The Space Between Us: A Novel
by Thrity Umrigar
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Read in March, 2007
In Thrity Umrigar's transportive novel, we come to know Bombay, as well as its residents, in its ugliness, its evocative beauty, and its uniqueness; and find how rare and difficult it is for people to transverse different parts of it, geographically and culturally.
Throughout The Space Between Us, there are details presumably unfamiliar to the reader not conversant with the colloquial language of Bombay; the rhyming, the slang; yet, it hardly matters, as the thrust and emotional meaning of e...more
Throughout The Space Between Us, there are details presumably unfamiliar to the reader not conversant with the colloquial language of Bombay; the rhyming, the slang; yet, it hardly matters, as the thrust and emotional meaning of e...more
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Read in July, 2008
Umrigar’s novel, set in contemporary Bombay, presents the lives of two women who are joined by gender but separated by class. As anyone who has visited India will attest, its inherent dichotomies are both beautiful and heartbreaking. This novel presents that as well as any I’ve ever read.
Through gently weaving past with present, two stories emerge, those of Bhima, an illiterate and impoverished housekeeper, and Sera, her middle class employer. Each woman’s story encompasses several ...more
Through gently weaving past with present, two stories emerge, those of Bhima, an illiterate and impoverished housekeeper, and Sera, her middle class employer. Each woman’s story encompasses several ...more
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Read in July, 2008
Beautiful, haunting, sad, brilliant. I stayed up way too late reading because I couldn't put it down.
Ms. Umrigar obviously knows exactly what an urban slum in India looks, feels and smells like. Her descriptions of the plight of the poor, the class and generational gaps in contemporary Indian society, and the dilemmas that exist for women are amazing.
She is a terrific storyteller. She makes raw poetry out of pain, despair, love and dut...more
Ms. Umrigar obviously knows exactly what an urban slum in India looks, feels and smells like. Her descriptions of the plight of the poor, the class and generational gaps in contemporary Indian society, and the dilemmas that exist for women are amazing.
She is a terrific storyteller. She makes raw poetry out of pain, despair, love and dut...more
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Read in March, 2008
Publisher's Weekly Review (I am in agreement with this review and realize that I may be arrested for using it):
Umrigar's schematic novel (after Bombay Time) illustrates the intimacy, and the irreconcilable class divide, between two women in contemporary Bombay. Bhima, a 65-year-old slum dweller, has worked for Sera Dubash, a younger upper-middle-class Parsi woman, for years: cooking, cleaning and tending Sera after the beatings she endures from her abusive husband, Feroz. Sera, in turn, nurs...more
Umrigar's schematic novel (after Bombay Time) illustrates the intimacy, and the irreconcilable class divide, between two women in contemporary Bombay. Bhima, a 65-year-old slum dweller, has worked for Sera Dubash, a younger upper-middle-class Parsi woman, for years: cooking, cleaning and tending Sera after the beatings she endures from her abusive husband, Feroz. Sera, in turn, nurs...more
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Read in August, 2007
I'll confess two things about this book. First, I was attracted to it by the cover art (shallow, but true). Second, the author lives and teaches in Cleveland (shout out to CWRU). In short, I was predisposed to like this book and, for the most part, I did.
