Het blauwe huis

by Preeta Samarasan, Jeannet Dekker (Translator)

Wanneer het dienstmeisje van de welgestelde familie Rajasekharan om onduidelijke redenen wordt ontslagen, is dat de laatste in een reeks gebeurtenissen die het leven van de zesjarige Aasha op zijn kop hebben gezet. Binnen enkele weken is haar grootmoeder op mysterieuze wijze om het leven gekomen en is haar aanbeden oudste zus voorgoed naar Amerika vertrokken. Aasha blijft eenzaam achter, gestrand in een familie die langzaam uit elkaar valt.
Tegen de achtergrond van het zinderende Maleisië van de jaren zestig gaat het verhaal terug in de tijd, om stapje voor stapje de duistere, complexe geheimen en leugens van een immigrantenfamilie te onthullen.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Asia, India, Literary Fiction, Novels, Book Club

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Please see www.preetasamarasan.com for more about the book and a regularly updated schedule of events.

***

Preeta Samarasan has attended a lot of schools, and you should contact her to say hello if you knew her at any of them:

In Ipoh, Malaysia:
The Wesley Church (ACS) Nursery School;
The Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus Kindergarten;
SRK Tarcisian Convent;
SM Convent, Ipoh (the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus).

In Montezuma, New Mexico:
The Armand Hammer United World College of the American West (now UWC-USA);

In Clinton, New York:
Hamilton College

In Rochester, New York:
The Eastman School of Music (University of Rochester)

In Ann Arbor, Michigan:
The University of Michigan (MFA program in creative writing)

This is mostly what she has done with her life, attend schools. But now she stays at home and writes and only occasionally dreams about school.

You should also contact her if you happened to know her in some other capacity unconnected with schools, especially if you knew her a very long time ago. The longer ago you knew her, the more excited she will be to hear from you, though she will also be immensely excited to hear from you if you do not know her at all but have read her book and enjoyed it.

Reviews

[Kinga · Rating 5 out of 5]

UPDATE: Many years ago (almost 12 now) when I found this book in the library and fell in love with it, I had no idea that one day Preeta would become one of my best friends and that we would speak every day.

Just when some thought it was impossible to please me...along comes this book. This deserves 5 stars without any doubt. It baffles me why the world hypes barely mediocre books like 'The Kite Runner' or 'Lovely Bones' when gems like this one go almost unnoticed. There is not a single thing that is wrong with this book. In fact, it is a textbook example of how one should write a novel. Reviving the true art of storytelling, it manages to be gripping, enthralling, and captivating. The novel reveals itself slowly as if we were peeling an onion, uncovering one thin layer after another. It is amazing how real all the characters are. They are never black or white, but are perfectly three-dimensional with all the gradations of grey. Each has their share of good and bad in them. They all make mistakes and hurt each other deeply but I couldn't bring myself to wholeheartedly hate any of them because in the end they were oh so very human. It might be a depressing potrait of the institution of family but there is no exaggeration in it. There is no excess drama that 'happens in books and soap operas only'. It is a wonderful piece of prose. It is lush without being overwritten, rich but still delicate and light. Call me old-school but I still believe writers should truly master the language, have a vast vocabulary, use synonyms, create metaphors that would strike you with their originality and appropriacy, and just take you on a journey. And Preeta Samarasan does just that which is why I am going to be a fan forever and ever.

[LA Brower · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm going to go ahead and call this my favorite novel of the decade. I've never, ever, EVER, believed in characters as deeply as I believe in the inhabitants of The Big House. You know what - forget the decade! This is as good a novel as I know of, and as intimate and moving a reading experience as I've had, and as rich and vivid a world as I’ve ever read my way into. I don't know if I've ever loved a character as much as I love Aasha. Love though, is not all I feel for this book – and this, I think, is what makes it so seriously, truly, utterly great: it's also unrelentingly painful. It will hurt you. It hurts, even when guided by a loving hand, to look so honestly at the brutality and smallness and meanness of which humanity is capable. It hurts to follow the trails of ruin left by willful blindnesses, shameful prejudices, and faithless underestimations; it hurts to watch small mistakes, no matter how innocently or ignorantly perpetrated, result in huge, enveloping, unrescindable sadnesses – but to be able to look at all of this squarely, attentively, and unsparingly; to depict it fully, in all its ugly complexity; to dwell on the pain, to pick and prod and examine it, to stare into its hideous face with humor and healthy cynicism, but also, somehow, hope – is, I think, the bravest sort of thing a piece of writing can do. I smiled on nearly every page, but never did the novel allow me to indulge the dangerous fantasies of a happy ending – not for everyone, not in a world like ours.

oh yeah - and did I mention that it's got absolutely everything else that anyone could possibly want in a novel - mystery, political strife, domestic intrigue, hilarity, a thrilling loop-the-looping structure, and 339 pages of pure, unadulterated kick-ass-dazzling prose.

