Aravind Adiga – Cannonball Read 17

In India

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

May 24, 2021 by Jake Leave a Comment

I know next to nothing about India. Never been there. Have a few friends/acquaintances who are but don’t know enough about their experiences to speak intelligently on what the country is like. This may have been the first fictional novel I’ve read set in the book so I went into it with eyes open. Take that all with a grain of salt because I don’t know what the perspective is from actual Indians on the book. But as a deconstruction of the country of India, […]

Into the Light

White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

March 28, 2021 by Wanderlustful Leave a Comment

I first read this novel more than 10 years ago when it was published (2008) and I wanted to see if it held up before we watched the Netflix adaptation. Briefly: it sure does. White Tiger follows Balram Halwai, a lower caste man from small-town India, as he crafts his own rise to power through unscrupulous means. The book is framed as a series of letters from Balram to the Chinese President, ostensibly for the two of them to revel in the entrepreneurship of their […]

“A man without rights in this world is not freed from his responsibilities.”

Amnesty by Aravind Adiga

April 21, 2020 by Bothari43 Leave a Comment

My mom is an unrepentant fast-forwarder. Any movie montage, car chase, fight scene, or any extended section of a movie with no dialogue is gonna get fast-forwarded through. (I grew up thinking this was totally normal and acceptable, and have had several boyfriends go “WAIT, what are you DOING?!?!” when I started fast-forwarding through a scene I thought was skippable.) This book, while totally lovely, could definitely have used a fast-forward button. Danny (Dhananjaya) is from Sri Lanka, living illegally in Australia. He came on […]

A novel about cricket and sexuality in India

February 11, 2017 by bonnie 1 Comment

I was a huge fan of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, so I was intrigued to hear that he’d released a new novel—and focused on cricket. I’ll confess that I know very little about cricket, and what little I do know is based on Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland. That said, you don’t really need to know a whole lot to get invested in the story. It’s an interesting contemporary tale, even if it doesn’t have quite the same original spark that fueled The White Tiger. Selection […]

The Uncaged Tiger

February 16, 2015 by bonnie Leave a Comment

My friend C and I exchange a lot of book ideas. We started our PhDs in the same class, we ended up choosing the same literary subfield, and we have the same dissertation director. She’s read some of my primary texts, and I realized I’ve not read all of hers. The White Tiger was in her list, plus I needed to up my Anglophone game. So I decided to give it a try. Balram Halwai, the White Tiger of this book, is a young entrepreneur […]

When neighbors stop being polite…

January 22, 2014 by Sophia Leave a Comment

“In the old days, if a builder had a problem, that problem would end up in pieces in the wet concrete: it became part of the building it had tried to obstruct. A bit of calcium was good for the foundations. But those days were gone: the lawless days of the 1980s and ’90s.” (321) The White Tiger was one of my favorite books of the year when I read it back in 2008. For that reason, I knew I would have to eventually get […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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