Review of The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

 

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai

 

During Christmas in the USA, my son gave me a Kindle with Kiran Desai’s new book already loaded onto it. I was ecstatic. I had read reviews of the book in The Guardian and The New York Times and had tried to get a copy back in India but had not been able to. Moreover, I was busy with a flurry of shopping and packing, trying to rebook tickets due to some personal issues, and rushing to reach the US in time for Christmas, as Nikhil, our son, had said he could take a few days off.

Reflecting on the book, it is ironic how its title, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, led me to consider the distinction between being alone and being lonely. I also suppose that my Indian philosophical bent makes me think that I enter the world alone and return alone. All ties are only illusions. Yet, in material, day-to-day life, there are times when I wish people around me would simply leave me alone. Strangers you barely know feel entitled to talk to you—on buses, trains, in queues, waiting rooms, lounges, parties, and social gatherings—eager to enquire. They want to pick at the juicy details: where you’re from, how you manage to live here if you don’t speak a certain language, why your husband doesn’t live with you, and how you can possibly live alone. The questions spiral on and on. I want to be alone, and sorry, I am not lonely. I enjoy my beautiful home, my garden, and my pets. Oh yes, I have house help too, who ensures that I am not alone by popping in now and then with silly queries or statements, such as: “Shall I bathe the dog today?” “It looks as if it may rain. Can I get the clothes inside?”  “The electricity man says the meter isn’t working.”  “The neighbour thinks our bougainvillea has crept into his garden.” Oh, to be really alone for a moment.

So yes—being alone and being lonely are entirely different states. “Alone” can be positive, a physical condition of being without others. In India, I’m not sure anyone can claim they have had ‘true alone time.’ Loneliness, on the other hand, is an emotional disconnection, a sense of being removed even when surrounded by people. I’m not convinced this distinction is widely acknowledged in many Asian contexts.

But back to the book. Desai spends nearly 700 pages exploring the disconnection that Sonia and Sunny experience. Early on, when Sonia’s loneliness is explained to her grandparents, they reflect: “In Allahabad, loneliness was not something they had patience for. They might have known the loneliness of being misunderstood, or the sucked-dry feeling of an Allahabad afternoon, but they had never slept in a house alone, never eaten a meal alone, never lived in a place where they were unknown, never woken without a cook bringing tea or greeting several people in the morning” (Chapter 1). Once again, I am not sure if the novel is able to draw the line between loneliness and being alone convincingly.

The novel, using the young characters Sonia and Sunny, explores not just personal loneliness but loneliness that is more widespread. Sunny is a journalist attempting to juggle between an Indian and an American identity and is in a relationship with Ulla, an American. Sonia is a college graduate caught in an abusive relationship with an elderly artist, Ilan de Toorjen Foss. Over time, both relationships fail, and due to both families muddled attempts at matchmaking, the love story does not move in a linear or tangible way. Sonia and Sunny, while trying to find meaning in their own lives, also attempt to comprehend marital relationships. Sonia tries to understand the rift between her father, Manav and mother, Seher  while Sunny struggles with his bossy, over-possessive mother, Babita.

The storyline takes you through Vermont, New York, Delhi, Goa, Allahabad, Italy, and Mexico. There is a series of characters: jaded aunts, cunning and scheming uncles, miserly grandparents, loyal and disloyal cooks, drivers, servants, and pets. A key idea of the novel is that Indian family relationships are in a state of disjuncture and dysfunction. There seems to be a lack of love all around. Kiran Desai also appears to suggest that elderly Indians live in a miserly, impoverished fashion. What really rattled me was her description of the fridge in the Allahabad home: “The cockroaches that lived inside the warm laboring fridge didn’t bother her— in fact, she couldn’t see them, the voltage was so low. Neither did she notice that atop the greasy jars, daddy longlegs had got their long legs stuck and died. Nor that at the top of the door almost as tall as the wall, a lizard had been squashed, and the squashed leather of its torso and empty face still dangled from the high doorframe" (Chapter 1). I don’t think Indians live in such dingy circumstances as the author is portraying.

