Aravind Adiga
Hardcover | Pages: 276 pages Rating: 3.74 | 149803 Users | 9750 Reviews
Specify Regarding Books The White Tiger
| Title | : | The White Tiger |
| Author | : | Aravind Adiga |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 276 pages |
| Published | : | 2008 by Free Press |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. India. Contemporary. Asian Literature. Indian Literature. Novels. Literature. Asia |
Rendition As Books The White Tiger
Introducing a major literary talent, The White Tiger offers a story of coruscating wit, blistering suspense, and questionable morality, told by the most volatile, captivating, and utterly inimitable narrator that this millennium has yet seen.Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life—having nothing but his own wits to help him along.
Born in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for his village's wealthiest man, two house Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man's (very unlucky) son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram's new world is a revelation. While his peers flip through the pages of Murder Weekly ("Love -- Rape -- Revenge!"), barter for girls, drink liquor (Thunderbolt), and perpetuate the Great Rooster Coop of Indian society, Balram watches his employers bribe foreign ministers for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink liquor (single-malt whiskey), and play their own role in the Rooster Coop. Balram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell Johnnie Walker Black Label bottles (all but one). He also finds a way out of the Coop that no one else inside it can perceive.
Balram's eyes penetrate India as few outsiders can: the cockroaches and the call centers; the prostitutes and the worshippers; the ancient and Internet cultures; the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger. And with a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create virtue, and money doesn't solve every problem -- but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations.
The White Tiger recalls The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, and narrative genius, with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation —and a startling, provocative debut.
Describe Books Conducive To The White Tiger
| Original Title: | The White Tiger |
| ISBN: | 1416562591 (ISBN13: 9781416562597) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Balram Halwai, Ashok, Kishan, Kusum, Stork |
| Setting: | Laxmangarh(India) Bihar(India) New Delhi(India) |
| Literary Awards: | Booker Prize (2008), John Llewellyn Rhys Prize Nominee (2008), PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize Nominee (2009), Galaxy British Book Awards for Author of the Year (0), Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize Nominee (2008) |
Rating Regarding Books The White Tiger
Ratings: 3.74 From 149803 Users | 9750 ReviewsCriticism Regarding Books The White Tiger
Best contemporary novel I've read this year. Antidote for the pastel lyricism of most mainstream novels coming out of India and a wonderful social satire with savage bit. Kind of like Terry Southern's best work if he hadn't been all weeded up and goofy. An image from it that sticks with me is how Ghandi's image gets appropriated by the current Indian bureaucracy. Whenever the narrator encounters the hanging Ghandi portrait he sees it as a symbol of "bribes work here, corruption at work".To begin with, let me tell you first, of my association with this novel. I had never finished any contemporary novel, to put it bluntly, Who cares!..was my attitude towards the contemporary writers, by the time I had bought this novel.This was my first ever contemporary novel, mainly of an Indian origin author, which I read complete. This had got that years Booker and was getting highlighted in the media. I used to think by that time that writers, worthy of reading, were only those, who were
Postcolonial lite. I feel like this is what I'm supposed to be reading while I listen to MIA and rock last season's mirrored "ethnic chic" from Urban Outfitters. To show that, you know, I'm a citizen of the world, and a really hip westerner who gets the shifting forces of globalization.... did I feel a bit pandered to? I did feel a bit pandered to. Just a bit, now. Oh, this book was okay.Fine, actually it was an entertaining and engaging rags-to-riches story about injustice and inequality in a
They remain slaves because they cant see what is beautiful in this world. Thats the truest thing anyone saidEven as a boy I could see what was beautiful in the world: I was destined not to stay a slave. The White Tiger is a grim, biting, unsubtle look at 21st Century India, stuck in the mire of a corrupt, cynical past, and debauching and slaughtering its way into a corrupt and cynical future, told by a working class fellow who, through ambition, intelligence, and a willingness to be utterly
The perfect companion piece to Slumdog Millionaire, and if you didn't like that movie, you won't like this book for the same reasons. It's a no-nonsense bulldozing mordant splenetic jackhammer of a story written as a tough slangy 300 page fast-reading monologue. It's a novel of information, not art. It tells you all about modern India with a traditional rags-to-riches fable. Our hero murders his employer unapologetically, and that's how he gets his riches. This is not rocket science. This is
I'm not sure what I expected going into this book but it wasn't really this. The book was very tongue in cheek and I could completely sympathize with our narrator even at the end. The idealistic part of me was a little horrified and upset by a lot of it but I think it's pretty realistic and really made me think about the servant/master dynamic in a way I hadn't considered before. I'm just torn about whether to rate it four stars or five because the ending felt a little anticlimactic but at the
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