A Fine Balance (Oprah's Book Club)

A Fine Balance (Oprah's Book Club)
by Rohinton Mistry

A Fine Balance (Oprah's Book Club)
List Price: $15.95
Our Price: $4.99
You Save: $10.96 (69%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.17 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Rohinton Mistry
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2001-11-30
ISBN: 140003065X
Number of pages: 624
Publisher: Vintage

Book Reviews of A Fine Balance (Oprah's Book Club)

Book Review: Delectable and Disturbing
Summary: 4 Stars

This is not a book for the faint of heart. It relates the interwoven histories of four main characters and several peripheral individulas who impact on their lives. Try to imagine people who are floating together in one huge river in India, a river that is made up of currents of brutality, avarice, corruption and cruelty - all blending and separating and rejoining in a nonending and inescapable life force. The characters never get out. At times they may escape some, or all, of these currents, but only for a short while, and never long enough to be able to stand upright and make a break for the shore.

In the end, some of the characters are destroyd by their toxic environment; others survive and manage to keep (varying amounts of) their spirits alive; none of them are able to get what they wanted out of life.

Both the most beautiful and the most terrible thing about reading this book is that Mr. Mistry's writing is so transcendent that the reader is sucked into the characters' river of despair, comes to know and love its inhabitants, and suffers with them. I had to put the book down several times and come back to it after I had time to catch my breath and regain my equilibrium. Perhaps it is worse if, like me, you have visited India and know that Mr. Mistry is not making this up. His characters may be fictional but their experiences are true.

Summary of A Fine Balance (Oprah's Book Club)

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.

Contemporary Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Ashley's Must-Read Modern Fiction #3
Unless: A Novel (P.S.) ImageUnless: A Novel (P.S.)
by Carol Shields
Harper Perennial; Published: 2006-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.71
Price in other shops: $13.95
Last Exit to Brooklyn ImageLast Exit to Brooklyn
by Hubert Selby
Bloomsbury Pub Ltd; Published: 2000-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.95
Austerlitz (Modern Library Paperbacks) ImageAusterlitz (Modern Library Paperbacks)
by Winfried Georg Sebald, Anthea Bell
Modern Library; Published: 2002-09-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.75
Price in other shops: $14.95
Staying On: A Novel (Phoenix Fiction Series) ImageStaying On: A Novel (Phoenix Fiction Series)
by Paul Scott
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 1998-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops: $15.00
The Catcher in the Rye ImageThe Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
Back Bay Books; Published: 2001-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.49
Price in other shops: $13.99
Collected Short Stories of Saki (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Classics) ImageCollected Short Stories of Saki (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Classics)
by Hugh Munroe Munro
Wordsworth Editions Ltd; Published: 1999-12-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.72
Price in other shops: $5.99
Bonjour Tristesse ImageBonjour Tristesse
by Francoise Sagan
Harper Perennial; Published: 2001-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.48
Price in other shops: $12.95
Pedro Paramo ImagePedro Paramo
by Juan Rulfo
Grove Press; Published: 1994-03-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops: $13.00
The Satanic Verses: A Novel ImageThe Satanic Verses: A Novel
by Salman Rushdie
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2008-03-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.83
Price in other shops: $16.00
The Human Stain: A Novel ImageThe Human Stain: A Novel
by Philip Roth
Vintage; Published: 2001-05-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.90
Price in other shops: $14.95
Similar Books and other products
Swimming Lessons: and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag ImageSwimming Lessons: and Other Stories from Firozsha Baag
by Rohinton Mistry
Vintage; Published: 1997-02-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.24
Price in other shops: $13.95
City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi ImageCity of Djinns: A Year in Delhi
by William Dalrymple
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2003-03-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.98
Price in other shops: $16.00
Midnight's Children: A Novel ImageMidnight's Children: A Novel
by Salman Rushdie
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2006-04-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.85
Price in other shops: $14.95
The Space Between Us: A Novel (P.S.) ImageThe Space Between Us: A Novel (P.S.)
by Thrity Umrigar
Harper Perennial; Published: 2007-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.72
Price in other shops: $14.95
A Suitable Boy : A Novel (Perennial Classics) ImageA Suitable Boy : A Novel (Perennial Classics)
by Vikram Seth
Published: 2005-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.45
Price in other shops: $21.95
Interpreter of Maladies ImageInterpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri
Mariner Books; Published: 1999-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.50
Price in other shops: $14.95
The God of Small Things ImageThe God of Small Things
by Arundhati Roy
Published: 1998-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.02
Price in other shops: $14.00
Family Matters ImageFamily Matters
by ROHINTON MISTRY
Published: 2002-09-17; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops: $26.00
Such a Long Journey ImageSuch a Long Journey
by Rohinton Mistry
Vintage; Published: 1992-06-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.17
Price in other shops: $14.95
Shantaram: A Novel ImageShantaram: A Novel
by Gregory David Roberts
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2005-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.60
Price in other shops: $14.95
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories