The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Mythical and mystical, The Mistress of Spices is reminiscent of fables, magic, realism and fairy tales. The story Divakaruni tells is transporting, but it is her gift for metaphor that makes this novel live and breathe. You feel like you are involved with the characters; its pages as redolent as any freshly ground spice. The themes revolve around the age-old magic of spices, which are imbued with powers as complexly spiritual as India itself, the birthplace of Divakaruni and her fearless heroine, Nayan Tara (Tilo).

Born ugly and unwanted in a tiny village in India, Tilo is discarded by her family for the sin of being a girl. Resentful at being treated so shabbily, young Tilo throws herself on the mercy of the mythical serpents of the oceans, who deliver her to the mystical Island of Spices. There, she is initiated into the priestly sisterhood of Spice Mistresses, sent out into the world to help others by offering magic potions of fennel, peppercorn, lotus root, etc. She works her gentle magic in a tiny, rundown shop in Oakland, California, hidden within the body of an old woman. Here, Tilo devotes herself to improving the lives of the immigrant Indians who come to buy her spices–including an abused wife, a troubled youth, a chauffeur with dreams of American wealth, and a grandfather whose insistence on Old World propriety may have cost him his relationship with a beloved granddaughter. The spices are harsh taskmasters, and Tilo’s life is limited until her rebelliousness reasserts itself, and she becomes involved in the lives of her troubled customers.

Tilo is forbidden to step out of her little shop or get involved with anyone, but of course Tilo goes out and gets involved with her customers. She falls in love with Raven, the quintessential romantic hero–dashing, handsome, rich, and brooding–but Raven actually embodies nothing less than the great spirit of the American Indian.

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Best ‘New to Us’ Books of 2012: Sharon S.’s Picks

I love to read nonfiction as well as fiction, so in presenting my best “new to me” books for 2012, I decided to use the categories of my favorite nonfiction, my favorite “how to” book, my favorite biography, my favorite novel, and my favorite collection of short stories. (You can see the full list of books I have blogged, too.) — Sharon S.

A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman
I found this book to be deeply reassuring! It’s OK to have cluttered desks and crammed closets, say the authors, and in some cases it may even be beneficial (up to a point, of course). Abrahamson and Freedman present many examples of successful scientists, business owners, politicians, homemakers, and people from many other walks of life who spend that time they could have spent organizing being creative and productive instead. Also, staying loose and not locked in to one system allows us the freedom to adapt quickly to changing events.

Barefoot Running Step by Step by Roy Wallack and Ken Bob Saxton
You’ve got to be kidding, I thought when I first picked up this book, but I ended up being a convert. I’m no runner, so I tried barefoot walking instead (which Ken Bob says is just like running except you always have at least one foot on the ground). There’s no doubt in my mind—heel striking is a bad thing for your joints. When you learn how to bend your knees like Ken Bob suggests, your calves act as shock absorbers that preserve your joints. Of course, you can do this even with shoes on, but when your foot is not cushioned with a running shoe, you have a constant reminder not to bang that heel down! Also, it adds a new dimension to the experience to learn to place your feet lightly and actually feel the ground under them.

Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian by Avi Steinberg
Steinberg was tired of being a free-lance writer and wanted a job that had health insurance, so he answered an advertisement for a librarian position at a prison on the outskirts of Boston. He ended up with more than he bargained for. What is or should be the purpose of a library in such a place? In trying to help the prisoners learn and prepare for lives outside of prison, he often runs afoul of the rule-bound guards. On the other hand, in getting too emotionally involved with those he is helping, he finds himself in some difficult moral dilemmas. There is no easy answer to the question of why people end up in prison, nor is there an easy way to help them get out and stay out.

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
This slim novel set on the Nebraska prairie at the beginning of the twentieth century contains some of the most moving scenes I have yet encountered in literature. It is a story about love, friendship, betrayal, and the price of self-knowledge that readers will not easily forget. I am amazed at Cather’s ability to create characters that seem so real to me that I feel like I have actually met them. See my full review.

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri also creates memorable, realistic characters in these stories, each one a view into the hearts and lives of people of different ages and cultures. A young married couple suffers a devastating loss that rocks their faith in each other. A school-age girl slowly learns to appreciate the fact that everyone does not live the privileged life she does. A young man and an old woman come to know and respect each other through mundane events that turn out to have been not so mundane after all. Each story shows us something unique about human nature, how and why we move toward or away from one another, how we mature and come to understand the meaning of life. See my full review.

