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A Fine Balance

by Rohinton Mistry
A Fine Balance

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  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9781400030651
ISBN10: 140003065X
Condition: Standard


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From Powells.com

25 Books to Read Before You Die: World Edition

Travel the globe with these not-to-be-missed titles.


Staff Pick

A Fine Balance floored me; it was more emotionally affecting than almost any other book I've read. Mistry's sweeping, epic story, fantastic cast of characters, and gorgeous sensory imagery paints a full-to-bursting portrait of India and its people. Dickensian in scope and devastating in impact, A Fine Balance is one of the masterpieces of the 20th century. Recommended By Jill O., Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers — a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village — will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.

As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.

Review

"Astonishing. . . . A rich and varied spectacle, full of wisdom and laughter and the touches of the unexpectedly familiar through which literature illuminates life." Wall Street Journal

Review

"A serious and important work . . . the product of high intelligence and passionate conviction." New York Review of Books

Review

"Monumental. . . . Few have caught the real sorrow and inexplicable strength of India, the unaccountable crookedness and sweetness, as well as Mistry." Pico Iyer, Time

About the Author

Rohinton Mistry was born in Bombay and now lives near Toronto. His first novel, Such a Long Journey, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and received, among other awards, the Governor General's Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book of the Year. A Fine Balance is his second novel, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction, the Giller Prize, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize as well as a Booker Prize finalist. Mistry is also the author of Swimming Lessons, a collection of short stories.

5.0 24

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating 5.0 (24 comments)

`
MaryM , August 17, 2016
This is an epic novel. The world it portrays is complicated, absorbing, rich, and heartbreaking. The characters are so finely drawn and fully imagined they have a solidity and presence that lasts well beyond the last page. They survive against overwhelming odds--damaged, broken, but persistent in their resilience and determination to live, to be themselves, and to be a family for each other, even though their connection is more accidental than actual. I was so invested in these characters, their crazy bravery and dignity in the face of a brutal and corrupt world, that the final scene came as a devastating blow, the end of the story felt hard as the loss of a personal friend. This is a book you won't easily forget.

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Jena , August 12, 2012 (view all comments by Jena)
Wow... Just wow. (If you haven't read this yet, what are you waiting for?)

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lissi , September 07, 2011 (view all comments by lissi)
How Mistry found humor and humanity in such a sad tale is amazing. How these characters remained human under the harsh conditions that were imposed is remarkable. I just finished and I feel the sadness of these characters and of this story will remain with me for some time.

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nancy2ken , January 01, 2011
I will never view India the same way again. I couldn't put the book down, but didn't want it to end. Rohinton is a master of detail and character development.

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braun , January 31, 2010
Love this book! The characters are amazing. Even after years of reading this, the story is still with me. Sad but inspiring!

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MEH , January 21, 2010
I cried at the end of this book.

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jadelin , January 17, 2010 (view all comments by jadelin)
This is a highly engrossing novel. While reading A Fine Balance, I found myself captivated by the gritty and real images of suffering and of life for its characters. At times I found this hard to read, but I attribute that to my own desire to escape thinking about the inner workings of those whose lives are lived yearning for better. Minstry's storytelling abilities are a true gift and I look forward to his next gift to us.

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sgreentag , January 11, 2010 (view all comments by sgreentag)
With its epic scope yet lovingly detailed characters, this masterpiece is both social commentary and intimate portrait. How perfect a book for the oughts -- giving the non-Indian a vivid, unsentimental look at this global neighbor, while painting one of life's bleaker pictures, all the while reminding us of our powers of resilience.

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Inga , January 11, 2010 (view all comments by Inga)
Very intense and not exactly uplifting, but well worth it if you can handle a little tragedy in your novels. Many images from this book are still vivid in my mind, 7 years after reading.

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Carol Banker , January 06, 2010 (view all comments by Carol Banker)
despite the "oprah pick" (which can often times annoy me) this book is truly incredible. it is a tragic tale filled with characters that you will fall in love with and care about every step of the way. i know i am not doing it justice by this lame endorsement, but you just gotta trust me. get it. read it. weep.

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canuckreadingfan , January 02, 2010 (view all comments by canuckreadingfan)
An amazing tale of family relations and Indian politics in the 70s, this book made me teeter on that "fine balance between hope and despair". I never thought I could inhabit the body and mind of a legless beggar, but Rohinton Mistry's deceptively straightforward narrative made this happen.

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SFbookie , January 01, 2010 (view all comments by SFbookie)
This book has stuck with me since i read it 7 years ago. The portrayal of life in India is mesmerizing, haunting, exhilarating. It pre-dated "Slumdog Millionaire" and delved more deeply into the social, cultural, and political turmoil that has existed in India for generations. I hope to read it again.

