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The Inheritance of Loss

by Kiran Desai

3.41 · Rating Details · 40,326 Ratings · 3,398 Reviews

Kiran Desai's first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was published to unanimous acclaim in over twenty-two countries. Now Desai takes us to the northeastern Himalayas where a rising insurgency challenges the old way of life.

In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga lives an embittered old judge who wants to retire in peace when his orphaned g ...more

Paperback, 357 pages

Published 2005 by Grove Press

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Recent Questions

How long did the author stay in Kalimpong, where the story is based? The story is completely stereotyped within a certain phase which could give wrong impression to the reader, fiction might it be. Because I did my education in Kalimpong and I was very present during that time.

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Community Reviews

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Jul 10, 2009 K.D. Absolutely rated it really liked it

Recommended to K.D. by: Man Booker Prize 2006, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2004-2010)

Shelves: 1001-non-core, booker, india, race

So far, this is the Man Booker Prize winner that is most relevant to me as an Asian. Most countries in Asia were once colonies of European or American countries and their influences will forever stay no matter how many centuries have passed. Also, this is one of the most readable. Although the verses are oftentimes playful, the storytelling is concise. Almost all the characters seem to be alive and the imageries that the scenes create seem like imprints that will stay in your mind for a long tim So far, this is the Man Booker Prize winner that is most relevant to me as an Asian. Most countries in Asia were once colonies of European or American countries and their influences will forever stay no matter how many centuries have passed. Also, this is one of the most readable. Although the verses are oftentimes playful, the storytelling is concise. Almost all the characters seem to be alive and the imageries that the scenes create seem like imprints that will stay in your mind for a long time.

It may not be as comprehensive as Salman Rusdie’s Midnight’s Children although it is also about India that used to be under the British empire. However, it is more exact with its urgent message: the loss of the nation’s true identity due to western influences. The true Indian identity that was an amalgam of the nation’s own culture and tradition spawning several centuries when they were still free of foreign influences. After all, India has one of the oldest civilizations in the world.

It may not be as tear-jerking and bewildering as Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things although it is also about Indian families trying to survive the Third-World realities of life. However, it is more realistic with the characters finding themselves in the situations that were not imposed to them but mostly of their own choices. I think this is what made me appreciate Desai’s over Roy’s: that her characters have choices, despite the fact that those options are limited because of the harsh environment that they happened to live in.

It may not be as current as Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger although it is also about the changing landscape of a small Indian town. However, Desai’s storytelling is more engaging as she has this rare ability to take you in a roller-coaster ride: you’ll be in enthralled by her playful verses, in deep thoughts by her heartfelt message, in gratitude by being in a better state in life than her characters, in aversion to any form of racial discrimination by following the sad fate of Biju hopping from one job to another as an illegal alien in the USA and yet, in the end, you will feel cheering for her characters as you are able to identify yourself with them. That no matter what we go through in life, there is still hope that awaits us at the end of each tumultuous journey.

One of my GR friends once commented that he has veered away from novels with India as a setting because they are always about being destitute and poor. There may be some truth on this. However, novels are supposed to be about reality and that’s how most of the people live in India. I have been to Mumbai thrice. In my 27 years in the corporate world, I have been fortunate to work under 4 Indian nationals and each of them has been telling me about too much politicking that hinders the development and progress in their country. They are all good bosses: with good education, very smart, knowledgeable, conscientious, culture-sensitive and appreciative. They and the other Indian people I had a chance to meet make me wonder: how come that despite many good people in India, they seem to have difficulty in putting their acts together to propel their country to a higher ground?

Then I thought, I might as well be talking about the Filipinos and the Philippines.
...more

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Jun 29, 2010 Paul Bryant rated it it was ok

Shelves: novels, india

I'm not going to say that this novel is bad

(Chorus of GR friends : Say it, go on, you know you want to...)

but it was pretty ghastly for me. It was strangled to death by a style you could describe as inane wittering, a crew of characters all of which are loveably eccentric and a plot that Ms Desai believes will take care of itself as the inane wittering puthers all over the loveable eccentrics.

