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Bezig met laden... Het blauwe huis (2008)door Preeta Samarasan
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. A beautifully written novel about a wealthy Indian family in Malaysia. Everything is not as it seems in this epic family saga and Samarasan utilizes rich prose and well-developed characters in unveiling the many layers of the families dark secrets. The story is told from various points of view in a seamless and unconfusing way. It was great read and would be a good book club pick. ( ) This novel begins and ends with the departure of Chellam, the doomed and disgraced servant girl the wealthy Rajasekharan family of Ipoh, Malyasia had hired the previous year to care for the demanding Paati (grandmother). During the year of Chellam's stay we come to know and care for the family, and its flawed and damaged members. Central is Aasha, the 6-year old daughter, who, having accepted her mother's rejection and disdain of her, now has to contend with her beloved older sister Uma's withdrawal of her affections and imminent departure for college in the US. Aasha watches and observes her family, with her only companions the ghosts that only she can see and hear. Suresh, Aasha's 11 year old brother, like 11 year old boys the world over, provides comic relief. Then there is Appa, the brilliant Oxford-educated attorney who, to his mother's (Paati's) dismay chose to marry a simple poorly-educated girl, rather than a more modern woman. The years pass, Appa regrets his decision, and is more and more absent from the home. Amma, the mother, has been transformed from a sweet, caring young woman to a social-climbing harridan, with no empathy for plights of her daughters, or for Chellam or Paati. This beautiful, sad and hopeful book can be characterized by Tolstoy's line that every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Samarasan brilliantly tells this family's story against the backdrop of newly-indpendent Malaysia. This novel is interesting for the insight into life in Malaysia and particularly for a second / third generation Indian family living in Malaysia. There are few characters here that are attractive, with the exception of the three children of the Rajasekharan family. The narrative unfolds in a complicated haphazard way, flitting between dates to drip feed the reader information and this was disorientating and confusing. Most of the action takes place in the house and the street;, it feels as if the women and children rarely go out and this gives the novel a claustrophobic feel. The father does go out for long periods and we do follow him briefly and the mother makes a trip to her sister in another town at one time. This street, the houses and the occupants are clearly described and are part of the novel. There are many secrets that are revealed that explain the actions of characters and show how the characters have damaged each other. I found this a difficult novel to read because of the structure and the subject matter and got little joy from it. This book is actually set in Malaysia, but the main characters are an Indian family. The story involves the death of an elderly woman in the family, and the subsequent dismissal of a servant girl who is held responsible. Through the eyes of the six year old protagonist, Aasha, and occasionally other characters, the book swoops backward and forward through time to show the subtle and complicated threads that tie together families in love, loyalty, hatred and deceit. While the book particularly illuminates aspects of its particular setting in time and place, the complications of a postcolonial world, it also examines the complicated division of loyalties within families, particularly immigrant families who feel a special insularity. 60. Evening Is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan (2008, 340 page Hardcover, read September 28 - October 18) This one just didn't work me. Actually, I'm not sure Indian novels, in general, works for me. I think I have read four different books from Indian authors from very different backgrounds (all women though). Each has very nice prose, sometimes spectacular vocabularies, but go on and on about stories that don't seem very interesting to me. Somewhere along the line I'm missing something. Evening is a Whole day is the stifling story of an unhappy wealthy Tamil family in Malaysia with one very unfortunate servant. It touches on the place of Tamils in ethnically divided Malaysia, the cultural stratification of this Tamil society, and even the 1969 riots in Kuala Lumpur (an ethnic riot between Malays and Chinese). At first I found it pleasantly readable, but not memorable in that I wasn't thinking about it when I wasn't reading it. But I had to force myself through the second half as it slowly revealed each somewhat interesting but not fascinating event in drawn out emotionally indirect detail. I think I'm happy to have read it, but I didn't enjoy the actual act of reading. 2014 https://www.librarything.com/topic/179643#4893797 geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Onderdeel van de uitgeversreeks(en)
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML: Set in Malaysia, this spellbinding and already internationally acclaimed debut introduces us to the prosperous Rajasekharan family as its closely guarded secrets are slowly peeled away. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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