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Summary: A DUAL VISION OF CULTURE AND COMPLEX FEELINGS
Review: In this novel, very well written (maybe Desai's best), we find a brother and a sister, America and India. The former, represented trough the exploration of freedom (Arun, the brother studying in the U.S.) and the latter by the weight of tradition ( Uma, the sister in India) within the indian family. With the usual precision and character sensibility, the author describes in depth a universe of contrasts, a duality of visions between two cultures, encompassing both the historical structures that give birth to different values and the permanent ligthness of human dreams, which seems to be universal.
Rating:
Summary: Seems like it would be a great "Oprah" book
Review: Like many of Oprah's book in the book club (although this one isn't on the list), you meet extremely real people and families and you are thrown into another world...of India and their values and ways. And as the children are so horribly smothered by the parents, you next travel to Massachusetts with the son, and you see how OUR society is seen from the point of view of another culture. And that family problems are the same all over. It's so fascinating to see all this...it's a very deep and heavy book, yet easy reading, it's only 227 pages and easily understandable. Excellent insight on the author's part. Uma reminds me of the character Martha Horgan who is the extremely depressing protagonist in A Dangerous Woman by Mary McGarry Morris, also an excellent, heavy, realistic book. I gave it only 4 stars because the ending was a bit abrupt...I don't feel like I got "closure", or the full meaning of the end. If anyone out there did, please email me at Cindytam@aol.com and let me know.
Rating: 
Summary: Is this really Desai?
Review: Make sure this is not the first Anita Desai novel you read. This is so unlike her previous works, it makes you wonder who the author really is. The language is different - much lighter and easier to read. Some parts of it remind you of Roy or Desai Jr. The Fasting part is long. It's main protagonist Uma - you cannot help compare her and her context to Bim in Clear Light of Day - leads a pitiful existence peppered with everything evil that can happen with arranged marriages. Is there anything cheerful in her existence? However, there are moments in her life - her "little escapes" by associating herself with the nuns and their little art and craft projects was quite touching. The Feasting part was interesting. It had its moments of promise - but ended rather quickly without the characters having any time to develop. Maybe this was deliberate and reflective of the lack of communication amongst the family members of the Mass suburbia - I am not sure. The ties between the two parts are tenous and quite forced. I would almost like the Feasting part developed and nurtured a little and published on its own. Fasting is easily forgettable - its banality of themes and its treatment is quite unacceptable from a writer of Desai's ability. Read Clear Light of Day instead - which I believe is one of the best books of the century.
Rating: 
Summary: A view of two differant cultures
Review: The books deals with two differant cultures. First part of the book highlights the Indian traditions, cultures and mostly the place of a woman in an Indian family. Anita Desai has done an excellent job in describing the indian family to every single detail of existance. Though this type of families still exists in India, Please do not generalise this view to the whole nation. It is only a 40% of families that could relate to the book specially in states where literacy is meagre. I must say however, there are lots of uma's in India, today, and all they need is a little encouragement with education and exposure to the outside world, and she could definitely be a very strong woman. I loved this character of Uma in the book because she was both willing to take a chance with life and at the same time dedicated to her family. And she took all that happened to her life with such grace that she did not give me a chance to cry for her. Thats her inner strength. The second part of the book deals with the dillemma of Arun in a world which he could not have imagined. Arun, the younger brother of Uma reaches Massachusettes for his higher studies, and is totally taken aback by the lifestyles of the west. The most beautiful part of the book is its literatrue. So well written and with accurate details, its definitely a joyful read.
Rating: 
Summary: Soul-less
Review: The first thing about this book is you can't really can't place these characters and when exactly did this happen? The setting. Some small town, where the mother actually gets a girl to drop out from school when the baby brother is born. Sending the boy abroad for an undergrad education is not exactly a small town aspiration, and that too to MIT, no less! The boy can't even rejoice at he thought of this escape leaves the shores determined not to enjoy any of it and ,of course, he has no plans at all of changing any of this. His elder sister who looks like an old maid now. He is so dead and so are all the characters in this book. Very , very Disappointing!
Rating: 
Summary: A Snap Shot not a Story
Review: There was no story in this book, just snap shots of life. Nothing really happened, it was like a smooth flow of water, undisturbed and undeterred. If I thought that this book would give me an insight into an Indian family, I was not satisfied. The characters in Uma's family seemed to be stereotyped, following a well defined path and so was Uma. She was not happy with her life, but she didn't want to do anything about it. So the story just stayed in one place, never moving, never changing course. Arun was even more of a mystery. We never really got to know him. He just floated around without any anchor and without purpose. Unlike other books written by Indian writers, this book was written well. There were no long winding descriptions and horrendously constructed sentences. This is a good book to read, but don't expect Booker Prize quality, whatever that means. The last three Booker Prize winners I read, disappointed me.
