Karen's review - 2008 winner The White Tiger

There are some books that begin with a definite punch even if they are not always of the Hitchcock idea of a brick-through-the-window start to films. In White Tiger the punch isn't delivered by an event but through a narrator's voice that is so direct and immediate, that it demands attention.

We don't know who this narrator is yet other than he calls himself 'the White Tiger'  and classes himself as one of India's successful entreprenneurs. But he clearly  thinks he's important enough to write  letters to the Premier of China advising him what to expect when he pays a State visit to Bangalore. His letters are filled with scornful comments about the reality of life in India - a side to the country he believes the Premier will never see. For this narrator not only considers himself a great man just as much as the premier is, but the only person the Premier can trust to tell the truth. India's most sacred river, the Ganges, is one of the myths he smashes.

One fact about India is that you can take almost anything you hear about the country from the prime minister and turn it upside down and then you will have the truth about that thing. Now you have heard the Ganga called the river of emancipation ......our prime minister will no doubt describe it to you that way and urge you to take a dip in it. 

No! - Mr Jiaboa, I urge you not to dip in the Ganga, unless you want your mouth full of faeces, straw, soggy parts of human bodies, buffalo carrion and seven different kinds of industrial acids.

Gradually, we learn that this vocal critique of his mother country is Balram Halwai, son of a rickshaw wallah born in The Darkness, the poorest and most deprived part of India. Halwai gets an escape route into the other India, the India of Lightness, when he manages to get a job as a driver for Mr Ashok, the son of a wealthy landlord.

Through this outspoken, murderous protagonist, Aravind Adiga shows us the underbelly of India and the reality of its powerhouse economy of the early 21st century. Pouting models from the west may adorn the facades of new gleaming glass shopping malls but around the corner, are the slums where people live under meagre tarpaulin roofs. Through Balram's eyes we learn of the servant class of Delhi who live in rotting basements below the glass apartment blocks that are home to their employers. He tells how Ashok's family bribe government ministers, and how national elections are rigged.

Balram realises that people like him are trapped by the situation of their birth and the chains of family, unable to break out of the 'Rooster Coop' even when they know they will die if they don't:

On the wooden desk above this coop sits a grinning young butcher, showing off the flesh and organs of a recently chopped-up chicken, still oleaginous with a coating of dark blood.  The roosters in the coop smell the blood from above.  They see the organs of their brothers lying around them.  They know they're next.  Yet they do not rebel.  They do not try to get out of the coop."

Balram realises he has to take destiny in his own hands.  His employer is liberal and freely expresses his guilt at his driver's treatment but when his fine words never come to anything, Balram decides to kill him, steal his money and then go on the run.

The murder isn't a surprise however because within 12 pages of the book, Balram has told us he is a wanted man so the momentum for the plot doesn't turn on that surprise or even whether he will be tracked down by police and punished. The momentum really comes from the force with which Adiga's protagonist tells his story and pricks the bubble of India's status as a world power.  Hardly surprising that this debut novel, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2008,  was not well received in India. The Hindu, one of the country's leading English language newspapers, said it was a ' curiously inauthentic' portrait of the country written by an outsider for outsiders -  an “India for Dummies.”

Maybe no-one likes the country of their birth and the country they are proud of, to be held up for scrutiny in this way so those reactions are understandable. More of an issue for me was that the book seemed to lose its way in the final stages, about the time when Balram commits the murder - we already know it's coming so it had the sense of inevitability. Having told us how the killing is executed Adiga seemed to be in a great hurry to get to the last page as if he'd had enough of this character. So it felt a rushed and somewhat predictable ending which was such a shame for a book I'd thoroughly enjoyed up until then.

Introducing Kate

Hello, friends.

I'm pleased to be included in The Complete Booker. I've been steadily reading through Booker winners and nominees for a few years and am glad to be able to share thoughts and reviews with others. As a current full-time graduate student in archaeology, I'm also grateful to Laura for having and maintaining this site for all of us to use!

I am an avid reader across many genres (though I tend to dislike postcolonial fiction) and my reviews range from longer, ponderous pieces to short, casual "thoughts on" posts. Outside of my dissertation research I also enjoy hiking, travelling, good coffee, interesting art, museums, dancing, and I'm taking up knitting again after many years away. I am an expat American living and teaching in a small English town, and relishing the cultural difference.

