Fasting, Feasting Paperback – Bargain Price, January 3, 2000

Are we so very different, yes, maybe NO. Lots to ponder in this book. I left sad for two reasons, I wanted to know the rest of their stories, and I didn’t want to say goodbye to these written pages.

This is a miserable story about miserable people to whom nothing good happens and the one really nice person has a dreadful fate. So why read it? It was a selection for my book club, and believe me, I complained vociferously to the person who chose it and skipped the meeting.

This is the first book of Anita Desai I read. Her observations are astute whether they are on living conditions in India or USA. She uses witty and satirical language which keeps reader's mood light. I had difficulty understanding what message she is trying to send through her novel. For one, life is miserable whether one lives in India or USA, which is a pathetic outlook. Secondly, in spite of different living conditions people behave basically the same way to situations in life. There is no strong story here. Just description of characters and small incidences to enhance characterization but Anita Desai uses her words perfectly to convey exactly what she feels. She uses commonly used words, nothing flashy, to keep the reader engrossed in her characters, makes one turn page after page. I was never bored to read any page.I felt Uma's character was ended rather abruptly. Arun would have been more human if he would have felt occasional pangs of homesickness and brooded over few pleasant memories of his childhood.I would strongly recommmend this book to anyone who is interested in comparing living in India and in USA.

i had to but this for a class and then i never read it

Thumbs up!

I only read it bc I had to for AP lit. It’s not something I would read on my own time, but it wasn’t the worse thing I’ve been forced to read.

Excellent descriptions of the American style of life, cruel and realistic in oposition to the Indian one. I love the first part of the book but I didn’t like much the ending.

Anita Desai's novel uses the same economy of words as all her others to describe the minutiae of Indian domestic life with all its various contradictions and squabbling. In this one she contrasts Indian culture with American in a very original way. She's always been a favourite author. This one does not disappoint.

Such a rich evocation of life in an Indian surburban family, you feel as if you are part of it. In the 'Feasting' section the parents are a single entity- even their name is written MamaPapa . They sit issuing commands, and this acts as a counterpoint to the downtrodden life of their daughter Uma, who has problems and needs that they blithely ignore. Culturally, the pressure is on the son to get a good education and on the two daughters, to make a good marriage. Uma turns out to be unmarriageable, yet when she is offered 'a little job' by a well-meaning lady doctor, her parents are horrified and forbid it. Her sister meanwhile makes a 'good' marriage: but things do not turn out as you expect.There is tragicomedy in the figure of Auntie Mira-Masi, who is religiously minded and is constantly in search of her Lord Shiva. Auntie provides some very comic scenes. There is humour, too, in the figure of the 'black sheep ' of the family, Cousin Ramu. When he suggests going out to a restuarant for dinner, MamaPapa are "protesting as furiously as a band of mynahs in the thick of disagreement. " What lovely writing.The second part, Fasting, is set in the US where brother Arun has been packed off to university by controlling Papa. This part seems like a caricature of all that is worst in western lifestyle: greedy, guzzling,immodest, loud- until you realise it is probably a representation of how Indian families see North American families. The landlady drags Arun on food shopping expeditions and returns to pack the food into the fridges, "the gleaming white caves where the ice whispers secretly to itself." Her rabidly meat-eating family has a bulimic daughter. Arun asks himself how "in this land of licence and plenty," there can be such fasting as the daughter displays. When Arun eventually discovers hippy-style alternative therapies, this seems like an echo of Auntie's search for Shiva. The book ends with Arun donating to his landlady, his family's gifts to him from India: as if to persuade her that their culture is better?

I particularly like the complete change of style, from the section that described Arun's jogging.Previously the book seemed just a predictable chronicle of daily life, but from here on it changed into a story with underlying menace and unsuspected revelations of the characters.

I really enjoyed this. It gave a ascinating, not always favourable picture of Indian middle class life and its effect on women. I was hooked on Uma's story and rather sad when it ended with her brother's life in thr USA though that was compelling too

not one of her better novels was disappointed.

Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai tells the tale of a close-knit traditional middle-class Indian family and the varying fates of their children.The book is written in two parts. In the first part we see Uma, the eldest daughter and the circumstances that leads to her current imprisoned state while the second half focuses on Arun, the youngest son, who later emigrate to the west, which now feels more terrible than his saturnine family.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀This isn't a perfect novel in any means. The constant sadness that permeates Uma's life without any glimpse of joy or fulfilment made it somewhat a slow read for me. However Anita Desai does an incredible job at portraying the misery and problems of women in an inherently patriarchal Indian family. The women of the family are forced into domestic responsibilities at a very young age and are soon reduced into a mere instrument of marriage, which is in contrast to how the sons are treated as the herald of the family and their upbringing becomes the sole aim of the parents.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Uma's story felt more captivating to me and it took me some time to develop empathy for Arun. The ending of the book also felt somewhat underwhelming. But these are just my personal opinions and the book is by no means a bad read. Anita Desai is outright with her critique on how women are still considered as a mere appendage to a man. She comments on the state of unmarried women and how the society rejects their autonomous existence. This story is essentially the author's declaration on how a woman is also a being, very much capable of finding her own salvation.