Alexandra Jacobs at the New York Times:
Almost 20 years in the making, “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” by Kiran Desai, is not so much a novel as a marvel. In an era of hot takes and chilly optimized productivity, here is sweet validation of the idea that to create something truly transcendent — a work of art depicting love, family, nature and culture in all their fullness — might take time.
Where to begin analyzing these close-to-700 pages, not one extraneous or boring? Maybe with the idea of celebrity, which peaked in the late 1990s, when the book is largely set, and preoccupies several of its characters. Is being known widely an antidote to modern alienation — or its ultimate realization? Desai might have grappled herself with this question, as winner of the 2006 Booker Prize for “The Inheritance of Loss”; this book is longlisted for the award (and if it’s not on the short list, to be announced Sept. 23, then the Bookerati have gone bonkers).
“In this world you are famous or you are nobody,” declares Ilan de Toorjen Foss, the arrogant, aristocratic painter who seduces Sonia Shah, 32 years his junior, from Delhi and prone to melancholy. “Happiness,” an inner voice repeatedly tells her, “is for other people.”
more here.
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