country but yes, the writing is filled with a sense of urgency, a thrill, a beating pulsation that makes you go for it until the book shuts up at your face when the last word it has to offer has done its job.
After a few so called 'popular, award nominated' disappointing boring reads, this book is the one that actually lived up to whatever award it had won.
The story is kind of suspense-triller to the minimum because we are going to read everything as it keeps happening.
What makes this book different is, of course, the writing style (that makes all the difference from the beginning till the end!). And then there's this morally grey character/narrator that made the plot so upbeat and fascinating.
Not quite your typical character in most Indian books and stories, this character comes from a 'lower caste, poor, village life background who by his wit and patience (and the guts to tolerate the actual human guts, spit, sweat and all the dirtiness imaginable from body secretions and excretion, facing with a row of squatting men defecating in the slums to the dirty politics and the overall working system, from relatives with ultimate motives to the worst level of greed a person could adopt).
For me, it's one great read. The story is the story. But what it gave me were the parts which made me think. Yes, think. To think about the general notions and assumptions that we all have about what's going on around us.
And for the stereotypes being mentioned or made in the story, I feel it is relevant and it just showcased the reality. It didn't harm to anyone in particular but yes, it showed if as what it is.
The writing is clever, fast-paced and totally entertaining.
"The book of your revolution sits in the pit of your belly, young Indian. Crap it out and read."
In no way it's perfect perfect.
In no way it can be that easy for a nobody to become that crazy but yes, it happens in real. And crazier things keep happening like this everyday here.
The plot is nothing that dramatic or unheard of that would happen in the country but yes, the writing is filled with a sense of urgency, a thrill, a beating pulsation that makes you go for it until the book shuts up at your face when the last word it has to offer has done its job.
After a few so called 'popular, award nominated' disappointing boring reads, this book is the one that actually lived up to whatever award it had won.
The story is kind of suspense-triller to the minimum because we are going to read everything as it keeps happening.
What makes this book different is, of course, the writing style (that makes all the difference from the beginning till the end!). And then there's this morally grey character/narrator that made the plot so upbeat and fascinating.
Not quite your typical character in most Indian books and stories, this character comes from a 'lower caste, poor, village life background who by his wit and patience (and the guts to tolerate the actual human guts, spit, sweat and all the dirtiness imaginable from body secretions and excretion, facing with a row of squatting men defecating in the slums to the dirty politics and the overall working system, from relatives with ultimate motives to the worst level of greed a person could adopt).
For me, it's one great read. The story is the story. But what it gave me were the parts which made me think. Yes, think. To think about the general notions and assumptions that we all have about what's going on around us.
And for the stereotypes being mentioned or made in the story, I feel it is relevant and it just showcased the reality. It didn't harm to anyone in particular but yes, it showed if as what it is.
The writing is clever, fast-paced and totally entertaining.
February 9, 2013
This was a great, darkly humorous book a friend recommended to me stating that it was her favourite book of 2012. I can definitely see why.
In this novel we find Balram Halwai, a sweetmaker from a small Indian village. He is from a low caste and finds a job working as a servant/driver to a rich Indian man. Halwai eventually escapes from his caste in a very unconventional way; by killing his boss. He then narrates his actions to the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, whom he admires greatly.
This book is a satire, the narrator is hilarious at times. Underneath the satirical element is the fact that India has social issues. Adiga contrasts the "New India" with the "Old India", which he calls "the Darkness." He paints the Darkness as very gross and desperate, poverty-stricken, illiterate and superstitious. The new India isn't free from criticism either; it is labelled as being rife with corruption. I guess the point Adiga is trying to make is that despite the fact that India has reaped a lot of economic successes from globalization, not everyone is benefitting from it.
Perhaps some people may think Adiga was too harsh with his portrayal of India. However, I believe Adiga is giving a voice to the voiceless; the poor in India, those living in the Darkness, those people who are illiterate, suffering from leprosy etc., and it is important not to sweep societal problems under the rug.
All in all a very enjoyable book.
In this novel we find Balram Halwai, a sweetmaker from a small Indian village. He is from a low caste and finds a job working as a servant/driver to a rich Indian man. Halwai eventually escapes from his caste in a very unconventional way; by killing his boss. He then narrates his actions to the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, whom he admires greatly.
This book is a satire, the narrator is hilarious at times. Underneath the satirical element is the fact that India has social issues. Adiga contrasts the "New India" with the "Old India", which he calls "the Darkness." He paints the Darkness as very gross and desperate, poverty-stricken, illiterate and superstitious. The new India isn't free from criticism either; it is labelled as being rife with corruption. I guess the point Adiga is trying to make is that despite the fact that India has reaped a lot of economic successes from globalization, not everyone is benefitting from it.
