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The Toss of a Lemon
The year of the marriage proposal, Sivakami is ten. She is neither tall nor short for her age, but she will not grow much more. Her shoulders are narrow but appear solid, as though the blades are fused to protect her heart from the back. She carries herself with an attractive stiffness: her shoulders straight and always aligned. She looks capable of bearing great burdens,...more
Hardcover, 640 pages
Published
September 8th 2008
by Harcourt
(first published April 1st 2008)
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May 13, 2013
Judy
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone who likes to read about culture or India
Recommended to Judy by:
Amanda
Its not often that I'm sad to finish a 616-page book, but that is the case with this one. The Toss of a Lemon tells the story of a Brahmin family through three generations. It not only offers a ring-side seat to watch Sivakami and her family mature and change, but it portrays the evolution of India from a caste-heavy society to one that begins to shrug off the old traditions. (1896-1958) Here are a few slices from this gem of a book:
*The book title: Hanumarathnam, Sivaki's husband, is a wealthy...more
*The book title: Hanumarathnam, Sivaki's husband, is a wealthy...more
Aug 09, 2008
Charlotte
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
everyone
Shelves:
best-of-the-best,
india
This novel will inspire all kinds of insipid comparisons to other Indian-diaspora writers, and I don't really understand why they chose to use the terrible Yann Martel blurb about "getting through" it, and they shouldn't call anything a "saga" anymore, people haven't the patience for it.
BUT ANYWAY: I loved this book. I am tempted to read it again from the beginning, all 600+ pages of it. I wished it had kept going. I wished it would never stop.
It follows Sivakami and her extended Brahmin famil...more
BUT ANYWAY: I loved this book. I am tempted to read it again from the beginning, all 600+ pages of it. I wished it had kept going. I wished it would never stop.
It follows Sivakami and her extended Brahmin famil...more
I took my time reading this novel. Normally I consume books rapidly, hoping to jump to the next one on my list. Toss of Lemon made me slow down, not because of difficult prose or boredom, but because I wanted to savor the story.
The novel traces history through the lens of a family which is based loosely on the author's own family history. It made me want to learn more about India and Indian history, something that I have not been exposed to beyond Ghandi. I highly recommend this book as a long...more
The novel traces history through the lens of a family which is based loosely on the author's own family history. It made me want to learn more about India and Indian history, something that I have not been exposed to beyond Ghandi. I highly recommend this book as a long...more
Well, Padma Viswanathan has written an ambitious novel of 600 pages. When I got to page 294 I decided I had given her a fair chance and put the book down. I found the plot boring, I didn't care about the characters, I couldn't feel the evening breeze, nor smell the cooking aromas. So what was the purpose of reading on? It is another tale of the oppression of the caste society in India and the attempt of modernity to erase its wrongs, leaving large scars in its wake.
This is not a book for everyone, in the sense that you must be receptive in order to read it, or else you'll want to put it down after the first 100 pages (if that). It's a slow story, rich in details and dwelling on significant moments in the lives of its many characters. There's very little action and a lot of deliberation. It takes dedication and patience to see it through until the end. If you have that, however, then hopefully you enjoyed The Toss of a Lemon as much as I did.
Padma Viswanath...more
Padma Viswanath...more
The Toss of a Lemon by Padma Viswanathan is a hefty epic novel about an Brahmin Indian family, spanning three generations---beginning in 1896. Although the book is fiction, the author's idea for the book was based on stories told to her by her grandmother over the years.
The novel follows Sivakami, from the time of her marriage in 1896 at the age of ten, to when she becomes a widow at age eighteen, left alone with two young children. The story continues as the reader watches the difficulties face...more
The novel follows Sivakami, from the time of her marriage in 1896 at the age of ten, to when she becomes a widow at age eighteen, left alone with two young children. The story continues as the reader watches the difficulties face...more
It's a quietly fascinating book. I'm at the point where I can't put it down, not because the plot is driving or it's suspenseful; it's one of those books that sneaks up on you and really pulls you in. It describes the daily life, religion, and culture of India from the late 19th century on, through the eyes of a Brahmin family and the trials they endure. The descriptions of the rituals surrounding daily life are fascinating, and the momentum of the story is quietly building now that I'm halfway...more
I really enjoyed this epic novel, the story of an Indian family during the first half of the 20th century. It’s very much a domestic drama, lightly spiced by the political happenings of the period. But what’s fascinating is how the people lived their caste privileges and responsibilities, on an intimate level. The protagonists here are Brahmin, and the main character is a woman, Sivakami, who is widowed at a young age, and has to raise her children and most of her grandchildren alone.