So, to sum up

BAH

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Aug 20, 2008 Philip rated it liked it

The Inheritance Of Loss by Kiran Desai is a magnificent, impressive novel that ultimately is disappointing. As a process, the book is almost stunningly good. As a product, it falls short.

The book’s language, scenarios and juxtapositions are funny, threatening, vivid and tender all at the same time. The comic element, always riven through with irony, is most often to the fore, as characters grapple with a world much bigger than themselves, a world that only ever seems to admit them partially, and The Inheritance Of Loss by Kiran Desai is a magnificent, impressive novel that ultimately is disappointing. As a process, the book is almost stunningly good. As a product, it falls short.

The book’s language, scenarios and juxtapositions are funny, threatening, vivid and tender all at the same time. The comic element, always riven through with irony, is most often to the fore, as characters grapple with a world much bigger than themselves, a world that only ever seems to admit them partially, and rarely on their own terms. The one criticism I have of the style is Kiran Desai’s propensity to offer up lists as comic devices, a technique that works a couple of times, but later has the reader scanning forward to the next substance.

An aged judge lives in the highlands of north India. As political and ethnic tensions stretch through the mountain air, he reconsiders his origins, his education, his career, his opportunities, both taken and missed. He has a granddaughter, orphaned in most unlikely circumstances, as her parents trained for a Russian space programme. But what circumstances that create orphans are ever likely? She is growing up, accompanied by most of what that entails.

The cook in the rickety mansion is the person that really runs the household, his rule-of-thumb methods predating the appliances he has to use and the services he has to provide. He manages, imaginatively. He has a son, Biju, who eventually forms the centrepiece of the book’s complex, somewhat rambling story. Biju has emigrated to New York, where he has made it big, at least as far as the folks back home think. On site, he slaves away in the dungeon kitchens of fast food outlets, restaurants, both up and downmarket, and a few plain eateries. Kiran Desai provides the reader with a superb image of globalisation when she describes the customer-receiving areas of an upmarket restaurant flying an advertised, authentic French flag, while in the kitchen the flags are Indian, Honduran, anything but French. Now there is true authenticity for you, offered up in its manufactured, globalised form.

Biju, of course, dreams of home, but the comparatively large number of US dollars he earns – at least as far as the folks back home see it – barely covers essentials in someone else’s reality.

The narrative of The Inheritance Of Loss flits between New York, northern India and elsewhere, and also between the here and now, yesteryear and the judge’s childhood. And perhaps it flits too much, because the scenes are often cut short before the reader feels they have made a point.

And ultimately this reader found that the book lacked focus. While the process was enjoyable, the product was not worth the journey. The Inheritance Of Loss seemed to promise to take us somewhere in this globalised confusion of identity, motive, routine, unrealised dreams and intangible desires, but eventually it seemed to have nothing to add to a sense of “well that’s how it is”, which is precisely where we started. There was an opportunity for more, but it was ducked.

The book was thus a thoroughly enjoyable read that threatened to achieve greatness through statement, but unfortunately missed the mark, and by a long way.
...more

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Dec 25, 2014 Amira Mahmoud rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: نسخ-ورقية-واستعارة-مكتبية, translated, أدب-روايات

هل يمكن أن يتحول في أعماقنا الشعور بما نحققه من إنجاز إلى شيء أشبه بالخسارة والفقد؟

ميراث الخسارة
ميراث الفقر والجهل، والحظ السيء
ميراث ينتقل من جيل الآباء إلى الأبناء والأحفاد وإلى آخر السلالة
ميراث أساسي لكل من يولد في بلد نامي
يملك من الفقر والجهل ما يكفي ملايين الأجيال القادمة
يلاحقهم أينما كانوا، ومهما حاولوا الهرب منه حتى إلى أرقى البلدان تقدمًا
يبدو أنه ميراث يجري في دمائهم وتتشبع به جيناتهم الوراثية
أو هو هالة تحيط بهم أيتما كانوا وتدفع عنهم كل بارقة أمل أو فرصة ستدفعهم للمضي قدمًا
أعتقد هذا ه ...more

