A Novel (Edition unknown) by Adiga - Aravind [Paperback(2008£©]

The White Tiger just won the Man Booker prize. It is a well-deserved award. (I first heard about The White Tiger when it won a place on the Man Booker short list.)

Many others will write long-winded reviews, so I'll spare you. Suffice it to say that this is a terrifically fun--although not intentionally funny--book. The author does such a fine job of character and place development that you see the people and events in your mind's eye. (That's another way of saying that you're really disappointed when you turn the last page, come to the end, and have to leave. You want to hang around and learn more, but there is no more. Sad......) The language is crisp and breezy. The author remains focused on his tale and doesn't meander all over the countryside with needless detail and side stories.

This is a strong five-star book that I'm sure will garner more awards.

By the way, have you noticed the exploding number of books--obviously non-fiction, but also fiction--centered on what we Westerners arrogantly call the Near East? In the 1980s, it was hip to be from Australia--authors, rock bands, whatever. The '90s was all about Ireland, Celtic music, and River Dance. (Have the McCourt brothers finally stopped regurgitating their pathetic family history? It was really becoming immodest.) Post-9/11 is the era of the Near East: Afganistan, Pakistan, India, etc.

With The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga has set the bar very high for fiction based in that region of the world.

(I also recommend The Wasted Vigil, which is based in Afganistan. Read my and other reviews. That is a much heavier story than The White Tiger, but a marvelous five-star book. I know it will be considered for literature's highest awards.)

This is a great book for anyone interested in Indian culture. Much is written about this fascinating place, but rarely have I read anything that touches this part of Indian society with such detail and honesty. As a foreigner who's spent significant time in the country, India is a fascinating, complex, and amazingly diverse country that is often misunderstood or misrepresented but that has a lot to offer nevertheless. There's often far more than meets the eye at first glance, and this books provides a unique view into the growth of modern India.

A quirky read that seems to be overly assisted by the exotic and currently fashionable locales in relating the story...a mixture of Dickens, Dostoyevsky and Norman Vincent Peale. In the end I was glad for it to end and did n't recall much beyond unpleasant detail well told.

Rollicking funny story of corruption in India with a not-so-dark underside. I read "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" a few years ago. The two books together at least make me think I know something about contemporary India.

As I write this review, I truly have mixed feelings about this book - so that explains the 3 stars (neither here nor there). You know how they say, "the best books are the ones that tell you things you already know"; well, this book is sort of like that, and not, at the same time. Yes, the majority of the people in our country are malnourished and illiterate (making easy prey for the corrupt politicians and the bureaucrats or anyone in a position of power, for that matter). Yes, human-life is cheap in this great nation of ours. Yes, half the people of our nation defecate out in the open (in large part due to the lack of sanitation facilities). Yes, we people from the middle-class are apathetic and desensitized towards the plight of our poverty-stricken fellow countrymen. Yes, the caste system still exists. Yes, the poor breed and multiply exponentially (because children are the poor man's capital). Yes, we don't blink an eyelid when it comes to giving and receiving graft and bribes. Yes, thousands of female fetuses are aborted during the course of a regular day. We, as a nation have collectively lost our moral compass. Yes, yes, yes. All of the above is true, and I know it, just as surely as I know that the sky is blue!

So what was the whole point of writing this novel? If there is such a genre as "poverty pornography", then this book belongs to it. The people of the developed nations (read Western Europe & North America) have always had this voyeuristic fascination with the Third World and get off on observing "the beautifully miserable" of the hundreds of millions of poor semi-humans. Let me clear things up once and for all, for people who believe that the poor in India have this deep and rich inner spiritual life (as if their knowledge of the Supreme Absolute Truth were a just reward for their suffering and depravation). THEY DO NOT. Their condition has no deeper spiritual meaning; do not envy them, they know no more about life than you do. They want the same stuff everyone else wants. They are mass consumers albeit ones who have a lot less money to spend than we do.