In sum:
I friend this book, know or not?

[Zanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

The second law of thermodynamics is only true on average, only true on the immense statistical scale of beings made of billions of atoms. Life seems to violate it all the time via, for instance, the miracle by which plants release oxygen or the wherewithal of those (women, mostly) who wash dishes, rake leaves, stack dried and folded towels neatly back in the cupboard. Of course, you get tired doing it, so the law is really intact. If time flows in the direction of spill and shatter, it flows in the direction of fatigue with equal certainty.

Preeta Samarasan has chosen to tell this story against the gradient, from spill and shatter and exhaustion back to hope and harmony and wholeness. The result is totally devastating, which shows me something about my relationship with time; I can tolerate the knowledge of past trauma better than of sad and certain prophecy; I am capable of living for the future. My culture is like this; our concept of history is a line leading somewhere. Thus we can tell those traumatised in their lives or histories to 'get over it' to 'move on', because the 'arrow' of time points, out of whatever devastation (we shrug off our responsibilities with weasel words and crocodile tears), towards glory. So I applaud this novel and its author for challenging me to think against my grain.

At the beginning-end it seemed I'd fallen in with a dismal crowd of unpleasant, selfish people with hardly any attractive qualities. As the past unfolds though, the narrative tenderly takes the part of each one of them, revealing the reasons behind every unkind cast of speech and thought, affording each soul the tragic sympathy Shakespeare gives Macbeth (though not his wife). By the time I reached the end-beginning, I'd forgiven all the characters I'd hated, and come to love those I'd liked from the start all the more.

The backdrop of Malaysia is evoked in its natural lushness and stained with multiple undercurrants of racial tension. The uprisings after the election are an appropriately jarring intrusion into the otherwise lazily unspooling narrative, but the conditions that produce these events are painted and played out in the daily drama of the street and even the household. Samarasan deals with race and class relations delicately through the framing of romantic relationships, personal grooming, religious practices and beliefs, and food in all its aspects. Aasha's friend, the half-white ghost, bears witness to a destructive colonial legacy. Her view from the pond is only one of this deceptively simple tale's many submarine shadowy silk spun depths.

My favourite character is the sane, empathic witness Uncle Ballroom, who tells us "Attention is a perfectly valid thing to seek". Words of wisdom!

[Emily Coffee and Commentary · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very detailed and genuine account on the breakdown of a family. Brutally honestly, but humorous at times, we see a bleak family saga and how it affects the neighborhood. Masterful use of stream of consciousness writing, and it was easy to both sympathize with and dislike most of the characters. This would make a great drama series.

[Zak · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating tale which takes place in the 'Big House' of an idealistic hot shot lawyer. The setting is in Malaysia, at about the time she gained independence from the British in 1957. The story has many layers, which unfolds in a non-chronological manner. There are many questions begging to be answered, like what made a doting elder sister suddenly turn cold and indifferent to her 4-year old sibling? What 'crime' did the servant girl, Chellam, commit to cause her to be dismissed under a cloud of shame and disgrace? What did the previously beloved wayward 'Uncle Ballroom' do to cause him to no longer be welcome in the Big House? What caused the previously close relationship between a father and daughter to disintegrate into a situation where they can no longer look each other in the eye?

More importantly, who is Preeta Samarasan and why have I never heard of this writer before?

The over-arcing theme of this book is 'change'... change in individuals, familial relationships, fortunes and ideals. Mistakes are made, hopes are dashed and one watches these changes like an inevitable, slowly unfurling train wreck. Against the backdrop of the disintegration of this family is the disintegration of the founding ideals of the nation itself. The initial hopes of an independent new state comprising disparate ethnic groups, working hand-in-hand towards a bright, promising future, only to let brooding suspicions, envy, jealousy, greed and avarice of the political classes creep in and slowly wreak their insidious effects, culminating in the race riots of 1969 which tore the young nation apart, never to be the same again. For as much as the author unveils the family's sad story in tantalising prose, filled here and there with dark humour, stinging observations and colloquialisms, one gets the idea that she is really writing about the tragic stillbirth of an entire nation.

