Tämä sivusto käyttää evästeitä palvelujen toimittamiseen, toiminnan parantamiseen, analytiikkaan ja (jos et ole kirjautunut sisään) mainostamiseen. Käyttämällä LibraryThingiä ilmaiset, että olet lukenut ja ymmärtänyt käyttöehdot ja yksityisyydensuojakäytännöt. Sivujen ja palveluiden käytön tulee olla näiden ehtojen ja käytäntöjen mukaista.
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 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.… (lisätietoja)
Anonyymi käyttäjä: I happened to be reading this YA title simultaneously, and was surprised/pleased to find that the two books went together quite well. Similarly charismatic narrator and several of the same themes.
teunduynstee: Both novels show how well intentioned, hard working people do not stand a chance against the system of poverty, discrimination, prejudice, etc...
BookshelfMonstrosity: These evocative novels discuss the social inequities and corruption endemic to modern India. Their complex characters and strong sense of place provide thought-provoking ways to understand the current state of the subcontinent, even as they tell about individual lives.… (lisätietoja)
I've actually been trying _not_ to read recently as I've had so many other things on and I didn't want to get drawn in as often happens. A sad state of affairs. Anyway, I received this for my birthday and so thought I would treat myself.
It's a really compelling book, with a great, complex charactor in Balram Halwai. It's an unusually - and refreshingly - excoriating attack on the corruption and, most of all, the massive class divides within modern India. It's a quite deliberate antitdote against the growing hype surrounding the nascent super-economy - and Adiga is not sugaring the pill. It was somewhat reminiscent of Vernon God Little - hugely enjoyable, with its likeable and down-trodden but unreliable narrator, who succeeds in drawing you into a well realised world view; but The White Tiger has a far more biting political edge, and delivers much more on its ambitions, than its fellow Booker winner.
The only real disappointment was that it didn't really address the culture of entrepeneurship in India, nor the emerging tech sector in Bangalore. They are promoted as central to the book from the very beginning, but it actually focuses much more on the huge cultural gaps and clashes between the very poor and the extremely rich, only touching on those themes in the last stages. Maybe, hoepfully, Adiga will turn the spotlight in that direction in his future work. ( )
The story is well written, but I often wondered whether it was a story at all. Did it even belong in the fiction category?
The author is writing several long essays about the problems in India. He is then putting an extremely thin wrapper around it to call it a "story", by writing his essay in the guise of a letter to the Chinese premier.
I could cherry pick perhaps half of the book, give it to you, and you would think you're reading non-fiction.
I didn't rate it low as it is well written. I never got bored. As an essay (or a collection of essays), it is quite good. But as a story, it is very weak. ( )
I’m giving this one a strong three stars. While it was really well-written and somewhat literary, I had a hard time overlooking the fact that the whole thing is glorifying murder and the mistreatment of women.
I enjoyed the glimpse of Indian culture and the way Adiga used landscapes to move the narrative along – but I hated that Balram’s stepping stones were women and fellow servants.
In all – I would recommend giving this one a read. It’s a quick one, and entertaining – and if you find bits of it to be extremely problematic, then you have an opportunity to engage in some meaningful dialogue about why. ( )
A good enough though familiar premise, class conflict as played out in the story of a once poor servant who eventually becomes a wealthy employer, but weighed down by boring writing.
My partner really enjoyed it and recommended it highly, but I'm having a hard time getting into it. ( )
This winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize was a real surprise for me. I understand that this book was Aravind Adiga's first book, and it is a masterpiece in the satire genre. It's fresh, hilarious and very different, with one of the most likeable narrators you'll ever meet--Balram Halwai introduces himself in his letters to the Prime Minister of China, Wen Jiabao, as an entrepreneur and then proceeds to tell him of his rise from a poor boy in a very poor village in northern India, and how he made his rise to be a gentleman of substance in Bangalore. We never hear about Mr. Jiabao's reaction to these letters, or if he even received them, but we do learn all about Balram's remarkable life. Balram spares no punches as he describes the grubby and corrupt underground of his country, and the depravities that people of power partake in. He also doesn't shy away from explaining how he, a poor Indian boy from a small village, made it to the big time in Bangalore, and how he stopped at nothing to get there. The main force that drove him was that he did not want to be a servant all his life. The narrative is outlandish, irreverent and unsparing in his descriptions of the injustices that he observes and endures. But it also heartwarming and endearing as we see all sides of Balram. It certainly describes a lot about India and its politics and religions. And illustrates how a quest for power can change a human being. The language and the satire are exquisite in this book. A brilliant tour-de-force. ( )
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
For Ramin Bahrani
Ensimmäiset sanat
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
Mr. Premier, Sir. Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.
Sitaatit
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
“The jails of Delhi are full of drivers who are there behind bars because they are taking the blame for their good, solid middle-class masters. We have left the villages but the masters still own us, bodies, souls, and arse. Yes, that’s right: we all live in one of the world’s greatest democracies. What a fucking joke.”
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 sharp pen.
The book of your revolution sits in the pit of your belly, young Indian. Crap it out, and read
Viimeiset sanat
Tiedot englanninkielisestä Yhteisestä tiedosta.Muokkaa kotoistaaksesi se omalle kielellesi.
I think I am ready to have children, Mr. Premier. Ha! Your forever, Ashok Sharma The White Tiger Of Bangalore boss@whitetiger-technologydrivers.com
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 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.
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Google Books — Ladataan...
(3.79)
5
It's a really compelling book, with a great, complex charactor in Balram Halwai. It's an unusually - and refreshingly - excoriating attack on the corruption and, most of all, the massive class divides within modern India. It's a quite deliberate antitdote against the growing hype surrounding the nascent super-economy - and Adiga is not sugaring the pill. It was somewhat reminiscent of Vernon God Little - hugely enjoyable, with its likeable and down-trodden but unreliable narrator, who succeeds in drawing you into a well realised world view; but The White Tiger has a far more biting political edge, and delivers much more on its ambitions, than its fellow Booker winner.
The only real disappointment was that it didn't really address the culture of entrepeneurship in India, nor the emerging tech sector in Bangalore. They are promoted as central to the book from the very beginning, but it actually focuses much more on the huge cultural gaps and clashes between the very poor and the extremely rich, only touching on those themes in the last stages. Maybe, hoepfully, Adiga will turn the spotlight in that direction in his future work.
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