The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall

This is the first in a series starring Vish Puri, India’s Most Private Investigator. The word “starring” fits this investigator who has a charismatic, over-the-top personality. A former military investigator who was asked to resign, Vish now directs a skilled staff in his detective bureau. Pride of place on his office wall belongs to a Super Sleuth plaque presented to him for solving the Case of the Missing Polo Elephant. Vish nicknamed his staff: a beautiful undercover agent is Facecream, others are Tubelight and Flush, while the secretary who keeps the chaos to a minimum is the respectable Mrs. Rani.
There’s an abundance of irony and humor mixed in with the real cases, which do hold interest: in this novel an old friend asks for help when a female servant goes missing and it appears the friend may have killed her or is being framed Relish the hot, colorful life of Delhi, India and Vish’s family: Mummy-ji (his senior and very active mother), Rumpi (wife) and many others. Vish’s nickname is Chubby and Rumpi is continually after him to lose weight, which never happens because Vish loves and lives to eat and there are plenty of mouth-watering descriptions of his sneakily consumed “extras.”
The sense of place and light hand are reminiscent of Alexander McCall Smith’s Precious Ramotswe series in Botswana. The descriptions of the city, family relationships and food make one think of the cozier parts of Donna Leon’s serious series about Commissario Guido Brunetti. Hall’s use of Indian English vernacular and Hindi words necessitate consulting the glossaries in each book on a regular basis, but that enriches the story and gives ideas for ordering in Indian restaurants. Crowded, noisy street scenes reminiscent of  the movies The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Monsoon Wedding are skillfully replicated here in words, so don’t let the simple titles and gaudy covers keep you from getting away to Delhi for a few amusing hours with Vish Puri and company.

Other titles in this series include The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing (2010), and The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken (2012).

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The Sandalwood Tree by Ellie Newark

This is a riveting novel of a very interesting time period in India. It is 1947, the year of Independence and sadly of partition, the price for British withdrawal from the country after a century of slavery.
Different stories in different time periods converge at a single point.  An American Fulbright scholar, Martin Fulbright, moves with his family to Simla, India during that tumultuous time of the country. His wife, Evie Mitchell, with their young son accompanies him. The once in-love couple is desperately trying to save their marriage. Evie finds a cache of hidden letters in the house they live in and this becomes an interesting turn in her otherwise desolate life. The letters take us back to the lives of two British girlfriends, Adela and Felicity, who lived in India a century earlier when the English ruled India.
Not only is the story of Adela and Felicity touching but it also awakens the voice of Evie, who is trying very hard to save her marriage while becoming lonelier.  These letters are her only solace and she keeps them close to her heart and desperately wishes to unravel the secrets of these two girls thereby making her own life interesting.
Elle Newmark has outdone herself by portraying the history of the region with its nuances intact, for that time period in India was tumultuous and difficult. She has woven a tapestry of good characters in a story against the background of the Independence-Partition era in India.

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The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar

The Space Between is the story of two families who have been tied together for many years, yet live completely separate lives. Bhima is a servant who leaves her home in the slums of Bombay every morning to spend her day cooking and cleaning for an upper class family. Sera is the seemingly fortunate woman she works for who is hiding the fact she is in an abusive marriage. These two women spend the majority of each day together and have shared much of their lives, yet there is a barrier that can’t be crossed.

Sera has often used her family’s wealth and position to help Bhima through hard times, and has even promised to contribute money for Bhima’s granddaughter, Maya, to attend college. Bhima hopes are focused on Maya. She believes if Maya succeeds in college she will pull the family out of the slums forever. All of Bhima’s savings and sacrifices are threatened, though, when Maya turns up pregnant at 17. When Bhima turns to Sera for help once again, their fragile relationship is changed forever.

This novel gives a glimpse into a society which was difficult for me to understand. Sera seems to both care for Bhima and be repulsed by her at the same time. She gladly helps her when she can, but she will not allow Bhima to sit on her furniture or drink from her glasses. She is happy with the relationship the way it is and can’t cope with any changes that might come.

Umrigar’s writing is beautiful and I liked most of the characters even if I sometimes didn’t agree with what they chose to do. This book was also one of my book club’s favorite selections. It made for a great discussion.

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Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

These stories by Jhumpa Lahiri are so quiet and subtle that, as one reviewer put it, “you forget that you are reading.”  These stories could be happening to you, or your next door neighbor.  The fact that many of the characters have Indian names or come from a different culture only adds richness to the story of their struggles, sometimes triumphant and sometimes humiliating, to navigate their way through life’s challenges.

The point of view changes with each story, taking us into the minds of characters with different ages and circumstances.  Often, the main details of the story unfold as we observe them through the eyes of a peripheral character.  In “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine,” a young girl from a privileged Indian-American family gradually comes to understand the ways in which the Indian-Pakistani war is affecting the people in her life.  In “Mrs. Sen’s,” a young boy is cared for after school by an Indian woman who is far from home and trying to become familiar with a new culture.

Although many of the stories deal with the dissonances between American and Indian culture, there are universal themes throughout.  In “A Temporary Matter,” we observe with compassion a young couple who are grieving over the loss of their first baby.  We see how complicated a process grieving is, how each of us grieves in our own way, and how a shared grief may draw us together or push us apart.  The title story, “Interpreter of Maladies” deals with a middle-aged man’s quest to bring some meaning into his unsatisfying life.  Isn’t this what we all do?  We try to interpret our maladies, understand what ails us and what ails the other people in our lives.  Only then can we find a “cure,” if such a thing can be found.

