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Fasting, Feasting |
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 Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai Houghton Mifflin 228 pages, January 2000 ISBN 0618065822 Reviewed by Morgan Ann Adams Short listed for the 2000 Booker Prize Read our review of Diamond Dust: Stories by the same author Any first time readers of Anita Desai will become lifelong fans after perusing Fasting, Feasting. Set in modern India, yet steeped in traditional Indian customs and traditions, Desai unveils a culture full of magic and inconsistency. Uma is the adult daughter of highly traditional Indian parents. She remains at home, unmarried to care for her aging parents, doomed to never achieve their expectations like their other two children. Uma's sister Aruna is successfully married and living a dream life in the big city, or so it appears. Their brother Arun has traveled to America to continue the studies so arduously planned out by his parents. The story is seen primarily through Uma and Arun's eyes, allowing the make-up of their family to become obvious only as they reach personal realizations. The family and the world they describe are rapidly disappearing: the family through the aging of their parents, and the world through the aging of cultures. Though they would like to be free of both family and world, neither Uma nor Arun is comfortable alone. The first two-thirds of Desai's novel concentrates on Uma's life through painful flashbacks. Her yearnings and inherent goodness transcend the boundaries of any culture. Uma's character is a masterful creation on the part of Desai. The caliber of empathy inspired is reminiscent of such novels as Wally Lamb's SHE'S COME UNDONE. Uma is not the conventional heroine of stories set in this culture. She is unattractive, naïve to the point of detriment and twice married to scoundrels who took advantage of the family's desperation to have her gone. At the same time Uma is imaginative, patient and full of the world's most precious commodity: hope. Due to my immediate and continued compassion for Uma, it was somewhat jarring to find the story following Arun's life in the United States for the final third of the novel. Arun's story does have a place in the overall narrative, giving global implications for the themes of the book. However, for the last pages I missed Uma and her insights. Anita Desai brings a comfortable quality to the exotic lives she describes. There is a sense of belonging in her words that shelters the reader in her fictional world. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Fasting, Feasting is a novel of subtle quality. Honest and quietly amusing, it deserves to be recognized by a wider audience. |
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