The Zigzag Way

A little gem - I'm so happy I swapped it on impulse at www.bookswapper.de. The prose is beautiful. So is the story (or rather: stories).
'Zigzag way' refers to the ideal way to treck up a hill but also to the fact that in our lives we sometimes have to go zigzag to go where we want to be. Or are meant to be.
And no: It's not one of those 'Live your life like this, I've figured it all out' books (Thank god!).
It's just a pleasure to read. And it's too short. So many things left to be unraveled. First I was angry when the book just ended on me (I like them fat, I admit).
After a while I realized that the abrupt ending was very fitting.
But still I would have loved to read more and so my rating is 4.5 rather than 5 and I realize I'm being show more selfish and horrible when I rate it like that:-) show less

3.5/5.

A slightly feverish story of 20th century colonialism that goes both ways, of Cornish miners emigrating to Mexico and fleeing the revolution, and of their children returning as rich tourists two generations later in search of Themselves. Peyote used more as an established metaphor than an actual drug. I really like Desai's writing, but the novel feels underdeveloped for all the different viewpoint characters she introduces.

[The Zig Zag Way] was an appropriate title for this book in that it told the story of a cast of characters from various points of view. While it was well written and enjoyable to read, I found its point elusive.

This book was interesting. I absolutely love the style of writing. It was vivid and really beautiful. It had a magical realism touch to it, which I loved. The story on the other hand seemed to mirror it's title. It zig-zagged all over the place. I understand what the author was getting at, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if the story just focused on one set of characters instead of the three. Or, if the book was longer had more time to focus on the characters. There was a lot of depth for the characters in such a short bit of text! But I could have kept on reading about each of them long after the story stopped. I was particularly intrigued by the character of Dona Vera. I loved her! I wish there was a whole book just based on her.

Evocative, atmospheric, a little exotic for those who have no knowledge of Mexico; a very slight story, more like journalling your genealogy research. She captures the emotion of discovery of ancestors, the imagining of their lives, the feeling of regret for their misfortunes

I didn't realize the emotional impact this novel would have until close to the end. The novel tells of the search by Eric for identity with his Cornish ancestors. He has followed his lover, who is joining academia, to Mexico. She is left behind in the story. Eric feels splintered, but is fumbling along in his quest to find out more about his mining ancestry. This culminates in a extraordinary Day of the Dead celebration in a Mexican village.

Good book, but I may be biased. I typed the manuscript for the paperback edition when I was an intern at Penguin, so the author kindly signed a copy of the book for me. It was a very intimate way to read the story--literally letter to word to sentence to paragraph. I find myself wondering now if my experience of the book would be different if read as a whole rather than by the small parts of a whole.