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here's a stack of books I've set aside. I plan to read them. Last spring I placed "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga in that pile. It got great reviews. Still, I had not cracked it open yet.
"The White Tiger" just won the Man Booker prize, Great Britain's most prestigious literary award. Each year an author from Britain, Ireland or one of the British Commonwealth countries is chosen to receive it. The prize comes with a lovely check for 50,000 pounds — that's about $86,000.
That piqued my interest. The author was born in India in 1974. "The White Tiger" is his first novel. Adiga is a former correspondent for Time magazine. As a journalist, he found a part of India that he never witnessed before — grinding poverty. As a consequence he decided to write this book.
The White Tiger of the title is Balram Halwai, the narrator. As the novel starts, Balram has heard that the premier of China is coming for a state visit. The book is written in the form of letters that Balram is writing to the premier.
Balram identifies himself as an entrepreneur. He suggests that "apparently, sir, you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don't have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs."
Over the course of seven nights Balram describes how he rose up from horrifying conditions in the Indian countryside, an area that Adiga refers to as the Darkness. Balram became the driver for a wealthy family in Delhi. He observed as his corrupt employers bribed government officials and lived the high life while the multitudes struggled to exist.
In his travels across India the author was struck by the fact that most Indians lived a threadbare existence yet the country has a low crime rate. His character Balram marvels that his fellow servants don't steal from their masters. As the story develops readers observe Balram's resentment growing.
The book has ruffled some feathers. The Press Trust of India reports that "Adiga's novel is creating ripples in India for its defiantly unglamorous portrait of the country's economic miracle." Adiga makes no apologies. He told The Times of India, "I tried to tell a very real story about India on the brink of unrest. I tried to challenge the assumptions that many in middle-class India hold about the poor: that they are stupid, easily manipulated, excessively religious and bound by caste and family."
Adiga's Balram is a fascinating fellow. "The White Tiger" is animated by Balram's dark humor. We balance on the trembling knife edge of irony as Balram astutely observes: "See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of? Losing weight and looking like the poor."
Posted by Vick Mickunas on 11/5/08; 2:49:36 PM
from the dept.
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