The story seems to harp on a kind of magical realism and folklore using the idea of an amulet named ‘Badal Baba’ while blending bits of personal histories, such as the German grandfather, the man with the long nails, and the man who sat in a tree (a reference to Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard). Desai does not conceal the fact that Indians eat beef or have sexual relationships. One gets the feeling that Indians living abroad to cure their loneliness end up wandering around, having strange relationships, becoming psychotic, and yet clinging to their parents. The idea of Sunny’s friend entering an arranged marriage feels like a sarcastic swipe at the Indian marriage system.

By the time I finished the book, I had recovered from a bout of flu, and I felt as though the novel itself had been caught in a similar fever. The ending—Sunny and Sonia swimming in the sea—felt equally enigmatic. The larger problem, for me, was that Desai seemed to be mixing observations about Indians in the US with imagined statements about Indians in India. Her characters remained suspended between families and individualism, love and sex, relationships and mere interactions, maladies and health, help and servitude, emotional blackmail and possessiveness, life, and death. The characters in the novel do not linger with you once you finish nor can you read much into them as you read the novel.

At a personal level, I found the novel boring and insipid, tinged with sarcasm toward both Indian and American values. Every culture has its good and bad; it is up to individuals to locate the good and accept it. But when stories are written in dense, ambivalent ways with no linear connections—and when readers struggle to understand them—that often seems to be the very moment they are acclaimed and deemed worthy of awards.

 

*****

 Few quotes from the book: 

 

Perched above them, at the entrance portico, sat a plaster bust of a portly gentleman in a cravat, perhaps inspired by a drawing made by the bungalow’s original owner, who had toured Europe, sketchbook in hand, in the same manner he’d observed foreigners doing in India. And perhaps it was the fault of the artist’s rendering, or the dissonant surroundings of Allahabad, or a splattering of bird droppings, but the bust resembled less a dignified nobleman than a foolish snob with an interest in the sky overhead, which had not turned vivid for a quarter of a century. Not since the national highway had been widened to accommodate the lorries that trawled cabbages, cement, goats, wheat, and – if one was to believe the newspapers or the gossip – prostitutes and venereal disease. (Chapter 1) 

 If India existed, then America could not, for they were too drastically different not to cancel each other out. Yet despite this fact, they refused to remain apart. India invaded his life all the way from the other side of the world, and then life here became instantly artificial,..

In the moment of the water rushing over her, she became a river. The bathroom’s window looked into the drenched, mossy world, and she watched the steam trickle and vanish through the trees. She thought of Tanizaki writing about shadowy old bathrooms being gateways to the past.

 

 

Review of Bonnie Garmus' Lessons in Chemistry

 

Lessons in Chemistry

Doubleday pub, 2022

Bonnie Garmus’s Lessons in Chemistry struck a chord with me on so many levels, not just as a reader, but as someone whose life has been deeply shaped by the very subject the book celebrates. The protagonist, Elizabeth Zott, is a brilliant chemist navigating the strict gender norms of the 1950s and 60s. Her fierce passion for science and her refusal to bend to societal expectations brought back memories of my journey—especially in the early years of my marriage and the progress I made in my academic life. But beyond that, it was the presence of chemistry in my life that resonated most deeply: I was married to a man who was immersed in organic chemistry.

Forty years ago, I entered marriage with all the usual hopes: companionship, shared dreams, and emotional connection.. But I quickly realized that my husband’s world was, in many ways, dominated by chemistry. And this is not an exaggeration. Even before we got married, the signs were there—subtle clues I failed to truly see. Shortly after our wedding, he jumped headfirst into his research at the University of Hyderabad, and I found myself adjusting to a new family life on my own. He was gone from seven in the morning to seven at night, and here I was in a completely new setup. I had to adjust to a different lifestyle, unfamiliar surroundings, food I wasn’t accustomed to, and ideas that didn’t quite align with what I grew up with. It’s a lot to take in. Women go through a great deal when they leave behind the comfort of what they know to build a new home from scratch.

A month later, when we moved to Shillong in Meghalaya, I thought perhaps the stunning beauty of the hills would inspire a shift in our relationship. Yet, instead, the North-Eastern Hill University’s Chemistry Department became his second home, his sanctuary. I don’t say this with bitterness but with understanding. Chemistry wasn’t just his career; it was his passion, his identity, and the force that defined him.

