Blurb: “From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Namesake comes an extraordinary new novel, set in both India and America, that expands the scope and range of one of our most dazzling storytellers: a tale of two brothers bound by tragedy, a fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past, a country torn by revolution, and a love that lasts long past death. Masterly suspenseful, The Lowland is a work of great beauty and complex emotion; an engrossing family saga and a story steeped in history that spans generations and geographies with seamless authenticity.”
My thoughts: This is a fabulous book with a very slow start. I say this because I was about to give up at the beginning, but im glad I kept reading because it evolves into an amazing tale of family and love. I specifically like how it defines what a family is, it can come in various shapes and sizes, and how the relationships we have with various family members are not always as expected. The twists and turns it takes are wonderful.
Since i assume if you are reading this you read the book, I’ll be a little bit more spoilery. (stop reading if you haven’t read it and just skip to the new selection) Why was the start slow? I understood the need to set up the lives in Calcutta between the two brothers Subhash and Udayan, to make us understand their connection and all the twists and turns that life was going to give for them. However that is the part where i think the book failed a bit for me, it was very descriptive and not as emotion building as the rest, therefore I was not as invested in their relationship.
What really worked for me is how everything came full circle and the development of Subhash as a character, for whom we got a bit more depth, and we understood where he came from, in all the big decisions of his life, including marrying his brothers widow.
- Did you hate Gauri by the end? or did you understand where she was coming from and feel she did the right thing? I actually don’t know what to think of her, i think I’m torn. I think it was very strong of her to to let go, I just think it should have probably been done before. I also think she could have had it all if she was a bit more open with Subhash.
some of my favorite quotes/passages:
- They were a family of solitaries. They had collided and dispersed. This was her legacy.
- She believed she was not significant enough to cast a shadow of her own”
- isolation offered its own form of companionship… the promise that she would find things were she put them, that there would be no interruption, no surprise. it greeted her at the end of each day and lay still with her at night.
For those who read it what did you think? please post in the comments.
The new Book Club Selection
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Official description: Winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize and Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award, a breathtaking feat of storytelling where everything is connected, but nothing is as it seems….
It is 1866, and young Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: A wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky.
Tati's Tidbits 