This book was depressing, almost overly so. What was the point of completely disintegrating every main character and forcing them into various types of hells, both living and dead? The worst part was while there wasn't obvious potential for happiness, there was a definite trend of small improvements throughout the story, at least till the point that the train hit the bulwark and left no hope of reparation. It was a very accurate historical fiction, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. I may reread it in the future, but that will be a long time coming.

A real fine balance between hope and despair. Everybody should read this book, it will connect with any human being it seems to be tale of human dreams we all dream for better future, better life, better home, best wife :) but what if your dream shatters and takes unexpected turn which could be miserable, brutal, how to react, how to face the reality, because sometimes reality is harsh and unjust... by the end of this book i am really grateful and thankful to all what i have in life...

It is very unusual and unlikely to have four strong well thought out characters who are each given equal time and narration in the development of their characters. Dina, a young widow who takes in tailoring to pay the rent; Maneck, the 17-year-old college student she accepts as a paying guest; and Ishvar and Omprakash, two Chamars from the country side who come to work for her as tailors. I have totally enjoyed the backstories of each character before unfolding the main story. Also, some few supporting characters like Beggar master, hair collector (search of nirvana), Dharmasi

Also, in the plot each character has it own struggles with their own misfortunes. Dina Dalal, a financially strapped Parsi widow in her early 40's, struggles to preserve her independence, resisting the pleas of her brother to live off his charity. To make ends meet, Dina takes in a boarder, then recruits and hires two tailors to sew dresses for an export company. The boarder, Maneck, is the privileged son of a former school chum who has come to the city from his beloved mountain village for schooling. The Hindu tailors, Ishvar and Om, are refugees from caste violence. Ishvar, in his 40's, has dedicated his life to being a father to his nephew Om, the son of Ishvar's murdered brother. The tailors live from hand to mouth, entirely at the mercy of the social upheavals of the day.


I believe India is the only country where your fate is decided by your caste and i m sure it is still running in backward villages also it was quite insightful towards Indian, culture, post emergency counter effects, human rights violations, including detention, torture and forced sterilization, family planning, vasectomy

And though so much of Mistry's plot - which features a family burned alive, eviction, amputation, castration, suicide and a grisly succession of violent deaths - could have slipped over the edge into the melodrama of the same Hindi movies, the author handles his events deftly, without exaggeration or mawkishness, and in a style that never denies his characters the complexity of their own humanity. The result is a compelling book that manages the rare feat of being both entertaining and compassionate.

Mistry is powerful and moving in his descriptions of random rural oppression, or in telling the familiar tales of courage and humanity amidst the horrors of Partition; but there are also hilarious sequences, none funnier than an account of one of the prime minister's political rallies during the Emergency, told from the point of view of the slum dwellers bussed in to constitute her bewildered audience.

The ending though was a little unexpected and unexciting. It left me in shock that I had read that huge book to have an okay ending at the end.Whilst I probably wanted a different ending, I can see how it all fitted together and whilst sad there was still some joy. Given the writing is So i ll end up with 4.5/5

There are so many tales which are surprising, shocking, miserable will rip your heart, it seems there is surprise at every moment, every turn, every page. At the same time there are equally humorous tales, so inner way i can see this book is quite balanced which is like really hard to find..


“…God is a giant quiltmaker. With an infinite variety of designs. And the quilt is grown so big and confusing, the pattern is impossible to see, the squares and diamonds and triangles don’t fit well together anymore, it’s all become meaningless. So He has abandoned it.”

“What an unreliable thing is time--when I want it to fly, the hours stick to me like glue. And what a changeable thing, too. Time is the twine to tie our lives into parcels of years and months. Or a rubber band stretched to suit our fancy. Time can be the pretty ribbon in a little girl's hair. Or the lines in your face, stealing your youthful colour and your hair. .... But in the end, time is a noose around the neck, strangling slowly.”

“Where humans are concerned, the only emotion that made sense was wonder, at their ability to endure...”

