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Loading... Sleeping On Jupiter (2015)by Anuradha Roy
   No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) burritapal | Oct 23, 2022 |  Nomi is a girl orphaned by war, then brought up in an abusive ashram, who has escaped and eventually been adopted by a British woman. She returns to the resort as a young woman working as a researcher for a film, but really to investigate her own background. Her partner on this trip is Suraj, a spoiled middle aged rich boy who is still haunted by a recent divorce. Then there are the three old women (Gouri, Latika and Vidya) who have come to the town on a holiday. Finally there is Badal, who works as a temple guide who has an unrequited crush on a boy who works for a beach tea seller. The plot is quite complicated, and the paths of these characters cross in all sorts of unexpected ways (with rather too many coincidences for my liking), and the ending is unresolved and rather enigmatic. There are plenty of fine descriptive passages, and Roy can certainly write. (  ) bodachliath | Apr 3, 2019 |  ) GaylaBassham | May 27, 2018 |  ) authorknows | Apr 3, 2017 | ) gayla.bassham | Nov 7, 2016 |
 The themes of innocence stolen, the refuge of the imagination, and the inclination to look away are handled with sensitivity and subtlety in some of the best prose of recent years encountered by this reader. Roy brings a painterly eye, her choice of detail bringing scenes to sensual life, while eschewing floridness: a masterclass rather in the art of restraint, the pared-back style enabling violence close to the surface to glint of its own accord.....An important contribution to an essential debate, Anuradha Roy's poetic work of luminous prose deserves a wide readership in India and beyond. Roy’s chiselled prose allows her to expose the endless, treacherous hypocrisies of Indian society: ...As in her previous novels, An Atlas of Impossible Longing and The Folded Earth, Roy viscerally captures atmosphere: a train sways and moves faster, “as if lighter from shedding the girl”;....India is evoked in the ginger and crushed cloves of a seaside tea-stall, the poetry of Jibanananda Das, the scent of grapefruit and above all, in the shame of speaking about sexual violence. There are allusions to the Mahabharata – the Indian epic where good triumphs over evil – but what emerges in Sleeping on Jupiter is the story of entrenched evil, an evil against women and children that cannot be challenged, only escaped... Roy’s narrative raises many burning questions.
A train stops at a railway station. A young woman jumps off. She has wild hair, sloppy clothes, and a distracted air. She looks Indian, yet she is somehow not. The sudden violence of what happens next leaves the other passengers gasping. The train terminates at Jarmuli, a temple town by the sea. Here, among pilgrims, priests, and ashrams, three old women disembark only to encounter the girl once again. What is someone like her doing in this remote corner, which attracts only worshippers? Over the next five days, the old women live out their long planned dream of a holiday together; their temple guide finds ecstasy in forbidden love; and the girl is joined by a photographer battling his own demons. The full force of the evil and violence beneath the serene surface of the town becomes evident when their lives overlap and collide. Unexpected connections are revealed between devotion and violence, friendship and fear as Jarmuli is revealed as a place with a long, dark past that transforms all who encounter it. No library descriptions found. 
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.92Literature English English fiction Modern Period 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.5)
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