Final rating: 4.5* (minus half a star as some of the colloquial dialogue comes across a bit stilted).

N.B. If you have not read and decide to pick up this book, you might find things a bit confusing sometimes, due to its non-chronological structure. My advice is not to worry about it, you didn't miss anything, just read on. All the 'missing' parts will be filled in in due course. Also, colloquial and native terms are used liberally throughout the book. If you need help understanding the meaning or context of certain words or sentences, feel free to message me. I would be glad to help in any way I can.

[britta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy cow. I have NEVER, EVER had a reading experience like this one. Rich and sad and confusing and rewarding. I need a thousand more stars to even get close to how I feel about this book. From the first sentence (oh, that gorgeous sentence!) I knew it was going to be one of those books that would change my life. And it did. I was hurt and in love and sad for and just bowled over by the characters in this book, wanted to curl up with Aasha behind the PVC settee and and watch and wonder and talk to the ghost daughter. I want to drink Milo and swing on that swing next to Uma, see what she sees. It's a miracle of point-of-view, that I could get to know all of the characters so well as I did and from one author. This book feels like a million books in one, absolutely the best thing I've read...in my life.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

good but slow, more later..
OK,catching up. Trying to.. this book is a wonderfully calibrated family saga, encompassing such delights as Uncle Ballroom (he’s good at dancing), ghosts, gossips, postcolonial Malaysia, servants badly treated, adultery, snobbery, race riots, and food - Chinese, Malaysian, Indian (I really wanted to tatse those curry puffs). It has a focus on bodily functions: shit, piss and snot drip from its pages. It's quite useful Appa (the house's patriarch) has no sense of smell or he might never have married Amma. They have three children, Aasha who converses with ghosts, the jokey brother (name?) and Uma, the scholar, who as a young girl entertained company by declaiming Tennyson and Shakespeare, [and] followed this with her fourteen times table, and rounded off her performance with an up-to-date listing of African capitals in alphabetical order.

People are portrayed in fully rounded terms, the servant Chellam, for example, although she is beaten by her father, all her money taken from her and is snubbed by the family, is no saint herself, given to pinching the thigh of her charge, the old woman of the house. She entertains the children with her film star posters and physical attributes like the white threads of grease that spiralled out of her pores like butter icing from a hundred tiny pastry bags when she squeezed the skin of her nose.

It's beautifully written with precise and lovely descriptions of butterflies, flowers, houses and skies. The relationships are complex and engaging, it's funny, and thought provoking. It interweaves history and poltics into the narrative but not with a heavy hand, the writing stays light and breezy even when dealing with, for example, the race divides between the Indians, the Malays and the Chinese.

So it sounds close to perfect and it is. But as I said sometimes it gets a bit slow. It goes back and forth in time, and often this gives a fresh angle on something we know about: usually this is good, a further revelation that might make us change our minds about a character or situation, but occasionally, just occasionally, I thought OK, can we move on now (eg when the matriarch dies) and instead found the narrative going backwards again. But don't let that put you off, this is a fab book.

[Jaanaki · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is set in Ipoh in Malaysia and it follows the domestic drama that unfolds in the family of Lawyer Rajasekharan who live in the Big House located on Kingfisher Lane.The lawyer lives with his wife Vasanthi,his mother, children -Uma,Suresh and Asha and a maid Chellam who is the same age as Uma.The story begins a week after Uma has left to the US and the family is in the process of kicking Chellam out of the house.And thus begins the narrative that goes backwards to tell the reader what happened within the four wall of the big house that leads to the Exodus of Chellam.
Preeta's Samarasan prose is descriptive and beautiful. The narrative is intimate and after the first few pages , we are part and parcel of the Rajasekharan family. This is essentially a story about family and the mean little games the members play with one another because I think most of us know that poisonous feelings in a family generally don't disappear overnight .They may be camouflaged with flattery,unexpected good deeds and false words of kindness with an inner urgency not to
spoil family functions.But these poisonous unspoken vibes sit quietly in a corner like a tiny snake feeding on every unkind word ,action ,and jealousy ,where it grows and grows into a huge serpent unable to lie quietly in the corner which strikes and brings down victims usually the innocent ones who don't know how the game is played . Preeta Samarasan has done justice to all the characters and you can feel Pati's shrewdness ,Vasanthi's helplessness and Uma's disappointment and anger .All embittered women as correctly declared by Asha.Oh, but Asha 's yearning for love and a mother replacement is the saddest because she actually suffers for no fault of hers and she has no route to escape like Uma.The way Preeta has discussed the Malaysian riots in 1969 and integrated it with the story is exceptional and she brings out the cultural disparities and differences in Malaysia ,a country that is a pot of different ethnicities blended together in striking fashion.Don't miss this if you love good writing ,a domestic drama and a story set in Malaysia.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book grew on me. At first I found the amount of detail overwhelming, and thought the pace was too slow. Gradually, though, I got used to the style. By the end, I thought it was one of the best books I’ve read in quite a long time.

