A Life Apart

Similarly to another book I have read recently, there are three stories interwoven into this novel and only the historical one about India at the time of Partition was the one I was really interested in. I don't know much about India or its history so this small part did frame some aspects for me. Others may find the descriptions of family life in Calcutta in the s interesting. The foreign gay scene in London in the s didn't really seem to fit for me. Sometimes shocking, sometimes illuminating, laced with wit and shot through with violence and sadness, it moves elegantly between two intertwined narratives.

Both are stories of migration, but in opposite directions. So, in the present day, Ritwik travels from India to England after the death of his parents, and takes up a scholarship to study English literature at Oxford. One evening he is picked up by a stranger; afterwards he returns to his college room and begins to write the story of Miss Gilby, an Englishwoman in India in the s, who takes up the position of English tutor to a married Indian woman, but finds that even with the best will in the world, communication can go awry and slip into confusion.

Without a work permit, Ritwik struggles to survive in London. Is it possible to remain in a place you have chosen, but which is frequently indifferent or, worse, openly hostile? In this novel, love and redemption always seem to be just out of reach. Jun 02, Maria rated it liked it. I liked the style of writing- distinct voices telling parallel stories of immigrant experiences. Both the character and plot parallels were clever and pointed and added a richness to the story. I did feel there were a lot of tangential characters and incidents that didn't evolve or add much - but overall I enjoyed the book - particularly the descriptions of expats in India during the beginning of the 20th century.

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Jan 22, Melissa rated it did not like it. Couldn't get interested, characters not very accessible and story moved way too slow. Past Continuous announced the debut of Neel Mukherjee as a novelist who was theretofore famous for his brilliant book reviews. If you haven't read his reviews yet, I strongly suggest you do. They're as good as reviews can get.

It won some minor literary prizes here and there but did not manage to catapult him into the kind of fame that he deserved and garnered later post his Booker nomination for The Lives of Others. This book carries two narratives - of an Indian student living in the 21st cen Past Continuous announced the debut of Neel Mukherjee as a novelist who was theretofore famous for his brilliant book reviews. This book carries two narratives - of an Indian student living in the 21st century UK and of an English woman living in India at the dawn of the 20th century.

It's bleak and brutal as you'd expect a Neel Mukherjee novel to be. But it doesn't succeed in its ambitions to the extent The Lives of Others managed to. The prose is delicious and Neel conjures phrases and metaphors like a wizard. The characters are well-defined and the themes are powerfully brought out. We are taken through a labyrinth of themes - Poverty, family, despair, escape, pointless addiction, lust, adventure, society, racism, xenophobia, etc.

Reading about the childhood of Ritwik made me realize how lucky I was in my own. Constantly starving due to poverty, he has nothing to eat for the most part of his childhood. As if the torture of scorching hunger wasn't enough, he has to face the mocking of his friends when his stomach rumbles during the school assembly and ashamed to admit his hunger, he resorts to several lies and is punished by his teachers for his mendacity. At home, he is viciously punished by his mother who jumps at the slightest of the chances to thrash him, beat him senselessly until he bleeds.

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At one point she actually grabs him and flings him across the room because he couldn't memorize a sentence from his textbook. Her anger is understandable but not condonable because of the pathetic state of her life - she is married to someone 33 years elder, she is brought up in abject poverty, her own childhood was egregious, her yr old husband gives up a proper apartment in a good neighborhood and she has to face the humiliation of returning back to her mother's home where her four useless, unemployed brothers constantly thrash their paralytic mother for money.

And she takes out all her anger at her son, and how he suffers! His life is human tragedy stretched to its extremity. Soon after the death of his parents, he is exhilarated when he is selected for an Oxford scholarship and is keen on beginning a new life in England leaving behind an apology of an existence. This is kind of a reverse We Need to talk about Kevin where the son is innocent but the mother's a psychopath. This is not the typical immigrant novel that looks back at homeland with nostalgia and sweet longing. Ritwik wants to escape Bengal, to never come back again and to sever all kinds of connections he might have with his native country.

He's prepared to risk anything to never face again the land of his nightmarish childhood. I've read several books about flagrant family lives but Neel Mukherjee's books stand apart in some way revealing the appalling hatred on which most Indian families miserably thrive.

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This book is said to be semi-autobiographical and Ritwik is said to be closely based on Neel himself. I sincerely pray and hope that his childhood was light years away from the horrifying perdition that was Ritwik's. The second storyline involves an unmarried Englishwoman living in the early s invited to edify Occidental etiquette to a progressive Zamindar's wife. Through her, we get a glimpse of Bengal just before it was partitioned hatefully by the British government. She is condescending towards Indians in her own way, but she is more committed towards the progress of the natives than most of her fellow countrymen.

