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361st out of 381 books
—
928 voters
The Zigzag Way
by
Anita Desai
In The Zigzag Way, the critically acclaimed novelist Anita Desai offers a gorgeously nuanced story of expatriates and travelers adrift in an unfamiliar land. Eric, a young American historian, has come to Mexico on his first trip abroad. His search for his immigrant family’s roots brings him to a town in the Sierrra Madre, where a hundred years earlier Cornish miners toiled...more
Paperback, 176 pages
Published
February 17th 2006
by Mariner Books
(first published 2004)
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May 12, 2013
Manish
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
indian-writing,
latin-america
With his PhD thesis work going nowhere, Eric decides to tag along with his girlfriend for her PhD field work in Mexico in the hope of attaining sudden inspiration and some direction to a rudderless life. The sights and sounds of Mexico suddenly brings back a vague memory of his grandfather's confession of the fact that he had once upon a time toiled in the mines of Mexico and had left with the birth of his father. Armed with the curiosity of trying to locate the town where his grandfather would...more
Not much of a Desai-type story.
Story about a young man Eric, who was a crumbling failure and his live-in partner Em, a booming success. While he was struggling, striving with no interest, to finish a thesis his professors had told him to, she goes on a field-trip to Mexico with her fellow doctors and scientists to do research. Bored, out of lost inspiration to continue the thesis, and out of need for fresh inspiration to write on something else, he, too, after some entreaty, joins their troop an...more
Story about a young man Eric, who was a crumbling failure and his live-in partner Em, a booming success. While he was struggling, striving with no interest, to finish a thesis his professors had told him to, she goes on a field-trip to Mexico with her fellow doctors and scientists to do research. Bored, out of lost inspiration to continue the thesis, and out of need for fresh inspiration to write on something else, he, too, after some entreaty, joins their troop an...more
At university, with the incomparable Geoffrey Eathorne as our professor for our Commonwealth Literature course at Trent University in Canada, I read Anita Desai's Clear Light of Day. It was a stand out. I don't remember it perfectly but that it had beautiful writing and I enjoyed the story.
Two decades letter, I haven't read anything by her since and saw 'The Zigzag way' on the shelf of a favourite used bookstore. The story is set in Mexico, a young academic, aimless, looking for his past and som...more
Two decades letter, I haven't read anything by her since and saw 'The Zigzag way' on the shelf of a favourite used bookstore. The story is set in Mexico, a young academic, aimless, looking for his past and som...more
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Eric and Emily, he calls her Em' for short, live in a cozy Boston apartment, cozily pursuing their postgraduate work. Emily is a scientist. Eric is working on a dissertation on immigration patterns in the US. But Eric is not fulfilled by his research. He would rather sit and drink coffee and watch the world pass him by. He is tempted to throw his dissertation away.
Emily is not particularly pleased with Eric's growing lassitude. It contrasts sharply with her immersion in her subject. A point of...more
Emily is not particularly pleased with Eric's growing lassitude. It contrasts sharply with her immersion in her subject. A point of...more
The Zigzag Way- After reading I am assured the author literally wrote a zigzag fiction.
This book is really insightful if you wana know about Mexican history mainly revolving around silver mines during the time of revolution. Some books make me Google once I finish the book; this definitely made me read more on Mexican history especially the Huichols and their traditions. (The last book of this kind I read was “A long long way" by Sebastian Barry which even made me watch the movie “The wind that...more
This book is really insightful if you wana know about Mexican history mainly revolving around silver mines during the time of revolution. Some books make me Google once I finish the book; this definitely made me read more on Mexican history especially the Huichols and their traditions. (The last book of this kind I read was “A long long way" by Sebastian Barry which even made me watch the movie “The wind that...more
Desai invokes her renowned lush, and occasionally dense, prose to portray Eric's sensory overload here. She obviously speaks with intimate knowledge of the land, and this, combined with the wealth of historical detail, prompt several critics to sing her praises. More importantly, as The New York Times notes, The Zigzag Way is "not just a condensed course in 20th-century Mexican history but a meditation on the futility of our efforts to outrun the past." In other words, Desai does her job. Eric i
...more
Another winner from Anita Desai. The protagonist who initially seems to follow his girl-friend on a field trip to Mexico for lack of a better plan turns out to be investigating his family's past without quite realising it at first. Half-forgotten memories of short exchanges with his father lead him on a quest back to the mining village where his Cornish grand-father once worked, and lost his young wife. Although it's a short book it almost has an epic quality to it as the links between the past...more
For some reason getting through this was a real slog, and I only started getting into this right near the end. A very slim novel, at about 180 pages, took me 10 days! I suspect it's more to do with my current knackered-ness, than the actual book, as it's beautifully written.
Even with the slogging, I managed to glean a couple of things out of the novel, but am left feeling like I've missed the point. Or maybe that is the point?
(view spoiler)...more
Even with the slogging, I managed to glean a couple of things out of the novel, but am left feeling like I've missed the point. Or maybe that is the point?