It’s an interesting book in that it illuminates the politics of post-colonial Malaysia and the tensions of race and class, and yet the action takes place almost entirely inside a single house. It’s called the Big House, and the family living in it is wealthy but absolutely dysfunctional. It’s dysfunctional, though, in subtle ways – this is not a book of beatings and rapes and other traumatic events. It’s a book about slower, more corrosive forms of abuse: secrets, lies, pretence, bitterness, the absence of affection or, perhaps worse, its sudden withdrawal.

Not a huge amount happens in the book, and what does happen is described in minute detail from the perspectives of each different member of the family. Although this tried my patience early on, the effect towards the end of the book was astonishing. I felt as if I knew every character inside-out, and understood their motivation for being the way they were. Although the members of the family do some pretty horrible things to each other, we come to understand exactly why, and so nobody is portrayed as a villain.

Not too many characters are sympathetic either. For me (although I suspect this will be different for different readers), the servant girl Chellam and the occasional visitor called Uncle Ballroom are the ones I sympathised with most. As relative outsiders to the family, they were at first welcomed as providing an alternative to the bitterness and hatred within it, but then resented for speaking the truth in an environment where fragile lies are what life in the Big House is built on.

The novel spans decades of post-colonial Malaysian history, mostly from the 1960s up to about 1980, but outside events are touched on only briefly. This suggested a child’s view of the world to me, where the Big House is the centre of the world and outside events are an occasional interruption. Although the narrator is omniscient and gives the perspectives of all the characters at various stages, the claustrophobic focus on the house above all else made me see the novel more through the eyes of the children in the family, particularly the youngest Aasha (who, incidentally, reminded me a lot of Briony in Ian McEwan’s Atonement). Certainly the father, a lawyer and one-time aspirant to political office, spends most of his time outside the house, and yet we rarely see what he sees. There’s a short passage where he is with his mistress in her home, but mostly he is only ever seen where the children see him, sitting at the dinner table inside the Big House. Whatever the reason for this relentless focus on the house, it does succeed in creating a world with known parameters, a world in which the reader at the end feels as if they know and understand everything within that world.

Strangely, the political side of the book is effective too. Although I’m sure it’s not meant as such a crude allegory, the lies within the family do seem to parallel the lies within the country. The multi-ethnic cardboard cutout figures welcoming people to Malaysia in the airport scene at the end are wonderful symbols of a country in which truth can never be told for fear of unearthing painful memories, the same problem that imprisons the family. Nothing is said overtly in the novel about race and class, and yet the brief mentions of race riots and killings are enough to set the scene, and the treatment of Chellam is central to the dishonesty of the family.

I would highly recommend this book. Usually I prefer a more spare, ‘minimalist’ writing style (e.g. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road). This is the other end of the spectrum from that – very ornate, effusive, highly descriptive – and yet I am very glad I persevered. I think the characters in this book are among the most fully realised I’ve come across, highly nuanced and utterly believable. This is Samarasan’s debut novel, and I will definitely be reading whatever she comes up with next.

[Jen · Rating 1 out of 5]

After reading rave reviews of this novel, I was just sure it was going to be fantastic.

I didn't even make it past the second chapter.

The language is beautiful, but it's written in a style that makes it difficult to understand at times. A lot of Malaysian dialect is used, which means the dialogue can be choppy when the characters are speaking. The style itself reminds me a lot of Faulkner with that same stream of consciousness flow. As I've never been a fan of Faulkner, it's not surprising that this didn't appeal to me.

