I finished the first book of my 2007 TBR challenge. No, it’s not Sebald’s Vertigo, my concentration failed me when I tried to read his book, I can't even make it through the 3rd page. I guess I’ll save it for future read. I read Kiran Desai’s debut novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard instead.
This book is hilarious, fun, vivid and beautifully written. I can felt the words jumping up and down in the book.
This book is hilarious, fun, vivid and beautifully written. I can felt the words jumping up and down in the book.
The novel told the story of the Chawla family and Shahkot in India. The Chawla family consists of Mr. Chawla the father, Kulfi the mother, Ammaji the granny, Sampath the son and Pinky the daughter.
It starts with the dry season before the monsoon rain hit the ground; the land was drought because of the rain didn’t arrive as the Shahkot people expected. They tried everything they can to survive. Kulfi was pregnant with Sampath during the drought, as Kulfi’s belly grew bigger, the hotness and the lack of food in Shahkot became unbearable. Kulfi dreamt about food during the course of her pregnancy and began to draw on any space she could find in the house.
When Kulfi gave birth to Sampath, the monsoon rain arrived. The people of Shahkot believe that Sampath was the gift of the god. Well, when Sampath was 20 years old, he worked as a post office officer. He is a ‘son of no good’ in his father’s point of view.
During his boss’s daughter’s wedding, he took off his clothes in front of the guests, who know what got into his mind, and being sacked. Then, one day he took a bus and ran into a guava orchard and end up in a guava tree. There starts the story of the Hermit of Shahkot, the Monkey Baba, which end with a hullabaloo.
I enjoyed the book very much; I empathize with Sampath’s sense of out of place. He tried to live a kind of life which his father couldn’t understand. He enjoys the life on the trees, surrounded by trees and mountain, with cool breeze, rather than the hotness and noise in their house.
I think the hilarious part of the book is when Kiran Desai wrote about the authorities of Shahkot's attempts to tackle the monkey problem in the guava orchard, each one of them have their own plan, such as kill the leader of the monkey and display its corpse in front of the other monkey to see if the other monkey will disperse; or banned all the selling of alcohol in Shahkot, because it’s the alcohol the monkey chasing after; or let an army of man fire every minute to scare away the monkey.
I began to imagine how Desai enjoyed the writing process, I’m not sure she was, but I like to think that she was indeed enjoying it; for I myself sometimes enjoy writing my hilarious story, though I seldom write one.
It starts with the dry season before the monsoon rain hit the ground; the land was drought because of the rain didn’t arrive as the Shahkot people expected. They tried everything they can to survive. Kulfi was pregnant with Sampath during the drought, as Kulfi’s belly grew bigger, the hotness and the lack of food in Shahkot became unbearable. Kulfi dreamt about food during the course of her pregnancy and began to draw on any space she could find in the house.
When Kulfi gave birth to Sampath, the monsoon rain arrived. The people of Shahkot believe that Sampath was the gift of the god. Well, when Sampath was 20 years old, he worked as a post office officer. He is a ‘son of no good’ in his father’s point of view.
During his boss’s daughter’s wedding, he took off his clothes in front of the guests, who know what got into his mind, and being sacked. Then, one day he took a bus and ran into a guava orchard and end up in a guava tree. There starts the story of the Hermit of Shahkot, the Monkey Baba, which end with a hullabaloo.
I enjoyed the book very much; I empathize with Sampath’s sense of out of place. He tried to live a kind of life which his father couldn’t understand. He enjoys the life on the trees, surrounded by trees and mountain, with cool breeze, rather than the hotness and noise in their house.
I think the hilarious part of the book is when Kiran Desai wrote about the authorities of Shahkot's attempts to tackle the monkey problem in the guava orchard, each one of them have their own plan, such as kill the leader of the monkey and display its corpse in front of the other monkey to see if the other monkey will disperse; or banned all the selling of alcohol in Shahkot, because it’s the alcohol the monkey chasing after; or let an army of man fire every minute to scare away the monkey.
I began to imagine how Desai enjoyed the writing process, I’m not sure she was, but I like to think that she was indeed enjoying it; for I myself sometimes enjoy writing my hilarious story, though I seldom write one.
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