A bit of interesting trivia for all the geeks out there. This book and the movie Slumdog Millionaire (a film claiming to show the "true India") were released in the same year and went on to win major awards in the West. Both of these works are mediocre at best, judged solely on artistic considerations. I wouldn't go so far as to say that these works are execrable and filth because they are not. There probably is a greater truth to what the authors of these works want to convey; they just don't seem to have done a very good job in conveying those truths.

Fascinating story with a great insight into Indian culture. Colorful, imaginative, funny. I recon that this book will be very helpful to anyone who is going to India for the first time. I wish I read it earlier; my life would have been less confusing and complicated at the times.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga was my first book read on my kindle. I picked it up on July 31st and finished it yesterday, August 5th while waiting for my son's tonsillectomy to finished. The book is hard to separate from the movie Slumdog Millionaire. The story takes place in India, the main character is from a poor village and is a servant to the rich (a driver). It's graphic, disturbing and at some times really smart. The entire book is written as a letter to the Premier of China over the course of a week. I could relate with the main character and although he does a terrible thing, I sympathized with him. I could see this riding the coattails of Slumdog and making it into theaters soon. I recommend this book. 4/5

The REAL INDIA is colorfully displayed in a letter from an Indian businessman telling his life story to a Chinese high official about to visit India and be lied to by corrupt Indian politicians. The writer describes in wonderful anecdotes containing gallows humor the REAL INDIA, which he calls THE DARKNESS, of starvation, pollution, lack of electricity, clean water and education and freedom to vote or be free in any way in India's system of extreme corruption where right is might. He is described by a school official as the rarest of beings, a highly intelligent and motivated peasant Indian child, being like the rarest thing in the jungle, a White Tiger. But he finally must resort to the only things that will actually allow him to break out and be a success himself, murder, theft and being corrupt himself. He admires the THREE countries that never in history allowed themselves to be conquered: China, Abyssinia...and Afghanistan. Not the Russians or even Alexander the Great had ever succeeded in conquering the Afghans. Of course this is relevant today as the US is spending billions of tax money trying the impossible. A book that will stay in my memory as the stories in other books are quickly forgotten. Five stars richly deserved.

The way Aravind Adiga writes...its really a fantastic book. I finished it in two days. This was a text my native Indian professor requested that we read prior to our departure to India for a study abroad course. Her goal was to use this book as a way to introduce us to modern Indian culture prior to our arrival. The writer brings such vivid imagery to mind that I feel like I already know what its like to be there before I've even been.

This book deepened my understanding of life in India. Captivating, often humorous, very cleverly told as a monologue, this mans life and the deed he was led to commit describe the way of life for many poor Indian people.

Even though I would love to see the historic temples & forts of Rajahstan, I have never really wanted to go to India because of the poverty, dirt, & heat. This novel is written from the point of view of one man who lives in that non-touristic India which I do not want to see. The poverty & filth in the book is tangible, yet I couldn't put the book down; the descriptions are necessary to understanding the character's motivations as he climbs from poverty & subservience to freedom & entrepreneurial wealth. This portrait of life in contemporary India fleshes out the stories in business magazines about India's economic miracle.

This book is absolutely phenominal. Great character development, and constant change of pace and setting to keep the reader comfortably on their feet. Balram is a character that you just have to love, thanks to Adiga's fantastic ability to immerse the reader deeper and deeper into Balram's psyche. Would absolutely recommend

Thoroughly enjoyed this book--I stayed up half the night to finish it because it just grabs the reader and won't let go. It was a good recommendation to me from a friend and I would definitely pass that along.

Is corruption a path to succes? Aravind Adinga chose to tell us a story from a provocativa Point of view. From the very begining we know that Balram Halwai, the main character is a killer but he calls himself an entrepeneur that chooses to tell his story to the prime mynister od China. With a very intelligent style he males us see the nowadays India in comparison to China, but at the sabe time he compares the India in the cities opposed to the India in the little towns. He makes us discover the differences between the servants and masters, he makes us understand the point of view held by people that work for others. Hypocrecy on booth sides of the line mixed with excellent writing, good humour and a keen way to see life.
In the middle: corruption. Corruption as the worst sickness of the world, same in India as in almost everything country of the globe. The White Tiger makes us laugh, get angry, mad, but most of all makes us reflect.