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Sep 14, 2008 Marlon James rated it it was amazing

When I finally met Salman Rushdie (!!!!) within seconds we got to talking about this book. Like Moshin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Inheritance tackles radical territory, more radical than you might think. Both novels break from the traditional immigrant novel by having the main character break from the country of adoption and return to the country of origin. Sure the act is nothing new, but the post 9/11 instability is. This is a lot more striking than you might think— the basic concep ...more

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Aug 09, 2007 JoAnne rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: nobody

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 04, 2007 jess rated it it was ok

While the writing was lovely and the theme of the conflicting Indian identities in post-colonial India and in the United States was really interesting and supported with well-developed characters... but.
I just couldn't get into it and found it like pulling teeth to get through.

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Jun 12, 2016 Paul rated it it was amazing

Shelves: women-of-colour-2016

There is a tendency to assume that anything that has won the Booker prize must be problematic, however I found this winner to actually pretty good. The novel moves points of view and location regularly. It shifts between the foothills of the Himalayas near Kalimpong (set in 1986 with the Gorkhaland movement as a backdrop) and New York and periodically goes back to the pre-war colonial period. The main characters centre on the household of Jemubhai a retired judge, Sai (his granddaughter), the co There is a tendency to assume that anything that has won the Booker prize must be problematic, however I found this winner to actually pretty good. The novel moves points of view and location regularly. It shifts between the foothills of the Himalayas near Kalimpong (set in 1986 with the Gorkhaland movement as a backdrop) and New York and periodically goes back to the pre-war colonial period. The main characters centre on the household of Jemubhai a retired judge, Sai (his granddaughter), the cook, Mutt the dog and Gyan (Sai’s tutor who visits periodically). In New York is Biju, the cook’s son who is scraping a living working illegally in New York restaurants. There is also a cast of eccentric characters in the household’s social circle. The novel also moves back to the judge’s past and his time in England studying law, his marriage and his gradual disillusionment.
Colonialism and post-colonialism feature as themes as does identity and its loss (and this inheritance moving through generations). The novel is split into short chapters and each chapter into brief fragments which move the narrative along quickly, often between comedy and tragedy. This is a funny book and there are some hilarious moments, often juxtaposed with moments of real pathos and tragedy. There is also a sense of decay and regret and an illumination of human cupidity and delusion; delineated with care and concern. An elderly character, Lola, pontificates about Naipaul’s A Bend in the River;
“I think he's strange. Stuck in the past ... He has not progressed. Colonial neurosis, he's never freed himself from it”
It is an ironic and telling comment.
Desai says that her novel “tries to capture what it means to live between East and West and what it means to be an immigrant” and goes on to say that it also explores at a deeper level, “what happens when a Western element is introduced into a country that is not of the West”. Desai also asks “What happens when you take people from a poor country and place them in a wealthy one. How does the imbalance between these two worlds change a person's thinking and feeling? How do these changes manifest themselves in a personal sphere, a political sphere, over time?”
Desai’s genius is to explore all these themes within the context of a very human and poignant story. The novel tells a compact family tale in broad scope raising issues and difficulties facing the inheritors of colonial domination. Sai’s feelings give a sense of the inheritance; “Never again could she think there was but one narrative and that this narrative belonged only to herself, that she might create her own tiny happiness and live safely within it.”
Easy to read and deceptively deep; this is a good novel with much to recommend it.
...more

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Sep 21, 2015 Araz Goran rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: روايات, أدب

كيران ديساي ~ ميراث الخسارة

الرواية الحائزة على جائزة البوكر الدولية 2006

الرواية تحكي عن بلدة هندية تقع في منطقة الهيمالايا الجبلية نسبياً ،يعيش في تلك البلدة فيها قاضي وحفديته والطباخ الذي يخدم في منزل القاضي.. الرواية تدور حول هولاء الثلاثة ،حياتهم، تاريخهم، أحلامهم، واقعهم ومآسيهم..