I found myself seeking ways to fill the emotional and intellectual void. I enrolled in an MPhil program in English, finding joy in literature, and connected with the Kannada Association. While our lives seemed to run on parallel tracks, his immersed in the world of molecules, benzene rings, and carbon chains, mine exploring the literary worlds of new women writers in India, Sartre’s existential philosophy, Burke’s writing, and the voices of North-Eastern authors, there was an unspoken balance between us. Life was muddled, full of challenges, violence, curfews, the beauty of the hills, the color of the blooms, the birth of our son, and the rhythms of domestic life, but we built a life together, even if we walked different paths.

This is why Lessons in Chemistry felt so incredibly personal to me. Elizabeth Zott’s journey to be taken seriously as a scientist, her use of a cooking show to educate and empower women, and her ability to fight back against the deep-seated bias in her world all mirrored the dynamics I had lived. Her story is not just about science; it’s about carving out space for yourself in a world that often refuses to make room. Elizabeth’s struggle for recognition is not just the story of a woman in science; it’s a moving, often humorous exploration of women in academia, their fight for identity, and their quiet, everyday revolutions. It’s a story of resilience—and it felt so deeply familiar. For me, it was more than just a book; it was a reminder of what it means to be a woman carving a path in a world that doesn’t always make it easy.

The novel tracks Elizabeth Zott, a beautiful, brilliant chemist in the 1950s and 60s who refuses to conform to the era’s expectations of women. Her research is continually undermined by the Hastings male researchers who view her gender rather than her genius. Still, she persists, eventually transforming a cooking show called Supper at Six into a radical platform for teaching science and self-worth to housewives across America.

Garmus writes with warmth, humor, and a sharp sense of truth, blending themes of feminism, science, motherhood, and self-discovery. The supporting characters, Elizabeth’s precocious daughter Madeleine, her spirited neighbor Harriet, and even her astute dog Six-Thirty, bring a lightness and a touch of chaos to the narrative. And while the book doesn’t shy away from disappointment or injustice, it never loses its sense of hope. For anyone who has ever felt unseen, underestimated, or pigeonholed by society’s expectations, Lessons in Chemistry offers both validation and inspiration. It’s a story that lingers long after the final page—and for me, it was a reminder that, even in a life shaped by someone else’s passion, there’s always room to nurture your own.

Of course,  no book is ideal, and one can definitely find fault with the book’s ending, which seems like a fairy tale one. Other issues are the bashing at male chauvinism, a dig at religion, a talking dog and a preachy tone around the whole educated vs. uneducated thing. Yet the book and the storyline is for common ordinary women and not for academics, and if one imagines this kind of everyday readership, then the novel works.

If Bonnie Garmus ever happens to read this, I want to thank her. Lessons in Chemistry helped me understand something vital - not just about being a woman in the 1950s and 60s, but about being a woman today. It’s a story that transcends time, a quiet ode for all those who are still finding their space in a world that’s reluctant to make room for women.

 

*****

Here are 2 passages from the book:

 

“And although I said it affects everyone,” he continued, “it’s an especially dangerous time for the homemaker. Because unlike a fourth grader who can put off her homework, or a businessman who can pretend to be listening, the homemaker must force herself to keep going. She has to get the kids down for a nap because if she doesn’t, the evening will be hell. She has to mop the floor because if she doesn’t, someone could slip on the spilled milk. She has to run to the store because if she doesn’t, there will be nothing to eat. By the way,” he said, pausing, “have you ever noticed how women always say they need to run to the store? Not walk, not go, not stop by. Run. That’s what I mean. The homemaker is operating at an insane level of hyper productivity. And even though she’s in way over her head, she still has to make dinner. It’s not sustainable, Elizabeth. She’s going to have a heart attack or a stroke, or at the very least be in a foul mood. And it’s all because she can’t procrastinate like her fourth grader or pretend to be doing something like her husband. She’s forced to be productive despite the fact that she’s in a potentially fatal time zone—the Afternoon Depression Zone.” (208)

*****

More than three thousand people worked at Hastings Research Institute— that’s why it took Calvin over a week to track her down—and when he did finally find her, she seemed not to remember him.