I came across this book while searching about books set in the era of ‘Emergency’ in India when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister. As the story unfolds we see mushrooming callous government officials , employment programmes that benefit higher authorities rather than down-trodden masses , violence of rights of lower caste, all ensuing from a government struggling to prevent its downfall while being scarred by corruption.

Mrs. Dina Dalal, a Parsi widow in her early 40’s, Maneck Kohlah, her paying boarder who she was forced to take in due to financial needs, and two Hindu tailors, Ishvar and Omprakash Darji, whom she hires to sew dresses for an export company are the four main characters about whom pivots the main storyline. All of them are fleeing from something. The book brings out the innate humanness in each person which might have been clouded by the man made barriers of caste and religion.

I did find a few hiccups such as abrupt entries and exits and the ending was not upto my liking. But the book has tackled an ambitious topic and nearly succeeded, or perhaps succeeded indeed.

WOW. Beautiful. Haunting. Sad. Compelling. Interesting. Educational. This book covers the stories of four characters living in India during the mid-70s during a time in which Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declares a State of Emergency and in its name, countless human rights violations were committed. I am not sure I can say much that would do this book proper justice. It certainly had what I refer to as The Linger Factor. After I finished it, I sat thinking about it for awhile. When I woke up at 5 am and couldn't get back to sleep, I thought about it some more. I thought about it AGAIN while in the shower. Then later, while I was doing my hair and makeup, I pondered even more points, turn of events and the title (which had so much meaning). This book was not an easy read. The author delves into deep detail on each of the main characters back stories. It was tough going because these people did not live happy lives. However, it was important to the overall theme of the book that you truly get inside each of the characters heads so that you fully understand the reasoning and the extent of their actions and choices. To not give the full history on each of them would have made some of the events appear to be melodramatic and it would have been all too easy to paint certain characters as selfish or even villainous in their choices. Instead, it was heartbreaking, because you understood and could feel the humanity of these characters. You knew them and your heart sank and soared with each various plot point. As in life, nothing was black and white with this book. Again with the "wow".

Man Booker shortlisted gem of a novel by the multi Man Booker shortlisted Mistry. A powerful tale, the life and times of four individuals separated by caste and class who end up living together during the political upheaval in the seventies in modern India. A novel that proves to be beautiful, as it looks at the lives of 'normal' people as they cope during the unrest(s), who are not politically motivated or even fully aware of what's going on, but are just trying to retain their own personal dignity and independence, when it feels like the state itself is purposefully trying to vanquish that. The scenes of the injustice against the 'undesirables' are poignant and hard to read; and the ending is both beautiful, and heart breaking. Yet another wonderful piece of Indian literature written by an ex patriot (he lives in Canada). Recommended read. 7 out of 12 Three Star read.

2010 read

This read was a recommendation from my GR friend Jenn. Thank you!

Prior to reading this novel, I knew very little about "The Emergency" in India of 1975-1977. During this period the Prime Minister was given the power to rule by decree. This upheaval included censorship of the press, mass political arrests, forced mass sterilization, and a national beautification program in which many slums (homes to many) were destroyed. Corruption was rampant and the lives of millions were deeply and negatively impacted.

The novel centers on four main characters and how they navigate this period and their many misfortunes. I have to say, this book knocked me out of my complacent bubble and put me in a whole other space. Mistry creates characters that are real and relatable, including his secondary characters. His narrative is propulsive. And he writes vividly of place so that I was immersed and felt as if I were there with Ishvar, Om, Manek, and Dina.

The core of the book is encompassed in the following quote:

“ 'You see, we cannot draw lines and compartments and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.' He paused, considering what he had just said. 'Yes', he repeated. 'In the end, it's all a question of balance.”

Mistry eloquently captures the people of India (and I imagine world-wide) -- the capacity to endure, the capacity to change, the capacity for hope and laughter. He shows us the the human need for family (not just blood relatives), and that by recognizing the humanity of all people and by supporting each other, we can help tip the scale.

Hearbreaking? Yes. A worthwhile read? Absolutely!