البعد الثاني للرواية في مكان مختلف تماماً وهي مدينة نيويورك حيث يعمل إبن الطباخ هناك..

أجواء الرواية هادئة نوعاً ما، كل القضايا في الرواية تناولتها " ديساي " بطريقة راقية عفوية جميلة بعيداً عن الألفاظ الفجة ولغة ال ...more

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May 03, 2015 Joey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fictions, 1001-best-novels-you-must-read, man-booker-prize-winners

I am very interested in reading books on India since I read Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. This novel gave me an idea about life of Indians (although I already studied it in our high school History. ) I became more interested when I read A White Tiger by Aravind Adiga from which I learned the real face of social system in India, that people in the lower class get through miserable and sordid life. This fact opened my mind then. Probably, the novel that has had a significant impact upon me so far is R ...more

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Mar 08, 2014 Aubrey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 4-star, reviewed, reality-check, 1-read-on-hand, women-s-prize, person-of-everything, r-2014, person-of-reality, r-goodreads, antidote-think-twice-read, antidote-think-twice-all

It was an awful thing, the downing of a proud man. He might kill the witness.

I was in the midst of my pre-reviewing laze that consists of gathering up thoughts and quotes and semi-but-not-really-pigeonholing-various-things when without warning the word 'satire' reared its head. It's not a word I get along with, what with its all too frequent usage as a blockade, a safety blanket, a "but it's a satire so I can say anything I want?!?!" that guarantees neither quality nor even simple entertainment, but if there's one example that I'll accept with nary a quibble, it's Swift's A Modest Proposal. It's a piece that makes you laugh while questioning while you're laughing because you are also crying but not nearly as much as you should be while also recognizing the logic that is only the extension of a present day condition that seems practical and common sensical until it isn't because now you're (view spoiler). Don't get me wrong, the slippery slope analogy is a fallacy alright, but more fucked up things than government sanctioned (view spoiler) has happened on a more official scale.

One day the Indian girls hoped to be gentry, but right now, despite being unwelcome in the neighborhood, they were in the student stage of vehemently siding with the poor people who wished them gone.

So it's a satire of immigration and all its ways of the Dream, an entity so bloated by desperate whispers and Hollywood explosions and in the case of India postcolonialism/racism/previous cash cow (oh the double entendre) of the ultimate White Man's Burden Spiel that anyone expecting something along the lines of narrative flow is going to have issues. In cowboy tropes you'd call it "gritty", but despite the shit and boogers and homeless mental illness and abject poverty without a single shred of sentiment and socially encouraged rape there's no time for macho solipsism when there's lampooning of every single privilege to be done. Granted, there is some but how you feel about it by the end will tell you more about yourself than you are comfortable with imagining.

Saeed, he relished the whole game, the way the country flexed his wits and rewarded him; he charmed it, cajoled it, cheated it, felt great tenderness and loyalty toward it. When it came time, he who had jigged open every back door, he who had, with photocopier, Wite-Out, and paper cutter, spectacularly sabotaged the system (one skilled person at the photocopy machine, he assured Biju, could bring America to its knees), he would pledge emotional allegiance to the flag with tears in his eyes and conviction in his voice. The country recognized something in Saeed, he in it, and it was a mutual love affair. Ups and downs, sometimes more sour than sweet, maybe, but nonetheless, beyond anything the INS could imagine, it was an old-fashioned romance.