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Summary: Two lives
Review: These are two stories which stand on their own: one of a woman whose personal needs are forever postponed by family and society obligations and the other of a family incapable of discerning the needs of its members and of its visitor. The juxtaposition of these stories increases their impact, for both deal with the everyday accumulation of pressures and frustrations, which can amount to a lifetime of doom or to life-threatening actions. Desai's characters are imprisoned by their inability to change their own expectations or those placed upon them by others. Anita Desai's marvelous command of language transforms, with tender irony and a light sense of humor, these otherwise gloomy lives into delightful characters despite their fragility. It is pure magic and a pleasure to read!
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Summary: delightful reading though confusing message
Review: This is the first book of Anita Desai I read. Her observations are astute whether they are on living conditions in India or USA. She uses witty and satirical language which keeps reader's mood light. I had difficulty understanding what message she is trying to send through her novel. For one, life is miserable whether one lives in India or USA, which is a pathetic outlook. Secondly, in spite of different living conditions people behave basically the same way to situations in life. There is no strong story here. Just description of characters and small incidences to enhance characterization but Anita Desai uses her words perfectly to convey exactly what she feels. She uses commonly used words, nothing flashy, to keep the reader engrossed in her characters, makes one turn page after page. I was never bored to read any page.
I felt Uma's character was ended rather abruptly. Arun would have been more human if he would have felt occasional pangs of homesickness and brooded over few pleasant memories of his childhood.
I would strongly recommmend this book to anyone who is interested in comparing living in India and in USA.
Rating:
Summary: Places Are Not What They Seem
Review: This is the first novel I've ever read by an Indian Author, so I have no frame of reference within which to compare this novel. Desai certainly has her own merits as a writer and her own opinions as a viewer of the world, but her effort comes out a little uneven and undisciplined. The novel starts off very masterfully and alluringly. Desai, at times, has an excellent prose style that is really more poetic than prosaic. The opening chapter with the initial characterization of MamaPapa and insect imagery and the cadences of her porch-swing description/metaphor are all very promising and well worth an English major's explication. I was reeled in by this first chapter like few other times I have ever read a novel. But Desai doesn't sustain this throughout the novel. There are flashes of brilliance, certainly, but all-in-all her prose-style and narrative-weaving are uneven. I found myself disappointed in terms of her actual verbal display throughout the novel. The structure of the novel is rather simple, also. Simply put, the reader reads "I" and "II" - the novel is a diptych. "I", which comprises over 2/3 of the novel and centers around the elder daughter Uma, ends with a somewhat inaccessible image of Uma standing in a river (no, this is not a fatal occurrence). Immediately, Desai shifts from India to the U.S. where Uma's younger son, Arun, has come to study at college. From there, you only have about a 60 pages or so read which was nice and thoughtful, but would have been better with more development. What Desai does best, however, is explore the different qualities of life offered by examples of both typically Indian life and typically American life. Through the acquiescence of Uma to her very cut-out and preordained life in India and Arun's cooly observant and internalized reaction to American suburbia, the reader can well imagine that such a superior/inferior American/Indian (respectively) dichotomy is far from applicable. Instead, one can see through the fates and actions of Uma and Arun very real tensions between different value systems and appreciate the differences between them. Overall, Desai gets a B for artistry and A- for content (more development would have been nice). It's really worth the quick (circa 230 light pages) read.
Rating:
Summary: Places Are Not What They Seem
Review: This is the first novel I've ever read by an Indian Author, so I have no frame of reference within which to compare this novel. Desai certainly has her own merits as a writer and her own opinions as a viewer of the world, but her effort comes out a little uneven and undisciplined. The novel starts off very masterfully and alluringly. Desai, at times, has an excellent prose style that is really more poetic than prosaic. The opening chapter with the initial characterization of MamaPapa and insect imagery and the cadences of her porch-swing description/metaphor are all very promising and well worth an English major's explication. I was reeled in by this first chapter like few other times I have ever read a novel. But Desai doesn't sustain this throughout the novel. There are flashes of brilliance, certainly, but all-in-all her prose-style and narrative-weaving are uneven. I found myself disappointed in terms of her actual verbal display throughout the novel. The structure of the novel is rather simple, also. Simply put, the reader reads "I" and "II" - the novel is a diptych. "I", which comprises over 2/3 of the novel and centers around the elder daughter Uma, ends with a somewhat inaccessible image of Uma standing in a river (no, this is not a fatal occurrence). Immediately, Desai shifts from India to the U.S. where Uma's younger son, Arun, has come to study at college. From there, you only have about a 60 pages or so read which was nice and thoughtful, but would have been better with more development. What Desai does best, however, is explore the different qualities of life offered by examples of both typically Indian life and typically American life. Through the acquiescence of Uma to her very cut-out and preordained life in India and Arun's cooly observant and internalized reaction to American suburbia, the reader can well imagine that such a superior/inferior American/Indian (respectively) dichotomy is far from applicable. Instead, one can see through the fates and actions of Uma and Arun very real tensions between different value systems and appreciate the differences between them. Overall, Desai gets a B for artistry and A- for content (more development would have been nice). It's really worth the quick (circa 230 light pages) read.
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