“The human face has limited space. If you fill it with laughter there will be no room for crying.”

3 "tragedy diminished by histrionics" stars !!

I know this is a good book and that Mr. Mistry is an excellent writer. The use of language is mostly elegant, vivid and the stories interweave in a logical and natural way. There was not a dull moment to be had in this sprawling saga set in 1970s India. The characters were likable and their struggles are real, heart-wrenching and horrendous.

I have a HUGE issue though with the presentation of the characters' emotional and psychological lives. Although at times Mr. Mistry got the emotional timbre "bang on" (especially in the very moving epilogue), more often the very sad and tragic events were shrouded not only with histrionic melodrama but often really tasteless slapstick that jarred the senses and I was left feeling "are they going to start in on Bollywood singing and dancing?!?"

Many of my real life friends and by the looks of it my Goodread buddies found this book to be a masterpiece. For me though, this book was a good read tinged with disappointment. This was an excellent story covered in a too brightly colored cloth that was then wrapped with cheap gaudy gold ribbon that was then placed in a too bright metallic basket. Too much bloody glare to really appreciate the true gems that lay underneath!!!

I stayed up all night to finish this book, because the climax is simply unputdownable. I am hesitant to formally review it because it's one of those few books that can't be confined within the bounds of a critique or summary, and one that is so magnificent and moving that the idea of reviewing it makes me feel insolent already! So I'll just note what I feel about the book, and the kind of effect it's had on me.

It's grim. Very grim. There are moments of tragicomedy, of overjoyed glimpses of the sun on a very grey day, but it's not a happy story, and it makes no pretensions to being one. The heartwrenching ending had me involuntarily wondering what kind of person would want to write a bleak tale like that -- and then I understood Mistry's message through the book, that this is fiction, but not made-up; this is a novel, but larger-than-life; this is yesterday, persisting into today and reaching out its long clammy fingers into tomorrow.

Life's vicissitudes toss four unlikely companions into one living space, a dingy little flat, in the "City by the Sea," Bombay. Widow Dina Dalal has lived for decades in solitude, barely making ends meet, watching the sun rise and set everyday with the same transparent indifference; college-student Maneck Kohlah has left his much-loved life and his family's little general store in the Himalayas to study air-conditioning and refrigeration in the city, a course that his father believes will equip him to deal with a world that is hell-bent on destroying nature to further technology; tailors Ishvar and Omprakash Darji, uncle and nephew, have left their village, and their traditional "untouchable" occupation of tanning animal hides to seek their fortunes in this city of dreams and earn enough money to go home and live more comfortably. This is the story of how these four people find family in each other, find friendship, laughter, and a courage to struggle and persevere despite all their troubles. This is the story of shattered dreams, of Indira Gandhi's cruel Emergency, of how each person's life is webbed and entangled in its own drama, of caste, poverty, and a positive survival instinct corroded into a dog-eat-dog mentality that strangulates, just as time itself does.

Many parts of the book brought tears to my eyes, but by the time I finished it, I was actually sobbing. Somewhere in these six hundred pages the reader becomes friends with the characters, begins to share their joys and sorrows, and desperately wish for a happy ending that he/she knows, deep down, is not to be.

This is a life-changing read, and one that I would be truly sorry to see anyone miss out on.

This book was like a punch in the gut, or a hard kick to the balls. The kind where you double over dry heaving. That's how powerful it was.

Mistry's novel traces the lives of four people over the period of about one year when they come together under one roof. That one year is also year one into Indira Ghandi's State of Emergency, declared after the Indian Supreme Court rules her election illegal.

There are some excellent set peices. notgettingenough's review describes one. I won't repeat it here, but recommend that you go read what she has to say.

My own personal favourite was the scene where the tailors, together with the inhabitants of their shantytown, are forcibly gathered by the police and bussed to a location where the "beloved" Indira Ghandi would be giving a speech. The ceremony, filled with much bowing and scraping by her political allies, ends with a helicopter flying past and throwing rose petals on the prime minister. The people pretty much ignore the entire ceremony, cheering only when told to do so. They do, however, get some excitement when the helicopter's strong downdraft causes a large signboard cut out in the shape of Indira Ghandi to fall on the crowd below.