 “Yes?” she said, turning to see who had entered her lab, a large pair of safety glasses magnifying her eyes, her hands and forearms wrapped in large rubber mitts.

 “Hello,” he said. “It’s me.”

“Me?” she asked. “Could you be more specific?” She turned back to her work.

“Me,” Calvin said. “Five floors up? You took my beakers?”

“You might want to stand back behind that curtain,” she said, tossing her head to the left. “We had a little accident in here last week.”

 “You’re hard to track down.”

“Do you mind?” she asked. “Now I’m in the middle of something important.”

 He waited patiently while she finished her measurements, made notations in her book, reexamined yesterday’s test results, and went to the restroom.

“You’re still here?” she asked, coming back.

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“Tons.”

“You can’t have your beakers back.”

 “So, you do remember me.”

“Yes. But not fondly.”

 “I came to apologize.”

“No need.”

 “How about lunch?”

 “No.” “Dinner?”

 “No.”

“Coffee?”

“Listen,” Elizabeth said, her large mitts resting on her hipbones, “you should know you’re starting to annoy me.” (18-19)

*****

 

Review of Anita Desai's Baumgartner's Bombay

 

 

 

I

n 1985 I was enrolled in an M.Phil course at North Eastern Hill University, Shillong and for my M.Phil dissertation I finalized on the idea of women in the novels of Anita Desai. I am still not sure how I got interested in her works but at that time being newly married and managing being a wife which seemed to be continuously impinging on my identity given the societal pressures of being married I had maybe felt that Anita Desai made a lot of sense. Cry the Peacock and Voices in the City reflected on the institution of marriage in India and questioned continuously the state of being a wife. It was however unfortunate that I was not able to complete my M.Phil due to the growing unrest at that time in Shillong and we moved to Pondicherry where I once again enrolled for the M.Phil program at Pondicherry University. Thinking back it was a miracle that my application was accepted given the fact that my son had scribbled all over my application and I had no time to purchase a new one and refill and submit it. During that time there were no computers and one had to pay money and buy an application form. Once I enrolled, it was a Herculean task to leave my 2 year old in a school and go to the university and come back and take care of the baby. It seemed that most nights I was completing reading the texts or writing assignments or preparing for a seminar. Of course this also meant a great amount of tiredness and fatigue but the idea of learning kept me excited and going. Looking back, I wonder how I ever managed it.

Anyways after my M.Phil (by the way, my dissertation was titled, “The Predicament of Women in the Select Novels of Anita Desai”) I became interested in other women writers and left Anita Desai far away. Still out of interest I had purchased her later books written after 1980 which remained on my book shelves for long. In my recent attempts to go back to reading some of these books, I began with Baumgartner’s Bombay which I found difficult to read. Not because the narrative wasn’t well written, but because the weight of loneliness, angst, and misery began to overwhelm me.

The novel explores the experiences of a Jewish individual in 1930s Germany and the turmoil that they go through during the Nazi regime. The protagonist, Hugo’s father has a furniture shop which does good business but during Hitler’s regime the shop begins to fare badly. Subsequently he is captured and sent to prison in Dachau and by the time he is released and sent home, he is a broken man. Hugo manages through his father’s partner support to move to India as the furniture showroom had business dealings in Calcutta. He stays connected with his mother through letters and is unable to meet her again. During the war, he too like his father is imprisoned in the Himalayas as he is an outsider. In the camp he realizes that there are two groups, the Nazis and the Jews and the British who run the prison seem to be partisan towards the Germans. A serious conflict that arises in the prison alerts the Britishers to the situation in the prison and they also understand that few of the German prisoners’ escape. Hugo after the war returns to Calcutta but the Indian struggle for liberation from the British once again renders a separation as the Muslim family for whom he worked are forced to go to Dhaka. Based on the Muslim man’s goodness he manages to move to Bombay and survives by finding a job and makes friends with Lotte a fellow German who has her own tale of survival in India. Later he is forced to retire when the company he works for is taken over by the owner’s son who wishes to change the direction of the company. Lonely and all the time treated as an alien he takes care of a brood of cats for which he gathers food from the nearby small roadside cafes. By the end of the novel, Hugo befriends a young German, Kurt who is a drug addict. Kurt is unable to procure drugs from Jagu a local dealer and in frustration and anger, he ends up murdering Hugo Baumgartner and trying to steal his remaining small valuable items. Lotte gets to know about the murder and tries to protect his belongings and property but to no avail as the greedy landowners and the police swallow it.

