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With
The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai became the third
Indian-born novelist to win the Booker Prize, even surpassing
her mother, Anita Desai, who has been short-listed three times.
The novel
begins with the insurgency by the Gorkha National Liberation
Front, as it pressures the West Bengal government for an independent
Nepali state ("Gorkhaland") and moves to the base of the looming
massif Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas.
Set in
the mid-1980's, the novel alternates between Kalimpong, a
city in northeast India, and New York City. In Kalimpong,
embittered retired judge Jemubhai Popatlal Patel, his orphaned
teenage granddaughter Sai, and an aging and sole remaining
servant, Cook, are the latest victims in the increasingly
aggressive Nepali uprising. Ostensibly blind to the violence
slowly pervading the city, the intrinsic characters—including
two elderly sisters and a Swiss expatriate priest who runs
an illegal dairy—are genuinely appalled and traumatized
by its presence in their lives.
A typical
teenager, Sai's interest throughout the novel is primarily
with her tutor and inevitable romantic interest Gyan, a Nepali
descendant torn between his love for Sai and his repulsion
by her privileged upbringing. The imbalance thrusts Gyan into
the insurgency in an ardent attempt for a better way of life.
Though Gyan's involvement feels anticipated, readers are expected
to empathize with both characters and root for the happy ending
despite the tension.
On the
other side of the world, in the slums of New York City, is
the parallel narrative of Cook's son, Biju. An illegal immigrant,
Biju is constantly in transition from one rat-infested, low-paying
job to another; he becomes exhausted not only with his living
and work conditions, but also by the frustration he experiences
watching his fellow émigrés forsake their heritage in order
to become more westernized.
Desai
has created a diverse and convincing cast of characters who
battle not only with the loss of their freedom and homes,
but also with the loss of identity. Arguing against the misconceived
globalization efforts that divide Kalimpong, Desai suggests,
"profit could only be harvested in the gap between nations,
working one against the other."
In its
most basic element, The Inheritance of Loss is a story
about love and loss against the backdrop of political upheaval
and western ambition in one of the world's largest countries.
As parts of the world become technologically advanced and
other parts left in a technological abscess, the characters
in this narrative aspire to what they perceive as being important.
Desai uses the novel as a platform to criticize globalization
and immigration, among several contemporary issues, but concludes
without providing the reader a character that might disinherit
the loss with which they are born. Then again, maybe that
is the point.
(May,
2007)
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