This novel broke me - utterly and completely. The cover says that if the Booker Prize committee of 1999 could award a runner-up, they would have given it to this novel - I can't even imagine how the winner for that year could be any better than this masterpiece.
This work follows two PoVs - both taking place in an extremely orthodox household. The first is that of Uma, a staid spinster who can't get married, and so people treat her as a cursed woman who shouldn't exist, to put it politely. The second is that of Arun, Uma's brother, who succumbs to the weight of expectations that people have of the 'solitary working male' of the household, and tried to recede into anonymity in all the facets of his life.
Following the household through Uma's eyes is a depressing and dreary affair, what with overbearing parents, apathetic siblings, her epileptic seizures dismissed as her need for attention, and an eclectic cocktail of family members. Some of the euphemisms in the novel feel as if Anita Desai is lifting the incidents from your household - and are all the more painful for it.
Arun is another highly relatable character for many - a person, who by virtue of his excessive smothering at home, just wants to be left alone - but even in the States, he cannot find such peace. Although his part in the novel forms the basis for just the last quarter of the book, it is no less significant for it.
I've not read either mother (Kiran Desai) or daughter before this, so this novel came as a pleasant surprise. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that a dreary slice-of-life drama following a conservative household could be so heartbreaking. This is *the* quintessential short read, and deserves a much higher rating on the site. ( )

Another vignette of Indian daily life. It is balanced with the alternate experience of being Indian in an American cultural setting. Desai brings her characters to life in vivid detail. ( )

Fasting, feasting is another novel that builds on Philip Larkin's famous line about parents, looking at two seriously dysfunctional families. Uma's middle-class, provincial, Indian MamaPapa (she finds it hard to think of them as separate entities) don't see any particular need for her to have a life of her own. Several attempts to marry her off have failed ignominiously, as have some half-hearted attempts at rebellion, and since she's not clever enough or pretty enough to get away with fighting her parents long-term, she finds herself stuck in a life of looking after her baby brother and running pointless errands. Her pretty cousin doesn't fare much better, either - she is married off only to find herself at the mercy of a bullying mother-in-law.

Lest we think that all this is just a rant against "traditional" attitudes to women in India, Desai then changes the scene to Massachusetts, where Uma's overprivileged little brother has been sent for the obligatory "studying overseas". It becomes clear immediately that he's been just as heavily damaged by being pushed to succeed as Uma has by being pushed to fail, and moreover he finds himself staying with an American family that is every bit as dysfunctional as his own, with none of its members (least of all the father, who blithely keeps on barbecuing meat for vegetarians...) paying any serious attention to what's going wrong in the lives of the others. The only real difference between the Indians and the Americans seems to be that the American parents get a chance to mitigate some of the harm they've done before it's absolutely too late... ( )

Shortlisted for 1999 Booker Prize and long-listed for the 2000 Orange Prize, I had high expectations for Feasting, Fasting. Though I enjoyed the story, overall I was left somewhat disappointed.

Written in easy to read prose, the story is about a a family in small town India. Uma and Aruna are the two daughters of "MamaAndPapa" who tightly control their children. Around mid- life , Mama gives birth to a beloved son, Arun. The eldest daughter, Uma, is a homely, somewhat slow and clumsy child . Upon the birth of her brother, Uma is pulled out of school to look after her new younger brother, and ultimately her parents too. Sister Aruna leaves the family quite early in the novel, to what appears to be a happy arranged marriage. As the eldest daughter, Uma should be married first, but efforts in this direction fail. Uma is left a to be essentially a slave to her parents. Interestingly, an attractive and educated cousin appears to make a happy marriage match, only to end in tragedy. The controlling nature of parents in India is on full display here, as is the the preference for male children. The lack of rights and blame accorded to girls and women is also explored.

The heavy parental expectations and responsibilities placed on son Arun is told in the second part of the story. Arun is tutored to exhaustion , and expected to attend college in the USA. This he does, but he feels lost and troubled in the USA. Arun wishes to just blend in and disappear.

Overall, a decent read. I felt that the second part of the novel , concerning Arun was much too short and underdeveloped. It seemed somewhat shallow and contrived. Nonetheless, later in the year , I plan to read another book by Anita Desai, Clear Light of Day.Clear Light of Day is billed as on one of those " 1001 books you must read before you die."

3. 7 stars. ( )

The first part (over half the book) concerning the daughter in India, unmarried, taking care of her demanding parents, was a beautiful and finely drawn character study. The second part, with the son going to the U.S. to school, was less expertly done and tended more toward the cliche (or maybe I just recognized the cliches). Reminded me a little of Jhumpa Lahiri's work, in that regard. ( )