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Fiction. Literature. HTML:"This is a story intimately and compassionately told against the sensuous background of everyday life in Bombay."??Washington Post Book World "Bracingly honest."??New York Times Book Review The author of Bombay Time, If Today Be Sweet, and The Weight of Heaven, Thrity Umrigar is as adept and compelling in The Space Between Us??vividly capturing the social struggles of modern India in a luminous, addictively readable novel of honor, tradition, class, gender, and family. A portrayal of two women discovering an emotional rapport as they struggle against the confines of a rigid caste system, Umrigar's captivating second novel echoes the timeless intensity of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible??a quintessential triumph of modern liter… (more)
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Umrigar's writing is precise and beautiful. She tells Bhima's story simply, but with incredible emotion. I think this book is going to be very popular in book groups next year not just because of the cultural focus, but because it's about mothers and daughters, about friendships between women, and about relationships between husbands and wives. Even though it's got an exotic setting, its focus is personal and tells a story with which we are sadly all too familiar.
Recommended.
This is one of the quotes I wrote in my quote journal:
Or perhaps it is that time doesn't heal wounds at all, perhaps that is the biggest lie of them all, and instead what happens is that each wound penetrates the body deeper and deeper until one day you find that the sheer geography of your bones--the angle of your head, the jutting of your hips, the sharpness of your shoulders, as well as the luster of your eyes, the texture of your skin, the openness of your smile--has collapsed under the weight of your griefs.
Upon the death of a volatile relative: ”Sera went through the purse of her memory, hunting for gold coins.”
To a daughter who was having problems: ”I carried you in my stomach for nine months. I know every inch of your skin. If a mosquito lands on you, I feel the sting.”
As the author says in the notes at the end of the book, ” At its most basic, The Space Between Us is a book about what brings us together and what divides us as human beings.” “…this intersection of gender and class – how the lives of women from the working class and the middle class seemed at once so connected and so removed from each other.” “…– this strange tug-of-war between intimacy and unfamiliarity; between awareness and blindness.”
Loved it!
On the surface it would appear the two women have overcome class differences and forged a deep and lasting friendship. Yet Sera will not allow Bhima to sit on her furniture. There are many other small indications along the way, until the novel’s climax fully exposes the chasm between the two women. In the final analysis, class differences reinforce one woman’s privilege and the other’s destitution.
While this novel takes place in India, where much has been written about the role of social class, supposedly egalitarian societies fall victim similar traps. Just this week I had a conversation with a colleague who was struggling with the importance of developing a diverse workforce. “I think we should just hire the best people,” he said. I was reminded of an article I read years ago: White Privilege, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntosh. The author writes, “Obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated [sic] in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.”
Food for thought.
Now on to the story. It was amazing. A book I found myself still thinking about days after I had turned the final page. It is not a happy or light or breezy book by any definition but it is a book where the writer's way with words enters into your thoughts and you find yourself thinking about some of life's big questions.
In the novel we meet Bhima, a woman of the slums of Bombay who has not had a very good life. She has worked for years for Sera and her family and feels like part of their family despite not being allowed to sit on the furniture or drink or eat from their dishes. Sera, an upper class woman from a progressive family married into an old fashioned family and found herself being abused by both her mother in law and husband but did nothing about it. Bhima knew all of Sera's secrets and Sera helped Bhima through some of the worst times of her life - including Bhima's current crisis when her 17 year old granddaughter comes home pregnant.
These two women are intimately entwined yet worlds apart. When those two worlds meet they realize just how far apart they truly are. And the fallout is devastating for both of them.
I had a hard time putting this book down and if it hadn't been garden season I think I would have read it all in one sitting. Then I would have read it again. Despite the sadness that pervades the book I was still left uplifted at the end because of the strength of Bhima's character. Don't get me wrong - she is a very hard to like woman but she was formed that way by the forces of her life. I had less sympathy for Sera because the way to change should have been much easier for her being educated and wealthy. She made small inroads but she couldn't make the big ones.
Ms. Umrigar's writing is lyrical. Whether describing the beach or the communal toilet in a slum you get a true feel for where you are in the story. She weaves her words and takes you directly into the lives of her characters; the good, the bad and the ugly. I did see the big ending coming long before the end but it did not detract from the story at all. I would so love to see the follow-up to the lives of Bhima, Sera and Maya.
Set in Bombay and based on a real person, this novel explores the impact of gender and class on women and the struggle to reconcile the differences. The relationships between generations, employer/servants, spouses are explored with sensitivity and heartbreak. The characters are
The ending is something of a twist and beautifully written.
Just a snippet:
"And now she finally understands what she has always observed on people's faces when they are at the seaside... she would notice how people's faces turned slightly upward when they stared at the sea, as if they were straining to see a trace of God or were hearing the silent humming of the universe... people's faces became soft and wistful... sniffing the salty air for transcendence, for something that would allow them to escape the familiar prisons of their own skin."
The Space Between Us is a beautiful yet depressing novel that realistically captures the everyday relationship between the Indian social classes. Having lived in a similar situation growing up, Thrity Umrigar breathes life into a
In The Space Between Us, Thrity Umrigar weaves a story between the lives of Serabai, a Parsi middle class widow; and Bhima, her domestic servant for several decades. Serabai's extremely abusive and controlling husband dies suddenly leaving her to finally experience peace and happiness in her family life. In contrast, Bhima's husband loses three fingers on his hand and is left unemployed and unable to support his family. He turns to alcohol and then leaves her taking her only son with him. Bhima is forced to move to a tin shack in the slums without even running water, electricity, or private bathrooms. Her daughter and son in law die of AIDS in a poorly run underfunded government hospital leaving Bhima to raise her granddaughter.