The continuous theme of loneliness and estrangement throughout the novel  left me a bit tired as I have a positive nature and prefer to have hope and love. There seems to be a statement that individuals like Hugo and Lotte are never accepted due to their skin colour and their lifestyles. Somewhere in my reading I felt that Desai had a damning view of India probably given her own personal sense of being an outsider coming from a German-Indian background. I did sympathize and understand Hugo but also felt a resentment towards him as I thought that the situation would have been different if he had willed it. And honestly, I found his murder deeply upsetting—it didn’t feel necessary. I still see a few of Anita Desai’s novels on my shelf—The Zigzag Way and Diamond Dust—and I wonder if I should read them. But I’m not sure I can take more of that kind of misery.

 

Here are a few lines from the novel:

Baumgartner stood, under the weight of their defeat, burdened by their defeat, finding it gross, grotesque, suffocating. He wanted to shout ‘Stop!’ He wanted to tell them it was their defeat, not his, that their country might be destroyed but this meant victory, terribly late, far too late, but at last the victory. Of course he said nothing, he stood helplessly, only aware how crushed and wrecked and wretched a representative he was of victory. Couldn’t even victory appear in colours other than that of defeat? No. Defeat was heaped on him, whether he deserved it or not. (135)

 

It had seemed bedlam when he disembarked and walked on to what he was assured was Indian Soil – the crowds, of Indians, Britons, Americans, Gurkhas – coolies carrying their luggage and gleaming with Brasso and boot polish – hawkers and trades scurrying around with baskets and trays – mansahibs and blonde children with lopsided basin-shaped topics on their bleached hair – Indian women in shapeless garments squatting passively with their baskets or babies – and over it all, congealing them into one restless, heaving mass, the light from the sky and the sea, an invasion of light such as he had never known could exist – and heat like boiling oil tipped out of cauldron on to their heads, running down their necks and into their collars and shirts. (83)

 

Gradually, the words ran into each other, became garbled. They made no sense nothing made sense. Germany there, India here – India there, Germany here. Impossible to capture, to hold, to read them, make sense of them. They all fell away from him, into an abyss. He saw them falling now, white shapes turning and turning, then going grey as the distance widened between them and him. He stood watching as they fell and floated, floated and fell, till they drifted out of sight, silently, and he was left on the edge, clutching his pyjamas, straining to look. But there was nothing to look at, it was all gone, and he shut his eyes, to receive the darkness that flooded in, poured in and filled the vacuum with the thick black ink of oblivion, of Nacht und Nebel. (215)

 

Ranjit Lal’s The Crow Chronicles

Penguin Publications

Year of publication: 1996

Type: Paperback

Colonial rule, one would expect, is long over in most nations. However, the harsh reality is that independence has often been achieved only at a political level. Instead of true liberation, many countries now grapple with internal tyranny. Literary theories such as postcolonialism refer to this phenomenon as neocolonialism—a system that, while no longer relying on direct political control, still exerts dominance and hegemony over nations that once suffered under colonial rule. Most postcolonial countries continue to experience this lingering effect.

A brilliant satirical take on this neocolonial mentality can be found in Ranjit Lal’s novel, The Crow Chronicles. An avid bird watcher and nature enthusiast, Lal uses the common crow as a powerful metaphor for the political power struggles that plague many nations. The story serves as an allegory for Indian society, with the megalomaniacal white crow, Shri Katarnak Kala Kaloota Kawa Kaw-Kaw, symbolizing the corruption, manipulation, and deceit entrenched in political systems. His white feathers subtly highlight the deep-rooted slave mentality in India—where fair skin has historically been associated with superiority.

