Shiva Dancing

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: As a woman who has been in tech, I found this book a great summer read. Nice mix of Indian vs America culture, romance, intrigue. Some nice glimpses of San Francisco and dot com shenanigans.

Rating:
Summary: well worth reading
Review: I was so excited to read this book that I actually waitlisted myself at my university's bookstore. What a let down. Perhaps after the Rushdies and the Roys and all the other highly literate Indian authors I've just discovered, my hopes were just too high. Shiva Dancing, had a wonderful title, and that is the best thing I have to say about it. The romance (and I normally adore romances) was tiresome, the main character was a little too fond of her red sari, and had little to no respect for, or even knowledge of, India or Indian culture. Perhaps Ms. Kirchner should stick to the kitchen?

Rating:
Summary: Needed a better editor as well as a plot
Review: Not worth reading. The ending was very rushed, as well as the computer plot all of a sudden went nowhere. Everything was very convienient-Mom dying, Meena & Vishnu losing jobs, Vishnu found instantaneously.

Throughout the book, time moves unevenly. You'll read the next paragraph and then realize that weeks or months went by. Character development is poor, and Meena is just "too perfect". Great at running, her job, gardening. Also, a poetry expert and volunteer with a close group of friends (whom with you only see Meena receive friendship, not give) as well as is physically beautiful.

There are some lovely descriptions as well as a wonderful first chapter. This is why I gave the book 2 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: The story rings true. It pulls you in and you enter the lives of Meena and Antoine. The novel is much more than I expected.I gained some insight. It made me recapture the pleasures of traveling though India some years back.

Rating:
Summary: Recommended
Review: This book is not about India or Indians. Shallow characters. Non existant plot. A dismal end to a not terrible beginning. Unlike one of the other reviewers, I was unlucky enough to buy this book - what a waste.

Rating:
Summary: Good Topic, Bad Writing
Review: This book is one of the most badly written pieces of fiction I have come across in a long time. Shiva Dancing is a prime example of writing that tells rather than shows the reader what's happening. I had to stop reading after 40 pages, the writing was so awful. Publishers should be more discriminating and realize that not every single book about India is a treasure. This one belongs in a writing class as a bad example for students.

Rating:
Summary: the weakest of Kirchner's novels....
Review: This was, by far, the most disappointing novel I have read by Bharti Kirchner. It was contrived, stereotypical and sappy. Though, the plot idea was intriguing--a seven year old Indian girl is married off to her best friend, is then separated from her groom, her mother is brutally beaten and she ends up adopted by a white, America couple--it didn't hold together.

One of the biggest flaws in the book was the stereotypical depiction of the characters. The worst is of Carlos, the main character, Meena's, good friend. Though he is from Mexico, he teaches her samba (from Brazil), Kirchner misspells his hometown of Oaxaca (she spells it Oxaca). He is macho and womanizing, and seemingly mindless. Also, Bharti's writing style seems half-baked and almost condescending to her readers. Kirchner ties up the complications a little too readily and unbelievably.

If you would like to read a far superior novel by Kirchner, my reccomendation is that you read "Sharmila's Book," which is also about a young Indian woman's bicultural sense of self. Far more interesting, compelling and well written!

Rating:
Summary: Contrived, a story that could easily have been much better
Review: To her credit,Kirchner is able to keep a comfortable level of suspense throughout the book, so that you do keep reading. She writes prose and dialog very well, but she constructs immaturely. She falls into the traps that await first authors (and that her editor should have helped her overcome): shallow and awkward characterizations, too much time spent on situations or conversations that do not advance the real story, way too much detail (you know what everyone is wearing and what they are eating and how the color yellow makes their eyes a deeper blue, and gobs of advice on marathon running, etc., etc.) and telling us a fact/feeling rather than showing us through plot or character.

Shiva Dancing starts off dramatically, with an intimate picture of the village Indian culture, during which Meena is kidnapped from her wedding at seven years of age and ends up with adoptive parents in San Francisco. Exciting, but downhill from there. Rather than beginning by returning Meena to India when she is an adult, to search for her past and her future among her people, family, and child-groom, Meena and the author do their best to avoid that storyline (it would have been a good one) and get bogged down in unimportant details and relationships in the US. Meena is a woman focused on her job, finding a man, distance running, finding a man, patio gardening, and finding a man. She has only a mild background interest in India, her past, and her child-groom Vishnu. She is not a haunted, lonely, longing woman lost between the two cultures that join within her spirit (which would have been a good character). The major portion of the book is filled with Meena's friendships; her flirtation with Carlos, a charming, manipulative commitment-phobe; and her love affair with Antoine, a less charming, more manipulative commitment-phobe. Antoine is about to get engaged to his long-time girlfriend but now he wants a fling with Meena to avoid the commitment. Meena, who the author keeps reminding us is 35 and very intelligent, should know better. An opportunist is easy to spot. But Meena falls for it because Antoine has such sadness and suffering in his eyes. What's he got to suffer about? Well, nothing. He's wealthy, famous, acutely handsome, engaged to be married and playing around with Meena. No, there's no trauma or torment in his life -- just that he's a louse. Meena falls for it, though she should be focused on her own pain, confusion, and needs, but she is too shallow to let her own life truly affect her. The romance advances as, about halfway through the book, Kirchner suddenly shifts into Antoine's head, showing him to be a tender, teary-eyed, aging man who is soooo confused about his life. Oh, please.

The plot is also bogged down by Meena's work place and career, which is in peril. Here again the characters are shallow and awkward, drawn to suit the situation rather than made real and driving the situation. However, there are just too many characters and too many subplots throughout, so when the real story gets going in India, finally, after nearly 300 pages, it is told sketchily, with no real significance except that Meena flatly states she finds she is American, not Indian. Meena's story is intercut occasionally with Vishnu's, her long-lost child-groom. He too is awkwardly characterized, and his situation is supposed to lend mystery to the book. It doesn't -- his passages are uninteresting and tell little about life in India, so it becomes a pleasure to return to Meena's and Antoine's silly romance.

Shiva Dancing is not a bad book -- it was entertaining, though overwritten with detail and more about San Francisco culture or computer programming than Indian culture. It is no follow- up to M.M. Kaye's The Far Pavilions or Shadow of the Moon, which were so rich with Indian culture that it was awesome, or Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's novels and short stories (double-awesome!). I have hope for Kirchner. Her writing style is good and readable, but the substance needs a lot of revision. Despite having too many characters in Shiva Dancing, she is still in control of her story. This shows real promise. It is not easy to write a novel, a first novel or a subsequent one, but Kirchner has the talent. She is capable of writing intelligent and memorable novels if she will make the effort and discard this sort of silly, shallow fluff.