I really believe there's a great story here. But you have to dig to find it. It's the kind of book your high school English teacher assigns you to read, and day-to-day life is stressful enough without reading about someone else's troubles. Immediately, the book struck me as dark and brooding. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this particular book. Overall, the concept is certainly interesting. It follows a Malaysian family as one daughter moves to New York City and a servant is sent away for a "crime" we know nothing about. The smallest child is six and sees ghosts. However, I found the book slow to start and even slower to read. I rarely put a book down once I start it, but this one just wasn't happening for me.

I'm filing this on my "never read again" shelf.

[Celeste Ng]

You know how sometimes, people you know write things and when you sit down to read them, you wonder if when you're done you're going to have to pretend to LOVE them when really, you didn't like them at all? This is emphatically not one of those cases.

EVENING IS THE WHOLE DAY is bold, beautiful, and heartbreaking all at once. The tone is so confident and assured that it's hard to believe this is a first novel: from the first paragraph, it whisks you away into the vibrant world of Malaysia in the late '70s and early '80s--and yet that world, and the intricate family entanglements within, feel achingly familiar. Perhaps most impressively of all, by the end of the book you feel sympathy and understanding for all of the characters, even those who seemed villanous and vile at the beginning. I read the entire last half with a lump in my throat. Highly, highly recommended.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

The pain, the pain, the pain in this book. Some of it is brought about due to cultural traditions. A great deal occurs because of personality traits that won't allow the characters to move beyond forgiveness. although one must admit that most of the issues are those that would hamper anyone from easily forgiving. Thus, it appears to be pain that will go on forever.
With all of that said, I think that the biggest culprit it the silence among the family members. Samarasan, does an excellent job of portraying the story's plot in a "That's the way it is" presentation. She writes so well that despite the exertion and misery that is necessary to complete it, you go on to the finish line, so to speak. I will definitely keep an eye out for her work.

[Nyonie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot say that I love this book. The people living in the Big House— painted a ridiculously happy peacock color, were such an unhappy bunch that so many times I was forced to put it down. just to get away from them. It was painful to look at the meanness and unkindness of people from such close quarters. But oh for the writer to be able to write like this! I was compelled to read every word. At first I thought it was too slow, but glad I persevered, by the time I finished I felt it was one of the best book I've read in a while.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Why should I feel sorry for her when she doesn’t feel sorry for me? It could be the family motto, this question, something to emblazon on their coat of arms, except that not one of them has noticed how often the others ask it.”

This is a fantastic book with a tragic story, about a prosperous Indo-Malaysian family slowly tearing each other apart. Don’t be fooled by the simplistic design and bright colors of the cover; this is a dark and complicated novel that offers plenty of sympathy but little hope for its damaged characters.

The book begins in 1980, with a teenage servant being sent home in disgrace with her drunken father. From there the book moves backward in time, tracing how events arrived at this point. Between the recently-deceased grandmother, the older daughter who has transformed from an exuberant girl into a withdrawn teenager interested only in going abroad for college, the younger daughter who talks to ghosts, the parents with their toxic marriage and the uncle who has been banished from the house, there’s a lot to unpack, and Samarasan does so slowly, layer by layer, with close attention to emotional detail.

The mysteries at the center of the story and the non-linear storytelling through which readers can piece them together are compelling. But the characterization – the complexity and psychological insight with which each character is drawn – is what really elevates this book above the rest. The book is full of flawed characters hurting each other, but the reader comes to understand where each of them is coming from and why they react the way they do. We get to know these people and their relationships with each other so well, and they are so three-dimensional and realistic, that it’s hard to believe they don’t exist in real life.

But the book goes beyond just the family’s life, delving into class divisions and racial politics in Malaysia, where ethnic Malays are privileged over the large Chinese and Indian populations. It is a history not without violence – though thankfully not overdone for shock value here, as some authors are tempted to do – and I learned a lot about Malaysia from reading this book. The author also shows a keen understanding of how money and social class influence people’s behavior.

So I have little criticism, except that I never quite believed the father’s choice of mistress, and the book did take me around 50 pages to get into. The language is lyrical and seemed a little overly stylized until I came to trust that the author knew what she was doing. Once I finished though, I found myself flipping back to read sections of it again.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who loves reading about complicated characters and relationships and who doesn’t require well-defined heroes and villains. It was a treat to read, and I look forward to more from this author!

