Avni DoshiRezensionen
Autor von Burnt Sugar
Rezensionen
Antara’s early recollections of neglect, isolation, cruelty and hunger form the foundations for the unfolding and unravelling of her relationship with her mother Tara, who abandoned her unsympathetic husband for a gigantean guru and penniless, pockmarked photographer in turn with her young daughter in tow. Revenge and punishment, hurt and humiliation, long-buried secrets and deep-rooted resentments are the weapons of choice in a destructive battle that can never be won. Amidst friends and family whose characters, characteristics, flaws and foibles are described with biting wit, Tara and Antara vacillate between love and hate as shocking thoughts and deeds soar out of control.
Although not the easiest of reads I was hooked from the opening line.
I was left with a vivid picture of Pune, the sights and sounds, hustle and bustle, poverty and pollution, country clubs and compound apartments as well as a better understanding of Asian culture.
I’m so pleased that the cover and blurb prompted me to buy Burnt Sugar from one of my favourite local charity shops after a 3 plus year absence.
I may be in the minority, but I found myself enjoying Doshi's debut novel. Perhaps "enjoy" isn't the right word, as the subject matter can be difficult to stomach at times. But it is the type of book that has stayed with me long after reading it.
The mother-daughter relationship in this book illustrates the toxic and selfish side of human nature, both from the mother and daughter's perspectives. The characters are not likeable, but they are incredibly complex and possess so much depth. I loved how Doshi subtly references some of the social-political factors that may have contributed to this strained relationship. She also portrays the impact of direct and generational trauma in such a visceral way with vivid descriptions of scents.
This is a hard one for me to recommend to others, but I have to admit this was one of my favorite books I’ve read this year. Recommended to those who are able to handle difficult topics around childcare and elderly care.
The book, I have to admit has it's high points but the lows kept constantly distracting me from them. “Reality is always co authored” is my favourite quote in the book.
Antara (meaning "different"/"of-Tara") and her mom Tara have a troubled relationship. It was interesting to read how toxic relationships bind people together.
The stream of consciousness method of narration was extremely good but started to cross the territory into being pretentious after a point.
The first part was definitely interesting and surrounded around the concept of memory.
As the book goes on it gets repetitive (though not visibly but the feeling I had was this) and exhausting. The portrayal of India is something I do not want to get into but will have to mention. The stereotypical and exaggerated portrayal that confirms widespread views (and very often false) might work well with non Indian readers but not Indians. This is precisely why I saw a lot of non Indian readers recommend this one.
Overall, an okay read. It was worth the effort. Definitely not something I would pick up if it did not have the Booker Prize logo on it.
Spoiler: I personally believe that the narrator is a sociopath (from neglect and abuse; she also has all the basic characteristics of a sociopath) and that changed things up for me a bit. It is always interesting to have a different kind of narrator.
1 
bookomaniac | 25 weitere Rezensionen | Feb 2, 2022 |
bookomaniac | 25 weitere Rezensionen | Feb 2, 2022 | Neither mother nor daughter is blameless. Antara researches dementia and memory loss, and when she puts her mother on a no-sugar, high-fat diet, Tara becomes much clearer and sharper; but Antara then fears her mother will tell Dilip about Reza, and lets her have sweets again, and she becomes fuzzy and unclear again.
The reliability of anybody's memory is questionable. The ending, especially, makes the reader question reality: whose memories and perception are trustworthy? (Unreliable narrator?) Antara and Dilip have a baby girl, which Tara seems to think is baby Antara, and the rest of the family and friends gathered go along with it for her sake. Antara flees, then returns, waiting to be let back in.
