Wow! What a book! You get quite a feel for Bombay (now called Mumbai) and some of the people that populate the city. The author has quite a way with writing and no matter whether the concentration was on the policeman, the gangster, the film star, beggars, ordinary folk - you felt you had an understanding of them and an appreciation of their lives. You knew them - or wanted to.
The paperback edition is 947 pages and I have to admit I was getting a bit tired of it around page 600 or so. But as I moved onward, I again got engrossed in it and by page 947, I was sorry to see it end! However, I do admit there were some pages where I felt "I really don't want to know any more about this character". However, there were only two small sections that I would have edited out of the book.
My very favorite part of the book was one of the insets (where the author discusses a more minor character) called A House in a Distant City. It's about 30 pages long and you can read it by itself, ignoring the rest of the book, and still have a really good story. If you are not ready to tackle 947 pages, give this inset a try.
2 comments:
that's a lot of pages
i'm about 150 pages in
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