Rating: 3.0The White Tiger
A Novel by Aravind Adiga
2008 / 276 Pages
I don’t even know how to begin to review this book. I listened to it on audio as it is in my Man Booker prize winner reading list and it was buy one get one free on Audible.com.
So, lets just say it is a whack book – slightly off kilter. It is about a man, Balram, from a small village in India becoming a driver for a wealthy man in New Deli. Balram is telling his life story in letter format to the Prime Minister of China. There are parts that are laugh out loud funny and the whole book is very entertaining. I do not know how much of the “background” concerning the customs, politics, and cast system are true. As I listened, I wondered about reading some of the other more popular books based in India for a more accurate description as Balram may not have been the best source for the information. Interestingly, early on in the book you find that Belram is wanted for murder, but the way the story is written, you really don’t care. It is just part of the books whacky-ness.
The narrator, John Lee was a fantastic reader. He read with a very understandable and unmistakable Indian accent. I honestly thought he was Indian even though he as a very ordinary name. However, I recently began the 2005 Booker Winner, The Sea, and John Lee narrates it as well, but with a very English accent!
White Tiger was not poetic and beautiful nor a piece of finely crafted literature, but it was a very original, crazy story that I enjoyed listening to while driving…
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