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SFbookie , January 01, 2010 (view all comments by SFbookie)
This book has stuck with me since i read it 7 years ago. The portrayal of life in India is mesmerizing, haunting, exhilarating. It pre-dated "Slumdog Millionaire" and delved more deeply into the social, cultural, and political turmoil that has existed in India for generations. I hope to read it again.

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nancy buchanan , January 01, 2010
This novel swept through 40 years of India's history, making relationships between the various castes exceptionally alive. Heartbreaking but important. The book of the decade.

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Paul F. , January 01, 2010
"A Fine Balance" represents one of the most powerful novels of recent years. In its rendering of Indian society following partition, the fates of the unconnected are insightfully followed as their joys of human existence are ground away by immense poverty. This is a book that has moved all whom I know who have read it. By producing a work where its protagonists shriek out in pain and one that shuns a Hollywood ending, Mistry forces the reader to feel the unfairness of society much as did the writings of Zola or Dickens.

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Disa Lindgren , January 01, 2010
This book is absolutely captivating! Beautifully written, the character development is handled with both depth and sensitivity and the reader comes to care deeply for the protagonists and their community. The author's skill both inspires and transports the reader to a different time (and Americans to a different land), it recognizes the fraility and ugliness in life, but also celebrates the capacity for human beings to do and be good.

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sadako10 , January 01, 2010
rich language, history, family life, political struggle. This book has it all and is written with eloquence and a deep love of it's subject. A brilliant novel.

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Susan Edwards , January 01, 2010 (view all comments by Susan Edwards)
A Fine Balance knocked my socks off and took my breath away. The twists and turns of the plot and the range of human experience seem larger than life, but perhaps not unusual for fictional India.

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NamastePj , January 01, 2010 (view all comments by NamastePj)
I could have nominated any one of Rohinton Mistry's fine books. Each one is a treasure. His feelings for and about India are unlike anyone else I've ever read. He is unblinkingly honest and deeply enamoured of her simultaneously. His language is magnificent and I love his sense of humor. His characters are so finely drawn that years later I still find myself thinking of them and even missing them as if they were people I really knew. But it is his honestly about and love of India that I most appreciate.

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Tanya Lily Ford , August 26, 2009
This is one of those books that will stay with you long after you have closed it, stored it in the shelf and taken another book. It is the juxtaposition that is difficult to comprehend, the hopelessness of it all and yet the timid contentment in the companionship of others that is so difficult to reconcile in this day in age. The characters take blow after blow that life dishes out and as the pages become harder to turn and your heart becomes heavy with the pain, despair, regret that is felt by the characters you come to realize that this book is not going to have a happy ending that we have become so accustomed to, no twist that will make it all better. You realize that this book is a tribute to those that live a hard life, the events are not sugar coated for those with weak stomachs or whose rose colored glasses are fixed firmly on the bridge of their nose. It tells the story of thousands of anonymous lives who victory is a firm grasp of this living plane and the comfort of companionship. And for this I say thanks. A mesmerizing read.

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avid book reader , March 21, 2009 (view all comments by avid book reader)
This book is my favorite of all time. I would recommend it to everyone! It is a must read!

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tayyabajkhan , March 26, 2008
I was recommended to read this book by a total stranger I encountered in a public library. The American lady said to me, 'If you enjoy literature then you've got to read "A Fine Balance". I wish I could thank the lady for helping me select one of the greatest book I've ever read in a long time. I not only enjoyed the book, I loved it, and literally cried and laughed with the characters, for the fact that these characters were not imaginary, but they exist in a real world, maybe with different names.

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Laurie Blum , September 15, 2007 (view all comments by Laurie Blum)
I am signed up for a trip to visit the country of India December 2007 - January 2008 ... Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance" is suggested reading. It was a pleasure re-reading this astonishing novel once again, should be read by everyone who loves books! "A Fine Balance" is THE India novel which transforms our understanding of life! The main characters will crawl into your heart - 4 stars!

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Tooky , May 24, 2006 (view all comments by Tooky)
One of the best books I have ever read!!!! A must read!!!! I could not put it down and even today, 4 years after I read it, I can still remember the characters vividly in my mind. Definitely worth the read!!!!

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Product Details

ISBN:
9781400030651
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
11/30/2001
Publisher:
PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE
Series info:
Oprah's Book Club
Pages:
624
Height:
1.30IN
Width:
5.20IN
Thickness:
1.25
Series:
Oprah's Book Club (Paperback)
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
2001
Series Volume:
59
UPC Code:
2801400030653
Author:
Rohinton Mistry
Media Run Time:
B
Subject:
Historical fiction
Subject:
Apartment houses
Subject:
Fiction
Subject:
City and town life
Subject:
Domestic fiction
Subject:
Literature-A to Z
Subject:
FICTION / Literary

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List Price:$19.00
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