Featured Reading Guide
Anita Desai
A wonderful novel in two parts, which moves from the heart of a close-knit Indian household, with its restrictions and prejudices, its noisy warmth and sensual appreciation of food, to the cool centre of an American family, with its freedom and strangely self-denying attitude to eating. In both it is ultimately the women who suffer, whether, paradoxically, from a surfeit of feasting and family life in India, or from self-denial and starvation in the US. Or both. Uma, the plain, older daughter still lives at home, frustrated in her attempts to escape and make a life for herself. Through her eyes…
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topAbout the Book
A wonderful novel in two parts, which moves from the heart of a close-knit Indian household, with its restrictions and prejudices, its noisy warmth and sensual appreciation of food, to the cool centre of an American family, with its freedom and strangely self-denying attitude to eating. In both it is ultimately the women who suffer, whether, paradoxically, from a surfeit of feasting and family life in India, or from self-denial and starvation in the US. Or both. Uma, the plain, older daughter still lives at home, frustrated in her attempts to escape and make a life for herself. Through her eyes her Indian family is conjured up – the difficult, demanding but essentially good-hearted parents, her pretty, clever younger sister, and her brother, Arun, the apple of his parent’s eye, as well as an extended family of mad uncles and sad cousins. Despite her disappointments it is Uma, who by staying at the cehntre of family life comes through as the survivor, avoiding an unfulfilling marriage, like her sister’s, or a suicidal one, like that arranged for her pretty cousin. Across the world, in America, where young Arun goes as a student, life in the suburbs – where the man char hunks of bleeding meat while the women don’t appear to cook or eat at all – seems bewildering and terrifying to the young Indian far from home. . .
topAnita Desai interview/review
My Writing Day – Anita Desai, Irish Times June 1999
“It’s always difficult to make a beginning, to start writing. For some reason, it is hard, no matter how many books there are behind you. I have to edge myself into it sideways by writing a few letters or notes in my diary, or a few bits and pieces, and then taking the writing almost by surprise. It’s difficult to get started because perhaps there is a fear that one won’t get it right. That can be quite paralysing: that one won’t get what one set out to do.
I try to stay at my desk for the whole morning, even if I’m only fiddling with pens and paper. Sometimes all I do is simply scratch out what I did the day before. I never show anything to anyone until the work is completed. It generally takes me two to three years to write a book.
I’m used to always working in the mornings – as early as possible, before I attend to anything else in the day because when I started writing, it was always when the children were at school. I always halted work in the school holidays, so I found myself trying to have drafts finished by then: it was a natural deadline to work towards.
At the final stages, the work becomes so intense that at the end I am simply relieved and exhausted but also experience a tremendous let-down. I begin to miss the work so much that there is nothing to celebrate. Also an anxiety sets in about whether one will ever write again.”
topStarting Points for Discussion
- Fasting, Feasting, a novel built around the contrasts between Indian and American family life, seems to present a negative view of both modern societies. How do you respond to this critical portrayal?
- The novel is comprised of two self-contained narratives. What, if anything, does this structure add to the enjoyment of the novel? Do you think it works as a narrative device?
- Food is a central theme of this novel, why is this and what does the food represent? Discuss how Desai uses food to comment on cultural identity.
- In both sections of the book, it is ultimately the women who suffer. What is Desai saying about cultural misconceptions of happiness and gender?
- ‘Contemporary Indian fiction writers are among the finest in the world’ Irish Times. What are the defining characteristics of this school of Indian writing, as purveyed by writers such as Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth? Does Desai depart from this school of Indian writing?
- During Arun’s stay with the Patton family, their perceptions of each other are consistently proven to be false. Do you think that by the end of the novel either Mrs Patton or Arun reach a greater/truer understanding of the other’s culture?
Other Books by Anita Desai
Baumgartner’s Bombay
Hugo Baumgartner, the central character of Anita Desai’s dazzling novel, is a…
Clear Light Of Day
To the family living in the shabby, dusty house in Delhi, Tara’s visit brings…
Diamond Dust & Other Stories…
Whole lives come into focus in this rich and diverse collection, as Desai t…
Fasting, Feasting
A wonderful novel in two parts, which moves from the heart of a close-knit …
Fire On The Mountain
Games At Twilight
Set in contemporary Bombay and other cities, these stories reflect the kale…
In Custody
Journey To Ithaca
The Zigzag Way
Eric is a youngish man, self-conscious, awkward, a buttoned-down North Amer…
Suggested Further Reading
- The God of Small Things ~ Arundhati Roy
- Midnight’s Children ~ Salman Rushdie
- Fine Balance ~ Rohinton Mistry
- Jasmine ~ Bharati Mukherjee
- Looking Through Glass ~ Makul Kesavan
- Disgrace ~ J M Coetzee
- The Love of a Good Woman ~ Alice Munro