I won't bore you all with reposting all of my previous Booker posts from my blog, What Kate's Reading, but will link for you to peruse as you choose:

• Mister Pip
• The White Tiger
• The Old Devils
• In a Free State (which is less of a review than a critique of the author's recent statements about women authors)
• Netherland
• A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
• Master Georgie
• The Sisters Brothers
• Never Let Me Go
• Notes on a Scandal
• Atonement
• On Beauty
• Restoration

Wow, I'm actually suddenly rather impressed with myself. (Please note that there were too many characters to label all of these as needed - sorry!)

For my reading here on out I'll either post a current link to my blog or the full review itself. Does anyone have any opinion on that? I don't have any Bookers in the to be read pile as yet, but as my reading is highly dependent on my local library, I have no doubt one will come up soon enough.

Thanks again, and I look forward to being a part of this site.

Athena K's Review - The White Tiger

This weekend I finished The White Tiger.  I found this to be an engaging and interesting read, but it took me a little bit of contemplation to decide whether this novel seemed worthy of a Man Booker Prize.  However, I found myself recommending the book to others before completely sorting out my feelings about it, so that strongly indicates that I enjoyed it.

The most compelling aspect of this story, about an Indian boy (Balram) who grows up in poverty and claws his way out, is the contemplation of what it means to be free versus what it means to be trapped.  Balram discusses freedom frequently in this novel, and believes himself to be a free person after making the life-altering decision to murder his employer.  This is a story of the many ways a person can be trapped or free, and what sacrifices and humiliations a person can endure to move from caged to free.

Adiga, through Balram, describes dilemma of the caged/free dichotomy most clearly though use of the metaphor of the "Rooster Coop" - a pile of cages in which chickens and roosters are packed waiting for slaughter:

"On the wooden desk above this coop sits a grinning young butcher, showing off the flesh and organs of a recently chopped-up chicken, still oleaginous with a coating of dark blood.  The roosters in the coop smell the blood from above.  They see the organs of their brothers lying around them.  They know they're next.  Yet they do not rebel.  They do not try to get out of the coop." 

Balram and other impoverished low-caste Indians are stuck in the coop not because of a physical cage, but through bonds of family, duty, and dignity.  In order to break out of his cage, he must sacrifice these bonds - through violating his sense of duty to his employer, sacrificing the health and lives of his entire extended family (who serve as a hostage against his loyalty to his employer), and his own sense of fairness and dignity in murdering his employer who has never directly harmed him and has, for the most part, treated him with more care and respect than any other person he knows.  Balram's choices do not sit easily with me (and they seem very difficult for him), but I struggle to condemn him.  This moral ambiguity, the impossibility of justice in Balram's India is what has stuck with me from this novel.

Homeless' Review-The White Tiger, by Arvinda Adiga (2008 Winner)

By and large "The White Tiger," is an engaging novel about a young man trying to make his way in the world. The book is based around the journey of Balram, a young Indian who wishes to exceed the social boundaries of the caste system and gain a higher status than the other members of his village. As the novel progresses we are made aware that financial reward comes at a price and we are posed questions about the cost of rapid industrialisation in India.

Adiga may not always write in perfect prose and at times his narrative lacks coherence but his writing pervades a genuine warmth and is frequently amusing. Balram's exchanges with his pen pal the Chinese Prime Minister are especially amusing, quips about yoga and how he does not know how he "would cope in this fucking business without it," are particularly funny.

Although generally well written the plot falls down wherein Balram becomes gradually more selfish even at the expense of his family. This selfishness coupled with his erratic behaviour toward his master makes him unlikeable in parts, even when subservient to his family and his master we are made aware he is only doing this for his own gain, further distancing him from the reader. Additionally Balram frequently preaches the importance of education but he often displays blatant ignorance, such as when proclaiming the names of the four greatest poets to ever live but only being able to remember three of their names. Balram also shows racial tendencies constantly reminding the reader of how he respects the poets as they have excelled themselves above "normal," Muslims. Character traits such as these do not make him appear complex, rather they show him to be shallow and conceited. The book is presented through Balram writing a letter to the Chinese government and the parallels between both nations rise to modern global powers and the marginalisation of the rural lower classes is conveyed effectively, whilst educating the reader on a subject they may be unfamiliar with.

In general this book is entertaining, if only on a superficial level. The story of a poor boy's journey to becoming a rich man has been told thousands of times, where "The White Tiger," succeeds is making this story appear fresh and interesting. A more likeable protagonist would move this from being a good novel into a great one.

