Chaos Reading discussion

I've been looking for a reason to kick this one to the top of my reading list, and thanks to Nicholas now I have one! I have an out of town guest staying with me until Wednesday, so I won't actually get a chance to start until then. Looking forward to it!

Yay! So happy someone is doing this. I hope you don't mind me tweaking the thread title, just to make sure you get your proper credit :)

Karen wrote: "I've been looking for a reason to kick this one to the top of my reading list, and thanks to Nicholas now I have one! I have an out of town guest staying with me until Wednesday, so I won't actual..."

Looking forward to hearing what you have to say about this very interesting book,

I'm listening to this as an Audible audiobook.

A few chapters into it, I'm really grateful that I had the dumb luck to do this book as audio. I suspect reading it from a page would not have been nearly as intimate and hypnotic, and I am enjoying the effect very much. YAY for dumb luck! :)

I have a lot more to absorb before I will have any opinions to share, but it seems like I am going to like this book very much. One thing I am impressed with so far is the subtle and seamless way Thayil hands the story from one narrator to another, so that I am almost unaware that I am now observing through a new pair of eyes. Very dreamy. I've never smoked opium like the characters in this story frequently do, but the telling of it is making me feel like I understand the experience.

Karen wrote: "I'm listening to this as an Audible audiobook.

A few chapters into it, I'm really grateful that I had the dumb luck to do this book as audio. I suspect reading it from a page would not have been n..."

I don't usually like audiobooks, but you're selling this rather well! I'm intrigued. You've obviously found an appropriate narrator - and those seem hard to come by.

I'm about to re-read the Ray Bradbury story The Veldt on paper, just as an experiment to see how big a difference Colbert's (wonderful) narration made to the tone of the story. I wonder if I'll like it more or less...?

Just finished this today and, as is my habit, I'm going to let it percolate for a few days to see what bubbles up for me. I find I rarely know how I feel about a book immediately after finishing it, so I like giving the non-verbal parts of my brain a chance to weigh in before I start trying to talk, lol. :)

One of the things I like most of this book is the fact that the author doesn't ever judge.

Don't get me wrong. He does indeed show the reality of the Bombay drug community. He places the story in the correct seedy neighborhood, and he populates the story with the correct pimps, junkies, thieves and whores who belong there. He shows us the way they live, and the things they do for money, and how they feel when the drug sickness takes hold. But he does this without judging the worth of the men and women in the story. He doesn't say "these are bad people", or moralize that their choices have earned them misery in any way. He just shows us people, and tells us their history and their thoughts.

I found it refreshing that such an inflammatory subject be handled with moral neutrality. That left me free to really SEE these people, and understand aspects of their lives I might have missed if the author had been rubbing their pain judgmentally in my face.

I thought it was a great choice.

Karen wrote: "One of the things I like most of this book..."

This sounds pretty amazing. Bumping it up the TBR! Your post makes it sound a little like Last Exit To Brooklyn - in that people are depicted doing things that most people would see as terrible, but there's no moral judgement attached.

I also liked the fact that no one made any fuss about whether the hijra Dimple should be considered anything but a woman. She is occasionally referred to as a hijra-woman, or a eunuch, but never referred to as a boy or a man. I understand that this is an Indian cultural norm, but it is a fascinating contrast to the American cultural response to trans-persons.

It made me frustrated that my own society has so much trouble accepting people as being what they perceive themselves to be. How hard can it be, folks? You just assume that people know more than you do about who they are, and accept their self-assessment as being more informed than your own. Why do we have such difficulty with that concept?

Karen, I love that second para of yours. This is what I'm struggling to get through to people here too, with my work with Indigenous groups. But out here, people have a way of only seeing things through their own lenses, then passing judgement. So arrogant.

Arrogant is indeed the word. This is not a difficult skill to master, but so many people fail to see that they need to develop it.

Give it a try, folks. It isn't hard at all. And who knows, you might even find it is rewarding. And you deserve a reward after all, don't you? ;)

I treated myself to this book for christmas, so hopefully, I'll be able to discuss this with you soon.

I still love the way you phrased that earlier, "It made me frustrated that my own society has so much trouble accepting people as being what they perceive themselves to be. How hard can it be, folks? You just assume that people know more than you do about who they are, and accept their self-assessment as being more informed than your own. Why do we have such difficulty with that concept?"

Hear hear.

I hope you enjoy it. :D

I'm loving this so far. The writing is excellent, and the pages are just flying by. It has a wonderful atmosphere to it - I feel totally immersed in 1970s Mumbai/Bombay.

Glad you're enjoying this one, Ruby. :)