Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Originally posted at Book Rhapsody (December 9, 2011).

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Image from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

Intro

There’s something endearing about the title of this novel. It sounds like the ultimate request of someone who is deeply in love, which when not granted, would render the person incapable of going on.

This novel spurred a lot of attention by holding the reputation of being the most recently published book in Time Magazine’s list of 100 Best Novels. It’s exactly that reason it got me reeling. I thought that it should be The Remains of the Day instead, although I only read that after reading this. And the release of Never Let Me Go’s film adaptation only piqued my curiosity further.

I made it a point to read the book first before watching the film. I immediately bought a movie tie-in edition once it was out in the local book stores. Since I read it last year, a lot has already been said, both from the lovers and the haters. I even unofficially moderated a book talk regarding this, and I haven’t written anything about it yet.

So I guess now is the time.

The Rhapsody

My name is Kathy H. That’s the opening line. It’s not exactly something that you would find in the department of great opening lines. But really, there’s a sense of mystery in this simple introduction.

Why is her surname just that, a lone letter? If one does not have an idea on what the novel is about, the reader might think from that introductory sentence that the narrator is a porn star. But all suppositions are dropped as the narrator immediately tells us what she does and how old she is.

She’s a carer. Shouldn’t that be a caretaker, or a caregiver? What difference would it make anyway if she is either one of the two? And what is she caring for?

She’s caring donors. She’s in her thirties, I think. I imagine she’s 31, or maybe 28. I cannot remember, but wherever her age exactly falls between the two numbers, it’s still a relatively short time to live one’s life, even if one is only shooting for the fifties.

So she’s dying? Not yet, but that would be soon enough, especially if she does not do well on her first donation. So there’s a second donation then? Or even more? And why would she donate her organs if that would endanger her life?

Well, that’s the way it is, at least for her, and the likes of her. What is wrong? What is she anyway?

She’s a clone. The film adaptation hastily explains that in their world, the medical sciences have discovered a fool-proof method of cloning humans. Oh, so this novel is science fiction then.

It is, loosely, but a nonreader of science fiction does not even realize this. The scientific framework is almost stripped off the novel, so there’s no talk of the omniscient eyes of Big Brother in 1984 or the explanation on how those drugs work in Brave New World. I think that this in itself is a commendable feat.

Oh, it’s a dystopian novel then. It is. It’s yet another study of a society’s disintegration given a certain set of conditions. The world is cloning people so that people can use the clones’ young, healthy organs to extend their lives. Their human lives. Which explains why Kathy H is rummaging her life before she ends her career as a carer and start a new one as a donor. Could you even call those two as careers?

There’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I haven’t read it yet, but I think it’s about humans falling in love with clones. What reason would there be to read another novel about clones then if you have already read Dick’s novel? I daresay that this is not largely about clones. I think it’s more about people resigning to whatever is left to them. It’s about ceasing to struggle and accepting things as they are, and this could be the more sensible choice.

That somehow explains this notorious question: why didn’t those clones run away and live happily ever after? Security over them is not too tight, and they might have had a chance if they tried, right? Why this helplessness? Why this stupidity?

Final Notes

That question is also raised by book critics, putting it in such a way that made it look like the author overlooked a grand flaw in building a plot. I myself wanted the protagonists to escape, but in the end, I thought it would be a whole different thing if they did escape.  I might not even have liked the novel if that happened.

Ishiguro mentioned that he was not interested in the possibility of escaping and rebuilding lives. He was after exactly what he wrote, an exploration of a life doomed, growing up with all these insinuations that you are different, that you have to look for yourself and for your kind, being fed with all the subtleties that not any one of you can be a bus driver or an actor or whatever it is that you hope to be, realizing that you cannot lose a thing that never was yours, realizing still that you can hardly own what was never meant for you, and realizing further that whatever you lost cannot rush back to you in perfect condition on the shores.

That one may only have scraps for a life, and to want more will just break you apart. And to contain all these will surely wring the inner tumult out of your skin. And after that, a sense of disquiet. A wrangling mix of hope and despair. A stillness, disquiet still, and waiting, waiting.

Marie C. Reviews The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes

The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes. Published 2011 by Random House.

Winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize and latest novel by acclaimed British writer Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending is a must-read for any reader of literary fiction. The book tells the story, in his own words, of middle-aged Tony Webster and his lifetime of regret around his relationship with two people- Veronica, an ex-girlfriend, and Adrian, a close friend from school. Lifetime of regret isn't quite right; he doesn't find out until very late in his story that he has any reason to regret but when he does, it's as though the weight of all of his decisions crashes upon him and he's left to sort through the rubble alone.

The theme of the novel is laid out early, as a high-school-aged Adrian is talking to a teacher about how to write history fairly: "That's one of the central problems of history, isn't it, sir? The question of subjective versus objective interpretation, the fact that we need to know the history of the historian in order to understand the version that's being put in front of us." And herein lies the central challenge of this book. Tony is telling this story from the future, after the events have taken place; in the opening pages, as we're getting to know the characters, their futures, and Tony's, is hidden from us but not from the man telling the story. He knows things we don't yet, and these things color the way he tells the story. We can't understand anything he's saying until we know everything and we don't know everything until the very end.

Therefore, re-reading The Sense of an Ending is mandatory!

However the book is short enough, and more than wonderful enough, to make a reread easy and worthwhile. Soon after this point in the story, Tony meets Veronica, and their relationship forms the basis of the rest of the book. Even after their romance ends, they continue to interact in meaningful ways; one could say that Tony's relationship with Veronica is the central and defining one of his life, even as he tries to argue that other women were more important. That lie is one of many, maybe not lies exactly but self-deceptions Tony tries to sell the reader. The final secret is revealed obliquely, which tells us something about Tony's ability to process what he's learned and face it.

The Sense of an Ending is a wonderfully, intricately crafted unreliable-narrator story starring a perfectly ordinary man who, through one act of cruelty by whose impact he himself seems baffled, upends four lives for years to come. It's also the story of his reckoning and acceptance of what he's done as well as his ultimate irrelevance. And it is a book that deserves an immediate re-read. But you'll want to- you really will. It's just that good!

This counts towards the Complete Booker Perpetual Challenge.

Athena K's Review - Sacred Hunger

This is my first re-read in my Booker challenge, so I have to admit to already knowing I love this book.  I think this might have been my fourth time through, but having the focus of needing to write a blog post helped me enjoy the writing in a new and deeper way.

This is a novel about the triangle trade in the mid 1700s, and is it about the struggle between greed, profit, humanity, enslavement, liberation and civilization - some pretty heavy themes that I traditionally associate with American literature (though Unsworth is British).  So much about this book is exquisite:  the depth of the characters, the fluxuating narration style, the the vivid metaphor and rich language, and the incredibly moving story.  The juxtaposition of Erasmus and Paris was a perfect tool in playing out the contradictions and moral pitfalls of the various aspects of the slave trade.  And even though there are probably a hundred named characters in the novel, each character, no matter how minor, came across as a complete and real person, with a purpose in the narrative.

One of the aspects of the writing that really struck me this time around was the prevalence of metaphors related to slavery, and the various ways in which people and even objects can be shackled, caged, and enslaved - including and especially the drive for profits, the Sacred Hunger of the title: 

It is always through arbitrary combinations that experience enslaves the memory.  New shackles were being forged here, in the light-filled loft, amid smells of oil canvas and raw hemp and tar, the creeping fringes of the sail-cloth, his feelings for Sarah Wolpert and for his father.

I first read this for part of an interdisciplinary college course called "Slavery and Labor in Film and Literature" - and it was by far the best part of that class.  It is still one of my favorite of all of the Bookers I have read - and I couldn't recommend it more highly.

Rose City Reader's Review: Sacred Hunger, 1992 Winner

Barry Unsworth won the 1992 Booker Prize for Sacred Hunger, his incredible novel about independence, madness, duty, dominance, justice, suicide, loyalty, greed, hope, commerce, power, family, culture, desire, violence, education, marriage, politics, philosophy, self-doubt, government, fatherhood, adventure, friendship, and pride.

And slavery. Specifically, British slave trade in the 1700s. William Kemp stakes his failing fortunes on a slave ship to ply the "Triangle Trade" of selling English manufactured goods to African slavers, slaves to Jamaican sugar plantations, and sugar to England. He installs his nephew, Matthew Paris, a heretical and bereaved scientist seeking to escape his tragic past, as the ship's physician.