(view spoiler)...more
Sep 26, 2007
Sierra
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
folks who like travel narratives complicated by politics and confessions of longing
This feels more like a novella to me. The themes are overt: grad student stalled on his thesis about immigration patterns follows his driven scientist girlfriend on her field work, where he ends up trying to trace his own English family's migration from Cornwall to Mexico to work in the silver mines that boomed before the Mexican Revolution, and comes to a place where his perspective may be radically altered. However, Desai's writing is gorgeous, and her thinking about the themes she makes obvio...more
Like Fasting, Feasting not fantastic writing, but a well-woven story that feeds itself life and intimacy with the very interesting characters. That weaving of the story lines was the author's artistry that I was most impressed with. The story is of a young man who is flailing a bit post his graduate work. He is in a relationship, and if there is one gap in the story it was not clear to me at why these two are together! So while the story portrays them as a solid couple, I didn't feel it. His gir...more
Good book, but I may be biased. I typed the manuscript for the paperback edition when I was an intern at Penguin, so the author kindly signed a copy of the book for me. It was a very intimate way to read the story--literally letter to word to sentence to paragraph. I find myself wondering now if my experience of the book would be different if read as a whole rather than by the small parts of a whole.
Although the writing is beautifully crafted in a way one rarely finds in romantic novels today, I found it hard to connect to the characters. There was no one character that drew me in; it felt more like a review through a filter of nostalgia. I hoped to learn more about the indigineous people and the Cornish miners and the Spanish, but their characters remained elusive and vague.
No pasa nada con este libro, el protagonista no tiene fuerza y no me aguantaba a la tal Doña Vera. es la primera vez que no me gusta un libro sobre México escrito por un extranjero. Tal vez sea un error elegir este libro para comenzar a leer la obra de esta autora.
I picked up this book because I love Mexico and thought Desai's Fasting, Feasting was pretty good. Although she wove some interesting history and social commentary into the story, both the plot and the writing were weak and unfocused.
I think Anita Desai is not my type.Picking up Anita Desai had been a very big mistake.I somehow cannot relate to her characters which seem phoney and superficial to me.
The last Anita Desai's book (Fire in the mountain)that I read was also a huge dissapointment and this one was no less.I think it will be unfair to compare Fire in the Mountain and The Zigzag way as they both have been a terrible experience but still if I have to choose between the two it will be this one which seems less boring.I...more
The last Anita Desai's book (Fire in the mountain)that I read was also a huge dissapointment and this one was no less.I think it will be unfair to compare Fire in the Mountain and The Zigzag way as they both have been a terrible experience but still if I have to choose between the two it will be this one which seems less boring.I...more
Classed as UK because the author is from the UK, this novella set in Mexico was a mess of tangled threads left unresolved at the end. Didn't enjoy it.
This book was conceptually very interesting, but I didn't feel compelled to like any of the characters unfortunately.
Jul 02, 2008
Kathy Petersen
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Shelves:
x-feb-08-thru-jan-09,
read-non-mystery-fiction
Certain fiction set in Mexico – Night of the Iguana, Touch of Evil, novels whose titles I’ve lost - seems to remind me of Under the Volcano, which I read when I was about 12 and read again as an adult and found the same sort of bleak enchantment. The Zigzag Way evoked that kind of understated – even unstated – spiritual landscape that strongly affects the personnel of the story (and me). Like those spare folksongs we resurrected in the ‘60s, there’s more than meets the ear and the eye, and it’s...more
how folks are can usually be explained by their past...just sometimes you don't know what that past is...
It wasn't a bad read, but when all was said and done I'm not sure what the point of it was, either.
An engaging story that plays with time but not in the over the top PoMo way. Interesting to see Desai write about Mexico, her observations really inform her descriptions.
Feb 26, 2010
Sue Davis
added it
I din't like it but reading the description makes me think I should try it again.
Some good passages on the difficulty and strangeness faced by people coming to Mexico from other countries in the early 1900s, but the main character's story is very thin, and I did not feel I got the "quiet, powerful epiphany" I was promised.
mexico-cornish miners.grandson returns to mining town.
Jul 29, 2011
Sara
marked it as to-read
05 long list-orange prize
Meh
I can't figure this book out.
Three different but interconnecting stories linked fairly loosely by the silver mines of Mexico and the Cornishmen and native Americans who worked in them. I enjoyed the descriptions and the stories but was left wondering "why write it?"
I found it a little anti-climactic and still haven't understood the common theme between the various threads in the story (other than mining and Mexico)
Three different but interconnecting stories linked fairly loosely by the silver mines of Mexico and the Cornishmen and native Americans who worked in them. I enjoyed the descriptions and the stories but was left wondering "why write it?"
I found it a little anti-climactic and still haven't understood the common theme between the various threads in the story (other than mining and Mexico)
A touch of magical realism, a nice bit of cultural and historical background, a gorgeous setting that provided me with some imaginary vacation memories since this isn't the year for real ones (and their real costs). A very short book, The Zigzag Way was a whisp, a tease that *poofed* itself out of my world when I wanted more -- much like the spirits the Mexicans seek on dia do los muertos.
No conocía nada de Anita Desai, y no se si este fué lo mejor para empezar. Me gusta que mexico sea un elemento en la historia, pero no me parece nada del otro mundo la historia ni a donde la lleva. No pasa nada realmente importante, y ningun personaje llega a una conclusión.. las historias que se entremezclan tampoco llegan a ninguna parte.
Blah.
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Anita Desai was born in 1937. Her published works include adult novels, children's books and short stories. SHe is a member of the Advisory Board for English of the National Academy of Letters in Delhi and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in London. Anita Mazumdar Desai is an Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolo...more
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