On the scale of The Namesake to The God of Small Things this matches quite nicely within the rating disparities (four stars in the range from two to five) because of its embrace of both horror and happiness. It's also hilarious, which goes a long way in touching on Big Issues that really do need to be considered without being sucked in. As Shaw/Chaplin/Wilde/some dead white guy (the assumption of course but maybe it's wrong) reputedly said, make them laugh, else they'll kill you. It seems to have worked out well in the case of the Booker, but as for the ratings...eh. I'll settle for poking them with a stick.

Just ordinary humans in ordinary opaque boiled-egg light, without grace, without revelation, composite of contradictions, easy principles, arguing about what they half believed in or even what they didn't believe in at all, desiring comfort as much as raw austerity, authenticity as much as playacting, desiring coziness of family as much as to abandon it forever.

Yes, there's life affirmation and critical theories and a multifarious web of Srs Bzns, but it made me laugh, and it didn't even need a single (view spoiler) to do it. ...more

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Sep 03, 2013 Zanna rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bechdel-pass

This is a one of those books that makes me want a sixth star, one that I had to put down constantly to take a moment to close my eyes, see the landscape, ride the emotion, work the thought through, one that dreamed me into a never land that, against the feebleness of my imagination, really exists in the indigo shadows of Kanchenjunga. It took my breath and squeezed my heart. Along with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah, it is my favourite novel, ever, about migration. I hope I live to read i ...more

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Jan 13, 2008 snackywombat (v.m.) rated it it was ok

Recommends it for: would-be everest climbers

With so much incredible praise riding on this book, I really expected more of it. So basically, I'm deducting points because I was disappointed by the build-up--I mean, the NBCC and Man Booker Prize? I guess that's not entirely fair though. Standing on its own, The Inheritance of Loss gives exactly what it promises. It describes the barren lives of characters that have been robbed of love or dignity or some necessary emotion in life, all juxtaposed against the twin backgrounds of an incredibly l ...more

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May 13, 2017 Caleb rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: indian, man-booker

I started this book as a before-bed read and found it difficult to get into. I got to around page 75, then realized I had no idea what was going on, pulled out my bookmark, and promised I'd start afresh in a few weeks.

Boy, am I glad I actually did start it again. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Once I day read it, everything started coming into focus and I couldn't put it down.

The four main characters provide so much food for thought that it's hard to decide who gave the best performance. I'm ...more

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Jun 02, 2015 Vonia rated it it was ok

Shelves: romance, historical-fiction, coming-of-age, political, war, man-booker-prize, orphans, location-as-character, family-drama, f-ed-up-childhoods, law, indian

Truth be told, I feel like I hated this novel. Alas, I realize that I am being unduly biased against it for a few reasons. The primary reason is how lauded it is, including winning an award that I have a special respect for: The Man Booker Prize (2006). This is thus far the most undeserving winner that I have read.

To begin with, this novel has no focus; it has some colorful characters, some touching scenes, some inspiring vignettes, an overall well researched amount of data regarding immigratio Truth be told, I feel like I hated this novel. Alas, I realize that I am being unduly biased against it for a few reasons. The primary reason is how lauded it is, including winning an award that I have a special respect for: The Man Booker Prize (2006). This is thus far the most undeserving winner that I have read.

To begin with, this novel has no focus; it has some colorful characters, some touching scenes, some inspiring vignettes, an overall well researched amount of data regarding immigration, urbanization, colonization, modernization. On this, Desai does indeed deliver. But, placed together, they are like pieces of a puzzle with most of the box missing.

The characters in a story can make up for a lot. Unfortunately, I found myself unable to connect with, empathize with, see nor feel alongside any. Even Sai, the vivacious, admirable young heroine, was exactly that. A character I could admire for her wit and courage. But that was all.