The original post can be found at:
http://intertextuals.blogspot.com/

Becky's Review - The White Tiger

Apparently there was a lot of hue and cry when this won the Man Booker Prize in 2008. Critics thought the author, Aravind Adiga, was too young, that the book was too rough, not polished enough. Stuart Jeffries, writing in the Guardian, wonders where Adiga “gets the nerve” to write a novel about the experiences of the Indian poor when he (Adiga) is a child of the Indian privileged class. To this question Adiga responds “I don't think a novelist should just write about his own experiences. Yes, I am the son of a doctor, yes, I had a rigorous formal education, but for me the challenge of a novelist is to write about people who aren't anything like me." I actually think it was kind of insulting for Jeffries to ask this at all; good writers take on other voices all the time.

And Adiga does it effectively. I really liked The White Tiger, which tells the tale of Balram Halwai, a rickshaw puller’s son who, against all odds, pulls himself up by his bootstraps (and commits murder along the way) to get established in the “new India.” The whole book is in the form of a series of letters from Balram to the visiting Chinese premier, and it’s a great device for mixing trenchant observation and humor. Balram lays it all out: the poverty, the abuse at the hands of unscrupulous employers, the corruption of the Indian democracy, the complete lack of health care and education for the laboring classes. It’s like he’s pulled back a curtain on the current image of India as a hotbed of innovation to reveal the ancient sick society underneath. Yet Balram’s optimism, creativity, and verve carry us along.

The white tiger (also known as the Bengal tiger) has long been a symbol of the old India. In this book it is Balram himself who is the white tiger, a rare creature, intelligent, strong, and resourceful.

Read more of my blog posts at A Book a Week.

Laura's Review - The White Tiger

The White Tiger
Aravind Adiga
276 pages

See, this country, in its days of greatness, when it was the richest nation on earth, was like a zoo. A clean, well kept, orderly zoo. Everyone in his place, everyone happy. ... And then, thanks to all those politicians in Delhi, on the fifteenth of August, 1947 -- the day the British left -- the cages had been left open; and the animals had attacked and ripped each other apart and jungle law replaced zoo law. Those that were the most ferocious, the hungriest, had eaten everyone else up, and grown big bellies. (p. 53-54)

Balram Halwai lives in "the jungle" that is 21st century India. The book is organized as a lengthy letter from Balram to China's Premier, shortly before the Premier's visit to Bangalore. In the letter, written over several days, Balram describes how he left his rural village to work as a driver for the son of the village's wealthiest man. He landed this position completely by luck, and used it to rise up in Indian servant society, and eventually become an entrepreneur.

But this is no rags-to-riches story. It is instead a sometimes humorous, sometimes scathing account of contemporary Indian society. Adiga vividly describes the stark contrasts between "haves" and "have nots," and is resigned to this remaining as status quo for years to come:

An Indian revolution? No, sir. It won't happen. People in this country are still waiting for the war of their freedom to come from somewhere else -- from the jungles, from the mountains, from China, from Pakistan. That will never happen. (p. 261)

The White Tiger explores many of the same themes as A Fine Balance, but I found the latter better-written and far more moving. This was an OK read, but disappointing compared to other Booker Prize winners. ( )

My original review can be found here.

2008 - The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

My first Booker Prize winner for 2009, and what a good one it was! Here's my review.
http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/the-white-tiger-by-aravind-adiga/

Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger

Here is a review of the book The White Tiger that I wrote for my blog Shades of Writing.

The book is written in the format of a series of letters written by an Indian entrepreneur Balram to His Excellency Wen Jiabao (Chinese premier) in a seven day period after Balram hears on the radio that Wen Jiabao is visiting Bangalore to a) find out the truth about Bangalore and b) to meet Indian entrepreneurs and hear their stories, so that he might learn how to make Chinese entrepreneurs. Balram tells Wen Jiabao the story of his success, and it is a story that chills the blood.

Now I find that by the end of a book written in the first person that I am heartily sick of being, as it were, stuck in one person's mind, and that was particularly true here as the Balram was someone who I did not much like; he was too much of a cynic, too pessimistic, too cold blooded. Actually there wasn't really anyone in the book that I liked. Mr Ashok and Pinky Madam were the only two people in the book not greedy and arrogant, but Mr Ashok was pathetic in his attempts to be modern, and Pinky Madam too spiky. Despite this, the story kept me enthralled.

I never like to take as fact anything in a novel, as authors of novels have carte blanche to create from their imagination anything they wish to embellish their tale with, so I cannot comment on India, as described in the book.

