A FINE BOOK

Eight years ago, I joined a book group commencing at the Carlton Library. We meet each momth and have read about eighty books. It's always interesting to hear the reactions of the nine or ten who make up the group. Over the years we have got to know one another well and it is sometimes possible to predict fairly accurately how individuals will react. But this is by no means always the case.

This month's book is THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS. by Kiran Desai. I started reading it last month and after ten pages was totally un-engaged. A friend's reaction was similar. However, I have a strong sense of obligation to read the prescribed text, so a few weeks ago I started again, reading more slowly and taking more care to identify the various characters, who are introduced with glimpses but who are not easy to know well.
I continued in that manner and slowly began to feel a bit more involved. By page 200 I was beginning to enjoy the story By page 300, I was deeply involved, fascinated with the way Desai had woven a number of different personal journeys into a tapestry of colonial hisory, Indian geography, immigrant life in U.S.A., lonely adolescence lived with a withdrawn grandfather and a host of other matters, some global and others exquisitely local and almost microscopic.

When I finished, at page 324, I sat a in stillness, a little stunned, and realised how appropriate was the title and how extraordinarily well Desai had painted a whole set of pictures of people experiencing loss. I was left with a certain sadness tinged with an appreciation of the beauty of her writing. I want to read more of her work.