The plot genuinely surprised me. Can't say that I've read many works of fiction recently that have done this. The strength and depth of this novel, however, originates from Bhima, an elderly illiterate who is skillfully and beau...more
The plot genuinely surprised me. Can't say that I've read many works of fiction recently that have done this. The strength and depth of this novel, however, originates from Bhima, an elderly illiterate who is skillfully and beau...more
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Read in October, 2006
seem to read a lot of international novels. Hmm... Well, "The Space Between Us" didn't exactly deliver. Does it want to be plot-driven or character-driven? It can't decide! Not enough happens for it to be plot-driven, but I didn't find it strong enough to be truly character-driven. Oh well. The obligatory quote:
Behind the anger is fear, fear as endless and vast and gray as the Arabian Sea, fear for this stupid, innocent, pregnant girl who stands sobbing before her, and for this unborn baby who will come into the world to a mother who is a child herself and to a grandmother who is old and tired to her very bones, a grandmother who is tired of loss, of loving and losing, who cannot bear the thought of one more loss and one more person to love. ...more
Behind the anger is fear, fear as endless and vast and gray as the Arabian Sea, fear for this stupid, innocent, pregnant girl who stands sobbing before her, and for this unborn baby who will come into the world to a mother who is a child herself and to a grandmother who is old and tired to her very bones, a grandmother who is tired of loss, of loving and losing, who cannot bear the thought of one more loss and one more person to love. ...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommended to Melissa by:
Hollee (though she hadn't read it yet)
I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I absolutely dislike Sera. I hope that, although I don't understand class divisions of India, and I realize that people (and life) are complicated, I hope that I have more character than she and rise above my flawed thinking to embrace what is right and good. But...there can never be any guarantees that I would behave any differently than she did. That's the sad truth. We all behave and make decisions based on what we have experienced in our own live...more
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Read in July, 2008
recommends it for:
Ellen, Jamie, people who like books set in India
I had wanted to read this book for a long time and finally got a chance. Now I have a new author to add to my favorites. This was a wonderful book and well-written. I like books set in India.
It is the story of two women - an upperclass Parsi, Sera, and her lower caste illiterate housekeeper, Bhima. Although prejudices exist - Sera does not permit Bhima to sit on their furniture, and Bhima must use her own glass for drinking at Sera's house - the two form a friendship and are privy to eac...more
It is the story of two women - an upperclass Parsi, Sera, and her lower caste illiterate housekeeper, Bhima. Although prejudices exist - Sera does not permit Bhima to sit on their furniture, and Bhima must use her own glass for drinking at Sera's house - the two form a friendship and are privy to eac...more
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This book, more astutely than any other novel i've read (or at least with more heart) pulls back the curtain on class conflict, exposing real ugliness but doing it graciously.. Sera, to me the most interesting character, is consciously unable to step out of her priviliged lifestyle to be there for her closest friend, Bhima (the heroine-- who lives in the slum)-- yet you understand and even forgive her for it. You also see Bhima's life in an urban slum and it was interesting to hear how she fee...more
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Read in February, 2008
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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Read in July, 2007
My favorite quote from this book:
"...How, despite our lifelong preoccupation with our bodies, we have never met face-to-face with our kidneys, how we wouldn't recognize our own liver in a row of livers, how we have never seen our own heart or brain. We know more about the depths of the ocean, are more acquainted with the far corners of outer space than with our own organs and muscles and bones. So perhaps there are no phantom pains after all; perhaps all pain is real; perhaps each long-ag...more
"...How, despite our lifelong preoccupation with our bodies, we have never met face-to-face with our kidneys, how we wouldn't recognize our own liver in a row of livers, how we have never seen our own heart or brain. We know more about the depths of the ocean, are more acquainted with the far corners of outer space than with our own organs and muscles and bones. So perhaps there are no phantom pains after all; perhaps all pain is real; perhaps each long-ag...more
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Read in June, 2008
This is a stark, moving story of a woman's life and the space which exists between herself and the significant people in her life. She lives in the slums of Bombay, works for a family to whom she is loyal and hardworking. She loves her family, tries always to do what is right, and is repaid with sorrow after sorrow, burden after burden. Somehow she continues to put one foot in front of the other.
The themes in this book include: class difference, social norms and pressures for conformity,...more
The themes in this book include: class difference, social norms and pressures for conformity,...more
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Read in July, 2008
I started this book last fall for a book club meeting in December, but then when our travel plans changed I was unable to attend the meeting so I put the book down. I just recently found it in a drawer and finished it. I really liked the idea of the book, but wished (probably naively) for a different ending. One of the blurbs on the book states that the novel is about how female relationships are eternally opposed by the divisions of class and culture, but I guess I wanted to see these bonds ...more
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Read in November, 2007
The very first book I have ever read about modern day India, recommended to me by my east loving sister.
