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What the Body Remembers |
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| What the Body Remembers by S  hauna Singh BaldwinVintage Canada 517 pages, 2000 ISBN 0676973183 Reviewed by Morgan Ann Adams Winner of the Commonwealth Writer's Prize 2000 for Best Book in Canada and the Caribbean India of the 1930's is home to Roop, a young Sikh girl who believes her personal karma will bring wonderful things, and Satya, older though still beautiful who has failed to give her husband any children. Before either woman can contemplate the consequences, their lives change drastically. Roop finds herself motherless with a father deeply in debt. Satya's husband agrees to take on Roop as a second wife, against Satya's wishes and knowledge. The women form an oddly complicated but realistic bond with Satya as teacher, and Roop as sufferer. What the Body Remembers unfolds as a story of all Indian women of that time period, specifically following Satya before her birth and after her death. Roop's ability to bare children for their husband Sardarji remains a continual offense to Satya's sense of womanhood and being. Meanwhile, Sardarji himself is haunted by the troubles occurring in his country. All three are of remarkably strong character, however ruled by societal expectations. In delectably lyrical style, Baldwin creates a fictional world irrevocably intertwined with the historical India of the 1930's and 40's. No societal class is spared the biting descriptions of life in India. This is a novel for the senses, carefully weaving the essentials of culture - food, clothing and furniture - into the characters' lives until these items take on a power not unlike that exerted by India itself. Although Baldwin focuses on the well examined plight of women in India, her approach is fresh and energetic. Deeper than the story of Roop, Satya and Sardarji is the question of what indeed does the body remember. Through this theme, the issues of parenthood, familial love and loss are explored. Winner of the Commonwealth Writer's Prize 2000 for Best Book in Canada and the Caribbean, What the Body Remembers is a delightful read. Baldwin manages to make Roop and Satya's suffering as compelling as their joy. Bursting with imaginative portrayals of life and death, it encompasses the contradictions of pain and exultation within any society. There is no better description of this marvelous book than that it is simply fulfilling. What the Body Remembers is a sumptuous feast for every sense, creating images and essence of people in a time where the magic of karma seemed to exist more vividly than elsewhere. |
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