This is a fascinating story that keeps the reader hopping between generations and continents, on common threads of the human condition. I recommend it – it is written beautifully, in wonderful prose.

That having been said, I caution that it is not the most enlightening book about India, or about immigrants. It also does not have the most descriptive prose or unique writing style. When I get around to reading the rest of the short list for the Booker for 2006, perhaps it will shine brightly, but at the moment, while I do recommend it, I am comparing it to other Booker winners, and it pales a bit.

I’m not sure how this book won anything. There were a few nuggets of nice phrasing or imagery scattered throughout, but mostly the book was just a bunch of mostly disparate stories interwoven (and being chopped up into too-small pieces in order to do that) into a loose mass. The author didn’t take the trouble to make me care about any of the characters, nearly none of whom had enough development to make them stand out more than giving them different names did (and several pairs of characters might as well have been one person, considering their sameness and the lack of anything they brought to the story).

Oh, and what’s with the typesetting? My copy was printed so low on the page I had to hold my hand under the book in case some words fell off while I was reading. I’d expect that in a cheapy mass market paperback, but not in a shiny new hardcover.