Animal's People in Reading with Style

Sep 20, 2012 Rosemary rated it really liked it

Shelves: 1001-books

I found this a very painful and moving story, not easy to read, but buoyed up with hope. It's the story of a young man who has grown up (or anyway, grown) in the shadow of a chemical factory disaster that has left him having to walk on all fours, so he's called 'Animal'. He's living in terrible poverty with people suffering from the poisonous fallout all around him, but he's surrounded by tough love and friendship. There is a lot of sex-related language and swearing - that seemed very realistic ...more

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Oct 27, 2011 Joanna rated it it was amazing

Shelves: passport, 1001, 2012-read, rws-2012-fall

I really enjoyed Animal as a narrator. The book is told in first-person narration by Animal, a boy whose spine was bent following a factory disaster (transparently based on Bhopol). He is a tough street kid, smart, interested in the world, but touchingly naive about the details of some of what he sees. The writing was a bit uneven - sometimes the voice rang true and authentic and the mixed Hindu words seemed to fit perfectly. But at other times, the frequent inversion of subject and verb just se ...more

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Dec 04, 2018 Ev rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Wow.

I never anticipated how much I would enjoy this book or how much my heart would feel, cry, laugh, and see the humanity in ordinary people who have little to give but gain the world.

The characters are unforgettable. From a completely honest and hilarious Animal to the surly yet comic Farouk to the wise and selfless Zafar to the musical Somraj to the kind Nisha and the heroine Elli, not an ounce of this book seemed fictional at all. I dropped into their world from the beginning, and now I fee ...more

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Dec 31, 2009 Miriam rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2010

Meh. It could be I was missing what put this book on the Booker shortlist, but I was finally bored with it. I ditched it at 250 pages, so I certainly tried to like . . .

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