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A Fine Balance: A Novel

Average rating: 5/5

Based on 15 ratings

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A Fine Balance: A Novel

by Rohinton Mistry

Young Adult Series | January 9, 1995 | Hardcover

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry's stunning internationally acclaimed bestseller, is set in mid-1970s India. It tells the story of four unlikely people whose lives come together during a time of political turmoil soon after the government declares a "State of Internal Emergency." Through days of bleakness and hope, their circumstances - and their fates - become inextricably linked in ways no one could have foreseen. Mistry's prose is alive with enduring images and a cast of unforgettable characters. Written with compassion, humour, and insight, A Fine Balance is a vivid, richly textured, and powerful novel written by one of the most gifted writers of our time.
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    emanjit singh

    Rating: 5/5

    My Top 10!

    emanjit singh

    3 months ago

    before I read this book, I was reading Nicholas Sparks, Meg Cobat, and Sophie Kinsella. So in other words; chic-lits. My Aunt came over one day and gave A Fine Balance to me as a present. She told me to read up to page 60 before quitting. She said if I did not like by the time I got to that page I wouldn’t have to read it anymore. Well, I gave this book a shot and was instantly swept away. This book is like no other book I’ve read. It’s a complex read with complex meaning in the simplest form of writing. I enjoyed this book so much and felt as though I learned so much from it. It was a true eye opener that all these events actually occurred in a country that is the country my parents grew up in. This book has really changed my style for reading and has opened new doors for me. I will be forever thankful to my aunt for giving me this book and whenever I get the chance it is the book I always recommend or give as a gift.

    This reviewer also recommends:
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    Rating: 4/5

    An enjoyable page-turner!

    riles360

    11 months ago

    Bringing the reader on an illuminating journey of the caste system and the inherent struggles of those in the lower echelons, Rohinton Mistry captures both the triumph and defeat of the human spirit. From the lives of a struggling widow, a boy coming into manhood and a pair of aspiring tailors- the story captures their joy and their despair in a flowing narrative that compels you to turn the page.

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    Rating: 5/5

    India meets The Odyssey

    Lorina Stephens/Five Rivers

    • Author
    • Publisher

    15 months ago

    To read Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, a 1995 Giller winner, is akin to reading Shakespeare's Titus. Beyond a tragedy, Titus is what my husband has come to call a catastrophe. And in many ways Mistry's A Fine Balance follows in that tradition. Carrying that classical form of tragedy, Mistry also marries the epic throughout his story, so that one very much feels part of an odyssey, complete with storms, shipwrecks, exile, monsters, betrayals and retribution.

    It is not an easy read. Relentless, unforgiving, Mistry writes a complex tale that entwines the lives of two tailors in search of a better life, a woman struggling to gain independence, and a student seeking fulfillment. There is a host of subsidiary characters who walk on and off stage like the necessary and colourful characters of any Shakespearean play, dancing through the narrative like a counterpoint. And as a backdrop for all this Mistry, who now calls Canada home, writes of his native India with all the noise, squalor, divisions and desperation of the common people.

    His characters are fully realized, lifting off the page with tenderness and sometimes terrifying reality. They struggle with the barriers of caste, religion and wealth. They confront demons within themselves and within their neighbours, friends and family. Just when you think everything will be okay, that there will be some redemption, some small hope, Mistry excises hope and leaves you weeping.

    For the most part the language is very spare and conversational. There are a few moments of prose wandering into the purple, but they are rare. Point of view tends to wander from time to time, so that a very tight, character-oriented focus dissolves into an omniscient view; these shifts were not enough to disturb the overall arc of the story, and instead imbued the voice of the traditional storyteller, rather than detracting.

    If you have never read any of Rohinton Mistry's work, I recommend you do. While certainly A Fine Balance, is not a story I would recommend for a cheery, uplifting bit of escape, it is very much a story that will haunt you and linger long after the telling.

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    Ravindra Singh

    Rating: 5/5

    A Fine Balance: The Finest Book

    Ravindra Singh

    13 years ago

    A "Fine Balance" by Rohinton Mistry, is perhaps the greatest novel that I have ever read. It is a book of great proportions, a definate read for those in search of meaning and revelation. This book will change the way you think.

    Comments on this review:
    Monica Lewis

    I agree, the greatest novel that I have ever read!

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From Our Editors

A Fine Balance weaves together the disparate lives of four people living in India's disturbed political and social climate in the mid-1970s. Caste violence, gender oppression, and the perennial privations of the poverty-stricken masses combine in the past and present stories of Rohinton Mistry's compassionate characters. The unforgettable quartet of seamstress Dina Dalal, Himalayan student Maneck Kohlah, Ishvar the tailor and his nephew Omprakash will forever resonate in the hearts of readers.

From the Publisher

A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry's stunning internationally acclaimed bestseller, is set in mid-1970s India. It tells the story of four unlikely people whose lives come together during a time of political turmoil soon after the government declares a "State of Internal Emergency." Through days of bleakness and hope, their circumstances - and their fates - become inextricably linked in ways no one could have foreseen. Mistry's prose is alive with enduring images and a cast of unforgettable characters. Written with compassion, humour, and insight, A Fine Balance is a vivid, richly textured, and powerful novel written by one of the most gifted writers of our time.

About the Author

Rohinton Mistry is the author of a collection of short stories, Tales from Firozsha Baag (1987), and three internationally acclaimed novels, Such a Long Journey (1991), A Fine Balance (1995), and Family Matters (2002). His fiction has won many prestigious international awards, including The Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, the Governor General's Award, the Canada-Australia Literary Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, The Royal Society of Literature's Winifred Holtby Award, and the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for Fiction. A Fine Balance was also an Oprah's Book Club® selection.

Born in Bombay in 1952, Rohinton Mistry came to Canada in 1975.

Hardcover

768 Pages

January 9, 1995

Young Adult Series

English


0771060521
9780771060526

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From the Critics

"A masterpiece of illumination and grace. Like all great fiction, it transforms our understanding of life."
-The Guardian (U.K.)

"This novel has the courage to remember and to reaffirm who we are, one by one; it continues, in the tradition of the great novels, to celebrate the luminous and unquenchable human spirit."
-Globe and Mail

"Few have caught the real sorrow and inexplicable strength of India, the unaccountable crookedness and sweetness, as well as Mistry."
-Time

"A towering masterpiece by a writer of genius.…"
-The Independent (U.K.)

"An astonishing novel…full of wisdom and laughter and the touches of the unexpectedly familiar through which literature illuminates life."
-Wall Street Journal

"A work of stature…in scope, insight, and above all compassion for human beings."
-Montreal Gazette

"Those who continue to harp on the inevitable decline of the novel ought to…consider Rohinton Mistry."
-New York Times Book Review of Books

"The story unfolds with the grace and beauty of a butterfly's wing…extraordinary."
-The Times (U.K.)

"Mistry has demonstrated once again the enduring power of fiction to make sense of it all simply by telling a story…Read it."
-Vancouver Sun

"Every word of it seems like a fleck of brilliant light on a dancing ocean.…A major achievement."
-Scotland on Sunday

"A compelling book that manages the rare feat of being both entertaining and compassionate."
-India Today

"Compulsively readable; also funny, intensely moving and, like Bombay, pullulating with humanity."
-The Independent (U.K.)

"Impossible to put down."
-The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia

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