Samsara

Rating:
Summary: Terrific debut!
Review: "Samsara" is a terrific novel for at least two reasons. First, it has a strong sense of story. The novel shoots forward from the very first page and does not stop for a breath as it takes us through the lives of its characters. On this level, the pages turn very quickly. But "Samsara" also does the more important work of helping us imagine possible literary futures. At a time when writers are searching for a literary voice to understand and articulate the experience of diasporic life (of Indians in America), Vrudhula's is a fine example of a voice that conveys both the difficulties and the pleasure of that experience. The character Tex for example, aptly named for his penchant for things Texan, is shaped by his Indian past and his American present. These are the types of hybrid identities that need to be explored by novelists. 

To me, a novel should entertain. But after I am done savoring the turns in plot, it should make me think about the characters and their particular predicaments. "Samsara" accomplishes both of these things with verve and style.   

Rating:
Summary: Was I reading the same book as everyone else?
Review: I have mixed feelings about Samsara. At times it was very funny and definitely a page turner but it tried to be too many things to too many people. It was basically about a murder mystery within a tantric sex cult in some unidentified city in the U.S. However, there were unecessary elements that suggested the book would end up being more of a romance or another "second-generation Indian female coming out of her shell" novel.

Rating:
Summary: Was I reading the same book as everyone else?
Review: I have mixed feelings about Samsara. At times it was very funny and definitely a page turner but it tried to be too many things to too many people. It was basically about a murder mystery within a tantric sex cult in some unidentified city in the U.S. However, there were unecessary elements that suggested the book would end up being more of a romance or another "second-generation Indian female coming out of her shell" novel.

Rating:
Summary: Supreme Game with Identity (maybe yours) at Stake
Review: I have read Vrudhula's Samsara four times and only the fact that there are so many other books to read and so little time prevents me from opening it again and again. After you learned the story line and tasted the brilliant depiction of characters you can turn your attention to word games that are essential and inseparable parts of the book. You yourself become the seeker and Vrudhula's book turns into the "The Book of Truth" that his main character finds in the dusty library and "words had come to life: verbs actively skipped to their places, and nouns ponderously thudded along their appointed routes. Adjectives obsequiously followed their masters, while adverbs pirouetted alongside their companions," just like Vrudhula describes the book that opens up mystery and irony in one embrace in his own book. And before you are up to accuse Vrudhula of being pretentious and ambitious as any "truth seeker" appears to be, he turns against himself his brilliant irony and you understand that he is able to laugh at himself. Depth and surface, irony and pathos, game turning into struggle for identity, then your identity struggle appearing to be just a game creates the Samsara.