[Manu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Preeta Samarasan's debut novel begins with the kind of prose that actually seems like poetry in disguise - with a description of a part of Malaysian geography. The narrative begins in 1980, on Kingfisher Lane in Ipoh, in the Big House, owned by the Rajasekharans - Raju (Appa) a leading lawyer and a pillar of the community, erstwhile socialist, Vasanthi, his wife, from circumstances far below his, their children Uma, Suresh and Aasha in that order, Paati, the matriarch whose disapproval of her daughter-in-law endures time, the servant girl Chellam brought in to take care of her. A wealthy, dysfunctional family, with each member fighting their own demons.
We see a lot of the story through Aasha's eyes in the beginning. Aasha, who talks to ghosts and will do anything to get back the affections of Uma. Uma, whose sole desire is to escape to the US. And in between, Suresh, who tries to make sense of the world with humour. The narrative then sets out to unravel layer by layer, not just digging deeper into what happened earlier, but also wider, giving the reader, through characters and events, a view of Malayan society, with its own undercurrents, ethnicity issues and rules that attempt harmony between the Chinese, Indians and the natives. A brief glimpse of a country coming to terms with its freedom, and the responsibilities therein.
As the layers unfold, the perceptions of characters and their behaviour that the reader has built up slowly begin to undergo changes, as the past - from a few days earlier to half a lifetime away - shows its influence on the present and future. We also see how the relationships between people change with time, sometimes over years and sometimes in a few minutes. There are some very interesting secondary characters too, like Uncle Ballroom who evokes a sense of poignancy, Vasanthi's mother whose sudden turn to asceticism makes you wonder about the nature of the human psyche, or Kooky Rooky, whose variations of her own past points us to stories that we build for ourselves. And then there's Chellam, whose past, and lack of future brings a lump to the throat.
Somewhere in the book and its use of words and the wit employed (brotheROARsister, Stopping At Nothing...) I could see Arundhati Roy. Somewhere in the way the human condition is expressed I could see Kiran Desai. But neither takes away from a distinctive style - vivid prose, edgy humour, and an ability to draw the reader right in. This one goes into my favourites.

[Suzanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

I chose this novel as my “Malaysia” book in the 52 Books Around the World Challenge. The author, Preeta Samarasan, was born and raised in Malaysia, but came to America in her teens and never looked back.

The story is about a dysfunctional Indian family and through their faulty relationships, we learn about the various cultures of Malaysia, the disparity of wealth, and the country’s own caste system. I appreciated learning a little about this country, but I honestly did not enjoy the book. In the first one hundred pages or so, Samarasan tries to flex her MFA degree and here’s an example of what we get:

“One day might be a drop wetter or a mite drier than the last, but almost all are hot, damp, bright, bursting with lazy tropical life, conducive to endless tea breaks and mad, jostling, honking rushes through town to get home before the violent downpour. These are the most familiar rains, the violent silver ropes that flood the playing fields and force office workers to wade bus stops in shoes that fill like buckets. Blustering and melodramatic, the afternoon rains…”

Okay, I just had to stop there, but really the author should have stopped sooner. One, maybe two sentences at most could have sufficed about the rains. And yet this is nothing compared to the pages of inner thought we are subjected to about Uma making an omelet for her younger siblings.

The middle third of the book drops the overly wordy language and gets on the with the story, which isn’t all that interesting yet. The end the book, without so much as a coup de grace, at least grabbed my attention. There was only one character I could have liked – Ballroom Uncle, who is belittled by practically everyone in the family, but is actually the only truly decent person in the book. Unfortunately, the author didn’t draw me in enough to really care about anyone. 2 1/2 stars.

[Faith Reidenbach · Rating 1 out of 5]

This novel, which is told non-chronologically, assumes that the reader's interest will be captured because a grandmother has died by a means unstated, a servant has been sent away, and a young woman is leaving Malaysia for the US. I did not care. I knew nothing about these characters at the outset and still knew very little by page 100 or so, when I abandoned ship. In some other novels I have found that a non-chronological story line is an attempt to cover for weak plotting ability, but of course I can't say for sure about this one since I didn't finish.

To comprehend Chapter 2 we are required to know the immediate post-colonial history of Malaysia. I'm willing to look up foreign words, but I'm not willing to do historical research just to get started in a novel.

The commercial review distributed here on GR favorably compares Samarasan with the Indian writer Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai, and the Jamaican-British writer Zadie Smith. I don't know Kiran Desai's work, but Roy and Smith have nothing in common, style-wise, and Samarasan is something else again. Don't be swayed by a sentence that lumps brown female authors together like so much cookie dough.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was fabulous.

