Alas, I am really busy and behind in reviews. At least this means I am reading books that I have things to say about, which equals content. #Blogger problems.
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Rating: 3.5 | ★★★☆☆
Release Date: March 15th, 2016
Series or Standalone: Standalone
Genre: Historical Fiction, South Asian Fiction, Cultural Fiction, Short fiction
Page Count: 244 pages
Dates Read: January 21st, – February 15th, 2019
Synopsis: The twelve paired stories in Shobha Rao’s An Unrestored Woman trace their origins to the formation of India and Pakistan in 1947, but they transcend that historical moment.
A young woman in a crushingly loveless marriage seizes freedom in the only way left to her; a mother is forced to confront a chilling, unforgivable crime she committed out of love; an ambitious servant seduces both master and mistress; a young prostitute quietly, inexorably plots revenge on the madam who holds her hostage; a husband and wife must forgive each other for the death of their child.
Caught in extreme states of tension, in a world of shifting borders, of instability, Rao’s characters must rely on their own wits. When Partition established Pakistan and India as sovereign states, the new boundary resulted in a colossal transfer of people, the largest peacetime migration in human history.
This mass displacement echoes throughout Rao’s story couplets, which range across the twentieth century, moving beyond the subcontinent to Europe and America. Told with dark humor and ravaging beauty, An Unrestored Woman unleashes a fearless new voice on the literary scene. (GR)
❝All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.❞
~ Michael Ondaatje
After reading Shobha Rao’s novel Girls Burn Brighter, I was pretty much sold. I’d read Kavitha & Mustafa previously enough to have an interest in this collection, and overall it was quite an interesting read. I appreciate the casualness of the fact that some of the characters are no heterosexual and that this fact isn’t a big deal, it’s just a fact, just as much as something else you’d notice about a person.
The Partition is a very pivotal date within South Asian history, it was the setting factor for a great amount of tension and the eventual formation of the modern-day countries of India, Pakistan and eventually Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan).
An Unrestored Woman:
↠ 3.5 | ★★★☆☆
After her husband’s death young Neela is taken to a camp for Widowed young woman and finds a deep friendship and solace with another young woman named Renu.
It’s always a little strange reading a book where the main character has the same name as one of your best friends. It was an interesting story, a little sad, and a lot confusing, but Renu and Neela’s friendship is pure and wonderful.
❝The warmth of Renu’s neck, the scent of her body, left Neela aching.❞
The Merchant’s Mistress:
↠ 3 | ★★★☆☆
Following Renu, we see her continued tale, as she leaves the widows camp and finds herself in a relationship with both a merchant and his wife and ends up in South Africa.
This was weird, and I was very confused. Shobha Rao likes to write endings that leave you hanging, and I don’t always like it. But like, I like Renu, and I appreciate the casualness of the fact that she has an affair with a woman.
❝She thought especially of Neela.❞
The Imperial Police:
↠ 3.5 | ★★★☆☆
Jenkins, a white man in charge of a police division somewhere in India finds himself in a difficult position when his favourite subinspector, Abheet Singh is killed, and Jenkins may or may not have been in love with Abheet.
Jenkins reminds me a lot of an older version of Sam Wyndham. He’s not like most British people who populated India while it was under colonial rule. His adoration of Abheet was adorable, and honestly, I loved that twist, even know nothing ever pans out because Abheet is dead from page one.
❝He reached his hand out—it was the earth trembling, wasn’t it—and stroked Abheet Singh’s hair. It was silken, as he’d known it would be, and so dark he could well imagine diving into its pool at midnight.❞
Unleashed:
↠ 3 | ★★★☆☆
Anju and Vikram are struggling with their marriages, Anju has a complicated relationship with her sister Meena, and Jenkins is the Elevator operator and they bond.
Again, this was strange. It was nice seeing Jenkins again, but like the whole Anju-Vikram-Meena thing confused me so much.
❝I don’t think where that kind of Indians.❞
Blindfold:
↠ 2.5 | ★★☆☆☆
Zubaida was bought as a young child to work in her brothel plots her revenge on Bandra, the woman who bought her. But things also get complicated when one of Zubaida’s clients falls in love with her and wishes to marry her.
As much as the summery of this sounded promising I most found myself confused and picturing Shahid Kapoor because of Abdul Shahid and Abdul Karim because of Abdul Kareem, which somehow I feel like isn’t the idea of the story.
❝[I]f you make them afraid … you make them yours.❞
The Lost Ribbon:
Rating: 4.5 | ★★★★☆
After not telling the truth to her neighbor Leela in a woman’s commune, an unnamed old woman reveals the story of how she was carried off as a teenager to Pakistan and was forced to kill her baby daughter Noora when she is given a chance to escape her captivity and return home to India, because she can’t bring Noora with her, and leaving the baby with her father is out of the question.