Sivakami d...more
Sivakami d...more
When I started reading this book, all 619 pages of it filled with names I had to clumsily sound out loud to myself before I could visualize the places and persons, I thought "This is going to be too big for me." I am coming to realize that a few decades of getting my information, like so many Americans do--in fast bursts, swiftly flowing plot lines, simple sentences and words, and facile caricatures--has served to atrophy my brain. (Me, who as a ten-year-old, greedily devoured the likes of "A Ta...more
This story follows the life of a strict Brahman Hindi woman and her family from her early childhood in the late 19th century until the late 1950's. It's a facinating epic, describing the day to day life of an average Brahman family. I knew very little about the caste system of India and the Hindu religion, and I was amazed to learn how religion and superstition affects every minute aspect of the day. This woman, for example, as a Brahman widow didn't allow herself to be seen in public, as it was...more
Jul 31, 2011
Jessica
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
historical-fiction,
indian-authors
Padma has an exquisite use of language that immediately washes over you and lulls you right into the heart of her characters and their world from the start. The novel is a piece of historial fiction beginning in the late 19th century and ending just after Partition. It takes you through four generations of a traditional Tamil Brahmin family and is the first book I've read that really delves into the psyche of South Indian caste practices without seeming so explicitly obvious about it. That's the...more
This book is slow to start and quite long, so it might put some readers off. However, I think the reward is worth your patience in the first 150 pages or so.
It's hard to have sympathy with a ruling class that rules by virtue of accident of birth and nothing more. It's even harder to write a sympathetic portrait of one who sees such a world vanish before her eyes while at the same time acknowledging the huge injustices and ludicrous prejudices such a system engenders, but Viswanathan succeeds env...more
It's hard to have sympathy with a ruling class that rules by virtue of accident of birth and nothing more. It's even harder to write a sympathetic portrait of one who sees such a world vanish before her eyes while at the same time acknowledging the huge injustices and ludicrous prejudices such a system engenders, but Viswanathan succeeds env...more
I've read a number of books by Indian-American authors during my Centrum residency in Port Townsend (the buyer at the local library appears to have a fascination with all things Indian, since so many of this genre grace the shelves), but this is my favorite of all. Not the jazziest title (which has to do with the main character's astrologer husband, who asks the midwives delivering his children to toss a lemon through the window, so he'll know the exact time of their births and can forecast thei...more
This is an epic saga of a Tamil Brahmin family spanning more than 3 generations. The story starts in the late 19th century with the child marriage of the main protagonist, Shivakami at the age of 9. She bears two children, the eldest a girl with magical element of shedding gold dust from her body whenever she is emotionally disturbed, the younger one a boy, who is supposed to have killed his father due to his bad horoscope. The story unfolds to show the difficulties Shivakami face in bringing up...more
This book took me a long time to read, and I don't know why. It was very interesting in that I don't know very much about Indian culture. The book takes place around the time of India's independence from Great Britain, so many changes were taking place at that time. It follows the lives of a Brahmin family through four generations. The main character is Sivikami who is widowed with two children at a young age. She is very traditional in every area of her life from her white widow's saris to her...more
I enjoyed this book and wanted to read often to find out the fate of each character. It is so interesting to learn about the culture, customs, religion and political history of people far away. It seems so mysterious and shocking as most certainly my beliefs and customs must seem to them. It brings an understanding of the actions of a young Indian man my niece (she is hispanic) dated in college. She thought they had a future as a married couple, but he broke off their relationship because of his...more
I did not expect to enjoy this book. I have read some Indian literature before and found it difficult to reconcile my Western ideas and ethos with the traditions of India, particularly some of the harshness of the caste system and the religious beliefs. I have found most of the books I have read quite depressing. However, I did enjoy this book. It traces the evolution of Indian ideas through the early 20th century, including the period of Indian independence. However, the large national picture...more
"Inspired by her family history, Padma Viswanathan takes us deep inside the private lives of a Brahmin family, bringing to life an India we've never before seen." "At the novel's heart is Sivakami, married at ten, widowed at eighteen, and left with two children. According to the dictates of her caste, her head is shaved and she must wear widow's whites. From dawn to dusk, she is not allowed to contaminate herself with human touch, not even to comfort her small children." And she dutifully follow...more
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This story follows the life of one Indian woman, Sivakami (1896-1962), married at ten and widowed at eighteen. She is left with two children, but as rules of her Brahmin caste dictate, she must wear widow's whites, shave her head, and touch no one from dawn to dusk - not even her children. She's not allowed to remarry and only ventures outside her family compound three times during her widowhood. She is extremely orthodox in her behavior in the midst of great social and political upheaval and is...more
I read this book for several reasons, chiefly that it felt good in my hand. The cover was soft and smooth in a textured way and the pages felt as if they were made from something special. Additionally, this has been the summer of india-interest for me and this book presented itself.
