A Fine Balance
Ratings71
Average rating4.3
“The boy emerged out of the earth, clinging to the end of the rope. He was covered in slippery sewer sludge, and when he stood up, he shone and shimmered in the sun with a terrible beauty. His hair, stiffened by the muck, flared from his head like a crown of black flames. Behind him, the slum smoke curled towards the sky, and the hellishness of the place was complete. “
Probably the most shockingly brutal and violently upsetting comedy you will ever read. Constantly hovering between a 4 and 5, It's not without it's dull moments but they are few and far between, and for a 600+ page book, that's really something.
This novel revolves around four major characters, 2 relatively well-off city folks (Dina, Maneck) and 2 belonging to a backward caste (Ishvar, Om) in India. Through the book we see them get together inspite of their many differences to laugh together and understand each other's pain points. The novel is set against the backdrop of the emergency period in India, and sheds light on the gruesome acts committed in the name of “development” to the poor people, and how in the end “development” in a corrupt, broken social system is the same as oppression. This is possibly the reason why, most people find this book too hopeless to continue.
In this book, I realised early on that every happy instance for the characters would be followed by something terrible. (Not a good feeling to experience when you are rooting for all the characters)
While all the characters are very-well written and the writing isn't boring at all, I do wonder whether this is the right ending. It feels like, in the end the reader, like Maneck, loses all hope and resigns to the broken system accepting that no change for the better is possible.
This whole book is bleak bleak bleak, so you've gotta be in the right headspace for that. That said, it wasn't until the last 150 pages or so until I started reading with a furrow in my brow, because of the horrificness of everything that has happened to Ishvar and Om. Does that make me heartless, that their previous pain registered as awful, but not painful to me personally? Until it was? I hope not. And the stories of Dina and Maneck lightened the reading experience of the pain of the other two considerably, until it didn't.
And despite that, I could not put this down toward the end? And I want to pick up more of Mistry's work?
TW for basically everything, but off the top of my head: caste violence, religious discrimination (against several different groups throughout), poverty, homelessness, physical violence, dismemberment, forced labor, sexual assault, government at war, suicide, reproductive violence
Beautiful and heartbreaking, at times joyous and amusing - at others horrific. I cared about these characters so much. A touching, poignant, brilliant novel.
Incredibly well-written and also probably the most depressing book I've ever read.
Exceptional. Heartbreaking. Essential.
One of the finest works of fiction I have read in my life.
Exceptional novel. Rohinton Mistry did a masterful job depicting the Indian culture with its caste system that creates problems for so many, especially two of the characters he so lovingly portrays. Since there are so many reviews, I won't bother going into detail here. I can just say this is a book that I won't forget easily.