Born in Bombay (now Mumbai), Kala Kaloota migrates to Keoladeo National Park to establish his authoritarian rule over its crow population. Through this allegory, the novel explores how minorities are often subjugated by dominant forces. Much like Orwell’s Animal Farm, which critiques totalitarianism and communism, The Crow Chronicles serves as a biting commentary on monarchy. Lal demonstrates how unchecked monarchy can be just as oppressive, curtailing both individual and collective freedoms.

Structure and Characters

The novel is divided into four parts with a total of 37 chapters:

Part 1 (4 chapters) introduces the setting of Keoladeo Park, its various characters—including Achanak, Doodhraj Tandoori Totaji (the weak prime minister), Pinky Stink Tainted Storkji, and the Royal Highness Badshah. This section also immerses readers in the Festival of Birds, showcasing the beauty of the avian world.

Part 2 (7 chapters) takes place in Mumbai, depicting Kala Kaloota’s birth and his rise to power through ruthless psychological tactics. One memorable moment describes how he brainwashes his followers:
“Within days, the group had been completely shattered psychologically. They were reduced to a shaking mass of feathers who could do nothing without Kaw’s permission… They obeyed him blindly.” (Pg 70)

Kaw builds his empire by eliminating enemies, recruiting loyal followers like Craven Raven, and molding an army obsessed with greed and control. His rise culminates in a dramatic plundering of a party at Willingdon Sports Club in Mahalaxmi. Meanwhile, ornithologists from the Bombay Natural Society take notice of Kaw, leading to a tense chase as he narrowly escapes their clutches. Faced with a precarious existence in Mumbai, Kaw eventually relocates to Keoladeo.

Part 3 (10 chapters) and Part 4 (15 chapters) chronicle Kaw’s domination of Keoladeo. Here, he enters an arranged marriage with Kumari Surmasundari Kalibundi, a poignant reflection on marital traditions that prioritize lineage over love. Surmasundari, trapped in a loveless relationship, is valued only for her ability to produce offspring. Meanwhile, Kaw strengthens his grip on Keoladeo, making political alliances with Budhboo Bundicoot (chief of intelligence), Lt. Gen Chakumar Jungli Billi (the feral tomcat and chief of security), and others. He ousts the army, consolidates power, and enters an illicit relationship with Ms. Gulabhi Nakhone, growing increasingly infatuated with her.

The Revolution

The final section highlights the resistance movement against Kaw, led by Aachanak the hawk and Ghughuji the owl. They are joined by Phutki the tailorbird, Titri the red-wattled lapwing, Phuljari the white-breasted kingfisher, and the daring duo Koylas. Together, they plot a revolution against tyranny. Lal’s portrayal of their struggle is both witty and thought-provoking, using animal behavior to expose political realities that would put any totalitarian government to shame.

This novel is a must-read for any Indian, offering a unique and humorous take on governance, oppression, and societal hierarchy. Its clever use of satire and allegory makes it an eye-opening exploration of political power.

Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones

 

Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones

 

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, New York, Boston

Year of Publication: 2002

Price: $7.50 US/$9.50 Canada

Paper Back. 372 pages.

 

I picked up Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones expecting a mesmerizing read—just as the blurb promised. It was also billed as a ‘whodunnit,’ which got me even more excited since I’m a huge fan of the genre. I took it along on a trip to Bhubaneshwar, eager to dive in. I did manage to finish it, but honestly, I found it quite disappointing.

The story is set in 1973 in a small American town. Fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon is murdered by her neighbor, Mr. Harvey, while walking home from school. After her death, Susie finds herself in heaven, where she befriends Holly and realizes that even paradise has its imperfections. From this vantage point, she watches life unfold on Earth, occasionally making ghostly visits. Her presence is only sensed by Ruth, another young girl in town.