The story begins at the end and basically works backward with a little back-and-forth within that structure, a device which would have been irritating and ineffective in the hands of a less gifted author but worked beautifully here. As a result of the structure, events which seem minor at first gradually take on a breathtaking symbolism and significance as you begin to discover their roots, and the story becomes deeper and deeper as you keep reading. The language is beautiful -- for once I found myself (mostly) thinking, "lyrical" and "poetic" rather than overwritten. The continually shifting viewpoints, something I usually dislike, actually served to make all of the characters three-dimensional and real.

At the beginning of this story of the unhappy Rajasekharan family, an Indian family living in Malaysia, we learn of three disappearances -- the dismissal of Chellam, a mysteriously accused servant, the departure of Uma, the oldest daughter in the family, for America, and the death of Paati, the children's grandmother. As we move back in time, we learn about the original mismatch of the two Rajasekharan parents, Amma and Appa, and their growing divide; Amma's ascent from her poor family of origin into the life of a rich socialite desperately trying to mask her unhappiness, constantly carped at by Paati, her superior live-in mother-in-law, and disconnected from her three children; Paati's increasing irascibility with old age leading to the family's hiring Chellam in the first place and then to Paati's mysterious death; Uma's increasing detachment from her family even before her escape to America; and eventually, the pivotal events two years prior to the end of the story which brought the family's unhappiness to the surface and served as a catalyst for everything that followed. Much of the story is told through the eyes of Aasha, the youngest child, who attempts to palliate her loneliness through richly imagined communication with "ghosts" (another device I usually dislike, but one which worked here because it seemed less about magic realism and more about an exploration of the inner life of a six-year-old) and who is tragically an important agent in the story as well as the one most deeply affected by the events.

Naturally, I have a few gripes. The story was a bit of a slow starter for me; I became captivated around Chapter 4 but was more ambivalent until then. Looking back, I don't know whether it could have been otherwise given the structure, as you don't really understand what's happening until you keep moving backward. My bigger gripe is with the incest/non-incest part of the plot -- I AM SICK AND TIRED OF DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY STORIES WHICH INEVITABLY CONTAIN AN ELEMENT OF INCEST/MOLESTATION! AAARRGGHH! There are dysfunctional families without incest! And they can be interesting too! It's become a cliche already. The only reason I didn't remove a star for that (and I was sorely tempted) is that, looking back, that's probably the only kind of event that could have facilitated everything that followed. I also had an issue with the ambiguity of the incest; if it wasn't actually incest but something like incest (which is what the book seems to imply), then why were the results so dramatic?

But I forgave that, because the book as a whole was so damn beautiful and well-done. I should add as a disclaimer that my sister and some other goodreads reviewers didn't like this book, but it certainly has my vote.

[Whirl Girl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the writing style in this book. It was engaging, descriptive, and really transported me to another place and time. Peppered with Malaysian (and Tamil-Malaysian) slang and references, it offered a lyrical compliment to the more straight-forward nonfiction book that I read about Borneo this month. I also loved the character development. By the end of the book, the nuances and personalities of each of the main characters shone through, providing an explanation of their motivations. What I didn't love was that all of the characters were so miserable in their lives. It was hard to keep picking up the book and finding more terrible things happening to them and more haunting acts perpetrated by them, though the story was beautifully and compellingly written.

[MAP · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried. I really really tried. But the ILL due date came up, and I was still only half way through. It wasn't that I didn't want to know what had happened to each of the characters, it was just that...I didn't actually want to have to read the book to find out.

I'm interested that so many people connected so deeply with the characters, because I found each one of them to be completely unappealing or just plain unlikeable.

If I'd had more time with this book, rather than being on a rather strict time limit because of ILL, maybe I would have gotten through it and really enjoyed it. But by page 135, I was still slogging along every inch of the way.

I might try it again someday.

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, I just loved it so so much. All through the last 50 pages I kept thinking, how is this possibly going to end? And then of course it ended in the most perfect, heartbreaking way. If there is such a thing as a romp without the romping, this is it. Also, it is one of the only novels I've ever read to make me feel very very hungry one minutes and then very very not hungry the next. Most only do one or the other. The word bittersweet isn't bitter enough or sweet enough. And ghosts! Is it any surprise that Aasha was (and remains) my favorite?