Another hardhitting scene occurs several days later when the police and labour contractors come to round up the beggars and poor sleeping in the street. They have clearly been told by the Ghandi adminstration to clear the streets of the poor and give them jobs as part of a "beautification" project. What this means is that the poor are rounded up by force, beaten if necessary. When the contractor protests that he can't do anything with injured people, the police officer in charge replies, "Don't worry, my men know how to hit people without leaving visible marks." The contractor pays the police officer, brings the poor to a construction site, and is paid in turn for them. The poor are, of course, forced into hard labour, their only pay being a meagre portion of food and shelter. Slavery, of course, by another name.

Other atrocities follow: corrupt officials who carry out vascectomies on old men to meet their imposed quotas, the shantytown gets bulldozed to the ground. All of this brings brownie points to the officials for "doing their job", and a little extra money on the side as well. Mistry works a fine balance with these scenes: comedy and absurdity juxtopose neatly with the pathos and despair.

In the end, however, I was hard pressed to give this book five stars. I'm docking it one star because the ending didn't work for me. The last third of the book sees the comedy and tragedy heighten to the point of melodrama, which was pitched at a level higher than I would have liked. Perhaps I needed to read it straight through rather than over several weeks, so that the emotional impact would outweigh my difficulty in suspending disbelief. It's wholly subjective, of course, and I would certainly recommend this book as a good read.

A man with paralyzed legs lies on his itchy straw bed, staring at the murky ceiling that seems closing in on him, as his eyes have been fixating it for too long. The time seems reluctant to move on as there is no sign of movements around him; the world seems to have divorced him. His room has no windows that rewarded him with a view of a green patch or a shimmering rivulet to vouch for his existence. The life, as it seems, has no prospect, he thought. As the bleak moments ostensibly passed, he, to his surprise, spots a fly out of nowhere inching towards him. The sound of its vicious flutter of wings and its dull black mass has a portentous import, and, gazing at it, he gulps lumps of fear down his damp throat. As the fluttering, buzzing sound reaches an unacceptable proximity, he waves his arm, almost mechanically, in one vigorous movement, as though terrified by the ominous propinquity, and the fly, as though mocking at his frantic attempts at dissuasion, retreats a short distance only to come back as tenacious as ever. As the moments trudged past lazily, the buzzing sound now seems to be derisive laughter. The unflinching tenacity of the fly begins outriding his remnant resolve. He feels subjugated to the mettlesome fly. He feels subdued. His arms, after repeated waving and sweeping, protested to move further. He truncates his efforts. Despair. He, like a hapless docile creature, accepts the defeat and the fly, with its flourish of invisible wings and triumphant buzzing, licked his skin as though making him know, out of pure derision, the tangibility of misery, failure, and cul-de-sac.

I used ‘the man’ here as a metaphor for the poverty-stricken Indians during emergency, with their independence and free-will paralyzed by the whimsical government and its greed for power, making them glued to their hapless lives. The Fly of misery, which came almost always out of nowhere, kissed them mockingly, conquered them, and pushed them into dark abysses of lugubriousness, but only before they had put up a futile fight for stalling time prior to complete subjugation.

And in the end, as Maneck Kohlah said, everything ended badly.

A few words on Emergency:

Inorder to curb ‘internal disturbances’ and to smooth out the threatening, revolutionary waves prevalent throughout the country ostensibly, Indira Gandhi government, on 25th June 1975 , enforced ‘State of Emergency’, which spanned over 21 months that brought endless misery and impoverishment on the Indian landscape. The fine balance that precariously maintained the social and cultural equilibrium had been mutilated causing uproarious fiascos. The gory period is still in an indelible mark as an epoch of calamity, instability and madness.

