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A Fine Balance

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What a pleasure it was to read this book.. I am an impatient reader, oft unable to complete a book -- this book raced through, and I was as sad for myself, for having finished the book, as I was towards the beautifully built characters.. A hallmark of a great writer, build characters soundly... Rohinton Mistry - I salute you!

To any reader: Worth every second of your time reading this book -- whether you are aware of the political and social turmoil of the times, or not...

I love this book, and will most probably read it many times over...

I read a LOT of books. And by that I mean two or three a week, mostly fiction, from classic literature to present-day works. Writing such declarations may seem pompous, but it bolsters my opinion that "A Fine Balance" is without doubt one of the most glorious novels I have ever read. It is sweeping, tragic, stylish, funny, historical, heroic, engrossing, and rich. It fairly breathes with life. The characters went to bed with me at night and rose with me in the morning. The smells (both good and bad) still linger in my nostrils a week after having finished the book. I feel as if I have been sitting at Aunty Dina's table eating dal and chapattis with Manek, Ishvar, and Om, so acquainted have I become with the author's rendering of their idiosyncracies, their looks, their manner of speaking. This book is work of genius; I know of no other way to describe it.

"A fine balance" starts with slightly confusing and totally unnecessary time shifts which fail to give the story dynamics or some kind of percieved structural quality the author might have intended and is just a little annoying. But this is not too bad since the main characters quickly win the readers heart and suck him into the story.
Unfortunately it is the storyline that lacks quality: too many bad things happen to the same people - this is no more credible. The end is simply not only sad but depressing. I suppose Mistry just wanted to include too many of the ugly aspects of Indian life in one book. He certainly is capable to write a great novel but failed this time.
Well, it is just a novel, a made-up reality, maybe Mistry`s one. But it is not mine. I have seen a lot of hardship and poverty in India, but there is much more than that. My India fascinates by its huge and cruel contrasts. Mistry only shows the dark sides.

Eigentlich habe ich keinen besonderen Bezug zu Indien und wurde auch nur durch den günstigen Preis in der Buchhandlung (second hand) dazu verleitet, das Buch zu kaufen. Aber wie so oft hat sich der Zufallskauf als echter Glücksgriff entpuppt.

"A Fine Balance" ist eine sehr gut geschriebene und ausgesprochen bewegende Geschichte, die von der ersten bis zur letzten Seite fesselt. Die Hauptfiguren sind sehr gut gelungen, und man kommt nicht umhin, sich ihr (oft sehr dramatisches) Schicksal sehr zu Herzen zu nehmen. Ein wirklich exzellentes Buch. Und so ganz nebenbei lernt man einiges über Indiens Geschichte, den Alltag der Menschen und die Probleme des Landes.

Insgesamt wirklich sehr empfehlenswert.

I obviously missed the point of A Fine Balance. Other readers here have raved about how this novel captures "that fine balance between hope and sorrow," etc., but what I read was an incredibly depressing story about a few characters with hopeless lives who are subject to endless acts of pain. In the beginning it wasn't so bad -- I thought, "Okay, here are a few nasty things that these characters have to deal with. It's all part of the character and plot development." But IT NEVER ENDS, and eventually any progress that the characters or the story actually achieve comes crumbling down under the weight of the ridiculous events that the characters are made to endure. Near the end, I started skipping the acts of torture out of sheer annoyance. I wish someone would enlighten me about what really makes this book so wonderful.

for all of us who think ill of our politicians and our state in general - this book is a MUST. It shows in a breathtaking tale, how in modern India each and every person plays his little game of power, crime and intrigue and gets away with it, as law + order is nowhere to be found - especially not for women and the poor. Mistry describes the life of Dina Dalal, a widow, who refuses to re-marry a man her brother has chosen for her, and cleverly sets about to get into her own business= sewing fashion for an export-firm - in her own flat. She hires two tailors + takes in a student as a boarder to scrape along. They all become a family of some sorts - Mistry tells us in much detail about their life- how it improves through hard work and good will - but as we learn more about each charakter, we realize, these 5 people are sitting on a thin plate of ice swimming in choppy waters. To us Westeners- it seems incredible - how hard all these people struggle - and what a FINE BALANCE is required to keep this fragile but slowly changing social system afloat.
A lovely book that will definitely widen your horizon + outlook not only about Indian life, but humankind in general, by a great author! You'll be unable to put it down until it's finished. And you'll ask yourself: "what am I complaining about ??"

Ohhh, I loved this book. It brings many of the events from the Internal Emergency in India together using four main characters and a host of smaller ones. Not only does it show the events during this time (and harshly criticise them) the characters are really interesting and developed. You don't need a background in Indian history to understand this story, it is almost better when things surprise you like they surprise the characters. The language is also really well used and developed. Mistry keeps adjusting the tempo of the book to suit the events. I highly recommend this one.

While I read through this long book pretty quickly because it is clearly written, and it is good in terms of letting you visualize the scenes and characters, I found it to be too preachy and steinbecky. Some bad things happen, then some more bad things happen, then some bad people do bad things to good people, followed by worse things, horrible violent things, and a horrible thing. In between, some minor bad things happen, but there is a bit of humour here and there, plus some touching moments and the boy and the woman and the two tailors develop a friendship that seems a little too cartoony for me. There are interesting quirks throughout, I found Beggarmaster to be one of the best characters in the novel, and the landowners in the tailors' villiage to be the most one-dimensional. Mistry overwrote this book. When I see his collection of short stories from Firozha Baag, I realize that he is capable of creating much better pieces than this almost propaganda-like tradgedy. I give it 4 stars because of its ability to read and its genuine sympathy for human suffering. But that's generous.

A Fine Balance is, hands down, one of the best books I've ever read--and I read a lot! The cast of characters is Dickensian, the sweep of the narrative expansive. But the heart of this book is in the details, which are brilliantly wrought and which carry the reader straight into this seething, beautiful, and devastating world. I couldn't put this book down, and when I was finished, I just wanted to go back and start again. Mistry's "fine balance," between hope and despair, is portrayed with such an aching humanity; it brings brilliantly to life all those news reports from distant and difficult places that we see all the time on TV. This is a great and important book: It will not only keep you utterly engrossed from start to finish, but it will also enlarge your humanity.

Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance. (1995)

Winner of the 1996 Commonwealth Writers Prize; shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize.

Text on back cover (other edition):

'In a tiny flat of the widowed Dina Dalal, Ishvar and Omprakash Darji, tailors who have been forced from their village into the city, and Maneck Kohlah, a young student from a hill-station near the Himalayas, are painfully constructing new lives which become entwined in circumstances no one could have foreseen. Set in the mid-1970s India, A Fine Balance is a subtle and compelling narrative about these four unlikely characters who come together soon after the government declares a "State of Emergency".'

This book is the best I have read in a long time. As the title indicates, it is about the fine balance in life which so often seems to be disrupted by events beyond our control. Whether it is the balance necessary in living together, in accepting the course of events in your life, or even the realisation that people are not only as they seem at first sight - A Fine balance contains all, and much more besides. It is a sad book, and angry novel; but just as life, it offers us precious moments and creates a balance between what we hope for and what we fear. The line between the two is a fine one.

I would like to tell you that everything works out fine in the end. I would like to say that there is a balance kept. But Mistry's quoting Balzac before beginning his story already indicates that it is a tragedy:

"Holding this book in your hands, sinking back in your soft armchair, you will say to yourself: perhaps it will amuse me. And after you have read this story of great misfortunes, you will no doubt dine well, blaming the author for your own insensitivity, accusing him of exaggeration and flights of fancy. But rest assured: this tragedy is not a fiction. All is true."