Quotes
Human degeneration halts and sputters but doesn't reverse. (2)
And so we paused in this stalemate, as we so often would again, everyone standing by their falsehoods, certain that their own self-interest would prevail. (4)
It seems to me now that this forgetting is convenient, that she doesn't want to remember the things she has said and done. It feels unfair that she can put away the past from her mind while I'm brimming with it all the time. (50)
This is a long and drawn-out loss, where a little bit goes missing at a time. Perhaps...there is no other way besides waiting...and the mourning can happen afterwards, a mourning filled with regret because we never truly had closure. (97)
"You'll never know if the memory is real or imagined. Your mother is no longer reliable." (doctor, 136)
Days and nights unhinged from dates and hours, and time was only recognizable by the passage of the moon in the sky. (156)
"Reality is something that is co-authored." (life coach, 176)
We dissolve with questions. Even question marks have always seemed strange to me, a hook from the hand of some nightmare. (178)
How many times must a performance be repeated before it becomes reality? If a falsehood is enacted enough, does it begin to sound factual? Is a pathway created for lies to come true in the brain? (227)
My own mother. The more deranged she becomes, the greater her clarity of purpose, like a picture with minimum aperture - the background dims as the singularity of the focus intensifies. (229)
I love it.
We dissolve with questions. Even question marks have always seemed strange to me, a hook from the hand of some nightmare.
The narrator is so lost, she doesn't have anything to hold on to at all. No foundation of solid relationships, no shared memories, no conclusions, no solid ground. That's a key aspect of the character for me, and that she doesn't know even know what questions to ask. She thinks she can see subatomic particles under a microscope. Google searches, life coaches, messed up father figures, ephemeral mother figures, psychopathic nuns.
...................................................................................
Random quotes I don't remember highlighting:
seeing a reflection shout is similar to watching television.
my mother said they were trading their bad memories for a stranger’s.
I wish moderation were a comfortable state.
By the time we left the ashram, it was 1989. I was seven years old. Sometimes I can feel that girl crowning at the back of my throat, trying to come out through any orifice she can. But I swallow her until the next time she wants to be born
I want to cry for being stupid, for giving him the tools to make this incision.
This is a long and drawn out loss, where a little bit goes missing at a time.
I think about every decision I’ve made until this point that has brought me here, and I wonder how much is because it was easy.
I stopped seeing the therapist soon after that because she asked too many questions. Wasn’t her job to sit and listen? In fact, worse than the thought of my parents’ abandonment were all the unanswered questions she posed, the ones that continue to float around. Anytime I come close to answering one, a whole series of other doubts assert themselves. I wonder at the terror physicists must have felt when the laws of Newton failed under a microscope. They poked a little too far.
Hating the playground felt good, gave a direction to my feeling of unease, grounded it in an object that I could see. This contempt still draws up the moment I feel uncomfortable. I disown so I can never be disowned.
I rub my eye. White from the corner sticks like glue on my fingers. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of it.
Though if they repeat it long enough, if the act is internalized – would it be an act any more? Can a performance of pleasure, even love, turn into a true experience if one becomes fluent enough in it? When does the performance become reality?
Otherwise my reading and writing skills were passable, and the teachers praised my mechanical handwriting. Submission was apparent in every line I wrote.
She has a smile on her face that is worn too tightly.
Yes, I dripped on occasion too, but I was always able to seal myself up again.
‘And doesn’t it make sense that people want to leave?’ I asked. The therapist jotted something down and asked me to elaborate. I told him that staying doesn’t have the appeal, the mystery, of escape. To stay is to be staid, to be resigned, to believe this is all there will ever be. Aren’t we creatures made for searching, investigation, dominion? Aren’t we built to believe there can always be something better?
Neither has listening. There was a breakdown somewhere about what we were to one another, as though one of us was not holding up her part of the bargain, her side of the bridge.
It was the sort of book I would have breathed in and been sated once. Nowadays, mother - daughter themes are my least favourite. So I listened to about 1.5 hours and didn't return to it. I appreciate that it is a kind of love story between mother and daughter. The mother's Alzheimer's and the obvious dislike of daughter for mother - you have to be in the mood for these thing, and don't have the buzz of the good escapism.
