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A review by coronaurora
A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee
4.0
One of the better new authors from the subcontinent who has the potential to be the next Rohinton Mistry with how earnestly he is willing to detail a lovely cast of characters and how confidently he is willing to throw their faces into the grit, slime and grime of sociologically-cued reality. He bats two timelines here, seeking symmetry in the brutality of grassroots overwhelming the sublimity and authenticity the two protagonists are reaching for.
The violence and the strange, insight-free streak of self-destruction that the chief character of Ritwik is endowed with, make this a compelling read. Although the motivation for continued masochism is kept frustratingly opaque to the reader despite the deceptive closeness to Ritwik, with the continuous barrage of set-pieces and interactions, he keeps you rapt. Some of the stretches are so well-written (especially Ritwik's childhood in the joint family home in Kolkata), and throb with so much life, I had to look away.
He writes with vigour, has an original voice, his characters are admirably active in the world they live in with incandescent inner lives; the dialogue is well cadenced, he can be playful and throwaway like a thesp and I can't wait to see him wringing all his talents and bravado into his second, bigger beast The Lives of Others.
The violence and the strange, insight-free streak of self-destruction that the chief character of Ritwik is endowed with, make this a compelling read. Although the motivation for continued masochism is kept frustratingly opaque to the reader despite the deceptive closeness to Ritwik, with the continuous barrage of set-pieces and interactions, he keeps you rapt. Some of the stretches are so well-written (especially Ritwik's childhood in the joint family home in Kolkata), and throb with so much life, I had to look away.
He writes with vigour, has an original voice, his characters are admirably active in the world they live in with incandescent inner lives; the dialogue is well cadenced, he can be playful and throwaway like a thesp and I can't wait to see him wringing all his talents and bravado into his second, bigger beast The Lives of Others.