Perhaps some people may think Adiga was too harsh with his portrayal of India. However, I believe Adiga is giving a voice to the voiceless; the poor in India, those living in the Darkness, those people who are illiterate, suffering from leprosy etc., and it is important not to sweep societal problems under the rug.
All in all a very enjoyable book.
April 5, 2022
I very much enjoyed White Tiger and blew through it in two days. I was surprised to see negative reviews here and on Amazon from Adiga's countrymen, but I understand it. However, I read it as more of an attack on humanity than India. Every country has the struggle between have's and have nots. In the USA, we may not have as much outright bribery and corruption, but we have just as much injustice. We have huge prison populations and a major homeless crisis.
The novel traded in some pacing issues and plot holes to be quick moving and engaging. I was looking for the ending to be a bit more hopeful, but at least it wasn't total despair.
Having spent some time in India, I found it a fascinating reminder of misery and hope, not just of India, but for all of humanity. India has as much, if not more spirituality, beauty, and vitality of any country but unfortunately, like so much of the world, it also has poverty, racism, and despair. IMHO, an amazing debut novel worthy of it's many awards.
The novel traded in some pacing issues and plot holes to be quick moving and engaging. I was looking for the ending to be a bit more hopeful, but at least it wasn't total despair.
Having spent some time in India, I found it a fascinating reminder of misery and hope, not just of India, but for all of humanity. India has as much, if not more spirituality, beauty, and vitality of any country but unfortunately, like so much of the world, it also has poverty, racism, and despair. IMHO, an amazing debut novel worthy of it's many awards.
August 29, 2014
"If we were in India now, there would be servants standing in the corners of this room and I wouldn't notice them. That is what my society is like, that is what the divide is like."--Aravind Adiga
The White Tiger, The Man Booker Prize winner of 2008, has unsettled critics and readers alike. It is a provocative book as it paints an unflattering portrait of India as a society racked by corruption and servitude, exposing the country's dark side. This grim world is far removed from the glossy images of Bollywood stars and technology entrepreneurs.
--The author
The entire novel is narrated through seven letters by Balram Halwai, an exceedingly charming, egotistical admitted murderer, to the Premier of China, who will soon be visiting India.
Balram is an Indian man from an impoverished background, born into the 'darkness' of rural India. His family is from the Halwai caste, a caste that indicates sweet-makers. His village is dominated and oppressed by four landlords. Balram gets a break when he goes to work for one of the landlords, and then ends up moving to Delhi via a job as driver to Mr Ashok, the landlord's son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram's new world is a revelation; crime, corruption, greed, adultery, prostitution and alcohol abuse.
I enjoyed this book. Caught up in Balram's world, and his wonderful turn of phrases, the pages turned themselves, brimming with idiosyncrasy, sarcasm, cunning, and often hilarious.
A splendid, perceptive book. A narrative genius.
The White Tiger, The Man Booker Prize winner of 2008, has unsettled critics and readers alike. It is a provocative book as it paints an unflattering portrait of India as a society racked by corruption and servitude, exposing the country's dark side. This grim world is far removed from the glossy images of Bollywood stars and technology entrepreneurs.
--The author
The entire novel is narrated through seven letters by Balram Halwai, an exceedingly charming, egotistical admitted murderer, to the Premier of China, who will soon be visiting India.
Balram is an Indian man from an impoverished background, born into the 'darkness' of rural India. His family is from the Halwai caste, a caste that indicates sweet-makers. His village is dominated and oppressed by four landlords. Balram gets a break when he goes to work for one of the landlords, and then ends up moving to Delhi via a job as driver to Mr Ashok, the landlord's son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram's new world is a revelation; crime, corruption, greed, adultery, prostitution and alcohol abuse.
I enjoyed this book. Caught up in Balram's world, and his wonderful turn of phrases, the pages turned themselves, brimming with idiosyncrasy, sarcasm, cunning, and often hilarious.
"Apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewerage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs. Thousands and thousands of them. Especially in the field of technology."There was also a great deal of sadness in the book, especially the treatment of the underclass who built the city, and are trapped there, hidden from plain view, employed in poor conditions and at low grade jobs, and in some cases held in slavery conditions. Balram refers to this as the "rooster coop".
"Hundreds of pale hens and brightly coloured roosters, stuffed tightly into wire-mesh cages, packed as tightly as worms in a belly, pecking each other and shitting on each other, jostling just for breathing space; the whole cage giving off a horrible stench � the stench of terrified, feathered flesh."The White Tiger brilliantly portrays the emotions, sorrows, and aspirations of the poor. For Adiga, his achievement is capturing a stirring, a glimmer of a refusal by the poor to accept the fate ordained for them by their masters.
A splendid, perceptive book. A narrative genius.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 13,336 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.