Review: Inside the country of India is a place called The Darkness. Here the people work in filthy conditions, live in sordid huts, and struggle for little. Rickshaw pullers wait by the road, emaciated and oppressed, waiting for the rich to buy their services. Corruption thrives like maggots in rotting flesh. Business men bribe police, landowners exact painful costs from their tenants, and teachers keep government funding for themselves. Balram, one of many poor children is one day labeled as a diamond in the rough. And, for the first time, he starts to dream of bigger things.

As he dreams, the vast weight of poverty continues to weigh down on him. His family pulls him from school in order to put him to work to help feed the family. His rickshaw pulling father contracts tuberculosis, and his grandmother verbally attacks Balram in order to remind him just how worthless he is.

Still, despite the odds, Balram begins to shake off the mud that clings to his legs. His tenacity will drive him from the wretched village he lives in to the sprawling city of Delhi and even as far as the southern city of Bangalore. Along the way he will be faced with decisions no person should ever have to make. How much will he lose in order to gain what he has dreamed of since he was a boy?

Recommendation: There have a been a lot of topical books lately. The Kite Runner found tremendous success partly because it depicted places that have leaped into the news. Books about Africa are also becoming more popular as we keep our eyes on elections and situations occurring in conflict areas of the continent. The White Tiger tells us about the very worst of India. The question is: Do we think twice about India?

When I think of my prior knowledge of India, I realize it was sparse. Indiana Jones journeys to a Temple of Doom in search of Shankara stones. Dr. Ganderbai helps a man paralyzed by a snake lurking in his bed in Roald Dhal short story Poison. The Jungle Book introduces us to the Tarzanish figure of Mowgli. I here about technology companies outsourcing to India. I see that many international students come from India in order to get an American education. But what do I know of the culture? What do I know of the daily life of its inhabitants? I imagine American buildings occupying dusty cities, or small rural villages divided by neat lanes and organized fields.

The India depicted in this book is far more intense than the images that flit through my head. The story is written in the form of a letter from Balram to the Chinese Prime Minister. His childhood description quickly wiped away my quaint imaginings and plunged me into a squalid reality. I thought (and hoped) that the author was overdoing it. It seems to me that the author is making a concerted effort to dispel the preconceived notions the reader might have.

The main character goes from one hopeless situation to the next, and even as he succeeds it continues to be discouraging. The driving plot point which is meant to keep the reader engaged is hardly enough to encourage the trek through the wasteland of the narrator’s journey. His rise from poverty is defined by the dubious moral choices that Balram and others make, and it creates slow going for almost half the book. By the end of the novel, when I learned exactly how Balram becomes a successful businessman, I felt a little let down. The surrounding story of India was fascinating, but Balram’s choices never encourage the reader to feel much in the way of hate or love for him. I felt it was a little predictable, and I even figured out a key sequence 200 pages before it happened. Whether this was by design or not, this created a feeling of boredom and malaise. I had to put this book down and read another one just so I could have some fun. To the author’s credit, there are many positives. The voice of Balram is entirely believable, and the character is witty, charming, and frightening all at once.

What I have gained is an eye-opening look into a country that will never evoke the same pleasant images it once did.

Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. Free Press, 2008, New York.

Currently Reading: When the Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin

On Deck: City of Thieves by David Benioff