The White Tiger: A Novel

"He can read and write but he doesn't understand what he has read. He's half-baked. The country is full of people like him, and we entrust our glorious parliamentary democracy to characters like these. That's the tragedy of this country". "But pay attention: fully formed fellows after twelve years of school and four years of university wear nice suits, they join companies and take orders from other men for the rest of their lives. Entrepreneurs are made from half-baked clay." "We worship him in our temples because he is the shining example of how to serve your master with absolute fidelity, love and devotion. These are the gods they have foisted on us. Understand how hard it is for a man to win his freedom." "You, young man, are an intelligent, honest and vivacious fellow in this crowd of idiots and thugs. In any jungle what is the rarest of animals ... the creature that comes along once in a generation? I thought about it and said: the white tiger." ************ White Tiger begins with an entrepreneur writing a letter to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who is planning a state visit to Bangalore, and tells his life story. Balram grew up so poor he didn't have a name or birthday; his mother was sick and his father too busy as a Bihar rickshaw puller to make a record. After a few years of education he was pulled from school to pay off his sister's dowry by working in a tea shop. Thugs extort money from villagers, hospitals bribe politicians and cheat patients. He rejects religion for making people servile. Balram moves to a nearby city, learning to drive a limousine. Ringing bells at rich people's gates, Balram gets a job as a chauffeur and servant for one of the landlords of his home town. The landlord's son Ashok has just returned from New York with his pretty new wife, Pinky Madam. Balram keeps his ears open, learning his employer and coworker's secrets. He becomes the number one driver over rival employees. The boss is in with corrupt politicians who steal elections and sell public resources for personal gain. A huge kickback is demanded by the Great Socialist. Ashok, Pinky and Balram head for New Delhi to fix the problem, bribing a minister. Delhi is a vast city of crazily numbered streets and endless roundabouts, of extreme air pollution and income disparity. Drivers and servants live in horrible conditions but better than those on the streets. Balram begins to hate the squalor and aspires to the life of his masters. Pinky causes a tragic accident and leaves for New York; Ashok is left alone with Balram. In addition to his driving, Balram cooks, cleans and washes Ashok's feet. He begins to cheat the boss by selling gas, side rides and inflating repairs. In the jungle Maoists smuggle Chinese bombs, waiting to overthrow their masters. When Balram's grandmother arranges a marriage to get his dowry something snaps. He had been sending all his money home but stopped months earlier. Ashok's family made him sign a confession for a crime he didn't commit, wanting him to serve jail time for someone else. Servants were expected to accept abuse without complaint, relatives punished for a servant's transgressions. His nephew arrives unexpectedly from the village with instructions for Balram to look after him. When Ashok makes plans to replace him he takes a terrible revenge, becoming a businessman in Bangalore. Aravind Adiga won the Booker Prize in 2008 for White Tiger, his first novel, which went on to become an Academy Award nominated film. He grew up in a family of doctors, bankers and politicians, not the background of the narrator, but his voice is authentic. Adiga's writing is iconoclastic and must have offended some readers. His critique of conditions of poverty and ignorance, rise of capitalism and corruption is both satirical and sympathetic. As a debut by a young author it is impressive. Although Adiga is comic and entertaining throughout he embeds serious social insights into his story.

