Desai can write well on a line-by-line basis, and is capable of some beautiful, fresh imagery, but The Inheritance of Loss just didn't hang together as a novel for me. I found her treatment of colonialism and nationalism, emigration and belonging, to be extremely interesting, especially as they're explored from an Indian perspective—one which you don't get to see much of in the west. There's an awful lot in those themes for Desai to pursue—but she hints at a tension she never follows through on, as the novel gets bogged down by its glacial pacing and by its weak character development. The Inheritance of Loss ultimately fails to cohere, and while it has its moments, ultimately it wasn't for me. ( )

Group portrait of the futility of both defiance and resignation by weak characters in a powerful turmoil. Modestly pensioned outsiders -- Gujaratis and other Indians and an elderly Swiss priest -- have been enjoying the privileges affordable only because of their neighbors' poverty in Nepali country around Darjeeling, and are baffled and overwhelmed by the wild boys in the violent 1986 rising of the Ghorka National Liberation Front. Retired judge Jamu Patel, furious against himself and thus the world because of his own timidity, is especially odious, fascinating and dismayingly believable, a weak man so deeply colonized psychologically that he hates his own dark skin-color and anything that reminds him of his Indianness, having scorned his parents and abused his wife and now his long-time cook, and not daring to show any generosity toward his orphaned teen-age granddaughter Sai. The most carefully portrayed characters include the judge's long-suffering (and unnamed) cook, whose greatest devotion is to his son Biju, and Biju himself struggling -- futilely -- to gather savings as an illegal immigrant kitchen worker in cheap New York restaurants; Gyan, Sai's young Nepalese tutor and suitor, who betrays her under pressure from his young Nepalese buddies and then tries to persuade himself that his cowardly actions were really heroic, Uncle Potty the well-read alcoholic and his Swiss priest chum, and a couple of sweet, ineffectual Indian ladies who would much rather be British. In the end, all these characters lose property and/or pride, and only the loving relationship of the cook and his son give a glimpse of better possibilities. Winner, Man Booker Prize, 2006. ( )

Seemingly poking at every sore spot in the Indian diaspora, Kiran Desai follows about a year in the lives of residents of Kalimpong, India, which is near the Nepal border and in view of the great mountain, Kanchenjunga. The Inheritance of Loss deals with the universal themes of the importance of family and the dangers of materialism, but its most important aspect to me is the description it provides of the development of modern India through flashbacks in the lives of the main characters, particularly focusing on the consequences of immigration to Britain and the U.S., as well as the Nepalese separatist movement of the 1980s. Ms. Desai's writing is confident and well-researched, and the dialogue is clever and interesting. I listened to the CD audiobook version, which is narrated by Meera Simhan, who does an astounding job with the many accents of the characters. ( )

Absolutely brilliant. For all those who have been in India and have also been treated as unwelcomed immigrants in the US (even being just students or tourists), it's extremely recommended. It's real as life. ( )

I remember this one being reviewed as a book that genuinely deserved its Booker prize - you know, rather than the hyped-up tripe that can so often get it. Sadly, no. The dreamy and descriptive style, very arch and whimsical, never alters or gathers pace over the 300+ pages, and what was, at the start, absorbing, is ultimately dreary. It's as if Desai is holding at arm's length the genuine issues with which the book is concerned (the paralyzing effects of colonialism, the new griefs of globalization). But it has a distancing effect and, in the end, the only character that I truly cared about was the old man's dog. It's possible that this was the writer manipulating me (the same way that you're forced to hold your hands up and admit you care more about the poor wee kitten than the nasty junkie in Trainspotting), but I don't think there was enough writerly craft going on, so I'm simply forced to admit that I'm a bad person. ( )