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Loading... The White Tiger: A Novel (Man Booker Prize) (original 2008; edition 2008)by Aravind Adiga
Work InformationThe White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (2008)
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Booker Prize (8) » 32 more Asia (5) Best Satire (52) All Things India (16) 2000s decade (15) Epistolary Books (14) Top Five Books of 2022 (475) First Novels (29) Contemporary Fiction (33) Books Read in 2022 (4,312) AP Lit (182) Animals in the Title (31) My TBR (50) Five star books (1,450) Contemporary Fiction (13) Books About Murder (310) No current Talk conversations about this book. (8.5) This book is formatted in the style of a letter the Chinese Premier,Jiabao, who is shortly to visit India. The author of this letter Balram Halwai, considers himself a successful entreprneur having managed to raise himself out of the circumstances he was born into in a small rural village. He and his family were considered servants and Halwai through close observation of humanity gradually elevates himself by fear means and foul. Wwith this method of presentation, the recipient of this letter and the reader are exposed to the underbelly of Indian life. It is related in a satirical manner, providing both humour and pathos. It is his debut novel and won the Man Booker in 2008. "India adalah negara yang dicetak oleh para manusia setengah matang." Sesuai dengan blurb, The White Tiger menceritakan tentang pria bernama Balram yang membunuh majikannya sendiri. Balram adalah seorang sopir yang sejak kecilnya putus sekolah hingga bekerja serabutan — menjadi pemukul batu bara, manusia laba-laba, dan pelayan di warung teh. Dia kemudian kursus menjadi sopir untuk kemudian bekerja bersama Ashok. Ashok sendiri sama-sama berasal dari desa kumuh yang sama dengan Balram, tetapi nasib mereka berbeda. Ashok begitu dihormati Balram sampai kemudian dia memutuskan menggorok majikannya sendiri. Kisah Balram secara sekilas menarik karena menggambarkan kesenjangan sosial dan kondisi carut-marut India. Namun secara tersurat Aravind Adiga menuliskan kritik terhadap Islamofobia yang begitu kuat di India. Secara blak-blakan, penulis mengatakan empat penyair terbaik di dunia adalah penyair Muslim. Lewat sudut pandang Balram, penulis mengatakan ada tiga penyair Muslim yang dia hormati di dunia, antara lain Rumi, Iqbal, dan Mirza Ghalib. Bahkan, Balram terngiang-ngiang syair salah satu dari mereka: "Sudah bertahun-tahun kau mencari kuncinya / Padahal pintunya selalu terbuka!" Aravind Adiga seakan-akan mengatakan secara halus bahwa kesalahan India sulit maju (saat bukunya ditulis) adalah karena mengesampingkan kaum Muslim di tanah mereka. Warga India masih saja bagaikan kaum tersesat yang membutuhkan keajaiban di depan mata untuk bisa bergerak maju, padahal keajaiban itu hadir dalam bentuk umat Muslim di sekitarnya. Namun sesuai dengan babak akhir buku, tercerminlah bagaimana India akan terus bergerak: berusaha maju dengan konstruksi Islamofobia. The White Tiger, winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize, is a fantastic debut novel by Indian author Aravind Adiga. It's a seriously disturbing look at the great divide between the rich and the poor in modern India, and it's also darkly funny. The hero (or anti-hero) of this novel is Balram Halwai, a man whose intelligence is wasted on the low circumstances of his birth. Though destined to be nothing more than a servant, Balram fights his way out of the darkness of rural India and into the light. How does he accomplish this feat? Well, he cuts his master's throat. Engagingly written as a series of post-murder letters from Balram to the Premier of China, this book delights and horrifies in equal measure. Balram writes to the Chinese Premier so that the visiting dignitary will understand India the way that Balram does. Obviously, the reader is the one who comes away with a new appreciation of the world's second-most populous country. If you were intrigued by the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire or enjoy darkly comic literary fiction, The White Tiger is the book for you. It is also available as an audiobook with an amazing performance by John Lee as Balram. AwardsNotable Lists
Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life -- having nothing but his own wits to help him along. No library descriptions found.
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New Delhi fundamentally changes both that son, Ashok, and Balram. Ashok has been educated in America, and treats his servants more or less like people. As he gets more and more sucked into the mire of his family's business (they're in the coal industry, and Ashok does a lot of running around with briefcases full of money to drop off with various politicians and officials), he becomes harder and harsher. When Balram is nearly forced to take the fall for a bad accident caused by Ashok's wife's drunk driving, Balram realizes that even as far as he's come from his roots, he's still not really safe. As long as he's poor and a servant, he'll always be expendable. But in order to get out of his situation, he needs money, and the money he has the easiest access to? Those briefcases that he's driving Ashok around with.
It's a dark satire, and after reading a lot of Serious Literature, I appreciated its wit and liveliness even more than I otherwise might have. But I would have enjoyed it no matter what. It's an epistolary novel (Balram writes to the prime minister of China, who is visiting India at the time, to explain India's entrepreneurial spirit), which allows it to skip around in time a little for maximum impact...we know that he's committed murder and gone on to start his own business, but how (and why) did he do it? How did he get away with it? What exactly does he do now? The organic tension propels the book forward without being too mysterious. Balram is an indelible character, and I really appreciated the way that Adiga developed Ashok as well, portraying his moral decay even though we only see him through Balram's eyes. It's a quick read that manages to be thought-provoking while still being entertaining. (