The Inheritance of Loss (2006)
Who wrote it?
Kiran Desai (1971- ; active 2006- ), born New Delhi, India. Kiran is the daughter of novelist Anita Desai. Both left India when Kiran was 14, spending a year in England before moving to the US. She studied creative writing at Columbia University.
Her first novel, Hullaballoo in the Guava Orcard, was published in 1998 and won the Betty Trask Award for young Commonwealth authors. The Inheritance of Loss was her second novel, and its Booker win made her the youngest female winner to date, aged 35. It also won the Nation Book Critics Circle Fiction award.
She has yet to follow up her Booker-winner, despite suggesting in 2017 that a new novel was imminent.
What's it about?
The Inheritance of Loss is a novel that focuses on the diverse experiences of the inhabitants of a decaying colonial-era mansion in Kalimpong, and their relatives. The primary focus is on two characters: Sai, an orphan living with her grandfather, retired judge Jemubhai Patel; and Biju, the son of the house's cook, who is living in New York illegally.
Sai's story focuses on her love for her tutor, Gyan, who initially reciprocates but as he is caught up in the patriotic fervour of the Gorkhaland movement, rejects her anglicized ways. Biju's story is a series of vignettes which expose the harsh reality (and bleak humour) of immigrants' attempts to sustain work in a foreign city. We also learn a lot more about the lives of both the Judge, who studied at Cambridge and acquired a general hatred of Indian ways, and the Cook, as well as largely humorous but revealing secondary characters like Lola and Noni, anglophile friends of Sai's, and Uncle Potty and Father Botty.
The novel is structured around shifting perspectives, and uses this to explore a range of issues covering race, class/caste, culture clashes, and divisions within cultures & families.
What I liked
Oh, lots. This was a really good read. All of the characters felt really well-rounded, with interesting backstories and a real sense of vibrancy.
The contrasting sense of place was incredibly well done, and brought the book alive for me. Biju’s claustrophobic and embattled life in the basement kitchens of NYC against Sai’s somewhat purposeless drift around the Judge’s house in the Himalayas really brought home the differences in the two worlds.
At the same time, there’s then the differing experiences within those same worlds, with the judge and the cook’s differing positions on life according to their caste explored, alongside other immigrants like Saeed Saeed who have a very different outlook on life, and differing success as a result.
Overall there’s a sense of a world rich with difference, of intersectional variations of experience, and therefore of reality, that has been missing in a few other winners.
I loved the tossed aside reference between some of the characters about not liking English writers writing about India, shortly after a mention of The Raj Quartet. A fair comment on how far the Booker has come in its tales of India in the post-Rushdie era.
Oh, and it’s extraordinarily funny. Every review I read seems to refer to the “grimness” of the book. Yes, its conclusions may be bleak (but then what rational view of life doesn’t ultimately arrive at a bleak conclusion?) yet along the way it has a huge amount of fun with its characters. Maybe its not for everyone, but I loved the dark humour on display here. A particular favourite is the tiny vignette of Biju and the mouse - if you know, you know.
What I didn’t like
The front cover of my edition. I know you’re not meant to judge a book by its cover but this cliched carpet-like exterior made me expect something much more tedious. Maybe I’m missing some hidden depths of meaning? Or maybe not.
Relatively little otherwise. I think perhaps my main comment would be that I enjoyed the reading of it more than taking out any grand conclusions, but that doesn’t overly concern me. It’s an enjoyable slice of life with thoughts shooting off in every direction, so I don’t mind if out of that you don’t necessarily come out with a coherent “message.”
Poor Mutt :’(
Food & drink pairings
Momos
No beef, unless you happen to end up working in an upmarket steak restaurant and have no choice
Fun facts
The judges voted 4-1 in favour of Desai to win, to the displeasure of Anthony Quinn, who was the lone voice in favour of St Aubyn's Mother's Milk. He was unequivocal in his disappointment: "It's not an exaggeration to say that I felt sick to my stomach [...] We chose the the wrong book."
Desai has mentioned that the novel almost had a much darker ending, with Biju not surviving his final ordeal and dying before his reunification with his father, the cook. I was kind of expecting that coming if I’m honest. I’m sure it would have been an extra bonus to all those complaining about the “grimness” of the novel! I thought the actual ending was a decent compromise though, as while the final scenes depict what seems to be a happy reunion, there’s little to suggest that the future is going to be especially cheery for anyone involved. (Yay?)
Her next novel, according to interviews over many years, will be called The Loneliness of Sonia & Sonny. I can still find at least one article online claiming it will be "published in 2012", so hopefully we'll get it no more than a decade late...
