Manil Suri

On a concrete landing in an apartment block in Mumbai, Vishnu, who scrapes a living by running errands for the tenants, is dying. Above and below, all around him, life in the flats continues. Mrs Ashrani and Mrs Pathak squabble over their shared kitchen, and a pair of star-crossed teenage lovers meets on the roof terrace while the parents of one struggle to come to terms with the difficulties of faith and marriage, and the mother of the other plots to get her daughter safely married off. show more Upstairs an elderly recluse mourns the loss of his wife, and Vishnu’s successor guards the sounds from his transistor like a drowning man clinging to the wreckage. The building seems almost like a microcosm of life on earth, even down to the ants that pass the dying man as his soul finds its way up the stairs to the roof.

A beautifully written novel, the tone judged exquisitely from the first page to the last. It’s all here, between these covers; the almost comic tragedy of the human condition contrasted and compared with the extraordinary mythology of the god Vishnu, and glimpses from the brain of the dying Vishnu of delicious and tender eroticism. The act of death itself becomes something very real and almost experienced. Like Hilary Mantel in Beyond Black, Manil Suri seems to pin the magic to the page and make it true. I read the last sentences and uttered ‘What?’ aloud, read them twice more before it hit me, then laughed aloud. Brilliant. show less

The landing of an apartment building in Mumbai is occupied by Vishnu who lives there upon the sufferance of the apartment residents. He has "earned" his landing by running errands for the residents, but now as he is dying they all react with varying degrees of guilt, hostility, avoidance, repulsion. What a portrait of these dreadful, all too human, all too familiar, people! And Vishnu's dying is its own separate story ending with a kind of grace. I will not forget this book.

‘The City of Devi’ is definitely one of the most enjoyable of my dystopia-keyword-library-catalogue-search finds. The blurb is quite coy about the plot, stating only that two people are searching for the person they love most in Mumbai, while the threat of nuclear annihilation hangs over the city. It’s actually much more fun than that might suggest. The two people who team up to survive chaotic Mumbai are the wife and ex-boyfriend of the same man. So it’s a bisexual love triangle and show more there’s a race against time to see whether the three will discover polyamory before nuclear war breaks out. I found the description of apocalyptic, collapsing Mumbai atmospheric and exciting. The split point of view was very effective and the flashbacks well-handled. The death of a main character near the end was disappointing, as I would have liked a happy ending, but it did seem fitting. Too conveniently comfortable an ending would have been incongruous with the background of nuclear war and global disaster, I suppose. The tone is fast-paced and witty, with a wistful, thoughtful edge. There’s something cinematic about it, in fact, that could translate well onto film. As an escapist adventure, however, it sometimes jolted me back into reality with passages about religious intolerance and terrorism. I would term it more of an apocalyptic novel than a dystopian one, personally, and a very good one. I liked the characters, found their emotional dilemmas moving, got carried along by the plot, and thought the settings vivid and compelling. I gather it’s the third in a series, yet it seems to work perfectly well as a stand alone novel. show less

With a mixture of Indian mythology, Bollywood storylines and an odd-job man with a difference; this novel was bound to be something different. The Bombay apartment block that is the setting for this novel has excellent characters living on every floor. There is a mix of religions and mix of cultural beliefs, with Vishnu lay dying on the landing. Through Vishnu we find out all about the lives of the families around him. On the first floor are two couples, warring over the shared kitchen and show more looking after Vishnu. The next floor has two families with teenagers from each in love with each other and finally on the third floor is a widower, still very much in love with his wife.

It is unusual to read and one I struggled to get into but once hooked you are soon that involved in their lives that you wouldn’t dream of closing the covers unfinished. The ending proves that all cultures and religions will unite when danger, or perceived danger, occurs and it is amazing to see how close nit they will become in a dreadful deceitful way. There are laughs and sorrows throughout the novel and I loved the mixture of Shakespearean references and the blurring of boundaries between his plays and Indian equivalents.

If you don’t like the mythological aspect (which was my least favourite) some of Vishnu’s chapters reflecting back on his life will prove testing, yet the rest of the novel is great. Whilst I don’t think it is wonderfully written, it will suck you in. This is a debut novel inspired by a real Vishnu that lived on the landing of the author’s apartment block as he was growing up. The opening line is one I particularly loved, “not wanting to arouse Vishnu in case he hadn’t died yet” and lets you know you are going to be reading something very different from the norm. Worth a read and perhaps other novels by the author may be more assured in style. Although not entirely my cup of tea, it is a novel I would happily recommend. show less