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Title: The Vine of Desire: A Novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni ISBN: 0-385-49730-X Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 04 February, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.67 (40 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A sequel to THE SISTER OF MY HEART
Comment: THE VINE OF DESIRE by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
The sequel to her popular SISTER OF MY HEART, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's THE VINE OF DESIRE follows the story of the two "sisters" Anju and Sudha from India to America. While SISTER OF MY HEART focused a lot on their past family history and Indian culture and folklore, THE VINE OF DESIRE centers more on the present, and the relationship of the two sisters which is put into a precarious state by a third person, Anju's husband Sunil.
Anju invites her sister Sudha to live with her and Sunil in America. Sudha is divorced with a baby, and with a shaky future ahead of them both, Anju knew that the only means of survival for Suhda would be to come to America. Sudha leaves behind the love of her life, Ashok, whom she gave her heart to when she was a young girl, but for some reason she refuses to return to him after her failed arranged marriage. And Anju, with her new life in America and her new husband Sunil, is looking for something beyond being just a wife and future mother. While Anju looks for life outside the household, Sunil finds himself distracted by the presence of his sister-in-law, who he has always loved in secret since before he married his wife. And Sudha is fully aware of this.
It's a complicated mess and life does not get any better for Sudha, and gets only worse for Anju and Sunil. Although THE VINE OF DESIRE was not as good a novel as the original book, I still found myself wanting to finish this book to find out whether Anju and Sudha find the happiness they are seeking in America. Is it true that the grass is greener on the other side? Should Sudha have stayed in India and returned to Ashok? The reader is left to find out what happens to both sisters. I recommend THE VINE OF DESIRE to those who have enjoyed SISTER OF MY HEART. For more by Divakaruni, I would suggest reading THE MISTRESS OF SPICES, which is by far her best novel yet.
Rating: 3
Summary: A turning point for the writer...but not her best book
Comment: I've read all of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's fiction, and have frequently recommended this tremendously gifted writer to my friends. I eagerly awaited this book, only to be disappointed. Sister of My Heart, of course, doesn't need a sequel, and the author herself has said that she considered the story finished. Only many years later after other projects did she find she still had more to say about Anju and Sudha.
And what she has to say is very different from the earlier book. Where Sister affirmed the loving if tangled connections between its characters, Vine finds them tearing each other apart. Unfortunately, there's not enough movement in the story's first half, just an ever-elaborated atmosphere of tension. Worse, the author's trademark sumptuous language is overdone, and it throws off the balance of wordcraft with story. She delivers gem-like descriptions of trash rolling down the street but leaves the characters curiously opaque, their motivations described in artificial and thoroughly unconvincing ways. I never understood why the women acted the way they did, and felt, sadly, that I was missing the drama of present desire contending with past affection, since the loving friendship here threatened was nowhere in evidence. Given these problems with the plot and the characters, I found the language distracting and ineffective, despite some lovely images.
I did however find the book grew stronger and more powerful in the second half, after the uncomfortable menage a trois is broken up and the characters pursue their lives separately. Towards the end Divakaruni delivers some truly moving insights into the emotional realities we all share, reminding me that she's a writer worth listening to, even in her weaker efforts.
Unlike several of the other readers, I don't think the book's shortcomings derive from being set in the US rather than India, because CBD has already shown that she can tell stunning American tales in her two short story collections. Rather, I think it's that she's in a transitional mode, reinventing herself as a writer on a different scope. You can see this in her use of more varied and sophisticated techniques--five narrators (one of them omniscent) give the story a very different, less intimate texture than Sister of My Heart. Other voices crowd in through letters from India and assignments from Anju's creative writing class. CBD's authorial gaze spirals outward to take in the expanse of the city and the San Francisco bay area, the larger world that swirls around her characters. She makes pointed reference to ongoing world events, and tries (rather clumsily) to weave the OJ Simpson trial into her plot. On the whole, her voice is more experimental and self-conscious in its address to the reader. Some of these features I loved (particularly the last chapter told in Lalit's voice) and others I found distracting, but on most of them I reserve judgment. I think they'll work better in her next book.
In summary, I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone who isn't already a Divakaruni fan; Sister of My Heart needs no sequel. I would and do, however, encourage anyone to encounter this talented author through her short stories, collected in Arranged Marriage and (my personal favorite of all her books) The Unknown Errors in Her Lives. And I await her next book with curiosity, eager to see how she grows into her new skin.
Rating: 1
Summary: good material for one episode...
Comment: ...of a daytime soap opera.
I have to confess I read the book in a fraction of the time I read "Sister of my heart". Almost nothing new has been added to the story. Yet it fills up so many pages. Feelings, ramblings, letters from one character to another. That's the kind of stuff I don't really care about. It adds nothing and makes it difficult to read. This is a pathetic sequel to "Sister of my heart".
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Title: Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni ISBN: 038548951X Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 18 January, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni ISBN: 0385482388 Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 01 March, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: Arranged Marriage: Stories by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni ISBN: 0385483503 Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 01 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Unknown Errors of Our Lives: Stories by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni ISBN: 0385497288 Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 15 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Desirable Daughters by Bharati Mukherjee ISBN: 0786885157 Publisher: Hyperion Pub. Date: 12 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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