4.5 Adiga's debut novel gives us on narrator who is, by turns, charming, repugnant, profound, egotistical, insightful, and much more, but always, always fascinating. Balram, when he introduces himself, is a self-made entrepreneur and a murderer. His story is told through a letter he writes to the Chinese Premier who will be visiting his country. His voice is unique and can stand with some of the best know 'narrators' of classic literature. That his is such a different voice from a underrepresented culture from much of the canon literature is perhaps what makes it more real - in that his tale is authentic to who he is, and the world in which he exists, but that world is likely so unfamiliar to the audience that it confounds expectation and forces us to look at our own stance and belief on many moral, philosophical, and religious topics. Anyone who knows me, knows I tend to be highly critical of 1st Person narration for a number of reasons. To create a unique, memorable voice that tells the story is complicated - perhaps more so than many authors understand, despite 1st POV being the instinctual way to tell a story. Besides the need for a unique voice, 1st POV can only tell one story always filtered through the narrator and too often authors try to short-cut or work around this and find ways to tell another story that we are to believe is not filtered through the consciousness telling that story. Here, however, that is never the case. We are left with no doubt that the world Balram inhabits is all his. Balsam offers to give the Premier insight into his country through his own tale of being born in a lower caste in the 'darkness', through his sporadic and limited education to the moment he gets lucky and becomes a driver for a wealthy man. Through his bizarre, amusing, shocking, winding tale, we do see an India that is far different than the Bollywood films or many popular books and films. Balram's world is filled with corruption, yet there is a level of honor within that established system. There is a hardness and a harshness to many of the lives presented, yet there is an acceptance of them that is surprising. Balram's life is one of service, yet he finds a door to freedom, albeit one that while revealed early on, takes an entire book to build to. When we first hear him refer to himself as a murderer, we want to dislike him - yet it is difficult to do. Bit by bit we are drawn into his world and his worldview. In the end, he participates in the very system he needed to escape from, but he does so on his own terms and with his moral sense in tact, leaving him feeling he at least is living in that system in a better, more moral way. The ability to convince the audience of the same is perhaps the real power of Balram, and Adiga. My one criticism of the novel is that were moments that felt repetitive, that we'd covered that ground well and needed to move on. Fortunately, they were few and far between, and overall I was absorbed into Balram's world. For this book, I alternated between the kindle version and the audio - and I have to say that the narrator on the audio version was excellent, bringing life to a diverse cast of characters with slight shifts in tone, rhythm, pitch, and subtly that was masterful. Considering the story is 1st POV, that the audio narrator had to filter all the characters through the storyteller, it was extremely well done because it felt like Balram was imitating those around him, giving us yet another layer of story.

.. one of a kind is born. And as a real tiger or a human being he (or she...) will be the most extraordinary example of his or her kind. Here we follow the development of a poor 'half-baked' Indian boy named simply Gunna - Boy. Because no-one in his family had the time to give him a real name. His teacher finally names him. But he has changed now again, leaving the old name behind like a snake leaves its skin. Now he has become an entrepreneur - and his story is masterly told by Aravind Adiga. Who rightfully won the Man Booker Prize in 2008. And what a story it is! It will be given to us in form of letters our now adult protagonist is writing night after night to the Premier of China, in Beijing - by him called 'The Capital of the Freedom-Loving Nation of China'. From a extraordinary talented scholar in his village to an almost-slave in a tea-shop. Then to the high-rises of Delhi as a junior driver for a very rich, but also very malleable millionaire. And the whole family - with the roots in the same village our boy came from, plus one American spouse - see in him only a beast of burden. Only his Master has some limited form of human feelings for him. The boy sleeps in the basement with roaches and dreams the impossible dream. Contacts with other drivers in similar situations will teach him to find a way out of this one-way street. The Money his salary - which once rolled right into the hands of his odious grandmother in the dirty hometown - now he keeps it for his way out. But the corruption that surrounds him day by day will corrupt him too, and very soon. Now the question is: Will he really be able to commit murder to realize his dreams of a free - and before all - totally independent life? The answer comes very soon in the letters he writes from his new office, adorned with a lot of crystal chandeliers. He is an 'entrepreneur' now - and Jo's start-ups are very successful. He plans for the future, too. But he has lost almost all humanity. So he has finally become a real 'White Tiger' - merciless feeding on everything and everyone, and be sure to be the first on the meal. A very accurate picture of the India when Bangalore came up as the Silicon Valley of India. Our hero has found the right place to enlarge his activities into the sector of real-estate. Where there will be people they need places. I only wish that this very talented author writes a book like "10 Years Later" - to see if that White Tiger had survived the modern jungle of hyper-modern India... Have to read 2 books of Aravind Adiga, "Last Man in Tower" and "Between the Assassinations". Both are a clear mirror of the Indian Society and touch the themes of corruption and Hindus vs Muslims. I will review those books, too. But this one is a clear 5**** star, a wonderful example how a citizen is more than able to judge his 'Mother India' and the moral corruption without annoying an interested reader like me. Reccomended for those with an open mind, especially for foreign cultures and upcoming industrial giants.

