Page Turners Book Club does not read and discuss a book in December. Instead, traditionally all three groups meet for a social gathering and very fun blind book exchange. Of course, holiday goodies are on hand to be enjoyed by all. Unfortunately, our fun activity will have to be cancelled this December due to . . . (fill in the blank!).
As we do not read a book in December, we chose for January the longest book that members selected. Therefore, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry will be the subject of discussion at our January meetings. Set in 1970s India, this is the author’s second novel (published in 1995) and was the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction, the Giller Prize, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize as well as a Booker Prize finalist and the 2001 Oprah’s Book Club selection. I found the following quotes that, in my opinion, give two wonderful descriptions of Mistry’s moving story. I hope you enjoy them and perhaps motivate some who are not members of the book club to read the book.
“A Fine Balance is not a political diatribe. Instead, it is a beautiful and compassionate portrait of the resiliency of the human spirit when faced with death, despair, and uncon- scionable suffering. Set in an unnamed city by the sea, it is the story of four disenfranchised strangers—a widow, a young student, and two tailors—who are forced by their impoverished circumstances to share a cramped apartment. Initially distrustful of one another, Dina, Maneck, Ishvar, and Om gradually build loving, familial bonds and learn together ‘to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair’ ina society suddenly turned inhumanly cruel and corrupt.” —From the Publisher
“A sweeping story, in a thoroughly Indian
setting, that combines Dickens’s vivid sympathy for the poor with Solzhenitsyn’s controlled outrage, celebrating both the resilience of the human spirit and the searing heart-break of failed dreams.” – Kirkus Reviews
Page Turners meets on the fourth Monday and fourth Thursday of the month. For information on the Thursday groups please contact Steve and Ann Morris at samwrsi@ cox.net and for the Monday group contact me, Frances at fozimec@cox.net.
—Frances Ozimec
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