I saw this book on LT and the premise sounded interesting. It is set in modern day Bombay, in an apartment building. It concerns 4 tenants and the homeless man, Vishnu, who lives on a landing in the building. He has been there for years, and he is now dying. He becomes unconscious and the life of the building swirls around him. He also begins to remember his past and then he dreams, and wonders if he is the god Vishnu.

Vishnu relives his past, as a small child with his mother, and as a grown man with the love of his life, the prostitute Padmini. We follow along and learn about him, and his life, and that of the poor. He is considered drunk, and unreliable but he purchased the right to live on the landing from the previous occupant. She finally saved enough money to retire. She did odd jobs and ran errands for the apartment tenants. Vishnu is too unreliable to take over all her functions, but he does some work for them also.

There are 2 families who are just up the stairs from him. They are both Hindu. The Asrani and the Pathak. The Asrani have a grown daughter that is not yet married. The wives of the families are conducting a genteel war of the bourgeoisie against each other. They are overly concerned with status and style. They have lost touch with their younger selves, when they were open and loving. Material things are all they are concerned with now. They each use their husband as a combatant, forcing them to lie and to flee when they can. The only peace for the husbands is out of the house and away from their wives.

The wives are fighting with each other over the use of water - which is limited at times, and the pilfering of ghee (clarified butter) that belongs to one by the other. They don't have kitchens in their apartments, but share a single one located between them.

The wives who are disgusted with Vishnu are shown barely able to deal with him when he is unconscious, and are pretending that he is OK. They fight with each other over his mess, over whether to call a doctor, an ambulance to take him to the hospital, and the expected hospital bill. He is left lying to his fate. Their bickering is the backdrop for Vishnu's simple human recollections of love and happiness as a child and as a man in love.

The next family involved is a Muslim family called the Jalals. They are quietly despised by their Hindu neighbors. They are a family divided. The wife is devout and the husband is a rationalist. The wife spends her time trying to bring her husband and grown son to practice their faith. The son is secretly in love with the Hindu Asrani's daughter and they are sneaking around.

The last person in the building is a widower Mr. Taneja who keeps to himself. He never got over the death of his wife from cancer. He doesn't have to work, and he doesn't socialize.

Each family and person gets stage time to explain their life. It makes for an interesting story, and a look at modern Indian life. They are not rich, and the apartment building has seen better days and more ritzy occupants. They are part of the middle class.

The other people who flit through the story are the poorer people who serve them. They are shown trying to survive, and are much closer to their feelings. They are also volatile and easily led. At one point they become a mob and attack the Muslim Jalals, when they think Mr. Jalal and his son have kidnapped the Asrani's daughter. The son and daughter have actually secretly eloped, but no one knows that.

Mr. Jalal is also trying to find his faith. So he is fasting and sleeping on the floor. He is very uncomfortable, and one night wanders down the landing and falls asleep next to Vishnu. Somehow he and Vishnu dream of the god Vishnu, and though he is Muslim, he thinks that the Hindu god is the truth. He tries to preach the truth of Vishnu, but this also enrages the poor who work in an around the building, convinced that the Muslim is making fun of their religion. It is another reason for the attack.

When Vishnu finishes dreaming of his life, he seems to have an out of body experience, and he wonders if he is Vishnu.

The book was interesting, funny, and sad at how people can be so callous and cruel, often without thought. The writing was good, the setting and the characters interesting. And though set in India the warning about losing sight of what is really important in life applies to everyone.

I also thought the tenants depicted the different responses to life, The Asranis and the Pathaks are engaged fully in life. The wives get sidetracked by the material world, the husbands are more philosophical but they disengage because they want peace. The Jalals are the religious option and they too show the range of responses. The wife is devout and will not consider anything outside her faith. The husband is a rationalist and explores many different faiths, but believes in none. Mr. Taneja is the option of withdrawal from life. He tries to do charity work, but he is unable to actually have any emotional interactions, so he gives it up. He is so inwardly focused he doesn't hear a cry for help from someone hanging off his balcony. The son and the daughter are the option of running away from problems, but in the end you are still stuck with yourself so that also doesn't work. Finally the poor are those who have somehow gone from seeking entertainment to brighten their lives, to being ruled by the need for excitement and entertainment. They believe everything they hear, the wilder the better, and they often act upon it to their and others' detriment.

Each option has its problems and its advantages, but being too dedicated to one causes you to miss the other. Perhaps Vishnu with his lack of boundaries and possessions is the closest to happiness. But he is hampered in the end by his lack of money, since the outside world runs on it and he must live in the world.

I enjoyed it, but thought it was a bit too long. Towards the end I just wanted Vishnu to die and the whole thing to be over. The way the book ends also leaves some of the story threads unfinished. I thought after so much time, I at least deserved a better wrap-up, though it may appeal to those who don't want a nice neat ending. ( )

The Death of Vishnu is about the lives of those living in the building Vishnu sleeps and works in. On the first floor, Mrs. Asrani and Mrs. Pathak can’t stop arguing long enough to get anything done, including getting Vishnu to a doctor. On the second floor are the Jalals, a Muslim family everyone loves to hate. It is Mr. Jalal who dreams that Vishnu reveals himself to him as the god Vishnu. He feels it is his duty to call the others to worship him. It is this, as well as the fact that his son Salim has run off with Kavita, the Asrani girl, that gets everyone into trouble. Then on the top floor is Mr. Taneja, a widower who lost his wife to cancer.

Then, of course, there is Vishnu, the drunk who runs errands for everyone in the building. He falls ill and lies dying on the stairs for days. He experiences an out of body episode and can see everything going on around him. When he hears Mr. Jalal ranting about how Vishnu is Lord Vishnu, he begins to believe it himself.

The background stories of these characters is told in flashbacks, and it’s what makes the book so interesting. I really loved reading about Mr. Taneja’s marriage and how he fell in love with his wife. But the flashbacks to Vishnu’s time spent with Padmini, a prostitute that he was in love with, left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t really like Vishnu’s character, but I did enjoy the retelling of stores his mother told him when he was a child, of Jeev, a man who lived many lives. My favorite was the story of Jeev, who fell in love with Arjun while he was living his life as a bird.

The book was comical at times, and there was plenty of interesting Hindu mythology. At first I thought the book was just too strange to like, but I began to enjoy it about halfway through. It’s still a very strange book, but it’s entertaining. ( )

Suri mixes tragedy and comedy in an insightful look at caste and religion in a Mumbai apartment building. I emailed the author to express my appreciation for this book and got a humorous response. ( )

i feel like i should have liked this book more than i did, and would have, but for some reason i never got into it. it's still good, and i recommend it, but for some reason it never grabbed me. ( )

I read this several years ago, a wonderful novel set in an Indian apartment building.