For progress of English language skills

Libro totalmente nuevo, en excelente estado, llego 1 día antes de lo marcado

Das Buch ist echt aussergewöhnlich sowohl von der Erzählform und dem Stil her, als auch vom Inhalt. Muss man gelesen haben. Die Geschichte wird erzählt als eine Folge von E-Mails des Protagonisten an den chinesischen Premier, welcher in Kürze das Land besuchen wird. Dabei ist sowohl die Sprach-Mentalität -- das kann man nicht beschreiben, aber jeder, der schon regelmässig mit Indern kommuniziert hat, erkennt es sofort wieder -- umwerfend gut getroffen, als auch die ungeschönte Schilderung der Lebensumstände, der offenen Menschenverachtung und des offenen Rassismus, welche im größeren Teil der Welt vorherrschen. Auch der "Erfolg" zu jedem Preis, der in weiten Teilen der Welt vorherrscht ("erfolgreich sein" ist in einigen Ländern auch sprachlich synonym mit "Geld haben"). Mit dem Geld kommt automatisch Ansehen und rechtsfreiheit -- egal, wieviele Verbrechen man auf dem Weg begangen hat. Auch die tiefgreifende Verlogenheit und Korruption des angeblich sozialen/sozialdemokratischen Staatssystems, welches die Armen ausbeutet und die Reichen reicher macht -- mit "the Great Socialist" umschrieben -- die man ja eigentlich überall auf der Welt antrifft (auch bei uns, nur spricht nicht darüber) ist umwerfend gut geschildert -- inklusive Wahlbetrug und Handel mit Ämtern. Wer noch nicht in Indien gewesen ist (oder nur als Tourist im "Licht"), dem mag die Schilderung teilweise übertrieben oder sogar bösartig verleumderisch vorkommen. Wer aber Indien oder Südostasien generell schon "hautnah" erlebt hat, und auch erlebt hat wie wenig ein Leben wert ist, wenn einer kein Geld hat, und dass man andererseits mit 10 Euro so ziemlich alles und jeden kaufen kann, der wird beeindruckt sein von der Detailtreue sowie dem Mut des Autors, die Wahrheit tatsächlich so unverblümt aufzuschreiben. Gut für ihn, dass er in Australien wohnt, denn in Indien kann er sich wohl nicht mehr blicken lassen. Das mir gelieferte Exemplar war -- vom Inhalt abgesehen -- etwas schlecht gearbeitet, die Seiten teils nicht richtig geschnitten, und teils eingerissen. Schade, aber bei einem Taschenbuch für 6€ ist das verschmerzbar.

Well, it has now won the Man Booker prize for 2008. But how good is it? This is a book dowsed in cumin, the sour spice that provides the background to countless curries. The novel, as you probably know from other reviewers is about a young man from the 'Darkness', a metaphorical name for the ancient, rural, landlord-tyrannised, peasant India, who writes a series of letters to the premier of China in anticipation of his forthcoming visit to India. His aim is to tell the truth about an India bifurcated into darkness and light, but these letters largely succeed only in casting a grievous pall across both affluent, corrupt, urban India (the Light) and the Darkness, the traditional life of the villagers, painted as bigoted, often unpleasant and oppressed. If anything, the truth is an inversion: it is the darkness of the light that most shades this book. This is not a funny or easy book, despite what others say and the amusing touches, whose gleam in my opinion only highlight the darkness. Consider it against the tradition of tragedy: e.g. Sophocles, Shakespeare, Goethe and Dostoevsky. Aravind Adiga's book is a subversion of the entire tragic tradition. Here, hubris wins and the Furies visit the chorus, not the protagonist. Crime is not punished: indeed the theme of the book is that entrepreneurial India has achieved its leg up by sidelining morality. There are two justice systems: for the rich and the poor. There are two lifestyles: for the rich and the poor. There are two worlds of opportunity: for the rich and the poor. And corruption and vice are praised, indeed recommended for China to encourage entrepreneurship. Compare this contemporary dystopia with Shakespeare's Macbeth, an appropriate counterpoint since both works concern the killing of a master. Macbeth is indelibly touched; steeped in gore, he loses his way and ease of mind. In contrast, the brilliantly realised cynical protagonist, Balram Halwai, alias the White Tiger, basks in contentment and self-satisfaction. I think the strength of this book is the way that it can be read on the one hand as a half serious, half satirical revelation of modern India and its corruption and vice - a dark cesspit that blots the view of 'saintly India'; while it can also be seen as a mythic account of the loss of innocence, with a twist. For centuries, we are used tales drawing on the archetypal tragic loss, the Fall of Man, or on the moral and economic destruction that accompanies loss of discipline, such as the Rake's progress, or the plain and simple evil come-uppance that has given shape to countless westerns and other literature. So how should we read our times when this darkly subversive tale is so praised for its humour and refreshing outlook? The fact that such analogies and questions seem valid seems to me to prove its literary worth and importance. And it is very readable, despite being dowsed in fenugreek, tamarind and cumin. A sad and tragic masterpiece.