Vanquished Foes
Kate Grenville (The Secret River)
M. J. Hyland (Carry Me Down)
Hisham Matar (In the Country of Men)
Edward St Aubyn (Mother's Milk)
Sarah Waters (The Night Watch)
Nice to see Edward St Aubyn get his sole nod for the fourth entry in the incredible Patrick Melrose series. In honesty, I would have loved to see him get the Prize but I have no idea whether the books work in a standalone way, which I feel should be important. Plus Desai was a very worthy winner.
The 2006 Orange/Women's Prize was won by Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, which was one of the books to lose out to John Banville in the ‘05 Booker. The shortlist also featured fellow Booker-shortlisted The Accidental (2005) by Ali Smith and The Night Watch from this year’s list.
Context
In 2006:
Saddam Hussein sentenced to death by hanging, and executed on December 30th
Seven bomb blasts in Mumbai, India, kill more than 200 people
Nathu La pass between India and China, sealed during the Sino-Indian War, re-opens for trade after 44 years
Montenegro declares independence from Serbia following a referendum
Commencement of Mexican War on Drugs with military intervention
Alexander Litvinenko dies in London having been poisoned by Polonium-210
Ban Ki-moon elected as new UN Secretary-General, succeeding Kofi Annan
Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government overthrown in a military coup d'état
Military coup d'état in Fiji
Pluto reclassified as a dwarf planet
UN votes to establish the UN Human Rights Council
Disney buys Pixar from Lucasfilm
Launch of Twitter
WikiLeaks.org domain first registered
Google buys YouTube
Release of Nintendo Wii in the US
Finnish band Lordi win Eurovision Song Contest with "Hard Rock Hallelujah"
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Half of a Yellow Sun
John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth
The Da Vinci Code
James Bond: Casino Royale
Little Miss Sunshine
The Departed
Borat
Justin Timberlake, FutureSex/LoveSounds
Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
The Knife, Silent Shout
Life Lessons
Generally pretty bleak: division is at the heart of everything, and suchlike
You can’t escape your circumstances, especially if you’re drawn a bad hand in life. If you attempt to, you’ll either end up an embittered part of the problem, or returning with your tail between your legs.
People are doomed to misunderstand each other.
Score
9
Yes, it’s not exactly an uplifting novel, but it’s one that feels true to life and that I very much enjoyed reading. Up there with the best.
Ranking to date:
The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) - 9.5
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (1981) - 9.5
Disgrace - J. M. Coetzee (1999) - 9.5
The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst (2004) - 9
Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively (1987) - 9
Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth (1992) - 9
Oscar & Lucinda - Peter Carey (1988) - 9
The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch (1978) - 9
Life & Times of Michael K. - J. M. Coetzee (1983) - 9
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy (1997) - 9
Schindler’s Ark - Thomas Keneally (1982) - 9
The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai (2006) - 9
Life of Pi - Yann Martel (2002) - 8.5
The Bone People - Keri Hulme (1985) - 8.5
How Late it Was, How Late - James Kelman (1994) - 8.5
Troubles - J.G. Farrell (1970, "Lost Booker") - 8.5
The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood (2000) - 8
Possession - A. S. Byatt (1990) - 8
Saville - David Storey (1976) - 8
The Sea - John Banville (2005) - 8
The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell (1973) - 8
Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre (2003) - 7.5
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje (1992) - 7.5
Rites of Passage - William Golding (1980) - 7.5
True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey (2001) - 7.5
Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) - 7.5
Last Orders - Graham Swift (1996) - 7
The Elected Member - Bernice Rubens (1970) - 7
The Conservationist - Nadine Gordimer (1974) - 7
Holiday - Stanley Middleton (1974) - 7
Heat & Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975) - 6.5
In a Free State* - V.S. Naipaul (1971) - 6.5
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha - Roddy Doyle (1993) - 6
G. - John Berger (1972) - 6
The Famished Road - Ben Okri (1991) - 6
Something to Answer For - P. H. Newby (1969) - 5.5
The Ghost Road** - Pat Barker (1995) - 5.5
Staying On - Paul Scott (1977) - 5
Amsterdam - Ian McEwan (1998) - 5
Hotel du Lac - Anita Brookner (1984) - 4.5
The Old Devils - Kingsley Amis (1986) - 4
*Read in later condensed edition.
**Third part of a trilogy of which I hadn’t read pts 1&2
Next up
From India to the Booker’s second favourite destination, Ireland, with Anne Enright’s The Gathering, another one about which I know very little.