A few words on caste system:

To say in a few words, due to lack of time and space, the caste system in India has been like a series of concentric circles : the outermost circle being the most dominant class enjoyed unequivocal prerogatives, and the innermost circle being the socially oppressed and untouchables enjoyed almost nothing. Though the caste system looks antiquated and draconian, it has been prevalent since time immemorial and is a by-product of years of cultural evolution.

Main Review:

First of all, let me start by saying that Mistry is a prolific writer. He concentrates on the substance and soul rather than the adornment of prose or metaphorical-diarrhea. That said, his prose is unvarnished, earthy and palpable. The story of four protagonists in the novel looks like an arbitrary selection, as if the author had been in a pursuit of finding a constant for the ever-befuddling equation of misery and despair among the common-place Indians during emergency. The novel, as you read it, creates an impression that the story involving the four main protagonists is only a part of a very big story, or collection of stories, that is impossible to contain in a mere novel.

“I think that our sight, smell, taste touch, hearing are all calibrated for the enjoyment of a perfect world. But since the world is imperfect, we must put blinders on the senses.

Dina Dalal, a hapless victim of a brutal quirk-of-fate, was deprived of her married life, which was cut off at an inchoate juncture. Being a widow, her chance for an independent survival was bleak, but a second marriage was impossible even to think of. She had no one but her brother as a sole living-recourse. The absurd notions such as women are weak without the sturdy shoulder of men to lean on have been prevalent among the Indian families, where women are merely considered as ‘production units’. Her brother too was no different; as soon as his sister became a widow, he started thinking of her matrimonial prospects and began inviting his affluent friends to home who didn’t seem to care about her second marriage. He simply couldn’t imagine or believe a woman could thrive independently without the ‘intrusion’ of a male presence. Epitomizing the virtues of boldness and optimism, and yearning to extricate herself from the sanctimonious, smothering clutches of her brother, she decided to earn for a living, she decided to sew.

“Independence comes at a high price: debt with a payment schedule of hurt and regret.”

The entry of the tailors, Ishvar and Om, and her new paying-guest, Maneck, unveiled new vistas in her life that had been plunging into the deep recesses of solitude. The room that was once filled with distorted, aimless noises of neighbor’s chores was now being filled with sounds of bustling life and laughter. Her new life, now devoid of forlorn air and solitude, instilled a new found hope and joy in her. The tailoring machines became the beating-heart of her house, and the blood of joy and stability surged through every vein of her abode and being. Presence of another living entity is indeed the most delectable thing after a dry spell of solitude and the accompanying pessimism. The tailors, on the other hand, after their small hut in a slum settlement had been destroyed as a part of Government’s new program of ‘beautification’, sought refuge in Dina’s flat and made themselves home swiftly.

“In the WC, the tailors’ urine smell that used to flutter like a flag in the air, and in Dina’s nose, grew unnoticeable. Then it struck her: the scent was unobtrusive now because it was the same for everyone. They were all eating the same food, drinking the same water. Sailing under the same flag.”

Ishvar and his nephew Om, due to harrowing poverty, came to the city by the sea to earn a fortune. They were skilled tailors, but their heart and soul were anointed with the indelible ashes of their lugubrious past, making them flustered and tentative. The timeless memories of their lost family, who were burnt alive by the diabolic upper-caste, were now the only green patch in the dry fields of their life. They wanted money to go back again to their village, to fixate their existence in their childhood abode, which now existed only as a mere dreamscape.

“If time were a bolt of cloth, I would cut out all the bad parts. Snip out the scary nights and stitch together the good parts, to make time bearable. Then I could wear it like a coat, always live happily.” - Omprakash

Maneck Kohlah, an apparently rich boy from the mountains, came to the city by the sea under the coercion of his parents who wanted him to go to college and get a job. The concomitant effects of emergency even threatened the serene mountains, as the family land and properties were swallowed by the inscrutable partitions, as the mountains were being destructed for the construction of roads and settlements, obviating their positivity and secureness. He broodingly meditated upon the harrowing events and changes that constantly challenged his equilibrium.

