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The Inheritance of Loss | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: Grove/Atlantic
Category: EBooks
List Price: $11.00
Buy New: $8.80
You Save: $2.20 (20%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  154 reviews
Sales Rank: 2211
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
ASIN: B000RH0CAY
Publication Date: August 29, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
"Published to extraordinary acclaim, The Inheritance of Loss heralds Kiran Desai as one of our most insightful novelists. She illuminates the pain of exile and the ambiguities of postcolonialism with a tapestry of colorful characters: an embittered old judge; Sai, his sixteen-year-old orphaned grand daughter; a chatty cook; and the cook's son, Biju, who is hopscotching from one miserable New York restaurant to another, trying to stay a step ahead of the INS.
When a Nepalese insurgency in the mountains threatens Sai's new-sprung romance with her handsome tutor, their lives descend into chaos. The cook witnesses India's hierarchy being overturned and discarded. The judge revisits his past and his role in Sai and Biju's intertwining lives. A story of depth and emotion, hilarity and imagination, The Inheritance of Loss tells "of love, longing, futility, and loss that is Desai's true territory" (O: The Oprah Magazine)."
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| Customer Reviews: Read 149 more reviews...
 Great book October 22, 2008
This book deserves a fresh endorsement, which I wholeheartedly give. The one disgruntled reader below ("Ashok") is symptomatic of newly-disgruntled Indian rightwingers--precisely the target of books like this one and Roy's "The God of Small Things." In fact, it's no coincidence that many wonderfully written novels from India are by women: They more acutely perceive, I think, the bullying that passes for patriotism behind so much of the vitriol spewing (perhaps understandably) from newly resurgent nations. Being Indian myself, but not partaking of any nationalist persuasion, I can say that those who react most strongly to these remarkable new novels expose their insecurities. (By comparison Western bullying is by now too obvious to need much of a gloss. I'm simply focusing on Indian writing here.)
Desai's novel deftly balances the worlds that variously inhabit what we call India--the colonial-educated scion of a fractured family, the son wandering off to New York in search of fortune, the indigenous northeastern peoples who yearn for independence, and, most of all, the young woman at the novel's center who tries to make sense of all this.
 Yuk October 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Like "reading" a slow train wreck - achingly dull and painful at the same time. There is no effort to make the reader care about any of the characters - do you really want to feel only alternating disdain and pity all the way through any book? Surely that could not have been the writer's intention?
 An "almost good" book October 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I find it hard to believe that this book won awards. There was way too much detail and not enough of anything else. It was kind of a stream of consiousness style, but it wasn't the character's minds we were inside of, it was the author-and she talks too much about nothing. I thought it would be interesting because of the setting and historical period which I was anxious to learn about, but I still don't know anything. I never even knew what year it was until chapter 42-and that was only the year for one of the generational stories that is told. It jumped around way too much. The lines across the page that generally indicate a skip in time or place were used totally arbitrarily. I don't know why they were even there. I found the book annoying and difficult to read. I gave 2 stars because there were places that the detailed, descriptive writing resonated with me and evoked an emotional response, but mostly I found the characters not filled out enough to relate to. I never read a more hopeless book in my life and I guess why I gave the stars because I was left with the feeling of hopelessness of a colonial society that aspires to be like someone else and can't be itself.
Prizes are just politics September 29, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Heartbreaking. What's gone wrong? Winner, amomg others, of the Man Booker prize and the National Book Critics Circle award. What are these boys and girls reading? What criteria do they use to award prizes? Oh, I'm sorry. The authos is woman, young, and Indian (and cute), so she MUST be good. and her book is about the evils of colonialism and the sufferings of migrants, so it is good by decree. Sorry, I know I'm going to get lots of negative votes, but literary prizes nowadays are only politics. Aesthetic merit, in this case literary, is totally absent from judges' decisions. It is not how the book is written, it is who the author is and his or her politics or background. This lazy piece of politics is about a young Indian orphan who lives with her mean grandfather and the cook, right at the feet of the Himalayas. The other plot is about the experiences as illegal migrant to the US of the cook's son. According to the back cover, the sordid and commonplace adventures of this guy "Illuminate on the consequences of Colonialism". Really. Miss Novelist writes as if she were about to send a telegram, because she has little talent. The characters are shallow as shallow can be, and extremely unlikable and uninteresting. Ms. Desai is obsessed with phaeces, vomit, and other bodily fluids. I confess I couldn't finish it. I have no time for politically correct garbage when there are so mnay works of genius out there.
Couldn't finish it September 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I've read some really good books that were given the Booker Prize, but this one I just don't get. I initially got it ONLY because of the cover with the golden medallion showing it as a Booker Prize winner. This book was so hard to read. I feel guilty for not finishing it. Maybe I shouldn't write a review until I finish it, but I started it months ago and tried to bargain myself to just read 10 pages a day, and I can't even commit to that.
The jumping around, the lack of a captivating story, the complicated overly written writing style, and undeveloped characters who you don't feel much for all make me wonder if the Booker Prize was given more out of literary hype and pedigree than quality of writing, in this case. I will try to finish the book, but the fact that this is more of a chore (because I don't want to give up and I want to figure out if I'm missing out on something), rather than a treat makes my one star rating understandable. Perhaps, once finished (though I don't know how long it'll take me, honestly), I'll have a different view of this book. Right now, I just don't get it.
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