Synopsis (as taken from Goodreads):
In this brilliantly written, fast-paced book, based on three years of uncompromising reporting, a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human.
Annawadi is a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport, and as India starts to prosper, Annawadians are electric with hope. Abdul, a reflective and enterprising Muslim teenager, sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Asha, a woman of formidable wit and deep scars from a childhood in rural poverty, has identified an alternate route to the middle class: political corruption. With a little luck, her sensitive, beautiful daughter—Annawadi’s “most-everything girl”—will soon become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest Annawadians, like Kalu, a fifteen-year-old scrap-metal thief, believe themselves inching closer to the good lives and good times they call “the full enjoy.”
But then Abdul the garbage sorter is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and a global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion, caste, sex, power and economic envy turn brutal. As the tenderest individual hopes intersect with the greatest global truths, the true contours of a competitive age are revealed. And so, too, are the imaginations and courage of the people of Annawadi.
With intelligence, humor, and deep insight into what connects human beings to one another in an era of tumultuous change, Behind the Beautiful Forevers carries the reader headlong into one of the twenty-first century’s hidden worlds, and into the lives of people impossible to forget.
S’s Rating: ❤❤❤ (out of five hearts)
D’s Rating: ❤❤❤ (out of five hearts)
S’s Thoughts:
I really should be working on my NaNoWriMo novel right now. Really. I'm not behind but if I don't get any words in today, I'm going to be on par which I'm not happy about. I really want to finish ahead of schedule. I really want to be done.
But that's another story.
BtBF was our first venture into the world of non-fiction here on Two Sisters Reading. I have to really be in the mood for non-fic, my life is complicated enough without having to concentrate on someone else's for a while. I was definitely in the mood for BtBF from the start: N and I are hopefully planning a trip to India in the next year or two and, living in the area of London we live in, I get the amazing opportunity to soak up India's culture. It's fantastic, really.
That being said, BtBF was a depressing book from the start. It wasn't a bad book, in fact, I quite enjoyed it... but there were times when all of the horrible experiences and circumstances for Abdul and his family and neighbours were just too much. There's just this overwhelming sense of filth, both physically and morally, in Boo's descriptions of the slum and the people living there. I found One Leg particularly repulsive, given her actions which reverberate throughout the entire book, affecting everyone's lives around her.
I gave it three hearts out of five, only because there were some parts that I felt dragged on a bit and didn't lend themselves to the story. I loved the fact that there was no real resolution to Abdul's story because, to be honest, that's his life and for a young man living in a slum there is no real resolution until death.
Morbid, no?
Standout Quotes:
"His storeroom--120 square feet piled high to a leaky roof with the things in this world Abdul knew how to handle. Empty water and whiskey bottles, mildewed newspapers, used tampon applicators, wadded aluminium foil, umbrellas stripped to the ribs by monsoons, broken shoelaces, yellowed Q-tips, snarled cassette tape, torn plastic casings that once held imitation Barbies."
"She didn't cry for the fate of her husband, son, and daughter, or for the great web of corruption she was now forced to navigate, or for a system in which the most wretched tried to punish the slightly less wretched by turning to a justice system so malign it sank them all. She cried for the manageable thing--the loss of that beautiful quilt, a parting gift to a woman who had used her own body as a weapon against her neighbours."
"Additional income would be forfeited to his decision to walk down the virtuous path recommended by The Master at Dongri, and to stay out of police interrogation cells for the rest of his life. He would no longer buy stolen goods. His mother seemed fine with his decision. He hoped she'd actually been listening. She seemed half absent in her exhaustion, and definitely hadn't been listening later, when he asked if his suffering might be rewarded with an iPod."
"After midnight, returning home to Dharavi ancient with grief, his mother tossed into the gutter the prescriptions the doctor had written for Sanjay. There had been no time to go out to the road and fill them."
"If the house is crooked and crumbling, and the land on which it sits is uneven, is it possible to make anything lie straight?"
Album to listen to while reading this book: I live in an area of London that is quite high in the Indian and Pakistani demographic. Just taking a walk down the road, passing the open air markets and mobile phone stands provides soundtrack enough.
D’s Thoughts:
Like S, I'm usually not one for non-fiction. I usually only make exceptions for books that are either a) filled with interesting studies or b) for a project. But hey, why not deviate from the norm?
BtBF was exactly what I thought it would be: incredibly disturbing and upsetting. I do feel like, after reading it, I understand more about the situation and conditions of Indian slums. This would have been much more helpful last year, when I was assigned to a year of study on India and Haiti in my AP Human Geography class. I suppose it's better than never, though. And hey, knowing is half the battle. (click to lighten the mood)
I agree with S: there were many parts of the book that went on for ages with no visible value. Additionally, it's rather clear that Boo is a reporter: there was no "dressing up" of any situation. She told it exactly how it was, with very little input of opinion from anyone except the characters involved, and left you to think about any further implications.
Most of the book is spent chronicling those who believe that their lives are about to change for the better, just as Mumbai becomes a more global, top-tier city. I was nearly convinced that perhaps some would reach the cliched happily-ever-after. Their stories (or at least, those who are still alive) may not be completely over, but as far as we can tell, no such luck. As for those who are dead? Maybe they've lucked out in this situation.
Do I get something out of being just as morbid?
Standout Quotes:
"Everything around us is roses" is how Abdul's younger brother, Mirchi put it. "And we're the garbage in between."
"If what is happening now, you beating me, is to keep happening for the rest of my life, it would be a bad life, but it would be a life, too." And my mother was so shocked when I said that...Sunil thought that he, too, had a life."
"Water and ice were made of the same thing. He thought most people were made of the same thing, too. He himself was probably a little different, constitutionally, from the cynical, corrupt people around him...but here was the interesting thing. Ice was distinct from--and in his view, better than--what it was made of. He wanted to be better than what he was made of. In Mumbai's dirty water, he wanted to be ice."
"For some time I tried to keep the ice inside me from melting," was how he put it. "But now I'm just becoming dirty water, like everyone else. I tell Allah I love Him immensely, immensely. But I tell Him I cannot be better, because of how the world is."
Album to listen to while reading this book: Nothing specific, but the book often mentioned cinemas as a great escape, particularly for young boys. I'm a bit reminded of movie scores in general.
December’s book is D’s choice and is The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith. What a mood change!
See you soon! S & D
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