You know what to expect from a novel about India, right? The saffron scented air; the orange and pink silks; the jangling stacks of gold bangles; the mystical mists rising off mountains; the hair-raising squalor juxtaposed against unbelievable architectural spendor . . . . Well, you'll find little of that here, in this fast-moving, highly cynical tale of an opportunistic self-made man who rises from the muck of a small Indian village to the entrepeneurial paradise of Banglalore with very few regrets along the way.

The depictions of poverty and filth are familiar from other novels about India; you can be sure that any mention of a stream, river, lake or washpan will lead directly into a lingering description of the water's fecal content. It's the descriptions of the rich that surprise; rather than living out a Raj-era fantasy of the Indian good life, the rich in Adiga's Delhi live in high rise apartments furnished with rented white couches, consume pizza and counterfeit English booze, and listen to Sting and Eminen on the CD player. In a hilariously ironic detail, even their New Age music is imported; the chill-out music of choice is not Ravi Shankar, but Enya.

The book is a highly entertaining page turner, and the narrator's voice is witty and distinctive. In the end, however, I found the book to be lacking in depth. Rather than fully fleshed out characters, the book relies on caricatures, and the political critique is totally lacking in nuance. It's good in the way a Carl Hiaasson novel is good; it's a fun caper novel with colorful characters in a highly distinctive setting. But Booker worthy? Not to me.

I am hooked on Aravind Adiga - a new, potent voice in literature. His awesome comic sensibility elicits laughter at the darkest of situations. Balram, his hero, if you can call him that, is one of the most complex and exciting characters I've ever met in a novel. Through him, Adiga deftly throws the reader deep into the huge divide between rich and poor. Balram's only route out of the destiny of the impoverished is vice, and on some plane of consciousness, I herald him for it.

The events related illustrate and teach much about India that needs to be known by those who do not come from the area. I can see whay many Indians are so upset by the work. They do not claim that what it written is false, mind you, just that Mr. Adiga (a journalist and Native son) should not have told such truths to the world.
Much of what is told is truly heart breaking. This is not going to make you feel good about the country--but is does give some insights that may be useful in evaluating some of the pressures and views of the people of the nation that will be the most populous in the world and one of the two world leaders (along with China) sometime in the 21st century.

Absorbing. Gives a great insight into the utter poverty and politics in India . Also how the caste system operates. Aravind Adiga was very brave to write it. The book endorses man's inhumanity to man and how the strongest survives. There in no place for sentiment if one is to survive

Set against the backdrop of complex Indian politics, this story addresses individual struggles and how people cope with intense hardship. The narrator communicates in the form of a letter to a Chinese dignitary, which allows for critical analyses of both the individual and the culture.

I enjoyed this book and the way it portrayed India. Having been there I see the truth and reality in the story and the situations. Great read for people to get an understanding of how millions of people still live in our world and how they overcome the many challenges they face to survive.

If you liked Slumdog Millionaire (the movie), my guess is that you'd love this book. The author unveils the situation of Mother India's children, big and small, who are born into a dark world of low caste, abuse, deceit, and corruption. The road to successful entrepreneurship is a real mudslide.

Marvelous Book! I found this book through Prof. Vinay Lal of UCLA who had this book as a required reading for one his courses. The language is simple and the story is very interesting. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is looking for a light read.

Superficially this story appears to be a joke about an Indian from the Hindu lower caste who wants to advise the Chinese leader about the success of being an entrepreneur in India. Actually, it's an indictment of the 21st century weakness of the government, its corruptions and its social torpor.

The author writes of the comedy, tragedy, and dreams of a man who wants to escape his karma.