Her romance with Gyan I really could never understand; mostly, I found it rather dull and two dimensional, almost unconvincing. The cook, unnamed until the last two pages, was a colorful character whom I felt an affinity for; at times, I felt like I knew him, but barely. His son Biju, was immersed in the panoply of faces that is New York City and although we were told his story, he was really simply another blank face. Sai's grandfather was the worst. I found his past abuse of his wife, his insistence on being a %*+= to everyone within contact, rarely even showing love to those closest to him, inexcusable. He may have had some difficulties in his past, but nothing that excuses him today. Predictably, the only person, thing, being, he will be seen loving is Mutt. I suppose it makes sense, then, that Mutt serves as a sort of voiceless wheel necessary for the climax in the ending of the novel. His role is redemption for the story? For the characters? Merely more evidence of what can go wrong in society?

From what I know in history, her documentation of India's slow, reluctant modernization seems accurate, as does this country's ridiculousness of immigration laws, the difficulties inherent in fooling the system for a Green Card (it is not even green!), the concotion of cultures, heritages, traditions, cuisines that iconizes New York City.

There is also a decent amount of humour to be found throughout the novel, which is always appreciated when such serious themes are being adressed. Several difficult topics are covered throughout the course of the novel, including the wars, the genocide, the gangs. The intimidation endured by various individuals in the course of the novel; emotional and physical, psychological and physiological turmoil experienced in various dimensions. It is all expressed well. Poetically on the one hand, but somehow the execution falls short. One realizes this only when reading the story as a whole. Problems x, y, z; a through z are adressed, presented, explored, extricated. Then what? Then nothing. It is as if the author is making a statement to the effect, "Here are all the problems, all the problems with no solutions. The End." As a short story, even several short stories, The Inheritance Of Loss would have fared far better. ...more

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Mar 12, 2007 Marte Patel rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: People who like books that draw you in

Shelves: fiction, india

Ever since Kiran Desai won the Man Booker Prize in October last year, as the youngest female winner in the award’s 39 year history, I have been wanting to read it. I picked up my paperback copy from Heathrow while flying home for Christmas, but could not find the time. I admit I felt slightly apprehensive, thinking that as a Booker Prize winner it must be a difficult, challenging read.

Then the book was chosen as the March title for the SYP Oxford Book Club and I suddenly had both a very good rea ...more

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Feb 04, 2011 Riku Sayuj rated it it was amazing

Shelves: indian-fiction, booker-winners

blown away by the ending...

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Nov 10, 2016 Jignasha rated it it was ok · review of another edition

1980s. A dilapidated house in the valleys of Kalimpong, India. A retired, loveless judge, an isolated teenager Sai, a hapless cook and a dog.

1980s. Many restaurants in USA. Biju, the cook’s son, working and getting kicked out from one to the other, trying to survive in a foreign land.

The novel focuses on the lives of Sai and Biju, who in their own ways are struggling to understand their place in the world. It is set against the backdrop of the Gorkhaland revolution in India, when the Gorkhas rev ...more

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Apr 18, 2009 Nicole Marble rated it it was amazing

Another Mann Booker prize winner this time from India. The first, and perhaps longest, lesson of the book is a new, to me, kind of poverty - inherited. After that, we see a pattern of life of many people in India and how the least of them are treated, and how they treat each other including when the lucky few (in their eyes) get to the US. One fascinating insight is the Hindu attitude to Islam - that Islam is so strict and so counterintuitive to human behavior that no one actually follows it. Th ...more

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Jun 18, 2009 Jason Koivu rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction

Loved the full, lush descriptions of The Inheritance of Loss, but wasn't too keen on the lack of focus or a strong main character. The pov was passed around to a handful of characters in order to show a variety of experiences. I would've preferred sticking with one or two of them at most, having them shoulder more of the narrative weight, rather than being jostled around so much. A lot of people seem to like this one, so perhaps chalk up the low rating to my taste in narrative style and read it ...more

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Mar 28, 2011 Chitralekha Paul added it

I completed reading this book but the strange thing is I am unable to rate it.I didn't have the patience to read it and sort of forced myself to go through. So I skipped most of the content to reach the end.The writing is no doubt powerful and strong. Some of the descriptions are too good but on the whole found the novel boring.The characters, except for the judge, the cook and Sai failed to have any impact. I was just not interested to know what the other characters did or felt. Is there somet ...more

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Jul 20, 2017 Quang Khuê rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Di sản của mất mát biến mọi kiêu hãnh về văn hóa, học thức, sắc tộc... trờ thành một trò lố đạo đức giả rất-là-bự; và ngược lại, nó biến mọi thứ lố bịch thành niềm kiêu hãnh.

