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Rowena's Reviews
My true loves: Wilkie Collins, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anais Nin, George Eliot, James Joyce, James Baldwin, George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, bell hooks, Chinua Achebe, Langston Hughes, William Shakespeare... I'm falling for : Italo Calvino, Toni Morrison, Frantz Fanon, Wole Soyinka, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Albert Camus, Margaret Atwood, Somerset Maugham, Junot Diaz, A.S. Byatt... And the lists continue to grow! I will read almost anything, as long as it's well-written. I always love to expand my reading horizons.
I read this book with my bookclub ; it was chosen because three of the members are Canadian-born Sikh and wanted to learn more about their history. I've read many books set in India over the years but this is the first book I've read by a Sikh author. Like many other books that discuss Indian culture, this goes into a lot of detail about British colonialism in the country, as well as the many religious beliefs and languages.
The story itself was quite sad. As a woman, I couldn't help but empathize with the two female protagonists, especially in the patriarchal society that values women only as long as they produce offspring (boys of course, girls are just "visitors" in their parent's home).
This book also does a good job in describing the beauty and culture of India and the superstitious beliefs that hold captive many of the people (at least in those days). Additionally, it is also reminiscent of Rushdie's Midnight's Children in that it's set around the time of India's Partition.