From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

Family Matters

Rohinton Mistry

Start date: August 15, 2012

Finish date: August 15, 2012

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Mary Anne

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Reading List

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What Members Thought

Aug 08, 2012 Jane rated it did not like it

I want to like this book. I remember reading A Fine Balance and being moved by it. I thought it was somewhat melodramatic and that while some of the characters were interesting, many seemed one dimensional, particularly the "bad" guys. Both things feel particularly true about this book so far.

Nariman is the aging patriarch of the family, Jal and Coomy's step father. He's salt of the earth. You get that from the first page. And Jal and Coomy are not nice. Ungrateful wretches. When Nariman, who h I want to like this book. I remember reading A Fine Balance and being moved by it. I thought it was somewhat melodramatic and that while some of the characters were interesting, many seemed one dimensional, particularly the "bad" guys. Both things feel particularly true about this book so far.

Nariman is the aging patriarch of the family, Jal and Coomy's step father. He's salt of the earth. You get that from the first page. And Jal and Coomy are not nice. Ungrateful wretches. When Nariman, who has Parkinsons but still wants to go walking, because the bustling life where the flower vendors and fruit and vegetable stalls are located was "like air for starving lungs, after the stale emptiness of the flat." Nariman falls. Of course. And when he returns, his step-children make their pronouncements: "One thing is certain," said Coomy, "From now on you will not go out." "I agree," said Jal.

These two don't get much deeper or more complicated as the night unfolds.

One reader said that the book reminds her of Dickens. Perhaps she's right. It has a cast of thousands, and is thick with melodrama. Even the local color rubs me the wrong way. While the author doesn't explain every detail of Indian life, I did feel as though I were being instructed in the facts of life in Bombay on every single page. The language too feels extreme. Nariman's grandson, Jehangir, grabs his grandfather's chin. It is part of a ritual Nariman engages in with his grandsons.

"The special greeting had evolved a few years ago when he had affectionately grabbed the boys' chins, and they had grabbed his right back...they had explored other features of their grandfather's physiognomy and found that his glabrous pate, hard and smooth and shiny, sang a delicious counterpoint to the jujube chin." I'm sorry. I'm not enchanted with the language. "glabrous"? "jujube"? Please no more.

So I tried again because I like so many of the people on the Constant Reader site and so many of these people read and loved Family Matters. But Jal and Coomy continue to be cartoon characters. They collect toys, wind-up toys, an Elvis doll, and they store the in a cabinet behind a glass door. The two young nephews are not alloed to play with the toys. They do anyway, and Coomy freaks out. She is so beyond belief mean and childish. She's not going to change. I love the short story I read this morning for another Constant Reader discussion. I'd rather go read that again than read any more of this. ...more

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Aug 07, 2008 Ruth rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is a big fat Dickensian story set in India. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost my taste for big fat Dickensian stories. I enjoyed the book, but not excessively. What I found most interesting was the insight into family life, attitudes and restrictions. And how much American pop culture has infiltrated India. It was interesting to see how they hopped back and forth between English and various Indian languages. The book would have benefited from a glossary, though. If I had known what some of ...more

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Jul 31, 2012 Mary Ellen rated it really liked it

I was swept up in this book initially: an intensely cabined family drama in which broader issues of a Bombay crumbling physically and morally intrude.

The deteriorating health of the family patriarch, suffering from Parkinson's, sets the family drama in motion. As in every family drama (I'm thinking Tolstoy's happy family doesn't really exist, and every family has its own unhappiness in its own way), old wounds, never healed, provide a none-too-subtle subtext for the present actions, divisions, ...more

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Jul 18, 2011 Kecia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 1001-books, booker-shortlist, india

Tolstoy wrote, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." He left out families in the middle. Normal families. Regular families. Real families.

Families are complex and Mistry gets right at the heart of that complexity. This novel is an extraordinarily poignant look inside an average family living in Bombay. The love the members of this family have for one another shines through but so does the misery they can cause one another. From the difficult care of the ...more

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Mar 12, 2007 Matt Stewart rated it did not like it

Shelves: done

riddled with cliches and boring, nowhere near as good as a fine balance. I gave up after 50 pages.

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Feb 26, 2012 Robert rated it really liked it

This is definitely a four star book in my mind. I think Rohinton Mistry is a really significant voice in Indian / English / American literature. I will definitely be reading more of his work. I did find this book a little difficult to get into at first, as there was more detail than I was comfortable with regarding the personal care needed t take care of Nariman, the disabled, elderly grandfather in this extended Indian family. As I continued with the book, I saw the rationale for taking the rea This is definitely a four star book in my mind. I think Rohinton Mistry is a really significant voice in Indian / English / American literature. I will definitely be reading more of his work. I did find this book a little difficult to get into at first, as there was more detail than I was comfortable with regarding the personal care needed t take care of Nariman, the disabled, elderly grandfather in this extended Indian family. As I continued with the book, I saw the rationale for taking the reader into such intimate detail, and fortunately, once the point was made, the detail did not continue gratuitously.

For me, it was a window into a culture that is increasingly impacting our own through immgration, business, and economic connections. Mistry is able to create truly genuine voices for these characters in a complex family drama, whose origins and impact encompass three generations. The setting is Bombay / Mumbai in modern times, and the story is presented through the eyes of an extended essentially middle class family. The insights, the thoughts, and the interactions are intimately detailed, and albeit foreign to my specific personal experience, they are common to the human condition everywhere. These are all believable, recognizable characters in situations that are recognizable as well despite a seemingly foreign context.

The title conveys the real subject matter of the book, while also cleverly making a statement as well. Interactions between husband and wife, mother and sons, father and sons, younger and older brother, step sister and step brother, grandfather, step son, step daughter, son in law, have reality and a genuine quality as they are spun together to make the story. The sub-plots add details from other families creating a fully realized context in which the main story unfolds.

This writer is a master craftsman and has produced a very readable story in which every piece seems to fit seamlessly. I want more of these characters and more of their story. I didn't want the book to end. ...more

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Aug 16, 2008 Mary Anne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book captivated me. Just about everything that could go wrong in this family, does. The old man lives with his adult step children in a large apartment. But they resent him because he was not faithful to their mother. There's another child who is his by that same wife, who lives in a two room apartment with her husband and 2 sons. Much of the book is told through the eyes of the 9 year old grandson. Perhaps you could call it a coming of age book, but it is much more than that.

The grandfathe ...more

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Jul 09, 2012 Katy rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

FAMILY MATTERS takes place in Bombay, a diverse city of many peoples, religions, and cultures. It tells the story of events in the lives of two families who find themselves having to care for their aged father who suffers from Parkinsons Disease. On his daily walk, he trips, and falls, breaking his ankle. As they deal with his need for bed rest and constant care, selfishenss and generosity, deceit and sacrifice form the basis of the plot. Although it sounds a little like a soap opera, the very r ...more

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