204. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss (Grove Press, 2006; 356), winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize, is a story about impotence and poverty and how they influence each other. Everybody in this story, rich or poor, religious or non-religious, Hindu or Muslim, Indian or Nepali, is a victim in one form or the other. They, the characters, have relinquished control and decisions to act to an invisible authority; they have made this authority more potent by their willingness to succumb and their unwillingness to take any action to change anything in their lives. Perhaps to them, to think of change is to risk worsening an already worst situation. They have thus accepted their victim-hood. This lethargic acceptance, borne not out of ignorance or pleasure of poverty and which is not on a particular romanticism of a past bucolic life, is something one can describe of Developing Countries. Thus, Kiran's characters are like developing countries - things happen to them; decisions are ma...