I cannot think of any book or collection of stories I have read that more accurately captures this process.  This is Lahiri’s first book.  If all her books are this wonderful, I want to read them all.

See my colleague Clare B.’s review of Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth.

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Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

At one time, the travelers on the road to the Suhar International Airport in Mumbai could look out their car windows and see a tall, shiny, aluminum fence.  Ads for a company that sold floor tiles ran its length.  “Beautiful Forever” read the corporate slogan.

Behind that wall promising eternally beautiful floors lay what airport management didn’t want customers to see:  Annawadi, a slum first settled in 1991 by workers brought in from southern India to repair an airport runway.  Seventeen years later, when Katherine Boo did the research that led to this book, three thousand people still lived and worked there.

Boo introduces us to several Annawadi residents and gives us intimate glimpses into their lives.  There is Abdul, the young entrepreneur striving to improve the fortune of his family through recycling garbage.  We meet Asha, a rising star in the political life of the settlement.  We watch Abdul’s neighbor, Fatima, make a fateful choice that changes lives forever.

This is a gorgeously written book, but not an easy story to read.  Abdul, Asha and Fatima are people with few resources struggling to succeed in a corrupt system that does not seem very fair, especially to the poor.  Boo shows how precarious their lives are, and how quickly hardworking people can find their lives turned upside down by circumstance.

Boo, a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and current staffer at The New Yorker, has spent two decades writing about poverty.  She hopes this book will “show American readers that the distance between themselves and, say, a teenaged boy in Mumbai who finds an entrepreneurial niche in other people’s garbage, is not nearly as great as they might think.”

She succeeded with this American reader.  I quickly grew to care about the people Boo portrays so vividly, especially Abdul.  The three years Boo spent in Annawadi researching this story were evident.  She made me see the dwellings and the faces of the people she met, and experience their daily struggles.

I would recommend this book to readers who like nonfiction that reads like fiction, people interested in India, readers with an interest in economic issues, nonfiction book clubs looking for a title with themes that easily lend themselves to discussion, and last, but not least, to devotees of beautiful writing.

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The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark

This very readable historical novel actually contains a story within a story.  Starting in 1947, an American wife accompanies her PhD-candidate husband on his travels to document the Partition movement sparked by Gandhi’s campaign to end British control of India.  Evie and Martin travel with their 5 year old son, Billy, and Evie has hopes that a new country will mean a new start to the strained relationship that has developed between her and her husband ever since he returned from the war.

As one of the first Fulbright Fellows, Martin and his family are assigned a bungalow in the cooler, mountainous region of India.  At first they attempt to mingle with the many British families still in residence, but Evie quickly decides that they have an outdated view of India and its people and distances herself.  She also does not mix in with the locals and so isolates herself with no one but their two servants and her small son for company.  While cleaning one day she discovers hidden letters written between two women – Adela and Felicity – that lived almost a century earlier in the same bungalow.  The letters are worn, but give a few small clues, so she decides to hunt down what she can of their story.  At this point the novel begins to fluctuate between Evie in 1947 India and the two friends in the late 1850s.  Evie becomes consumed by uncovering their past even while the withdrawal of the British and the pending creation of Pakistan to divide Muslims from Hindus creates conflict in cities and towns around the village where she lives.  The author creates seamless transitions and builds the suspense of the stories, all leading to a surprise ending.

I enjoyed these characters and their intriguing viewpoints on two very turbulent events in colonial Indian history – the Sepoy Rebellion and Partition.

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Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Normally I do not read short stories.   I enjoy a long, detailed novel far better.  The stories of Jhumpa Lahiri are the exception for me.  I cannot say enough about this extraordinary writer.  Her debut  collection of stories, Interpreter of Maladies, won the Pulitzer Prize,  the PEN/Hemingway Award and The New Yorker Debut of the Year.

Lahiri’s most recent work, Unaccustomed Earth, is another collection of short stories, all with the common thread of adjustment.  Each story focuses on Bengali immigrants and their struggle to retain their heritage while adapting to life in a confusing new land.   She principally examines the conflict between the younger generation who has not lived in India, and their parents who cling to familiar traditions.

I particularly enjoyed the second part of the book, “Hema and Kaushik”, a trio of stories.  In the first story, their families live together for a short time while they are both young.  At first Hema’s family is overjoyed to have the family stay.  But over the weeks, the situation becomes unbearable.  When Kaushik’s family finally leave,  his mother terribly ill, the families loose touch.  The next two  stories trace each of their lives, their struggles and joys, until Hema and Kaushik meet again, unexpectedly,  in Europe.

Lahiri has a great talent for painting vivid images with her words, while writing in a straightforward manner.

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