I have heard about the large cultural gaps in Indian culture between the rich and the poor for a long time, but this was the first time I actually got to "experience" it in a way.
This is not my usual type of book as in, I wouldn't have chosen to read it myself if it wasn't recommended to me, I usually prefer escapism and try to move away from realistic, depressing novels, b...more
I have heard about the large cultural gaps in Indian culture between the rich and the poor for a long time, but this was the first time I actually got to "experience" it in a way.
This is not my usual type of book as in, I wouldn't have chosen to read it myself if it wasn't recommended to me, I usually prefer escapism and try to move away from realistic, depressing novels, b...more
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Read in October, 2007
Meh. This is the kind of novel I used to like - exploring gender and class issues in a foreign setting - but I found it unsatisfying. The author describes the crushing powerlessness of illiteracy and poverty well, but the rest of the book I found overly dramatic.
*SPOILER ALERT*
The one redeeming feature of the book to me was the fact that the two women characters in the book whose lives are profiled, do NOT find a way to bridge the class gap between them. However, the flashbacks em...more
*SPOILER ALERT*
The one redeeming feature of the book to me was the fact that the two women characters in the book whose lives are profiled, do NOT find a way to bridge the class gap between them. However, the flashbacks em...more
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Read in December, 2005
Relationships between women are complex at best—made all the more so by social pressures and family ties. Ms. Umrigar weaves her tale so beautifully that the true, destructive ugliness under the surface sneaks up on the reader. Her characters are people we know or can see in our selves in spite of cultural differences. Perhaps this is one of the reasons the story moved me so deeply. Ms. Umrigar tells a simple yet eternal story with grace and palpable emotion within a world that is exquisit...more
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Read in April, 2006
This book ranks among the very top of my couldn't-put-it-down books! This is Umrigar at the top of her form. I loved the characters, the way the story unfolded. I loved its contrasts and extremes, poverty and comfort, age and youth, hope and terrible disappointment, violence and humor, kindness and cruelty. Even though the realities of these women were so different from my own, it still jelled with my own experience. The characters were not at all static to me. I felt these women as friend...more
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I must have really enjoyed this book since I read through all of it in one or two sittings. Actually, it was a great book, but I haven't figured out how i feel about the ending. On one hand, it could be viewed as the easy way out for the author- a sort of Scarlet O'hara's "tomorrow is another day" ending. On the other hand, it's messy, like life. It's a sad mix of hope seeping it's way out of great uncertainty (i'm trying to share my opinion without giving away the actual ending) with...more
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Read in February, 2006
The Space Between Us tells the story of Sera and Bhima, a middle-class widow and her domestic servant, separated by caste but intimately linked by their life experiences. When Sera decides to finance the college education of Bhima's granddaughter, Maya, all of Bhima's hopes for escaping the slums of Bombay are pinned to the young student. Maya becomes pregnant, though, and these hopes are dashed. The magnetic force behind this novel lies in the emotion and beauty that underscores the relationshi...more
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Read in October, 2007
very quick read...but was slightly disappointed. relationships between the characters were not as strong as i expected, as the book jacket eluded to the idea that character relationship was central to the book. the book seemed to attempt to show the relationship between 2 women (one middle/upper and the other very poor) and the building of that relationship despite class status. i don't think the book was very successful on this perspective. or perhaps it is just my own idealistic bias in thi...more
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.86 (1061 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.86 (1000 ratings) number of reviews: 292popular shelves
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quote
"Or perhaps it is that time doesn't heal wounds at all, perhaps that is the biggest lie of them all, and instead what happens is that each wound penetrates the body deeper and deeper until one day you find that the sheer geography of your bones -- the angle of your head, the jutting of your hips, the sharpness of your shoulders, as well as the luster of your eyes, the texture of your skin, the openness of your smile -- has collapsed under the weight of your griefs."
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