When things go horribly wrong with Kemp's plan, his son Erasmus vows to restore the family fortunes and good name, culminating in his obsessive journey to the swamps of colonial Florida to find a rumored Utopian society of ex-slaves and sailors, governed, he fears, by his hated cousin.

Whew! There is a lot going on in the 600+ pages of this gorgeous and horrible and wonderful story. To say that Sacred Hunger is engrossing barely touches the surface. True, Unsworth's main characters live in their heads more than their hearts – little is shown about their emotions beyond anger or pride. Instead, Unsworth focuses on the doubts and hopes that drive William, Erasmus, and Matthew, explaining that "doubt is the ally of hope, not its enemy, and together they made all the blessing" these men had in their tragic lives.

Sacred Hunger is a book that will keep any reader thinking for a long time after the amazing plot concludes.

(Review also posted on Rose City Reader.)

Laura's Review - Good Behaviour

For certain families, keeping up appearances in public is of prime importance. The St Charles family is one of these. Daughter Aroon, now the ungainly, unmarried daughter, looks back on her childhood at Temple Alice and how expectations of "good behaviour" ultimately brought unhappiness and even tragedy. Aroon and her brother Hubert grew up in the care of a cool and distant mother and a philandering father. Mummie preferred to look the other way, rather than confront Papa's infidelity. Papa loved his children on one level, but preferred riding, fox-hunting, and women to life at home. When Papa is wounded in the war, his convalescence provides Aroon and Hurbert an unexpected opportunity to enjoy a new level intimacy with their father. Mummie remains aloof, and can't hold back a sadistic glow when she realizes her husband is unable to ride.

As Aroon grows into a young woman, she sets her sights on Hubert's best friend Richard. She wildly misinterprets his behavior towards her, and convinces herself they are lovers. She fails to see what's obvious to the reader: Richard and Hubert are much more than friends. When Richard suddenly goes off to Africa, Aroon continues her delusion, sure he will return for her one day. When a letter finally arrives, she is at first disappointed -- until she finds a way to infuse each paragraph with hidden meaning.

Inevitably, the family's fortunes change. They have lived way beyond their means, with a bad habit of stuffing every bill into a drawer. Their solicitor knows the score and tries to help, but Mummie and Papa are compelled to maintain the illusion of wealth and society, so their irresponsible spending continues unchecked. Even in the most intense and private situations, good behaviour rules:

When the last speechless hand-grip was completed, Papa, Mummie, and I were left in the hall, with empty glasses and the empty plates; funerals are hungry work. We exchanged cool, warning looks -- which of us could behave best: which of us could be least embarrassing to the others, the most ordinary in a choice of occupation? (p. 113)

Good Behaviour landed Molly Keane firmly on my favorite authors list. Her characterizations are classic examples of an author showing, not telling. At an early age Richard is "caught" reading poetry in a treehouse. Richard and Hubert go to great lengths to be together alone. Slowly, the reader comes to realize they are gay. It's brilliantly done. She conveys emotion with similar skill. When Aroon goes to a party alone and finds she's been paired with an older, misfit of a man, her pain is palpable. And yet there are also moments of delightful wit, such as Mummie's visit with neighbors, when she finds the primary bathroom already in use. Her host directs her:

'You'll have to try the downstairs. I'll just turn out the cats. They love it on a wet day.' I could imagine them there, crouched between the loo and the croquet mallets and the Wellington boots and the weed killer. (p. 157)

My Virago Modern Classics collection includes several more books by Molly Keane (who also wrote under the pseudonym M.J. Farrell). I can't wait to discover more of her talent.



Cross-posted from my blog

Athena K's review - Bitter Fruit

Set in post-apartheid South Africa, the Ali family's broken relationships are on display in this miserable little novel.  The Bitter Fruit of the title is embodied in Silas Ali's warm beer of escape, white Kate and Julian's experience in the newborn democracy in which they are no longer wanted, and, most especially, Lydia Ali's son Mikey, born after her rape over 19 years ago.

Achmat Dangor's expression of all of this bitterness is in the various troubled sexual activities, encounters and desires of his cast of characters.  They include the violence of rape, the apathy of unwanted marital sex, inappropriate seduction between age groups, infidelity, homosexuality (female and male), and incestuous urges and actions of all kinds: father/daughter, mother/son and nephew/aunt.  After a while, these sexual encounters lost their shock value - and did not appear to have any other important value.  This theme seemed like a badly-contrived plot device in lieu of an actual story or compelling characters, and I was over it long before it was over.