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Oct 07, 2016 مروان البلوشي rated it it was ok

Shelves: روايات, جائزة-البوكر, أدب-شبه-القارة-الهندية

تاريخ القراءة الأصلي : ٢٠١٤

القهر والشعور بالنبذ والإنسحاق هو شعور الكثير من سكان العالم الثالث عندما ينظرون للغرب الثري والناجح

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Jan 06, 2011 Kristen rated it really liked it

Shelves: own, fiction

It seems like I’ve been reading a lot of complicated novels lately. To even try to explain all the story lines here and what I think it all means is just way more effort than I’m willing to spend. But this was a great book (why all the low ratings?)

Here are some bits I like:

“the present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind”

“He learned to take refuge in the third person and to keep everyone at bay, to keep even himself away from himself”

“he had been recruited to bri ...more

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Jul 10, 2011 Velvetink rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-read, central-asia, india

Short synopsis; 4 Stars for this one because it was beautifully written and I learned a lot about the history of the Gurkhas and the uprising in 1986 in Nepal, and much about Indian immigration to the USA & the UK and life for "illegals in America. Yet again I have pages of notes & no time soon to write a full report. It's also about racism and the caste system and as the name implies the inheritance of loss from previous generations. It won a number of awards, including the Man Booker P ...more

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Jul 07, 2009 Jana rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: east-and-aussie, fiction

I am being generous with this second star, and it's here because I can't relate to India with its English (post) colonisation but I find it interesting. But I still think this book is rather difficult to read and therefore difficult to like; I was really struggling. Desai’s characterisation is flat. She tried to do so much- the plot itself is great, but I couldn’t connect and it’s not because I am not an Indian so I don’t get the mentality, but because her writing was – unstable. Emotionless. No ...more

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Sep 27, 2007 James rated it it was ok

Shelves: lincoln-park, nb-critics-circle, asian-lit

The style of this book had no charms for this reader. I found the characters uninteresting and sometimes pathetic as I slogged my way through this dreary book. While there were moments of fine writing, for example the vital landscape is vividly portrayed, I could not overcome the disconnected approach the author used in telling her story. Stylistically the book jumped back and forth between different places and events in a way that seemed haphazard to me. Unfortunately there were no compelling c ...more

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Apr 08, 2016 Esraa rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: pdf, أدب-عالمي-مترجم, أول-قراءة-للكاتب, قراءات-عام-2016

بدءًا من الصفحة المائة وخمسين تقريبًا بدأت الأحداث تتشكل في رأسي الصغير الذي جاهد طوال الصفحات لإلتقاط صورة كاملة أو
حتى شبه كاملة لرواية اسمها يحمل من المعاني العميقة ما يحمل!

ما هو ميراث الخسارةهو نصيبي ونصيبك ونصيبها ونصيبه من القهر والقمع والفساد والظلم والاستبداد والاستعباد... إلخ
لن تنتهي القائمة لان بينها قاسم مشترك وهو <<اللانهائية>>
لكن ربما انتهت وانهت حياتها في جوف احدهم

الحفيدة ساى: التى عانت منذ الصغر نتيجة نشأتها في ملجأ كل شيء فيه بحساب والعقاب لا يعرف سن. إلى أن تقرر
بدءًا من الصفحة المائة وخمسين تقريبًا بدأت الأحداث تتشكل في رأسي الصغير الذي جاهد طوال الصفحات لإلتقاط صورة كاملة أو
حتى شبه كاملة لرواية اسمها يحمل من المعاني العميقة ما يحمل!

