Hi everyone!
I've decided to devote my Saturday and Sunday blogs to entertainment-related features. Saturdays will take the form of a book review, while Sundays will most likely consist of a movie or some other type of artistic review. Culture and the arts have always been a big part of my life and I kind of like the idea of taking some time off from political and current affairs analysis/discussion to focus on other passions.
I spent the bulk of this Saturday afternoon finishing British-Indian writer Aravind Adiga's latest novel, "Last Man in Tower." Mr. Adiga won the Man Booker Prize a few years ago for his novel "The White Tiger," which I own but have yet to make it past the first few pages. Based on "Last Man in Tower," however, I feel I am going to have to revisit the earlier novel because Mr. Adiga is quite the literary talent.
In brief, "Last Man in Tower" tells the story of the residents of Vishram Society Tower B on the outskirts of the vast Vakola slum in Mumbai, India. Dharmen Shah, an avuncular real estate developer whose glitzy high-rise building projects are devouring the Mumbai skyline, makes a generous offer to the inhabitants of Tower B to buy their flats for an extraordinary sum in order to raze the building to the ground for a new glamourous high-rise development. There is a hitch, however: the decision to accept Mr. Shah's offer has to be unanimous and has to accepted by a certain date or else the entire offer is rescinded.
Of course, Mr. Shah has no intention of being refused. He employs a certain Mr. Shanmugham, his "left-hand" man, to essentially strong-arm the residents of Vishram Society Tower B to accept his offer, using less than ethical tactics (bribery and extortion) to turn the residents against each other. An elderly, retired and respected schoolteacher and widower, "Masterji," ends up the last hold-out. Masterji is 'the last man in tower' and what happens to him as a result of his stubborn resistance to corporate corruption provides the basis of Mr. Adiga's novel.
"Last Man in Tower" is perhaps best described as an allegory. What happens within Vishram Tower B is no doubt representative of Indian society-at-large. The perspective is largely negative. Mr. Adiga is fairly ruthless in his portrayal of a society rife with corruption and violence, where life is cheap regardless of whether one lives in a shanty amidst desperate migrants in Vakola or a penthouse among Bollywood hotties in Bandra. The faintest whiff of money causes seemingly decent and protective mothers to smear excrement all over a neighbor's door or a young boy to beat up an elderly man in his own living room. People who have co-existed as neighbors in a more-or-less amiable fashion for decades suddenly turn on and inform upon each other and--ultimately--conspire to commit murder, all for the sake of a shot at a better life for themselves and their children.
Mr. Adiga's narrative voice is sharp. He is unstinting in his descriptions of the sights and smells of modern-day Mumbai. And while his characters often behave in ways that are objectionable at best and reprehensible at worst, the reader gets the feeling that he has a lot of affection for these people...as a result, the reader does as well.
As much as I enjoyed the novel (I read the last 100 or so pages in one sitting), I do think it could have been shortened by about 50 or so pages. I had more-or-less figured out what was going to happen before it happened and as a result I wasn't particularly shocked by the outcome. Still, Mr. Adiga's characters are so well-drawn and his descriptions so visceral, I couldn't help but turn the pages.
If you are looking for a fictional account of life in modern Mumbai...or are particularly drawn to stories that portray the shameless lengths people will go to for the sake of money, "Last Man in Tower" is a worthy investment of your time.
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