The first thing I thought of when I started reading The White Tiger, was Montesquieus Lettres persanes, published in
The genre has some basic requirements, the relative importance of which the author must somehow balance.
- An authorial agendawhat the author wants to sayin this case, Wake up,
- A story that provides sufficient contextual opportunities for satirical forays and, perhaps, the occasional Jeremiad in support of the agenda.
- A (faux-)naïve writer who appears, at least initially, not to know things the author knows, and whose self-reported journey of discovery manifests and reveals the authors agenda.
- An addressee who is intelligent enough to understand what he or she is reading, but who is ignorant or at most only marginally conversant with the facts and situations to be satirized, and thus may be addressed in a familiar and didactic tone.
Adiga does a wonderful job of it. From the first page, the authors decision to have his protagonist writing a letter-memorandum to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is an unexpected delight. Whod a thunk it? It introduces Balram Halwai a/k/a/ Munna as a character to be reckoned withwell, who thinks he is a character to be reckoned with, anyway, which is part of his charm. Balram is a charming mish-mosh of practical intelligence, shrewd calculation and ingenuous self satisfaction. A man at times morally scrupulous and at others murderously callous. In short, Adiga says, an Indian.
What is remarkable is that we rapidly come to care for this man, we care what happens to him, we care what he does, and we care what he becomes. So, socio-political agenda aside, Adiga succeeds in meeting the (dare I say universal) requirements of all literature: creating characters we care about and a story that holds our interest.
The device of addressing Wen Jiabao works in a roundabout way by flattering the reader. After all, who among us would not want to be addressed with the respect due the Premier of China? It is also amusing, particularly because Balram has only the faintest idea of what would be of interest to the Premier of China, let alone how properly to address him.
The plot, which could easily have been close to non-existent as it is in less-successful satirical works, is carefully constructed with anticipatory revelations that surprised me and then led me to believe that the crime was going to be committed sooner than it actually was, so I was surprised again. Moreover, the novelist has imbued his work with a rather kindly sense of humor. (By contrast, Upton Sinclairs tone in The Jungle (1906), his blistering story of exploitation of workers and unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry, is relentlessly harsh and overwhelmingly depressing.) Adiga may be angry with the faults of Indian society, but he does not attempt to bludgeon the reader to his point of view. Rather, he relies on a highly developed sense of irony that he wields deftly to skewer the contradictions he sees between declared ideals and actual practice.
I couldnt keep Mr. Ashoks menagerie family (Stork, Mongoose, and Buffalo) straight, or Balrams family. They are all, I dare say, Indian archetypes. But Mr. Ashok, Pinky Madam, pink lips, and even Ms. Uma all come across as real characters with distinctive personalities on top of their archetypes. We end up caring for them as well as for Balram and we come to share the authors projected anger, disappointment, and sadness that his characters and his country is prey to the vicissitudes he sees so clearly.
Comments about this book on Amazon.com are generally laudatory (85% gave it four or five stars out of five), many contributors noting that the vast run of Indian novels are formulaic and correspondingly undistinguished. The 3% of the reviews that gave the book only one star are generally written by Indians who object that it indulges in India bashing and plays to the western gallery, and portraying the country in an unfair and unflattering light. The
Elucidating the obvious, Adiga declared (ibid.) “At a time when India is going through great changes and, with China, is likely to inherit the world from the west, it is important that writers like me try to highlight the brutal injustices of society
. [I]t’s not an attack on the country, it’s about the greater process of self-examination
. In
For what its worth, let me just take a few seconds, Mr. Jiabao, to tot up the things Adiga sees as problems facing
Political corruption
Bureaucratic corruption
Judicial corruption
Police corruption
Electoral fraud
Poor sanitation
Abysmal health care
Anti-Muslim prejudice
Caste prejudice
Exploitation of servants
Quite a comprehensive array, I would say.
Pacing seemed to be about right; I dont remember thinking that things were happening too fast or not fast enough. Various plot twists stand out.
- The incident in which Pinky Madam, driving drunk, apparently kills a child and Balram is railroaded into taking the fall for her.
- Balrams fury when the blond hair of the prostitute he hires turns out to have dark roots.
- The second vehicular manslaughter incident, which Balram handles in a different, more responsible(?), but still characteristically Indian way.
A bit of textual analysis: The author has some fun with Pinky Madams expletive phrase of choice when she is totally exasperated. Balram tells us coyly on page 1 in the very first paragraph of the novel that there are some things that can be said only in English. (Its nice to know English is good for something.) Toying with the reader, Adiga has Balram remind the reader on page 3 that he still owes us the punch line:
My ex-employer the late Mr. Ashoks ex-wife, Pinky Madam, taught me one of these things, and at
Pinky Madam!? What a wonderful choice. Like Buffy or Muffy or (I kid you not, I met in college a girl who went by the name of) Beastie. Dont you just love the absurd sound of it? It seems un-selfconsciously self-ridiculing, and I wouldnt be surprised if Adiga chose it for that reason.
It is not until page 5 that our curiosity, which has been seething with possibilities in the meantime, is satisfied, and we learn the phrase itselfbut not the circumstances in which Pinky Madam was wont to utter it:
What a fucking joke.
Much much later, about a quarter of the way through the book (page 69) we hear Pinky Madam use the phrase bitterly to express her feelings when she realizes that Ashok has no intention of returning to America. Then Balram gets to use it again (page 85) to characterize the irony of the fact that the police cannot locate him, a wanted man, in spite of the fact that there is an official government record of the fact that on every election day, when a (fraudulent) vote is cast in his name, he is known (officially, at least) to be present at the polling place in his home village.
Even Mr. Ashok gets into the act and uses the phrase (page 115) after noting the irony of driving past a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Delhi after having delivered a bribe to a minister.
I wont say that the phrase is central to the events surrounding the accident in which the inebriated Pinky Madam apparently strikes and kills a child, but it does appear three last times to good effect in the few pages devoted to the incident. Pinky Madam says it (page 135) in frustration when, drunk as a skunk, she wants to drive the car. Everyone in
Have you told the driver?
The Stork said nothing. Mr. Ashok and the Mongoose kept playing the game. Has no one told him? What a fucking joke! Hes the one who was going to go to jail!
Mr. Ashok said, I suppose we should tell him.
The Mongoose said, Fine.
Pinky Madam watched; her face changed. She ran into her room and slammed the door. (Who would have thought, Mr. Jiabao, that of this whole family, the lady with the short skirt would be the one with a conscience?)
Note the aside, which distances the reader somewhat from the events described, while preserving the moral outrage appropriate to the whole sordid episode.
You know what? I liked this book.