The White Tiger: A Novel (Man Booker Prize) | 
 enlarge | Author: Aravind Adiga
Publisher: Free Press
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  73 reviews
Sales Rank: 60
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 1416562605
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.92
EAN: 9781416562603
ASIN: 1416562605
Publication Date: October 14, 2008
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Product Description
Introducing a major literary talent, The White Tiger offers a story of coruscating wit, blistering suspense, and questionable morality, told by the most volatile, captivating, and utterly inimitable narrator that this millennium has yet seen.Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life -- having nothing but his own wits to help him along. Born in the dark heart of India, Balram gets a break when he is hired as a driver for his village's wealthiest man, two house Pomeranians (Puddles and Cuddles), and the rich man's (very unlucky) son. From behind the wheel of their Honda City car, Balram's new world is a revelation. While his peers flip through the pages of Murder Weekly ("Love -- Rape -- Revenge!"), barter for girls, drink liquor (Thunderbolt), and perpetuate the Great Rooster Coop of Indian society, Balram watches his employers bribe foreign ministers for tax breaks, barter for girls, drink liquor (single-malt whiskey), and play their own role in the Rooster Coop. Balram learns how to siphon gas, deal with corrupt mechanics, and refill and resell Johnnie Walker Black Label bottles (all but one). He also finds a way out of the Coop that no one else inside it can perceive. Balram's eyes penetrate India as few outsiders can: the cockroaches and the call centers; the prostitutes and the worshippers; the ancient and Internet cultures; the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger. And with a charisma as undeniable as it is unexpected, Balram teaches us that religion doesn't create virtue, and money doesn't solve every problem -- but decency can still be found in a corrupt world, and you can get what you want out of life if you eavesdrop on the right conversations. Sold in sixteen countries around the world, The White Tiger recalls The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, and narrative genius, with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation -- and a startling, provocative debut.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 68 more reviews...
interesting look at modern India December 2, 2008
It's a good book. I don't know whether all the hype is justified though. I like how it's structured as a series of letters to the Chinese Premier. It's a novel way to write a... novel. The main character is an interesting guy/sociopath with a penchant for learning from his "masters" and he learns very well how to work the corrupt system. I think the key point to the story is when he decides that what happens to his family as a result of his actions doesn't matter to him. That's the part that left me chilled - more than the murder of his boss. The murder is often cited as the high point, or most exciting part of the book, but I think it's more telling about the character that he knows his family will be killed/tortured as a result and he does it anyway. Good book, but not quite enough for five stars.
 Read this award winner November 30, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The White Tiger just won the Man Booker prize. It is a well-deserved award. (I first heard about The White Tiger when it won a place on the Man Booker short list.)
Many others will write long-winded reviews, so I'll spare you. Suffice it to say that this is a terrifically fun--although not intentionally funny--book. The author does such a fine job of character and place development that you see the people and events in your mind's eye. (That's another way of saying that you're really disappointed when you turn the last page, come to the end, and have to leave. You want to hang around and learn more, but there is no more. Sad......) The language is crisp and breezy. The author remains focused on his tale and doesn't meander all over the countryside with needless detail and side stories.
This is a strong five-star book that I'm sure will garner more awards.
By the way, have you noticed the exploding number of books--obviously non-fiction, but also fiction--centered on what we Westerners arrogantly call the Near East? In the 1980s, it was hip to be from Australia--authors, rock bands, whatever. The '90s was all about Ireland, Celtic music, and River Dance. (Have the McCourt brothers finally stopped regurgitating their pathetic family history? It was really becoming immodest.) Post-9/11 is the era of the Near East: Afganistan, Pakistan, India, etc.
With The White Tiger, Aravind Adiga has set the bar very high for fiction based in that region of the world.
(I also recommend The Wasted Vigil, which is based in Afganistan. Read my and other reviews. That is a much heavier story than The White Tiger, but a marvelous five-star book. I know it will be considered for literature's highest awards.)
Fun, fascinating November 30, 2008
Aravind Adiga's THE WHITE TIGER is a compelling novel that never gets lost in the details of India. To put a finer point on it -- the story remains the main focus and the main character Balram's narrative voice is the entire reason that Adiga can keep politics and story balanced so well. Despite Balram's flaws as a person, he has a worldview that keeps the reader fascinated.
This is a novel that has something to say, but only after Balram completes his journey from young, naive sweets-maker to murderous entrepreneur. The entire time I wanted to know exactly what would become of Balram -- what business would he start, what would he decide about his family, what would cause him to murder his boss/surrogate Father Ashok (this is not a spoiler, as Balram reveals the murder early on).
The novel's use of letters as the narrative engine does get a bit lost in the middle. The letters seem unfocused during the third and fourth day, although they ultimately do get to the main events that Balram promises to discuss. The narrative feels more like a journal at these points than a series of focused letters written to the Premier of China and designed to illustrate the entrepreneurial spirit of Indians. Still, that doesn't harm the overall thrill of the novel and an argument can be made that Balram is writing a confession of sorts.
I look forward to more from Adiga.
 Well written November 26, 2008
Well written book from the eyes of a driver in India. His style of narrative is funny in some places, scary in others. We can see his transformation from a dumb villager to that of a murderer happen very clearly, and so the story remains very believable.
Munna Has Flown The Coop! November 26, 2008
When "The White Tiger" won the Man Booker Prize this year more than a few of the world's literati were shocked that this dark horse of a novel triumphed over the work of other, better known writers. More than a few reviewers questioned whether "The White Tiger" was worthy of the honor that had been bestowed upon it. Although I haven't read the other novels that were shortlisted for the prize, so I can't say how it compares, I can say that this is one of the best novels I've read this year. And I read a lot of novels.
Among this novel's many favorable attributes is one that I prize above all others in fiction: honesty. "The White Tiger" is unfailingly, brutally honest as it casts a gimlet eye upon Indian society, politics, capitalism, and its characters. And honesty is, I think, the primary responsibility of a novelist.
I won't summarize the novel because many others have already done that and I see no sense in covering familiar ground. Those who say that the characters are more caricature than flesh and blood humans may be right, but characterization is not the best reason to read "The White Tiger."
The best reason to read this novel is the insight it will give you into a social, political and economic system that relentlessly seeks to keep the poor in their predetermined places. Balram Halwai, the main character, comes from a social and economic background so impoverished that when he rises to level of driver for a rich landlord's son, it seems to him a stroke of unbelievable good fortune. A roach infested room is paradise in a country where entire families live on the sidewalks. Gradually, however, Balram's eyes begin to open to the realities of the world around him, like the Buddha, he awakens. But what he does once he is awake is a whole different thing. Think Manil Suri meets Jim Thompson.
This novel has a lot to offer the thoughtful reader: lively writing, trenchant wit, a page-turning story, and a charming, but deadly anti-hero in Balram. Its shortcomings are minor by comparison. Congratulations to Aravind Adiga. I look forward to reading his next novel.
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