The title says it all, just not with the usual understandings!
The Aunt Who Wouldn't Die by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay
Cautionary tale, mythology, philosophical reader, a traditional story feminist? Maybe all, some or. One of the above. One thing is true, this is definitely not funny.
Kismet? Reincarnation? Or making choices pushed on by changing times, a ghost, your own set of beliefs, or simple taking up the mantle of survival?
Bride Somlata marries into the Mitra family. She is from a poor but determined family. Traits that will stand her and her new family in good stead.
Then there's the aunt/sister-in-law Pishma, a child widow locked in her own set of rooms buoyed up by her anger at the Mitras, and a cache of jewelry. A cache she alerts Somlata about in a rather unexpected way.
Somlata's daughter Boshon floats through life, rebelling against her culture. She likes being alone and testing people. Her relationship with a poorer boy who returns from America shows her lack of empathy.
The last test she executes is rather horrid but fits in a weird way with what has gone before. Is this then a moral tale? I'm unsure, maybe. But it is a story with gravitas.
Magic realism adds to this culturally imbedded story of a Bengali family told from the perspective of three generations of women.
Delicately written, despite some of the harsh happenings, an unassuming and rewarding read.
A HarperCollins ARC via NetGalley
****
Cautionary tale, mythology, philosophical reader, a traditional story feminist? Maybe all, some or. One of the above. One thing is true, this is definitely not funny.
Kismet? Reincarnation? Or making choices pushed on by changing times, a ghost, your own set of beliefs, or simple taking up the mantle of survival?
Bride Somlata marries into the Mitra family. She is from a poor but determined family. Traits that will stand her and her new family in good stead.
Then there's the aunt/sister-in-law Pishma, a child widow locked in her own set of rooms buoyed up by her anger at the Mitras, and a cache of jewelry. A cache she alerts Somlata about in a rather unexpected way.
Somlata's daughter Boshon floats through life, rebelling against her culture. She likes being alone and testing people. Her relationship with a poorer boy who returns from America shows her lack of empathy.
The last test she executes is rather horrid but fits in a weird way with what has gone before. Is this then a moral tale? I'm unsure, maybe. But it is a story with gravitas.
Magic realism adds to this culturally imbedded story of a Bengali family told from the perspective of three generations of women.
Delicately written, despite some of the harsh happenings, an unassuming and rewarding read.
A HarperCollins ARC via NetGalley
****
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