Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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In India

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

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I know next to nothing about India. Never been there. Have a few friends/acquaintances who are but don’t know enough about their experiences to speak intelligently on what the country is like. This may have been the first fictional novel I’ve read set in the book so I went into it with eyes open. Take that all with a grain of salt because I don’t know what the perspective is from actual Indians on the book. But as a deconstruction of the country of India, […]

Into the Light

White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

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I first read this novel more than 10 years ago when it was published (2008) and I wanted to see if it held up before we watched the Netflix adaptation. Briefly: it sure does. White Tiger follows Balram Halwai, a lower caste man from small-town India, as he crafts his own rise to power through unscrupulous means.  The book is framed as a series of letters from Balram to the Chinese President, ostensibly for the two of them to revel in the entrepreneurship of their […]

Crime and Punishment, Via India

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It’s hard to get satire when you aren’t familiar the culture being lampooned.  There were times in this book where I got it, I knew the hyperbolic statements weren’t the real truth of India.  But then there were other times I wasn’t so sure; I know India isn’t Bollywood and yoga and religious ceremonies Westerners can steal to make themed 5ks.  But I also don’t know enough to determine if rich people running over poor people and then getting their servants to confess to it […]



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