[Lisa (NY) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evening is the Whole Day" is mostly set in 1980s Malayasia. A family unravels through the eyes of the youngest daughter who hides and spies in the shadows. Although the dense, lavish prose and the over-stuffed sentences sometimes felt overpowering, I kept turning the pages, wanting to find out what happens.

[eb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This writer is going to be a big, huge deal. She seems to have invented a new kind of prose, mooshing together magical realism (barf, but in her hands non-vomitous) and Tolstoy. I wanted to steal my galley and write notes all over its margins.

[Gabriela]

great book. really well written. the characters have dimensions! I didn't feel forced to identify or sympathize with anyone in particular. this is really one of the best books I've ever read.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a difficult three stars, because I feel very rewarded by the book but even more disappointed by the larger story.

What I love about this book: the writing. The descriptions, the language, the way the author uses smell and sound, and some of her naked moments, telling us the audience directly that the story does not coming to a black telescopic end, like so many cartoons. Instead that telescope expands to a whole scene, a whole reality. I believed her, and I followed her. The vignettes were astonishingly good: going to the airport, the birth of Suresh, the courtship of Amma and Appa, the moment Uma withdraws from everyone and her reasons for doing so from Paati and Aasha.

I think this book attempts too much. The character development is uneven. Paati is highly episodic, even as a ghost; Amma is painfully one-dimensional; Suresh is like a dim memory of a brother; and we never learn the significance or even reality of Aasha's ghost relationships.

Some of the clinchers that we are supposed to be hungering for are so trite, so reproduced and uncreative, so predictable. When Aasha lies about Paati's death, it is a clear parallel to Atonement. When Uma goes from warm to cold, and her arctic attitude lasts two years (?), we all know why well before we get there in the story.

My favorite part is when we see Uma explain why Aasha is dangerous, why an adulating motherless girl is willing to do too much. Anyone who finds Aasha adorable and sympathetic is utterly missing the point.

[Liam Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Occasionally you come across a novel that so accurately captures the human condition that it is impossible not to identify with some tiny fragment of personality or emotion.
This novel wove together both the story of a servant girl wrongfully accused and that of her employers lives, trials and tribulations, both internally and on the surface.
few books that I have read have portrayed such a raw and deeply flawed cast of individuals, I found it difficult to openly dislike any of them because each had such depth and true emotion to them.

Evening Is The Whole Day does not paint the image of a happy family institution, This family hurt; they hurt each other, sometimes deliberately and often without shame, but it is through this that we witness the inner turmoil of each, it is this fact that so deeply saddened me and allowed to connect with each.

The colourful social dynamic of Malaysia and its melting pot of cultures was another aspect that reared its (sometimes ugly) head throughout this novel, particularly the treatment of servants but also the amalgamation of languages and struggle for identity, something which each character had to do battle with in their own way, be it the role of husband, sister or elder...not just servant.

To try and capture the essence of each character in a single review would do this book no justice, its one of those books that you simply have to pick up to understand. I really would like to read more of this relatively unknown authors work as her combination of vivid prose and unrestricted plot are not easily found these days.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is actually set in Malaysia, but the main characters are an Indian family. The story involves the death of an elderly woman in the family, and the subsequent dismissal of a servant girl who is held responsible. Through the eyes of the six year old protagonist, Aasha, and occasionally other characters, the book swoops backward and forward through time to show the subtle and complicated threads that tie together families in love, loyalty, hatred and deceit. While the book particularly illuminates aspects of its particular setting in time and place, the complications of a postcolonial world, it also examines the complicated division of loyalties within families, particularly immigrant families who feel a special insularity.

[Sobia Be · Rating 1 out of 5]

her writting is concentrated too much on the detail of the surrounding until they drift away from the real plot of the story! till the end you cant seem to find the main characters in this story!..her hatred towards certain religion & race is surprisingly spoken openly , & one wonders what it got to do with the story altogether....!....in the end Preeta is pretty lame....good in describing the details but bad in creating a story!!

[Sanjay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lush evocation of the activities of a dysfunctional Indian-Malaysian family over the decades -- very well-written indeed, but a bit over-ripe and, ultimately, spinning off into too many directions. Notable for its lyricism and the quality of its sentences, however.

[Lιƈíɳια · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uma escrita que me transportou ao passado quando descobri Gabriel García Marquéz e Isabel Allende. Uma história rica em descrições que nos transmite as cores, os cheiros e os paladares da Malásia e nos envolve na casa da família Rajasekharan com os seus segredos, enganos, desilusões e ilusões.