Other themes that I might have found interesting emerged late in the story, including the amorphous definition of race and the plurality of religion possible within a single family in modern South Africa.  Perhaps because I was not a native reader I had a hard time figuring out each character's racial identity - and I couldn't determine whether this was because of my ignorance in picking up on cues particular to the country, or whether it was intentional on behalf of Achmat Dangor.  Religions seemed a bit more obvious, and the way each character is liberated and  also confined by his or her religious upbringing was teased out nicely. However, it wasn't enough in the end to encourage me to care about the characters at the climax of the action, or to care about the unresolved pieces.

Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

Originally posted at Book Rhapsody (September 30, 2011).

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Image from http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

Intro

I got this at regular price back in college. I bought it even if I found the cover unappealing: a stray dog on a barren dirt road. I am not into judging books by their covers, but nice covers sometimes help. It’s hard not to be drawn to a book with a sleek cover design.

Oh yes, this novel is a Booker winner. The author is a Nobel laureate. The author is among the top authors who have the most number of books in that 1001 list. With all these, expectations are raised notches higher.

And yes, Disgrace is agreed to be his best work. How did his best work fit into my reading taste?

The Rhapsody

Disgrace lives up to its title: it is a disgrace to the author’s supposed reputation. That’s straight enough, I think, but really, I am in no mood to talk about this book because I remember nothing good about it.

Some things first. This is the only novel of Coetzee that I have read. I think it will be the last one as well. No doubt, he writes beautiful sentences. It’s just that I don’t like him. His words fail to captivate my attention.

Actually, Coetzee’s concern for animals is endearing. I think this is one of his major causes. He even integrated this in his novel. You see, it’s not only the book cover that has a dog in it. The other half of it is teeming with dogs.

Which is not to say that I don’t like dogs. Okay, so let’s talk about the novel itself. Disgrace is about this professor who carelessly goes into an affair with a student. The object of the liaison comes from a rather influential family, so our disgraced professor is chucked out from the university.

He then lives with his estranged daughter in a rural backdrop, and the two are disgraced again. How? The unattractive and tomboyish daughter is raped and his father, our protagonist, could not do anything about it.

Then silence. And then the dogs. The father starts looking after the dogs in the dog pound. Or is it a dog clinic? And I don’t recall how it ended. I don’t even care.

You see, I cannot find anything to attach myself with this supposedly grand novel. I think something is wrong. I think I just didn’t get it. So when I checked for the novel’s reception, it’s supposed to portray the modern South Africa. Nice, but I don’t even know what South Africa was before. I have an idea what apartheid is, but really, that is just some strange, distant thing if you are in a country where there is only one color.

I think this book explores the problems of communication between father and daughter. Yes, they found themselves in the most unfortunate situation. But isn’t communicating your thoughts and feelings always a good starting point to come up with a resolution? Yes, the daughter was raped. Yes, the father was helplessly assaulted. Do I smell crushed egos getting in the way? Pride as well?

Why is it so hard to swallow something so tasteless?

Final Notes

Oh, I remember just now that I can still give Coetzee another chance. I have yet to find a copy of his other famous work, Life and Times of Michael K. I hope that one would redeem the author from the slight disappointment that I had with Disgrace.

Or maybe I could just lower my expectations even just a bit? I can’t really help it though, especially in the case of Nobel laureates.

The Nobel Prize for Literature is the ultimate award that a writer can get his hands on. But yes, this prize is also one of the most controversial. The winners are almost always unknown in a worldwide scale. There have been accusations that the prize favors European writers, but what the hey, the Nobel remains as it is: a prestigious award. It adds a sense of importance to the person whom the award is given to, and we could not really do much about it except trust that the people behind the Nobel are doing a brilliant job.

Tony Messenger - 1970 Shortlist - Eva Trout - Elizabeth Bowen

Do any of you enjoy tackling “The Times” crossword? If not surely you know of it? The crossword where “Player getting six, duck, then fifty batting is a test opener” equals “Violinist”( Six = VI. Duck = O. Fifty = L. Batting = IN. Is = IS. Test opener = T. You are meant to think this is about cricket and the misdirection is compounded by the fact that both the start ('player') and end of the clue ('test opener') appear to refer to the game). And the crossword is made up of 32 odd clues, all just sitting there in front of you and you have not a sniff of how to decipher it.