Vineeta Rishi's reading is great and love the glimpse into India. Nothing else read by her in my library unfortunately.
Doshi fa un retrat honest i mordaç de les complexitats de les relacions entre mare i filla, i ens mostra el preu que han de pagar les dones per actuar en benefici propi. Esmolada com un ganivet, Sucre cremat desfà els lligams familiars que sovint ens uneixen i ens allunyen alhora. Una novel·la commovedora i atrevida sobre el matrimoni, la traïció, la malaltia, la maternitat i la lluita d'una dona per ser ella mateixa
———
Antara is an adult and married, and her 50-something mother Tara is forgetting things. Soon she is wandering, setting fires, and needs to be watched. Her own mother is getting to be too feeble to do the watching. Antara tries, but is soon in a downward spiral related to her own pregnancy, probable postpartum depression, and her memories of her strange childhood. She was always in her mother's way, and her mother is more than happy to tell her that now. Antara struggles with her mother leaving her father for a guru. With her father having remarried and having a younger son whom Anatara doesn't know. Her mother took her to the guru's ashram for years, where another woman, Kali, cared for her. Then she had them begging on the streets, to get at her own wealthy parents. Now, she insults Antara's artwork and claims the baby as her own.
reader: Sneha Mathan
published: 2019
format: 8:36 Audible audiobook (240 pages in paperback)
acquired: March 20
listened: Mar 22 – Apr 2
rating: 4
locations: Pune, India and other places in India – 1980’s through current day
about the author: from New Jersey, daughter of Indian immigrants, born 1982
My 8th book from the 2020 Booker long list. I liked this one. I have read enough plotless sentence-level incisive devastating-secret devi novels to know it's a thing and not a thing I'm a big fan of. This is one of those. But it was engaging. I like how the book addresses dementia, which I could relate to, and how it uses local culture in Pune and Mumbai, how it touches on life in an ashram, and how it addresses some of the characteristics of American-born Indians, and their relation to India. I enjoyed it.
It's a mother-daughter story - Tara and Antara. Mom has progressing dementia and Antara is trying to deal with it, and is bitter about it. She still has hurts to respond to, and Tara is there, but there can no longer be a reckoning. It's too late. But also, Tara has less and less control over what she says. She starts hinting at dark secrets about to her son-in-law and Antara, our narrator, is getting a little anxious...and a little unstable.
This is a debut novel by American born Doshi, and takes place in Pune, India. It's read beautifully by [[Sneha Mathan]]. (I think there is another version with a different narrator.) Recommended.
2021
https://www.librarything.com/topic/330945#7477231
1 British-Section | 25 weitere Rezensionen | Mar 19, 2021 |
British-Section | 25 weitere Rezensionen | Mar 19, 2021 | An author takes a risk in choosing to write about an unsympathetic character. It's a balancing act to make the narrator unpleasant and to still have the reader invested in what happens to the narrator. And whether you think that Doshi succeeds in this will determine how you react to this novel. Doshi provides Antara with a childhood that should make the reader root for her and to understand why she is unable to form bonds with anyone, but then she multiplies the many ways Anatara's inability to form attachments harms the people around her.
This isn't an easy novel to read, nor is it intended to be.
1 RidgewayGirl | 25 weitere Rezensionen | Feb 10, 2021 |
RidgewayGirl | 25 weitere Rezensionen | Feb 10, 2021 | The narrator is Antara, a woman in her mid-thirties living in Pune, India. Her mother Tara seems to be in the early stages of dementia and Antara is left caring for a mother who didn’t take care of her daughter. In sections set in the 1980s, we see Tara moving into an ashram to be the mistress of a guru; to do so she abandons her marriage and becomes estranged from her parents. She takes Antara with her but neglects her: “she would disappear every day, dripping with milk, leaving me unfed.” For a time, the two live on the streets. Though married and financially secure, Antara knows that her childhood continues to affect her life: “my mother leaving my father, and my father letting us both go, has coloured my view of all relationships.”