Back on Earth, Susie’s family is shattered. Her father falls into a deep depression and begins neglecting his family, prompting her mother to leave. Len, the police officer, tries to solve the case but fails to bring Harvey to justice. The story then shifts focus to Susie’s siblings—Lindsey and Buckley—and follows their lives as they grow up. In the end, Harvey is indicted, but not for Susie’s murder; instead, he’s held accountable for earlier crimes. Susie’s parents reconcile, Lindsey gets married, and the birth of her daughter, Abigail Suzanne, offers a glimmer of hope and renewal.

What really turned me off was the sluggish pace of the narrative. Ironically, that might be why some reviews call it “captivating” or “gripping”—but for me, it dragged. While it’s clearly meant to be an emotional drama, it just didn’t resonate. The fact that Harvey escapes punishment for Susie’s murder, especially in a country like the U.S., felt implausible and frustrating. The police come across as completely ineffective, which only added to my disappointment. Personally, I found the novel underwhelming. But who knows—it might strike a chord with others.

Chris Cleave's Little Bee

 

                                Ski Path in Stowe                                Mount Mansfield view from a farm

                            

Review of Chris Cleave’s Little Bee (2008)

 

 

Knowing my love for books, my son and my husband always try to delight me by buying books whenever they get the chance. One such memorable occasion was during our trip to Thiruvananthapuram, where we stayed at a downtown hotel. Right across from the hotel stood a bookshop—if I remember correctly, it was DC Books. That evening, we leisurely wandered into the store, and, as if on cue, my two enthusiastic supporters quickly spotted Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. It had just won the Booker Prize, making it an especially cherished gift for me.

Years later, while visiting my son in Stowe, Vermont, we went window shopping in the quaint little town. Stowe, with its picturesque charm, has a population of about 6,000 and lies near the towering Mount Mansfield (see the images above). Vermont, the 14th state of the U.S., joined the Union in 1791. Initially known for its lumber industry, Stowe later transitioned to agriculture and farming. It is home to the Vermont Ski Museum, which was founded in 1988 and later relocated to Stowe in 2000. Interestingly, the town has a connection to The Sound of Music, as the original von Trapp family settled there after their tours as the Von Trapp Singers.

Beyond skiing, Stowe is also a destination for trekking and climbing. The Mount Mansfield Trail is a favourite among climbers, while the Long Trail—a challenging 272-mile hike along the Green Mountains’ main ridge—is considered the oldest continuous footpath in the U.S. Completing this trek is regarded as a remarkable achievement, and yes, Nikhil did it! The trail was envisioned by James P. Taylor and constructed between 1910 and 1930.

But I digress—Stowe just has a way of lingering in my thoughts. Returning to books, while strolling through the town, my son Nikhil discovered Little Bee in a charming, tucked-away bookstore. As with many of the books I collect, I started reading it but soon set it aside as academic obligations pulled me back into my busy world. It rested on my bookshelf for quite some time, until a year or so ago, when I finally finished it. Once again, as always, I found myself struck by the powerful relationship between two women from different worlds.

For those unfamiliar with Little Bee, it was written by Chris Cleave, a columnist for The Guardian in London. His first novel, Incendiary, won the Somerset Maugham Award and was later adapted into a film.

The narrative revolves around two women—Little Bee from Nigeria and Sarah O’Rourke from England. After being released from an immigration detention centre, Little Bee traces Sarah’s home and arrives there on the day of her husband Andrew’s funeral. Their connection had begun two years earlier in Nigeria, where Sarah and Andrew had vacationed near a resort. There, they faced a harrowing decision when Little Bee and her sister, fleeing a group of oil company men responsible for a village massacre, begged them for help. In a horrifying exchange, one of the men severed Sarah’s finger as payment for Little Bee’s life.

As the story unfolds, the tragedies Little Bee endured come to light—suicide, rape, and the brutal realities of migration. Sarah, too, navigates personal conflicts, while her young son Charlie refuses to leave his Batman costume. Toward the novel’s end, a police investigation into Charlie’s disappearance triggers an emotional collision of Little Bee’s memories—both in Nigeria and in England.

The novel opens with the epigraph: “Britain is proud of its tradition of providing a safe haven for people fleeing persecution and conflict.” It closes with a Nigerian proverb: “If your face is swollen from the severe beatings of life, smile and pretend to be a fat man.”