Got the mental idea? The picture? Well translate that into 300 or so pages of sold text and you’ll be part of the way there to understanding conceptually at least, or even “enjoying” Eva Trout by Elizabeth Bowen. In all honesty I can safely say, that to date, I have not come across a more challenging book from the Booker list (of the ones I’ve managed to finish that is – some have been too tiresome to even pursue to the end).

Our “story” is that of early 20’s Eva Trout, living with one of her ex-teachers, Iseult, and her husband, Eric, and “working” with the local clergyman’s family, the Dancey’s. Eva is about to come into a significant inheritance and her Trustee, Constance, as well as her guardians are concerned by her mental state. The novel opens with Eva taking the clergy children on an outing to the castle where she spent sometime in boarding school, only for her to exclaim that this was to be the venue of her honeymoon.

The book is split into two equal parts (both at 151 pages in my edition) set eight years apart. The second half, simply called “Eight Years Later”, Eva’s ruminates about the time we discovered in “Genesis”, the first part.

We have characters like the albino Elsinore, who nearly drowns in a lake, references to Dickens (Iseult and Eva visit Bleak House) and hundreds of concurrent threads or red herrings:

Horrible sea storms used to beat about. Seven miles out lay the Goodwin Sands. (Yes the Goodwin Sands.) Weeks after a cattle ship came to grief, bloated animal carcases, many of them burst open by putrefaction, “tumbled and beaten out of shape, and yet with a horrible sort of humanity about them,” continued to be washed up on to Viking Bay. Flaubert, reflected Iseult, would have been interested. Henry James, less so. What now one came to think of it, had James, that Dickens really had not? Or if he had, what did it amount to?

Throw into the mix hundreds of words no longer used in common day language and you need a copy of the Oxford Dictionary bedside just to figure out what on earth Elizabeth Bowen is talking about. Has anybody come across “cabalistic” and “verdigris” on the same page before? How about mullions and embrasures in the same sentence? Throw into the mix different voices or views for each chapter, using narratives, diaries or letters to oneself?

Time, now? Midnight, exactly midnight. The Equator. Tomorrow’s today. We dawn on a better word, like a Chekhov ending. Dope. This could be the moment for me to go. This is a moment handed me on a plate. Yes, but the car’s gone to the sea. No car: no matter, because I am not going. No intention of going. Here I stay, ils ne passeront pas. I married, this is my marriage. This is my crime, I intend living it out. I can’t turn back, the path has grown behind me. What was I once?--- who cares. What can I never be again? Intact.

Back to the crossword theme, I used to have a bit of a rush when I could work out one or two clues, but never knew the feeling of fully figuring out a whole puzzle. But I do know there are people who can decipher them every single day – just the same as there would be people who could give me 500 reasons to revisit this book.

As Elizabeth Bowen says late in the piece “Life is an anti-novel”.

I’m sure there will be numerous high brow literature types out there who will poo-poo my struggles with an icon of the literary world, but I’m not too proud to admit I’ve never finished Joyce’s Ulysses and know I never will. And this novel, although obviously rich in subtext, themes, existentialism et al read too much like a text one would tackle for a thesis for me to thoroughly enjoy. Nowadays, I’ve slipped into the 21^st century lazy culture and need to be transported, not feel like I’m back in a University. I suppose that it’s a pity books like this aren’t written anymore, but then again I’m pretty sure the market for them would be small!!!

Cross posted at my blog.

Thanks to h2g2.com for the “How to solve the Times crossword” article where I lifted the example.

Laura's Review - In the Country of Men

That visit has remained with me ever since. Whenever I am faced with someone who holds the strings of my fate – an immigration officer, a professor – I can feel the distant reverberations from that day, my inauguration into the dark art of submission. Perhaps this is why I often find a shameful pleasure in submitting to authority. … And this is also why, when I finally think I have gained the pleasure of authority, a sense of self-loathing rises to clasp me by the throat. I have always been able to imagine being unjustifiably hated. (p. 159)

When his father disappears one day in 1979, nine-year-old Suleiman’s life is forever changed. Just a short time before, the same thing happened to his best friend Kareem’s father. Instead of spending long happy summer days playing with neighborhood boys, Suleiman tries to make sense of his world. He acts out his emotions and uncertainty, turning on Kareem instead of offering support.