Tara is an interesting, though unlikeable, character. As a young woman, Tara is a free spirit obsessed with self-actualization, with pursuing her own dreams. She lacks inhibition and lives her life free of guilt; she refuses the demands of motherhood and makes no apologies for her behaviour. Though one might admire her desire for personal growth and happiness, there is no doubt that she is selfish. Antara describes her mother as emotionally immature: “emotionally, she has never progressed past being a teenager. She is still at the mercy of hormones. She still thinks in terms of freedom and passion. And love.” When angry or hurt, she lashes out at Antara, slapping her and calling her “’a fat little bitch.’” Tara tends to compare herself to her daughter: she would compare their bodies and comment that “her breasts were bigger than mine, but my waist was smaller. She would comment on how my positive attributes were a symptom of age, declaring with certainty that my ugliness would surpass hers when I reached my forties. . . . she was pleased to tell me these things, to know that I would suffer as she had . . . did she ever see me as a child . . . [or] Did she always see me as a competitor, or, rather, an enemy?”
Antara tends to receive sympathy from the reader as she details her childhood of abuse and neglect. But then it becomes clear that Antara is not flawless. Her behaviour towards her mother can be interpreted as self-preservation or as revenge. She suffers from post-partum depression and her thoughts are distressing: “I am tired of this baby. She demands too much, always hungering for more. . . . I’ve never been a stickler for manners, but this baby doesn’t stand on ceremony. She’s a rude little bitch if I ever met one.”
There is also some suggestion that Antara is not a reliable narrator. Her memories of the past cannot be verified by Tara who is losing her memory but Antara’s grandmother questions the accuracy of some of her granddaughter’s memories. Tara may be suffering from memory loss caused by dementia but perhaps Antara’s memory is selective. One character says, “’We are all unreliable. The past seems to have a vigour that the present does not.’” It is interesting that Antara several times refers to madness (“This is madness. I feel it – I inch towards it daily”) and at least two other people refer to her madness: “’Hoarding this garbage will make you madder than you are’” and “’You should worry about your own madness instead of mine.’”
This book can be commended for its depiction of the complicated emotions a caregiver can experience when trying to care for a person with whom she has had a difficult relationship. However, it didn’t captivate me, and I found myself wanting to skim just to reach the end of the book. The discussions of Antara’s art go on and on. Some events, like the trip to Goa, seem irrelevant. Perhaps I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind but trying to decipher the significance of some of the digressions just didn’t appeal.
The winner of the 2020 Booker Prize, Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart, also deals with a complex parent-child relationship. Its examination is so realistic, empathetic, and powerful that the book left me in awe. The depiction of the parent-child relationship in Burnt Sugar is less successful so I’m not surprised that it didn’t win the prestigious award.
Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.
Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (@DCYakabuski).
Burnt Sugar was Booker longlisted, but that had passed me by because the 2020 longlist didn't excite me, and I forgot about it until it made its way to the top of the review pile. This is the blurb, so you can see why I found it enticing:
In her youth, Tara was wild. She abandoned her loveless marriage to join an ashram, endured a brief stint as a beggar (mostly to spite her affluent parents), and spent years chasing after a dishevelled, homeless 'artist' - all with her young child in tow. Now she is forgetting things, mixing up her maid's wages and leaving the gas on all night, and her grown-up daughter is faced with the task of caring for a woman who never cared for her.
This is a love story and a story about betrayal. But not between lovers - between mother and daughter. Sharp as a blade and laced with caustic wit, Burnt Sugar unpicks the slippery, choking cord of memory and myth that binds two women together, making and unmaking them endlessly.
