I have read every book by this author and enjoyed all of them. When I started this book and couldn't get into it I should have put it down right away - but I didn't. I wasn't in the mood for an in depth book on Sufism in India. I wasn't really even in the mood to read but I ploughed through. I wish I hadn't done that because I ruined a perfectly good book with my crappy mood.
New York Reader says 'his resplendent novel traces the path of Karsan Dargawalla, who is brought up, as generations of his forefathers have been, to be the "gaadi-varas, the successor and avatar" of a seven-hundred-year-old Sufi shrine in Gujarat, a mausoleum of Muslim origin but for centuries open to all religions. Karsan, rebelling against "the iron bonds of history," leaves for Boston and Canada, though he ultimately returns to India to "research, recall, and write about" his abandoned heritage. Vassanji eloquently details the sufferings of Karsan’s family as the price of his individual freedom, but suggests that this abandonment was necessary, and that tradition, in the face of India’s "ancient animosities," must be engaged with critically and in the context of the wider world.'
It sounded great and probably is. I think I will re-read it at a later date. I am not going to give a real review because I don't feel like it would be accurate and true to the book. I do suggest people pick up this book (or any others by M.G. Vassanji) because the author is amazing.
Maybe I read myself out at the 24 Hour Read-a-Thon. I don't really know. I am going to go for something light next...get my reading taste buds back!
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