While the book offers intriguing insights into women, relationships, and immigration, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Cleave was deliberately painting asylum seekers in an overly positive light. At times, it seemed as if the novel carried an underlying agenda—one that left me somewhat unsettled. I appreciate a compelling story, but I prefer narratives that unfold organically rather than within a predetermined framework.

Another moment that lingered in my mind was the reflection on globalization near the novel’s end:

I smiled down at Charlie, and I understood that he would be free now even if I would not. In this way the life that was in me would find its home in him now. It was not a sad feeling. I felt my heart take off lightly like a butterfly and I thought, yes, this is it, something has survived in me, something that does not need to run anymore, because it is worth more than all the money in the world and its currency, its true home; is the living. And not just the living in this particular country or in that country, but the secret, irresistible heart of the living. I smiled back at Charlie and I knew that the hopes of this whole human world could fit inside one soul. This is a good trick. This is called globalization. (p. 264)

Reading Little Bee inevitably stirred memories of my son’s own immigrant journey and the endless search for a true sense of home and belonging—one that so many of us continue to navigate.

 

Magda Szabó’s The Door

 

 

 

 

Magda Szabó’s The Door

I have had a househelp for the past fifteen years, and in many ways, she seems to run the household more than I do. She is always available, at any hour of the day, much like Emerence in The Door—fiercely possessive and convinced that she owns me. She constantly tries to interfere in my life, and despite the challenges she brings, I often find myself siding with her. The fact that she has two dependents—a son and a mother—adds to her burdens, and although she carries herself with pride, her illiteracy and circumstances often compel her to rely on my kindness.

Her immense love for animals extends beyond her home and into the streets she walks daily to reach my house. The stray dogs on her route look up to her as their savior and protector. Her earlier pets included two roosters that lived with her for twelve years, and now, she cares for numerous cats descended from a single female feline, Tiger.

In many ways, The Door reflected my life and my househelp’s experiences. The book’s circumstances and relationships mirrored my own.

Magda Szabó’s The Door was originally published in 1987 and translated into English by Len Rix in 2015. I would never have discovered this remarkable book had it not been for my visit to Hungary, prompted by the insistence of my Hungarian friend, Judit Molnar. During my ten-day stay and my deeply appreciated talk at the University of Debrecen, I had the opportunity to immerse myself in the land and its people. Most Hungarians are simple-minded and friendly, and my interactions with them offered me insight into their culture, religion, and social lives. Through The Door, I was granted a deeper understanding of women’s lives and the complex relationships among them.

When Emerence begins working as a housekeeper for Magda and her husband—both successful academics who have moved into a new house—there is no formal agreement regarding her employment, nor does she follow fixed working hours. Yet, the one defining aspect of her work is that it is carried out to perfection.

In the chapter “Junk Clearance,” we witness the first significant rift between Emerence and Magda, triggered by a plastic plaster dog that Emerence treasures. The chapter subtly raises questions about the perceived value of artifacts and the divisions between social classes. Throughout the novel, besides Magda, her husband, and their dog, Viola, we encounter other significant figures, including Magda’s two friends, Sutu and Adelka, her nephew, and the lieutenant colonel.

One of the most haunting elements of the story is Emerence’s refusal to open her door—even in sickness, she keeps it shut:

“Emerence never opened her door, never once showed herself. Enraged by the constant knocking, she demanded that no-one bother her.” (p. 176)

The novel opens with a dream Magda has about the door:

That door opened. It was opened by someone who defended her solitude and impotent misery so fiercely that she would have kept the door shut through a flaming roof crackling over her head. I alone had the power to make her open that lock. In turning the key she put more trust in me than she ever did in God, and in that fateful moment I believed I was godlike—all wise, judicious, benevolent, and rational. We were both wrong: she who put her faith in me, and I who thought too well of myself.” (2)

The door functions as a powerful metaphor—not only for modernity versus tradition but also for opposing forces such as private versus public, power versus powerlessness, law versus lawlessness, and the pervasive sense of alienation, estrangement, and loneliness that defines humanity.

Personally, the novel resonated deeply with me, touching many aspects of my own life. I absolutely loved the book.