2017 Booker Prize longlist: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy

This topic is for discussion of The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy. No spoilers, please.

At first this book is about Anjum, a hermaphrodite, who grows up with other 'Hijra's' in the slums of Delhi, where she becomes a woman.

Call me a snob, but I was thinking 'O no, not another book about poverty in Indian slums', when the story moves on to four students and the way their lives are one way or another all centered around Kashmir. In her beautiful thoughtful sentences Roy tells the story of religion, politics and violence in the northern part of India. All I knew from the news comes to live in this sad, sad story.

Set in the 90s, the parallells with our current times (in India as well as the rest of the world) are undeniable and frightening.

And then there is Anjum again and suddenly her story makes sense and I get the picture. I am so glad I didn't bail on this thought provoking book. I ended up loving it and I think it deserves to be shortlisted.

I'm trying to avoid reviews and spoilers of books I haven't read yet this year, but made an exception here as this one has been discussed so much already and most of what I saw was negative, often mixed with half personal attacks against the author. So thank you for this review which makes me quite curious, although I am sharing the snob thought, I am sorry to say.

>3 Deern: Read past the first part, just when you'll think 'I already know this story' you'll be rewarded. I was really moved by this book.

I'm encouraged to read your review too, Barbara. I've heard mainly negative things about this book - too political, preachy, and long - so I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it.

Interesting that this book I had planned to read last of this year's lis wants to be read right now. :) So far I like the first part with Anjum much better than expected, it has been a couple of years since I read that "magical realism set in India" style. It isn't a fast read though, quite dense with plot already and many characters.

I finished this one early last week and took too much time to write the review. I forgot ALL the names and some of the plot. But I liked it much more than I had expected and I think I liked it more than her previous Booker Winner The God of Small Things. This might partly be because back then I read several similar books on India in a short period, while now it has been several years since my last encounter with “Indian magical realism” and so I could fully enjoy it again. I thought the writing was beautiful, and I didn’t mind the fragmented plot that only comes completely together in the end. There are connections throughout between the parts, I have read many books that were much more confusing. Yes, there is almost unbearably much violence. “Almost”, because the MR style wraps it in a beautifully embroidered blanket. Which isn’t bad, as this way the reader can digest more of it than in a more factually written book as 2015’s The Year of the Runaways or 2014’s The Lives of Others (which I thought were both great books).

Personally I don’t have anything against the author as I don’t know anything about her. I’m going to read up on wiki to see why so much of the negative criticism was directed at her person and less at the book, but I didn’t want to do that prior to reading. What I take from the novel is that she quite equally accuses all politicians/ parties and all religious groups of violence and manipulation, it didn’t feel one-sided. From Home Fire I took that there are no simple answers, from this book I take that sometimes, sadly, there are no answers at all. People just do all that, and yet small places and short moments of happiness can be found.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Great review!