I do not think this is such a brilliant book, especially when compared to A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, a book about people similarly trapped by circumstance, but which showed us humanity flourishing amongst the most terrible of situations, something I would much rather believe in.

The White Tiger - Wendy's Review

When you have heard the story of how I got to Bangalore and become one of its most successful (though probably least known) businessmen, you will know everything there is to know about how entrepreneurship is born, nurtured, and developed in this, the glorious twenty-first century of man. The century, more specifically, of the yellow and brown man. - from The White Tiger, page 4 -

Balram Halwai is the mocking, pathological narrator of Aravind Adiga’s Booker winning novel The White Tiger. Born in the Darkness - the underbelly of India - and destined from childhood to be a servant, he tells his story in a series of letters over a seven day period to Wen Jiabao, the Premier of China. A self-described entrepreneur and philosopher, Balram explains how he has come to see himself as a white tiger.

The inspector pointed his cane straight at me. “You, young man, are an intelligent, honest, vivacious fellow in this crowd of thugs and idiots. In any jungle, what is the rarest of animals - the creature that comes along only once in a generation?”

I thought about it and said:

“The white tiger.”

“That’s what you are, in this jungle.”

- from The White Tiger, page 30 -

It is this inner view of himself - a rare creature in a savage world - which drives him eventually to murder his master and take charge of his life.

Even as a boy I could see what was beautiful in the world: I was destined not to stay a slave. - from The White Tiger, page 35 -

Adiga has created a not wholly likeable protagonist to narrate the story of an India which is sharply divided between the very rich (and corrupt) and the very poor. The cynical voice of Balram jeers at democracy and uncovers the dark, corrupt world of the wealthy upper class. He pokes fun at China who despite their triumphs ‘in sewage, drinking water, and Olympic gold medals, still don’t have democracy.‘

Adiga uses an analogy of roosters in the coop to describe the servant’s (or poor man’s) inescapable status in India.

They see the organs of their brothers lying around them. They know they’re next. Yet they do not rebel. They do not try to get out of the coop. - from The White Tiger, page 147 -

But for Balram, there is a way out - one of his own making. He resists the pull of family obligation and loyalty to his master and plans his escape through cold-blooded murder.

[...] only a man who is prepared to see his family destroyed - hunted, beaten, and burned alive by the masters - can break out of the coop. - from The White Tiger, page 150 -

Rage is what fuels Balram to break free of his caste and become a successful businessman. He takes his destiny into his own hands and does what he feels he must to become a free man. And in the end, he concludes there is really no difference between a man and a demon - only that one has woken up and the other is still sleeping. The message seems to be that there is no good anywhere in India. It is no wonder that Indians have been critical of this novel.

The White Tiger is an interesting story - one that is compelling and blackly humorous despite its negative message. It is a scathing commentary on the divide between the poor and the rich, the benevolent and the corrupt - but, it is ultimately just a very good yarn.

Recommended.

Read an interview with Adiga.

The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga (Jackie's Review)

'The White Tiger’ won the Booker Prize earlier this year (2008). It is a tale of two very different Indias - Balram is a poor, former teashop employee, who lands a job as a chauffeur to a rich landlord. The differences between the two lives are revealed, as Balram’s aim to become as rich as his employer take shape.

I was interested to see if it could live up to all the hype. Unfortunately it didn’t. The book started off badly, with a letter from Balram, to the Chinese Premier. The informal, chatty tone grated on me, and the letter (which lasted for the majority of the book) seemed unrealistic and distracted from the real story that was being told. On a positive note, I liked the suspense of how Balram’s crime was gradually revealed to the reader.

The plot was fairly average - nothing stood out as being particularly clever, or insightful. The characters lacked any depth or personality, and as a result I felt no compassion for their situation.

It was a reasonable read, but instantly forgettable. I wouldn’t recommend it, and it’s certainly not worthy of a Booker Prize.




Originally posted here.

The White Tiger - 3M's Review

The White Tiger
by Aravind Adiga

2008 Booker Prize winner
2008, 276 pp.


Hmmm, well, I happened to get this book from the library on the Saturday before the Booker Prize was announced "just in case." When The White Tiger was revealed as the winner, I was really surprised. Not only did it have the longest odds to win, but I had recently read The Secret Scripture and not-so-secretly hoped it would win. In fact, the committee admitted these two were the main contenders and that the decision was not unanimous.

