The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (the winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize) was my second last book for the Orbis Terrarum Challenge which ends on the 20th December.
I was so glad after finishing this book that I decided to read it as my India selection for the challenge - a great book!
The White Tiger tells the story of Indian man, Balram Halwai - well, it is actually Balram who is the narrator of his own story - a conversational technique that makes the book so engaging. Balram becomes known as The White Tiger when, as a school boy, his village school is visited by a local school inspector. The inspector is poorly disappointed in the majority of the students at the school but Balram impresses and the inspector tells him he is like a white tiger - rare and special. Balram takes this message to heart and in an extremely difficult and hostile environment he moves from village resident to driver for a wealthy business man in Delhi.
This book engages the reader in Balram's story and his life - I was acutely aware at times that we were clearly being presented with only one side of the story but I think as opposed to taking away from the story this style only made it stronger.
The White Tiger is a brilliantly narrated and engaging story - looking forward to more from this author.
3 comments:
It's good to read that this is a good book as I am currently reading Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole - which lost out on the Booker to Adiga - which I am enjoying but it's early days as its a 700 page book and I'm only 70 pages into it!
Hi Nutmeg - definitely a quick one to get through, it's a lot like the main character is having a conversation with you really. Looking forward to hearing what you think of Steve Toltz's book - I haven't been inspired to read that one as yet.
I'm glad to hear you liked this one. I picked up a copy recently but didn't really know much about it, other than it won the Booker. Hopefully I'll get to it sometime next year.
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