Book Review: The Lowland
In the room where her grandmother slept Bela ate her lunch.Born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other in the Calcutta neighborhood where they grow up. But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead. It is the 1960s, and Udayan - charismatic and impulsive - finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement: he will risk all for what he believes. Subhash, the dutiful son, does not share his brother's political passion; he leaves home to pursue a life of scientific research in a quiet, coastal corner of America. But when Subhash learns what happened to his brother in the lowland outside their family's home, he comes back to India, hoping to pick up the pieces of a shattered family, and to heal the wounds Udayan left behind - including those seared in the heart of his brother's wife.
In this strikingly masterful novel, the author weaves a tale of two places and one tormented family in an intimate narrative style. The characters are fully shaped, with whom readers can very easily sympathize. An easy and smooth tale of fate and will, exile and return. Unlike Jhumpa Lahiri's other fictions that I have read, which explores emotional challenges of Indian immigrants, The Lowland opens in 1950's Calcutta. Ambitious and full of thoughtful imagery, the novel is appealing and deserves to be picked up.
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Good Read. I had received the review copy from Random House India. Thank you Random House India for giving me this opportunity. You can buy this book at Flipkart in case you live in India.
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