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A review by nothingforpomegranted
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
5.0
Enthralling. Devastating. Humiliating. Wonderful.
Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance is a masterpiece of storytelling, a heartbreaking, mesmerizing tale of characters, woven together with a level of beauty and complication matching that of Dina Dalal’s quilt, a patchwork of moments, arranged by circumstance and sewn into permanence. These characters will long inhabit a place in my heart, their joys bringing me comfort and their tragedies feeling like my own. In nearly 600 pages, Mistry seems to have wasted nary a line, every word, every interaction, every utterance of political jargon offering insight to these characters I came to love so deeply, so quickly.
This is a book people should read. Regardless of one’s background in the cultural and political history of India, there is something to be learned about humanity from Mistry’s treatment of the human psyche. Every moment is a crossroads, a confrontation among the past, the present, and the future, and every decision, or even a moment’s hesitation to decide, can seal the next sequence of moments in consequence. Our friends’ decisions throughout Mistry’s brilliant narrative seem to bring trauma more often than celebration; our mourning and rejoicing on their behalf serving to enforce our cognizance of our own moments of decision, of hesitation, and of seemingly simple interaction.
Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance is a masterpiece of storytelling, a heartbreaking, mesmerizing tale of characters, woven together with a level of beauty and complication matching that of Dina Dalal’s quilt, a patchwork of moments, arranged by circumstance and sewn into permanence. These characters will long inhabit a place in my heart, their joys bringing me comfort and their tragedies feeling like my own. In nearly 600 pages, Mistry seems to have wasted nary a line, every word, every interaction, every utterance of political jargon offering insight to these characters I came to love so deeply, so quickly.
This is a book people should read. Regardless of one’s background in the cultural and political history of India, there is something to be learned about humanity from Mistry’s treatment of the human psyche. Every moment is a crossroads, a confrontation among the past, the present, and the future, and every decision, or even a moment’s hesitation to decide, can seal the next sequence of moments in consequence. Our friends’ decisions throughout Mistry’s brilliant narrative seem to bring trauma more often than celebration; our mourning and rejoicing on their behalf serving to enforce our cognizance of our own moments of decision, of hesitation, and of seemingly simple interaction.