Both the stories are narrated in alternative chapters; with Ritwik's story being the more interesting in the first part and the Englishwoman's story sustaining our interest while Ritwik's narrative flounders in the second. Towards the end, the book loses steam and anticlimaxes into a desultory, random, avoidable and infuriating end. I had both the versions and therefore compared every chapter between the books while reading. The UK version omits a few chapters pertaining to Ritwik's difficult childhood, but it has some additional chapters that explain certain things that are missing in the Indian edition.

For example, the Indian version never explains what happened to Ritwik's brother after he leaves for England. And expectantly, some lines that may offend English people are expurgated in the UK version.

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Despite the clumsy second part, this book deserves 4 stars. But Neel Mukherjee is capable of so much more, and hence the rather cruel 3 stars. Just another brick in the wall.. That Dostoievski so wanted to destroy.. Mar 01, Shannon rated it it was amazing Shelves: I was lucky enough to receive this through a Goodreads Giveaway. As a first novel, it certainly has its flaws, but, as a whole, it has enough heart, passion, and beauty to overcome them and make this an unexpectedly affecting reading experience.

First of all, the back-cover blurb which is also used as the summary here does a very poor job of selling the book, in my opinion. If it peaks your interest in the slightest, I would give the book a shot because it's honestly about a hundred t 4. If it peaks your interest in the slightest, I would give the book a shot because it's honestly about a hundred times better than the incredibly vague blurb would imply.

A Life Apart

A lot of the plot points were really unexpected, and the book ended up being something wholly different than I was initially anticipating. Its interest lies mainly in the character of Ritwik and his development over the course of the novel. Despite his enigmatic, reserved qualities, he quickly becomes a relatable and likable character. In some ways, he reminded me of a character like Jude from A Little Life ; their experiences aren't necessarily comparable, but they're both the kind of character you root for and want so badly to have a happy ending even though you know deep down there isn't one coming.

In that sense, it's a really difficult, upsetting book to read but also an important and emotionally-compelling one. There were only two things that majorly stood out to me as problems. First, I felt like the initial desperation behind Ritwik's choice to remain in London illegally could have been made clearer.

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As it was, I didn't fully understand why he chose this option since it didn't read as though he had thoroughly explored more legal means of staying in the country and realized them impossible. If more time had been spent on fleshing out his reasoning, I think this element could have made more sense. Second, the ending did seem quite rushed, particularly the sequence of events leading to the flash decision that culminated in Ritwik's ultimate fate.

It all happened within just a few pages, which made it feel less realistic and more like the book just needed to end that way. Still, these were small issues in the grand scheme of things and hindered my enjoyment and appreciation of the book very little. I enthusiastically recommend this to anyone who doesn't mind having their heart ripped out of their chest by a fictional character's experiences every now and then.

Aug 03, Shekha added it. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. Parrot and Olivier in America by Peter Carey. In one respect, Ritwik lands on his feet, finding lodgings in south London with a batty octogenarian landlady who is semi-continent and has gin bottles hidden around the house. Her life has been even more blighted by family tragedy than his, and the gauche friendship that develops between them is beautifully caught, the best thing in the book. But away from his lodgings, he finds himself on shakier ground. He thinks he is on to a good thing when one of his gay clients, Zafar, turns out to be fabulously wealthy, with a suite at the Dorchester.

But where does his money come from? Suddenly, tragically, the orphan from Calcutta is out of his depth. A Life Apart is an elegant and accomplished debut, a novel of many shades. It blends the poignancy of a coming-of-age story with the rawer excitements of an urban thriller laced with sex and violence. There is a large coincidence dropped into the novel when Ritwik's contact in the black economy turns out also to be employed by the creepy Zafar, who is paying Ritwik for sex, but the coincidence is effective, heightening the sense of Ritwik's world collapsing in on itself.

Mukherjee deftly interweaves the worlds of the arms trade, sex workers, fruit pickers and the Daily Mail, while also casting a light on the economic policies of the Raj, communal violence and the fragility of relationships conducted under the glare of history. But he never loses sight of his characters and their emotional upheaval. The growing tension is expertly handled; the ending unsurprising yet completely devastating.

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Kamila Shamsie's Burnt Shadows is published by Bloomsbury. Order by newest oldest recommendations. Show 25 25 50 All.



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