ما هو ميراث الخسارةهو نصيبي ونصيبك ونصيبها ونصيبه من القهر والقمع والفساد والظلم والاستبداد والاستعباد... إلخ
لن تنتهي القائمة لان بينها قاسم مشترك وهو <<اللانهائية>>
لكن ربما انتهت وانهت حياتها في جوف احدهم

الحفيدة ساى: التى عانت منذ الصغر نتيجة نشأتها في ملجأ كل شيء فيه بحساب والعقاب لا يعرف سن. إلى أن تقرر نقلها للعيش مع جدها القاضي.
الجد: فشل في الحفاظ على العائلة كان يرغب في التكفير عن أخطاءه بالحياة مع حفيدته ولكنه فشل في ذلك أيضًا،لكونهِ مغروراً، وكراهيته لنفسه والتي تنعكس بوضوح أسطوري في كراهيته للبشر.
الطباخ: تعرض للأذى والإهانة ولم يستطع أن يكسر ذلك الحاجز الذي فُرض عليه.. كمن صنع تمثال من العجوة ثم اشتد جوعه فأكله .
ورث ابنه الذل والمهانة ميراث الخسارة
بيجو: فتى عنده حلم، كان يحلم ويريد أن يحقق حلمه بالتحليق فوق الأرض.. فما كان منهم في بلاده إلا أن قاموا بتحطيم حلمه ولمَ هرب لبلاد تحقيق الاحلام الوردية "الولايات المتحدة" فما قابل سوى العنصرية البغيضة وما حقق إلا مزيدًا من الخسارة وكذلك
الكلبة مات و الاستاذ جيان كلهم اخذوا نصيبهم من ميراث الخسارة
ولكلا منَّ نصيبه منها.. فهل أخذت نصيبك أم ما زلت تنتظر دورك ؟!

لا توجد مساحة هنا للأبطال ولا للشخصية المحورية. فلكل شخصية فلكها الخاص بها تدور فيه وتدور الأحداث وتتحرك عينيك في محجريهما دون أي ارتباك لك.. هكذا إذًا بكل بساطة هزمتنا
كيران ديساي رغم كل شيء! بلغتها السهلة وتعبيراتها التي تنفذ للداخل مباشرة دون تعقيدات.

تمّت ...more

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Jun 03, 2007 Animesh rated it really liked it

I come away with a lot better impression than that which I had upon reading the first 30 or so pages. It is a mature writing, with insight, sophistication, and a sense of the grandly tragic.

The author weaves a series of parallel stories--imageries--about some very different lives, each quixotic, each distinguished with a color of it own. All except one has only one thing in common--they are all cultural implants, all dancing in their separate destinies, spinning towards their fate that makes the ...more

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Jun 10, 2017 Piyumi rated it liked it

Reading this felt like I was going through an old photo album. Nostalgic, poignant and poetic!

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About Kiran Desai

Kiran Desai is an Indian author who is a citizen of India and a permanent resident of the United States. She is the daughter of the noted author Anita Desai.

Desai's first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard (1998), gained accolades from notable figures including Salman Rushdie, and went on to receive the Betty Trask Award. Her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss (2006), won the 2006 Man Booke ...more

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The New Yorker, Volume LXXXVII, No. 9, April 18, 2011: JOURNEYS (Cover) "Drawing While Waiting" |Hertzberg on Guantanamo; Surowiecki on the Price of Oil | Letter From Astana

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“The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind.” — 2221 likes

“Could fulfillment ever be felt as deeply as loss? Romantically she decided that love must surely reside in the gap between desire and fulfillment, in the lack, not the contentment. Love was the ache, the anticipation, the retreat, everything around it but the emotion itself.” — 130 likes

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