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A review by salon3ly
Honor by Thrity Umrigar
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
cw//discussions of casteism
Do not make the mistake that I made and hate Smita the way I did upon picking-up the book. I turned the first few pages of Honor and was immediately not hooked, ready to be faced with another pretentious Indian girl who suffered excessively from her privilege. I was wrong. Instead, I found a deeply fierce, compelling, and beautifully developed character.
This is Smita's book. Which means that even with portions of the character framed by Meena's words and stories, they are still overshadowed by Smita's tales and life. I think this is telling of the same caste-based violence and society that Meena had to face. Meena's story is only framed within Smita, it is only told in between chapters, given 2-3 pages per chapter. Meena is an echo of Smita, the same way that caste-oppressed individuals are echos of caste-privileged individuals. The truth is that Honor would have been much more riveting if it had been Meena's story, and if it was dedicated to her. But, yet we are again donned with a story of oppressed individuals through an oppressor's eye.
But, this is not my gripe with Honor. My gripe lies within the tale told far too often - of the western saviour coming into save the East's children. I did not want Meena to die. I did not want her tale of honor to be told through her daughter's survival. It might be deemed realistic, but it is too reminiscent of portraying oppressed mothers of the Global South self-sacrificial and pitieous to the point of them dying for their children. I did not read Honor expecting a happy ending, I also did not read expecting for privileged members of the diaspora to regurgitate the new-age white saviour trope to privileged brown people.
That being said, there were several portions of the book that shook me to the core. I was left grasping and floating for life, humanity, and was forced to challenge my own conceptions of honour and privilege. I do not hate Honor as a book, in fact I love it enough to criticize it's shortcomings. It is an artisitic piece of literature, but it should not be mistaken for the liberation that we, or the oppressed women worldwide need.
Do not make the mistake that I made and hate Smita the way I did upon picking-up the book. I turned the first few pages of Honor and was immediately not hooked, ready to be faced with another pretentious Indian girl who suffered excessively from her privilege. I was wrong. Instead, I found a deeply fierce, compelling, and beautifully developed character.
This is Smita's book. Which means that even with portions of the character framed by Meena's words and stories, they are still overshadowed by Smita's tales and life. I think this is telling of the same caste-based violence and society that Meena had to face. Meena's story is only framed within Smita, it is only told in between chapters, given 2-3 pages per chapter. Meena is an echo of Smita, the same way that caste-oppressed individuals are echos of caste-privileged individuals. The truth is that Honor would have been much more riveting if it had been Meena's story, and if it was dedicated to her. But, yet we are again donned with a story of oppressed individuals through an oppressor's eye.
But, this is not my gripe with Honor. My gripe lies within the tale told far too often - of the western saviour coming into save the East's children.
That being said, there were several portions of the book that shook me to the core. I was left grasping and floating for life, humanity, and was forced to challenge my own conceptions of honour and privilege. I do not hate Honor as a book, in fact I love it enough to criticize it's shortcomings. It is an artisitic piece of literature, but it should not be mistaken for the liberation that we, or the oppressed women worldwide need.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Islamophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, and Classism
Moderate: Hate crime and Sexual violence