Serabai lovingly cares for Bhimas granddaughter providing her with an education that is abruptly halted and her life possibly forever changed for the worse.
The Space Between Us goes from bad to worse as tragedy, pain, and hopelessness take over. The really depressing part is that this story is just a snapshot of the real situation taking place in many third world countries as well as India.
I highly recommend this book to book clubs because it is so thought provoking and can lead to some serious conversations and observations. I really look forward to reading additional books by this author. Ms. Umrigar has an unusual ability to breathe her characters to life. Her descriptions are rich, colorful, and full of texture. She does not waste a single word in the entire book.
In “the space between us,” there are secrets and stories never fully told or heard, even when the yearning to do so was great.
Throughout, the protagonist is searching for the freedom she saw in a poor solitary man, exiled from his home country and without family, eking out a living by making balloon animals on a dirty Bombay beach. She knew that he had somehow found peace. Her searching occurs quietly in the part of her heart not immersed in the demands of her poverty-laden life. The story ends with her discovery of the balloon maker’s secret of peace and freedom, after I had forgotten she still cared to find it.
Often when I am reading several books at the same time, they speak to one another. Desmond Tutu’s “The Book of Forgiving” was a nice companion for “The Space Between Us.”
A quote:
“Suddenly, she feels the desire to share the past with Maya. This is her inheritance after all, this currency of memories that Bhima carries around with her in an invisible sack. Perhaps the moment has come to share the inheritance with the girl, before the passage of time devalues it completely.
‘There used to be a balloon seller here,’ she says. ‘An old Afghani, a Pathan. A tall, dignified man. The children loved him. He used to make the most wonderful designs out of his balloons for them. Gopal would make chitchat with him—ask him how business was, where he lived in Bombay—but, but I never did. I don’t know why I never spoke to him, but I didn’t. I wish now that I had. I wanted so much to ask him—things.’
‘What things?’ Maya whispers. Her face glistens with anticipation, like it does each time Bhima throws morsels of memory at her.
‘Things like how he could bear to be so far away from his homeland, whether he missed his family, where his wife was. Because I knew he was all alone here in Bombay town. It was in his eyes, you see. Lonely as this sea, they were. I could see that in his eyes but still didn’t say anything.’
… ‘You see, I think he could’ve helped me . . . face what was to come later in my own life. He had the secret, see? The secret of loneliness. How to live with it, how to wrap it around your body and still be able to make beautiful, colorful things, like he did with those balloons. And he could’ve taught it to me, if only I’d asked.’”
Closing quotes:
“All Bhima can hear is the rhythmic sound of the lapping waves and the Pathan’s gentle words, murmuring to her, weaving a melody that’s equal parts loneliness and the recipe for overcoming loneliness; a melody that speaks of both the bitterness of exile and the sweetness of solitariness, of the fear of being alone in the world and the freedom that flaps its wings just below the fear. . . . Soon, the loneliness stops its wailing, and then the fear ceases its numbing drone, and all that is left is freedom—incessant, surging, and powerful. . . . Bhima doesn’t hear them. She is taking orders from a different authority now, following the fluttering sound in her ears, the sound of flapping wings, the sound of learning how to fly. Freedom.”
She searches the beach for a balloon man and when she splurges on a fistful of balloons, “The man looks at her as if he is afraid to trust his good luck. ‘Buying for a party for your mistress’s house?’ he says conversationally as he begins to fill each balloon.
‘I have no mistress,’ Bhima says curtly. And instead of tasting as bitter as aspirin, instead of tearing her mouth like jagged pieces of glass, the words taste sweet as Cadbury’s chocolate éclair in her mouth. ‘Hah. No mistress,’ she repeats.
She stands with the balloons on the edge of the dark sea, releasing them. And she contemplates a new day. “She will face it tomorrow, for Maya’s sake. . . . Tomorrow. The word hangs in the air for a moment, both a promise and a threat. Then it floats away like a paper boat, taken from her by the water licking her ankles. It is dark, but inside Bhima’s heart it is dawn.”
The book is also poorly plotted. It zigzags between past and present with little motivation. While other books build suspense about the main characters' past, this one reveals their secrets right off the bat, so there isn't much motivation to keep reading. The present-day plot line is so thin it's practically non-existant and I'd guessed the surprise ending in the first 50 pages. The book does go by surprisingly fast, but the awkward writing style and hackneyed metaphors don't make it very much fun to read.
Bottom line: some of this book's ideas about class and friendship will stick with me, but over all it's pretty lackluster.
Extremely well written; a good story with deep characters.
Umrigar's language is lush and descriptive but not a word is wasted. She is able to create a detailed world and to place the reader in the shoes of several different characters. A fascinating story carries her timeless message about the need to further question class divisions and the other lines we construct that separate us from each other. A gorgeous novel; highly recommended.
The themes in this book include: class difference, social norms and pressures for conformity, trust and loyalty, and above all, the space which exists between two people no matter how close they may seem to be: employer/employee, husband/wife, parent/child, and neighbor to neighbor. I did not like the structure of the story as well as the story. I think jumping backward and forward in time was unnecessary and detracted from the effect of the book. However, the character development was done very well.
Just short of being great, but very good!