“Memories were permanent. Sorrowful ones remained sad even with the passing of time, yet happy ones could never be recreated- not with the same joy. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain. So what was the point of possessing memory?”- Maneck Kohlah

Everything in the world is transient; things are bound to change without prior notice. Embracing change becomes an obligation as long as we endure life. The lives of four people, from a blissful spell of optimism and joy, plunge into another phase of dreadful import. The unexpected turn of fate waylaid them and extorted from them the tiny bags of their cumulated happiness. Not every story has a happy ending.

“I prefer to think that god is a giant quiltmaker. With an infinite variety of designs. And the quilt is grown so big and confusing, the pattern is impossible to see, the squares and diamonds and triangles don’t fit well together anymore, it’s all become meaningless. So he has abandoned it.”- Maneck Kohlah

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The story moves in a steady, uniform pace, without slackening or accelerating even for a second, which imparts a naturality, a life-like experience as you immerse into it. And the expanse of novel is scattered with numerous gems of nostalgia-inducing details that makes you inadvertently smile. For instance:

“Rain had fallen during the night. The ground was soft, the mud sucking at their feet like a many-mouthed creature.”


Mistry never left anything. In this 600 pages book, the life and culture of India has been jotted down with a heart that beats along with the words. Being an Indian, Mistry had been able to empathize inordinately with the characters and accurately describe the singular environment that encapsulated the lives of the characters. As the reading has been so life-like, I was immersed into the story, camouflaging my identity to the background of the 70s India, where I was one among them- the toiling, sweating proletarians; perplexed moms with hungry little mouths to feed; youths with despoiled ambitions and sprouted political inclinations; beggars and beggar- masters; Ishvar and Om and Maneck and Dina Dalal.

“What an unreliable thing is time- when I want to fly, the hours stick to me like a glue. And what changeable thing, too. Time is the twine to tie our lives into parcels of years and months. Or a rubber band stretched to suit our fancy. Time can be the pretty ribbon in a little girl’s hair. Or the lines in your face, stealing your youthful colour and your hair. But in the end, time is a noose around the neck, strangling slowly.”

5 stars on 5!

-gautam

#2018ReadingChallenge #PopSugar
06. A book from a celebrity book club

Có hơi phung phí khi chọn Cân bằng mong manh cho những ngày đầu năm không nhỉ? Nếu đọc vào cuối năm ngoái thì nó đã trở thành miếng ghép lấp đầy năm 2017 của tôi rồi. Chắc cái năm 2018 này sẽ phải ra trò lắm đây.

Đầu óc bây giờ vẫn đang rất lung. Các thứ cảm xúc dồn ứ lại một cục chen chúc mà tôi chỉ thấy được mắt mình hơi mờ đi chẳng biết vì nước mắt hay ken gỉ chứ chẳng sắp xếp được trật tự gì cho đống suy nghĩ cả. Thôi kệ có gì nói nấy khôi hài một thể luôn vậy. Dù sao ngay cả chính câu chuyện này cũng như một tấn trò bỡn rồi!

Ấn Độ trong Cân bằng mong manh rất xa lạ những hiểu biết của tôi. Ý tôi là tôi cũng không phải một "chuyên gia Ấn Độ", nhưng nó vượt quá xa so với những gì tôi từng biết. Nó như màn hình chiếu phim khổ lớn khiến vị khán giả ngồi hàng ghế đầu là tôi bị choáng ngợp, nhưng đồng thời cũng phải hào hứng và cẩn trọng theo dõi. Và màn kịch của chúng ta là gì nào? Một ván cờ người khổng lồ với những nước đi man rợ mà hình phạt cho kẻ bị hạ là mọi điều tàn nhẫn nhất người ta có thể làm ra với đồng loại của mình, nhân danh cao xanh và những gì tốt đẹp. Nó làm bạn xốn mắt phải lấy hai tay bịt lại, nhưng mấy kẽ ngón tay cứ phải nới lỏng đặng còn dấm dúi nhìn.