To be honest, I kind of groaned when I heard Adiga's book was the winner. I don't have a love affair at all with the Booker prize winners that I've read, so I was a little skeptical that I would enjoy this one. But, being the trooper that I am, I thought I'd give it at least 40 or so pages to see if it could capture my interest.

Surprise, surprise; it did. Not only is it a scathing indictment against India's treatment of its poorest citizens, it also manages to be a clever black comedy. This is exactly what the prize committee chairman revealed as the reason behind its decision. So which book did I like better, The White Tiger or The Secret Scripture? It's really comparing apples to oranges. They're just not the same type of book at all. They both are worthy social commentaries on the authors' home countries, but just written in a totally different style. While Sebastian Barry's prose is lyrical, Adiga's is biting (and comical). They both work spectacularly, just in different ways. I can definitely see why the committee had a difficult decision on its hands, and either one would have been a winner in my book.

Aravind Adiga wins 2008 Booker Prize

Aravind Adiga has won the 2008 Booker Prize for his novel, The White Tiger. He is only the 4th first-time novelist to win the prize, the last one being Keri Hulme for The Bone People. For more information, read this article from The Guardian. For some odd reason, the Man Booker Prize website does not have a press release up yet.

The winners list on the sidebar now includes the 2008 winner.

Trevor's Review of the 2008 Longlist

I just finished reading all but one and a half of the thirteen books on the 2008 longlist (didn't finish The Northern Clemency and didn't start Girl in a Blue Dress.

It wasn't a good year in my opinion. Here is my ranking of the books. If you click on them, you can get my full review with comments from other readers.

1. Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill
2. The Clothes on Their Backs, by Linda Grant
3. A Fraction of the Whole, by Steve Toltz
4. Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh
5. From A to X, by John Berger
6. The Secret Scripture, by Sebastian Barry
7. The Lost Dog, by Michelle de Kretser
8. The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga
9. A Case of Exploding Mangoes, by Mohammed Hanif
10. The Enchantress of Florence, by Salman Rushdie
11. The Northern Clemency, by Philip Hensher
12. Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith

While I liked aspects of almost all of the books, only the top three were enjoyable to read throughout. And I'm not sure they were particularly strong or not. Still, it's a great prize, and I look forward to seeing which one of the luck books takes it away this year!

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Almost a week after the publication of the Booker Longlist I have completed reading the first in my chosen list of six. The White Tiger is Adiga's debut novel and is a book I was unaware of until its appearance in the list.

The story is narrated by Balram Halwai, born into the "Darkness" of Northern India, Balram becomes a servant to the wealthy Mr Ashok. The novel is constructed as a series of letters in which we come to learn how Balram maneuvers his way from servitude to entrepreneurship in India's "new economy". 

This book is a tough one for me to review. I feel relatively ambivalent about it. The first half of the novel is solid and engrossing - we learn about Balram's family, his struggle to escape life in the village. It is powerful stuff, well written and amusing. However approaching the final 3rd I found myself wearying of Balram's story and the inevitability of the ending. We learn early on that Balram will murder his master Mr Ashok. I was finding myself just wanting him to get on with it...It is a shame because I think the premise had plenty of potential for some real insights into modern India.

My main problem with The White Tiger, was a lack of subtlety. There is a very dark and vicious edge to this story which I found unsettling.  Everyone has an angle, is on the take, or has a scheme of some kind. I got a little depressed by this view of humanity by the end of the novel. There was a kind of ugliness to this world which really jarred with me. I guess I was looking for a tiny hint of light mixed with the shade.

On the positive side, there is certainly humor in this novel and a lightness of tone which makes it quick and entertaining to read. I can't deny that this is like no other Indian novel I have read - Adiga certainly has a distinctive voice and perspective. Balram is an interesting character, amusing and mischievous. As he reveals his life story you do get pulled in. Life in the Darkness is hard, few make it out, the bonds of servitude and family are hard to break.  You want Balram to succeed but does the end justify the means?

In summary, I think this is a good debut novel from an author with potential, but I would not back it for the shortlist at this point.

I think my feelings for the novel are encompassed by these reviewers ....

"The White Tiger resembles the stories in Murder Weekly. It is quick, entertaining and full of vividly drawn types: the scheming servant, the corrupt businessman, the spoilt wife. Its lack of subtlety can be wearying, as can its cynicism. But it is a useful counter to optimistic tales of India's roaring economy." -Times Literary Supplement

"Yes, it's fresh, funny, different, and it will please those looking for insights into contemporary India, but The White Tiger offers something less than it might have achieved." - The Washington Post