white tiger, white tiger, burning bright: a guest book review

"To hell with the Naxals and their guns shipped from China. If you taught every poor boy how to paint, that would be the end of the rich in India."

One day over winter break Rebecca, Sadie, and I stopped at a cafe by Lake Merrit, and much to my dismay I discovered that Rebecca had brought along the book she was reading, A Gate at the Stairs. I had brought nothing. Sadie was sleeping, so I couldn't play with her. I tried reading Rebecca's book upside down from across the table, but was making slow progress. The cafe didn't stock East Bay Express, so I was out of luck. After browsing a catalog from Ritual Roasters, I decided that I needed a book too! So on the way back to the car we stopped at the library and I picked up Aravind Adiga's novel White Tiger, about a murderous outsourcing entrepreneur from Bangalore, India.

With nods to Ellison's Invisible Man, Adiga creates a narrator whose life story transverses a cross-section of his society--and the portrayal of this society is not flattering. While not Adiga's book is not as epic in scope, both books feature characters from their society's underclasses, who at first blindly embrace their place in the power structure, but then learn to subvert that power, using it against itself, before eventually retreating into hiding. Adiga's narrator is at times wickedly hilarious, and at times ruthless as he portrays the complexities of master-servant class relationships, contrasts urban and rural life in India, and takes on Indian political corruption. Most of all Adiga casts India as a society in flux, at once ancient and modern, both provincial and global. But none of this social commentary ever reads like a polemic; it doesn't slow down the pace of the story, nor does it overshadow the novel's vibrant narrator.

And my daughter, Sadie, liked the contrast of the black and white letters on the book's cover.