What I was expecting, was narration by the mother, the older woman sliding into dementia, explaining the choices she made which were so detrimental to her daughter's wellbeing. What the book delivers is a torrent of grievances from a narcissistic daughter preoccupied by the legacy of her toxic mother. What irritated me most of all was that this preoccupation was focussed on the mother, as if Antara did not have two parents, both of whom abrogated their responsibility for their child. The text goes so far as to include a (most unpleasant) thought bubble about having a sexual relationship with her father as if to reinforce how un-fatherly he has been, but he is not the focus of the narrator's angst. Mothers who seek self-fulfilment which impacts badly on their children are the betrayers. Fathers who do the same are a side issue.
As the text progresses, it becomes clearer that the narrator is disintegrating under the pressure of societal expectation that she will care for her mother.
To read the rest of my review and view links to reviews more positive than mine, please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/12/12/burnt-sugar-by-avni-doshi/
The story itself meanders far too much, however, growing confusing at times. At its best, the story is quite interesting, wonderfully paced, and gorgeously written. At its worst, it can be a bit of a dry read, incorporating elements and scenes that don't quite gel with the novel's best moments.
(Advanced Reader Copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss.)
"I would be lying if I said my mother's misery has never given me pleasure."
Avni Doshi’s debut novel has been shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, the first draft was written during a stay India and won the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize, all in all, it took her seven years to complete the book. The relationship between mother and daughter always remains the main focus of Antara’s thinking and her art since she is under a constant emotional pressure. Even though it is highly toxic, she cannot – of course – get rid of it.
The author’s observation and especially the way she describes the mother’s gradual memory loss are particularly striking. The contrast between tradition and a modern way of life, obviously present everywhere in India, is also powerfully depicted.
Having heard so much praise of the novel I really was looking forward to read it, yet, I struggled with the negativity. The relationship between mother and daughter, the mother’s neglect of her small child, the injustice Antara experiences again and again – it is not easy to endure. Maybe it just wasn’t the best time to read it – 2020 has offered by far enough negative news and after months of pandemic, who doesn’t slowly become depressed?
1 miss.mesmerized | 25 weitere Rezensionen | Nov 14, 2020 |
miss.mesmerized | 25 weitere Rezensionen | Nov 14, 2020 | I liked parts of this book. I can't make up my mind between 3 and 4. Personally, I liked the prose but the pacing could have been better and uniform. I liked how emotionally detached I felt from the character and yet invested in their stories. I feel this book is ambitious, too ambitious maybe. The author could have executed this better if this would have been longer.
(Also published as The Girl in White Cotton)
What is it about the novels for the Booker Prize nominations, there are always some very weird choices? I read this with my book group and it certainly produced an interesting discussion, but a unanimously poor score of 3 stars. It investigates the relationship between a mother and daughter, living in India amidst ashrams and apartment blocks.
Anantara is the narrator and Tara, her mother, is sinking into early dementia. Although Tara had pretty much abandoned four-year-old Anantara when they entered the ashram, Anantara is trying to help her mother as her disease progresses. By now Anantara is married to Dilip, but it appears to be a loveless marriage.
There are a lot of flash-backs explaining the history of Tara and her daughter, including a rather confusing episode in the ashram, that I had to listen to twice. Characters are introduced before we understand their importance to the narrative, which didn't make for easy listening as I feel that require a framework on which to hang my characters as I meet them. There is also an unnecessary obsession with bodily fluids, particularly saliva. If I were reading on the Kindle I would search the word saliva to find out just how often it is mentioned but I'd hazard a guess that its around fifteen times.
I enjoyed the concept of art as performed by Anantara; she draws the same face every day for a year, only copying the previous drawing - a kind of Chinese Whispers in art. I imagined this as an illustration of the progression of the dementia.
The narrator, Vineeta Rishi, was excellent, I loved how she swapped from English to accented Indian-English for the conversation of the older women.
The ending of this book was a total non-event but I felt the author has left herself open to a sequel, maybe situated in either US or Dubai. The question is: would I read it?
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"The habit of waiting has already been instilled...deeply ingrained. I wonder if, when I'm old and frail and can see the shape of my end in front of me, I will still be waiting for the future to roll in."