It reminded me a lot of "London" by Edward Rutherford in the sense that they are both long epics and I enjoyed the first story line but not necessarily the ones following; though I kept reading because I was already s...more
It reminded me a lot of "London" by Edward Rutherford in the sense that they are both long epics and I enjoyed the first story line but not necessarily the ones following; though I kept reading because I was already s...more
This week I have slowly worked my way through The Toss of a Lemon, based on stories told to the author, Padma Viswanathan, in her childhood. It’s a hefty book of 600+ pages and I was unsure of whether I’d make it till the end, but I did and it was worth it. The story takes place in the early 1900s in India, and follows generations of a Brahmin family. Having very little previous knowledge of Indian history and the caste system, this was a really educational, but entertaining book. The characters...more
I LOVED this book! It is the perfect long story (600 pages) of a Brahmin family, with all the twists and turns of fate and character that keep me engulfed. Most long family stories are not my cup of tea. But Viswanathan has a way of telling a story and a story and another story, all leading to the next version of the story, and the story before that. This author loves her characters, delights in their foibles and teases them with terrible husbands or sisters or servants. She wryly teases her rea...more
This massive, engrossing novel had all of the great things that I love about multi-generational epics, and very little to dislike. It has been compared to One Hundred Years of Solitude and I find that an apt comparison. However, while I have been unable to finish that book for the last three years, I was a dedicated follower of this one.
The characters are distinct and well developed, especially Sivikami, Muchami, Varium, and Janaki. Their struggles adjusting to a changing world are those that ol...more
The characters are distinct and well developed, especially Sivikami, Muchami, Varium, and Janaki. Their struggles adjusting to a changing world are those that ol...more
The Toss of a Lemon is a sprawling, multi-generational family saga centered on Sivakami, a young widow raising her daughter (Thangam) and son (Vairum) and a whole host of grandchildren, with her faithful servant Muchami always at her side. Over the 600+ pages, the novel deals with the intricacies of arranged marriages, the caste system, independence from Britain and more, all seen through their impact on Sivakami and her family (in the last third, the persective shifts to Janaki, the brightest o...more
I wish this website allowed more than one rating -- the first half would get a 4, the next quarter a 3, and end a 1. It starts out as the story of a Tamil girl and follows her life from girlhood to old age, with a wonderful cast of supporting characters around her. It gives good detail of Tamil life, so that a dumb expat foreigner like me can understand how the people around me see the world -- the author is Indian-Canadian, and she has a good sense for how to help a Westerner get it. And the bo...more
The Toss of a Lemon is a book that you need a quiet place to read. The story takes place over decades from 1896 to 1958 and is centered around Sivakami a Brahmin girl who married at 10 years old to an astrologer who predicted his own short life. She is only 18 when she becomes a widow with two children to raise. Padma Viswantathan describes the caste and customs that Brahmin women must follow while leading us through the life of Sivakami from childhood till her old age. From her experiences with...more
Most of the plot of this book was focused on the interplay between the family members, which was primarily about getting married, having children and living happily; there was also an undercurrent of discord beyond the normal family disagreements over the country's political shift. The vertex of this conflict is between Sivakami, the conservative matriarch of the family and her vindictive son Varium. All of this drama, as it were, was understated and subtle, as family foulness usually is. My res...more
It's hard being a widow in a traditional Indian family... I wouldn't have been able to obey their "rituals". The ending completely took me by surprise. I knew that things would have to change for Sivakami due to the changing times she was living in, but I never expected the boldness of Varium to do what he did. It was completely uncalled for. He must have crushed his mother's spirit when he did what he did at the end. This book made me really see how much India has (hopefully) changed throughout...more
This is a remarkable book. It's almost impossible to describe. It's the story of a family in Southern India from the turn of the century until the 1960s, against the backdrop of political and social change within the country. Beyond that . . . it's about motherhood and childhood, religion and tradition, belief and love, horror and sacrifice. It helps to know a bit about Indian history, I think, because much of what is going on in the world outside the mostly insular environment of the novel is o...more
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Padma Viswanathan is a Canadian playwright and fiction writer.
Her short stories have appeared in literary journals and collections. She has also written plays for the stage and for radio.
Her first novel, The Toss of a Lemon, was shortlisted for Amazon.ca's First Novel Award and for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best First Book Award.
More about Padma Viswanathan...
Her short stories have appeared in literary journals and collections. She has also written plays for the stage and for radio.
Her first novel, The Toss of a Lemon, was shortlisted for Amazon.ca's First Novel Award and for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best First Book Award.
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May 13, 2013 08:46pm
LOL!
May 14, 2013 03:17am