Book Reviewed By Darold H. Morgan
President Emeritus of the Annuity Board of the SBC
A Fine Balance
Robinton Mistry, New York: Vintage, 1995. $15.
At the request of the editor here is a review of a novel, spot- lighted on the Oprah TV show, a first for the Christian Ethics Journal. A good place to begin is to compliment Oprah Winfrey and her phenomenally successful Book Club, an outgrowth of her television program. Any encouragement to read in this age is welcomed when much of television has all but eliminated reading for many. Then comes this extraordinary list of books which are recommended by Oprah’s Book Club. Great numbers of folks all around the country are responding and reading. By no means are all of these recommendations suitable for church libraries, but most of them are and some merit serious consideration by serious readers.
Mistry’s novel of life in India is one such book. It is an intriguing story, primarily of four diverse characters caught up in the churning events in India in the 1970s when colonialism was ending and the internecine religious wars were producing repercussions felt far and wide. News headlines today constantly call attention to events involving India and Pakistan. India is heralded as the world’s largest democracy, but in the shadows of this part of the world are reconfiguring influences which mandate serious understanding.
So any effort to move to a more precise understanding about India, especially by Westerners, is a step in the right direction if for no other reason than the demographer’s conclusion that in our lifetime India in all likelihood will become the most populous nation on earth. Add to that the obvious fact that there has been a migration of great numbers of both Indians and Pakistanis to America, both for education and employment. Practically every center of higher education in the United States has surprising numbers of these enterprising students who have brought with them their culture and religion which clamor for understanding. ˆ Uniquely, reading this novel will assist the perceptive Christian who is aware that the missionary imperative is now on our doorstep and not ten thousand miles away.
The novel is in its structure, plot, and characterizations far from the usual western “happy-ending” format. The problems of these four primary figures in the story carry the weight of the centuries of Indian culture, religion, and conflicts. There are contradictions too deep to overcome. The poverty is too grinding. The caste distinctions are so massive that even the author, who is deeply grounded in these forms, must wrestle agonizingly with the demands. The strength of Mistry’s writing is in its sheer realism, combined with a powerful, exciting, and painful story which balances realism and tragedy with memorable effect.
There are ethical issues of massive proportions both in the time and locale of the story, issues which are alive and provocative now. One of these is the religious conflict. Hinduism and Islam are still at dagger points in this part of the world. There has been a most interesting revival of both faiths, particularly in what many are calling “a fundamentalistic interpretation.” Seeing this conflict from the poverty-stricken side of Indian life is a very brutal way of reacting to this challenge.
The position of women is another major ethical issue in the book. A key figure in the story is the widow who has to face almost daily the pressures of her life in this culture. That the novel notes some progress toward a more equitable life for women is encouraging, but there is a long, arduous and torturous path ahead.
The unusual Indian caste system is an almost undecipherable problem for the American mind. In the novel, there is encouragement, as the key issue in the story is the effort of the Untouchables to seek a better way of life. One of the unwritten conclusions of the book is a lesson for Westerners — we must try to understand better the religions and cultures of India. With an unusual subtlety, Mistry brushes his writing with an introduction to the inevitable clashes of western values with an Asiatic culture. How this all will turn out is yet to be decided.
Among our readers are perhaps some who relegate fiction below their list of preferred reading. Here is a fictional story which merits serious consideration, perhaps to the level of required reading.
