21st Century Literature discussion

This is the spoiler thread for the first part of the book, which covers Jivan's return from America and his introduction to the family "farm". Please avoid spoilers to events in the later parts. As will become clear, the "coda" from Bapuji's point of view is a unifying link betwen the sections, and he gets his say at the end of each of them.

What were your first impressions? Did you sympathise with Jivan? How do you feel about Taneja's writing style?

First impressions:

- While I have not read King Lear in quite of number of years - mostly it is the overall story I remember not necessarily all of the details and so at first I was more concerned with connecting each action/character to what happened in King Lear. I wondered if I should stop and read King Lear, but I decided to plow ahead and red through Part 1 - Jivan's section

- I have always enjoyed watching Shakespeare's plays and while reading this part I "saw" the same "dramatic" flair as in the plays.
I felt the heat and could picture the grounds of the Farm.

- Yes, I did sympathize with Jivan. I felt his "outsiderness" and his confusion on what his "role/part" will be going forward. I do not I buy into the his naivete/innocence as he is collecting secrets/info from all that he could use to his advantage later.

- I also liked how Taneja used humor - having Jivan wearing a wool suit (on that long plane flight) and his Harvard tie (that no comments on), how it took so long for Jivan to get to eat some food.

- I am interested in reading more about Kashmir and how it is integrated into this storyline. I did like how Kashmir was integrated into The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.

Thanks Beverly. I have never read King Lear, but I have seen a few British TV versions, and I must admit that I used the Wikipedia summary of the plot to refresh my memory. Your initial impressions sound quite similar to mine.

Sympathies for Jivan are definitely waning as he starts in on his machinations. I am enjoying the writing a lot, economic but vivid descriptions.

Like Beverly, I appreciate the humor. A definite wince-worthy moment when the staff were taunting the recently returned Jivan with Apu’s catch phrase from The Simpson’s (“Thank you, come again!”)

I sympathized with Jivan in the first part, but there were definite warning signs that he was up something. And by the end I was impressed by the author's ability to reveal his machinations very slowly, without giving too much away early on. It was definitely more difficult to get through the last half of the book without the humor of the beginning.