Under the Qaddafi regime, Libya had become a place where dissent was dangerous. Counter-revolutionaries were rounded up for interrogation; some never returned. Suleiman’s mother Najwa tells him Baba is on a business trip, and consoles herself with “medicine” (alcohol, obtained illegally). She has her own demons, having been forced by her family to marry when she was just 14. To protect Baba from investigators, Najwa and a family friend Moosa burn his books and papers. But Suleiman nearly gets caught in the web when a strange man begins asking him questions about Baba and his associates. In one of the more horrifying scenes Suleiman, Najwa, and Moosa watch a public execution on television. At the end, the TV broadcast returned to images of flowers and nationalistic music. And life went on.

Suleiman grew into a man, but one with emotional scars that would never heal. Hisham Matar writes convincingly, and from direct experience: his own father disappeared many years ago, and to this day Matar doesn’t know what happened to him. When he describes the televised execution’s impact on Suleiman, you know he’s also talking about himself:

Something was absent in the stadium, something that could no longer be relied on. Apart from making me lose trust in the assumption that “good things happen to good people,” the televised execution … would leave another, more lasting impression on me, one that has survived well into my manhood, a kind of quiet panic, as if at any moment the rug could be pulled from beneath my feet. … I had no illusions that I or Baba or Mama were immune from being burned by the madness that overtook the National Basketball Stadium. (p. 198)

This book started slowly and quietly, but the tension steadily grew. I was drawn into the family's story, and felt quite emotional reading about how the events of 1979 affected Suleiman for the rest of his life. This is a very powerful book deserving of its 2006 Booker Prize nomination.




Cross-posted from my blog

J.G.'s Review - Midnight's Children

Sadly, not my cup of tea. This unruly, exuberant, at times fantastic (in the magical realism sense) novel was just too too much for my taste. I won't dispute that it's probably my own darn fault that I didn't get it; I don't know nearly enough about India's religions, culture, and politics. But it blunted my enjoyment to feel almost the entire time that I was missing various pieces of information that would have allowed me to understand it much better.

Rushdie's narrator, Saleem Sinai, tells his family's story, both to the listening ear of a fictional female companion who is both caretaker and fiancee, and in the guise of writing the book itself. This framing device lends some structure to what is otherwise a sprawling multi-generational tale. How sprawling is it? Wikipedia lists 89 characters for its 533 pages.

Saleem's tale is filled with fanciful details, such as a couple who live happily in a basement, accessed through a hole in the floor concealed by a carpet; his enormous nose and enhanced sense of smell that allows him to smell emotions; a sister who sets fire to shoes; prophesies, supernatural powers, switched babies and renamings; and his murderous arch-enemy Shiva who kills by squeezing victims with his knees. All this against the political and social backdrop of India's birth to independence from colonial rule. It's a story as detailed and intricate as any embroidered sari.

Still, this novel missed the mark with me (and perhaps the target is somewhat to blame). I had trouble connecting the dots, I like my literature more neatly organized, and I kept thinking of J.R.R. Tolkien, who said, "I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence."

I'm sure many adore it -- after all, it won both the Man Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Prize (it's my double winner for the Battle of the Prizes: British Version), and was voted Best of the Bookers. I won't dispute that it probably deserves adoration. All I'm saying is that it just didn't happen for me.

Excerpt:

She had spent the morning alone with giggling Zohra and the echoes of the name Ravana, not knowing what was happening out there at the industrial estate, letting her mind linger upon the way the whole world seemed to be going mad; and when the screaming started and Zohra--before she could be stopped--joined in, something hardened inside her, some realization that she was her father's daughter, some ghost-memory of Nadir Khan hiding from crescent knives in a cornfield, some irritation of her nasal passages, and she went downstairs to the rescue, although Zohra screeched, "What are you doing, sisterji, that mad beast, for God, don't let him in here, have your brains gone raw?" . . . My mother opened the door and Lifafa Das fell in.

Note: this review is also posted on my blog, Hotchpot Cafe, along with reviews of various other Booker and non-Booker books.