Nếu giả dụ Thượng Đế có mặt trong cuộc đời của Ishvar, Om, Dina, Maneck hay Ibrahim, Rajaram hoặc thậm chí là bất cứ một nhân vật vô danh nào khác thật, thì Rohinton Mistry có khi nào chính là tay thông ngôn mẫn cán trịch thượng của Người không nhỉ. Sao ông có thể bày ra một thái độ tỉnh rụi đến thế? Ông có thể buông mấy trò cười tục tĩu, cũng có thể kể những chuyện đổ máu bằng một giọng dửng dưng đến phát bực, tuồng như đã quá quen ba chuyện ngán ốm ở cái xứ này; trong khi tôi thì sợ hãi xen lẫn khó hiểu trước cách người ta đối xử với nhau. Cảm xúc ấy cứ tái diễn cùng những trò hề mà Thượng Đế ban tặng cho cuộc đời, thường xuyên và đều đặn đến độ cuối cùng chính tôi cũng trở nên quen với chúng, rồi chẳng biết làm gì hơn nữa ngoài cứ thế buồn bã chấp nhận.

Một điều mà chẳng hiểu vì sao tôi thích, là Rohinton Mistry rất hay cho nhân vật cơ hội được "tốt", giống như ông rất tin tưởng vào tính bản thiện của con người vậy. Chỉ cần nhân vật có điều kiện bồi đắp thì hầu như sẽ có một mặt tốt nào đó của anh ta được bộc lộ. Bỗng dưng tôi nhận ra tác giả mới chính là kẻ sáng suốt hơn cả. Khi tôi còn đang nhìn hết thảy xung quanh bằng cái nhìn đầy phòng bị và định kiến thì ông đã nhắc ta phải thật khách quan, đa chiều và khoan dung rồi.

Đọc cả quyển sách dày cộp với tâm trạng bất an như đi trên dây. Ngoài nỗi sợ cái gáy bị gẫy làm ba tư thì còn lo nơm nớp không biết lúc nào chút ít bình yên bếp bênh của các nhân vật sẽ bị tước đoạt vào tay Thượng Đế. Chuẩn bị tâm lí ngay từ đầu thế rồi mà vẫn bị khiếu hài hước lỗi mốt của Người hạ gục vào phút cuối, mà là gục triệt để. Và còn thảm hại đến mức sợ nhìn nhầm phải đọc tái đọc hồi xem mình có hiểu lố chỗ nào không. Rất không cam tâm, nhưng biết chẳng thể còn kết cục nào khác. (Duy có một cái được xem như có hậu là cái gáy sách của tôi đã an toàn.)

Cuối cùng xin bày tỏ sự ngưỡng mộ đối với người chuyển ngữ tiếng Việt cho A fine balance, bắt đầu từ từ fine - mong manh trở đi. Thực lòng tôi không thể diễn tả được tôi thấy sự dịch này huyền diệu ra sao nữa.

(*) Cân bằng mong manh là một lựa chọn của CLB sách của Oprah Winfrey.
Cổ có talkshow với tác giả luôn éc éc :v
http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/a...

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"You see, you cannot draw lines and compartments, and refuse to budge beyond them. Sometimes you have to use your failures as stepping-stones to success. You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair."

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Thus, one of the minor characters in this book tells us the meaning of the book. Without using those words in any other context, Mistry well conveys those emotions. I could ask for more hope, less despair, but would this book have meant as much?

The circumstances in India of the time were those of widespread corruption - both of minor officials and those with their own private power bases - and government oppression of the worst sort. We are introduced in the prologue to the four main characters at their initial meeting.

The reader then learns the history of each character, one at a time, filled with hope and despair.

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"In those days," continued Ishvar, "it seemed to me that that was all one could expect in life. A harsh road strewn with sharp stones and, if you were lucky, a little grain."

"And later?"

"Later I discovered there were different types of roads. And a different way of walking on each."

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On the back cover of this edition, the story is said to recall the work of Charles Dickens. The writing style is nothing similar, but the story does, indeed, focus on the same type and class of characters that inhabit the novels of Dickens.

This book is not one if you are looking for escape; it is hard reading.