Oh my god, this was incredible. It’s tense, interesting and pulls at your heartstrings. I can’t gush properly about how much I adored this short story, so I won’t. But I will say this, I think it’s fucking ridiculous to say that a baby born from rape and a forced marriage belongs to the father and can’t belong to the mother and her country.
❝I was long dead before I ever killed you.❞
The Opposite of Sex:
↠ 2.5 | ★★☆☆☆
Mohan (no not that Mohan) is a cartographer set with the task mapping the boundary between India and East Pakistan (Bangladesh) shortly after Partition, but things are complicated, especially when his female love interest Lalita gets involved, basically, it talks a lot about how males and females are opposite sex-wise.
This was okay. It was little too long and Mohan wasn’t as good a Mohan as the Mohan from Shobha’s GBB and that disappointed me.
❝I see dirt. Not just any dirt Mr. Mohan, rich black dirt.❞
Such a Mighty River:
Rating: 3 | ★★★☆☆
Alok Debnath is old, He has six fingers on one hand, he lives with his annoying grandchildren, his daughter, and her husband and he’s not very happy. He also kind of has Alzheimer’s, forgets what year it is, and goes in search of his dead wife and a prostitute named Rekha he paid but who cheated him, gets in trouble and gets his sixth finger cut off.
If this story sounds all over the place, that is because it is. But like it was also interesting.
❝You’ll soon see death.❞
The Road to Mirpur Khas:
Rating: 3 | ★★★☆☆
An unnamed Muslim man and his wife Arya are robbed while traveling through the Thar desert of Rajasthan on their way to Mirpur Khas, Pakistan. They end up parking outside a restaurant stop outside of Jaisalmer. The only remotely helpful person is Arun, who owns the restaurant.
This couple has really bad luck, and I feel bad, but like it wasn’t incredibly gripping personally. I felt bad for Arya because she asked for none of this.
❝I’d left Arya crying as I climbed and slipped across the endless sand dunes.❞
The Memsahib:
Rating: 4 | ★★★★☆
Before Arun bought and started his own restaurant, he worked as a lowly servant pre-partition for these very entitled rich white folks. He ends up falling for their daughter, Lavinia who is entering a marriage that is a guise to help her fiancee, Mr. Reed and her brother, Dicky who are secretly in love with each other. Arun sees this and confronts Lavinia, also revealing that he himself is desperately in love with her. She scoffs at him, fires him, his mother dies and as his revenge, he ties Lavinia up locks her in a cupboard.
Damn, this was sad, complicated and very interesting. Not sure, I agree with Arun’s revenge plot, but I understand why he was angry, Lavinia was a complete asshole about the whole affair. Sometimes rich white people are the worst.
❝A life spent serving people who were no better than dogs, a life of being ordered around by them, cleaning up after them. Being told to bring them fucking nimbu pani.❞
Kavitha & Mustafa:
Rating: 4 | ★★★★☆
When Kavitha and her husband’s train from Pakistan to India is stopped by mercenaries, Kavitha finds a way to escape, saving herself and a young boy named Mustafa, leaving everyone else, including her husband Vinod behind probably to die.
This was really good, even reading it for the second time. As much as you feel bad for all the people left behind, I’m glad Kavitha takes her own safety into account and doesn’t look back at all. I also think the relationship between Kavitha and Mustafa is heartwarming, and honestly, during parition, it’s heartwarming to see people of different religions as friends.
❝You are mine. Don’t speak. And he never did.❞
Curfew:
Rating: 4 | ★★★★☆
Ever since Safia, at age five lost her grandfather Mustafa’s lucky pebble, it seems as if everything in her life eventually brings her grief. She is married and has a beautiful baby daughter, who soon passes away leaving Safia, no matter how much her husband tries, emotionally devastated. While on Vacation in Italy, Safia recalls how her grandfather Mustafa, managed to save his life by running away from the train he’d be on after it was stopped by mercenaries, and she decides to do what he did, start her life over, and so she runs away from the scene, ready to start over.
I think it screamed a little when I realized that Safia was Mustafa (yes, that Mustafa)’s granddaughter. But it left me with one major question: if Mustafa never spoke again after Kavitha told him not to (though I don’t think she meant forever), how on earth did he manage to start a family and have kids? Like how did he manage to court someone, marry them, have kids and grandkids and never speak? Regardless it was a good story.
❝Running— this is how you begin.❞
It took me a while to really be drawn in, but overall it’s a solid collection, and honestly, I am excited to see how Shobha grows as a creator.
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Rating: 4.5 | ★★★★☆
Release Date: September 18, 1937
Series or Standalone: Standalone
Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance, Coming of Age, Classics, African American Fiction
Page Count: 219 pages
Dates Read: February 6th, – 12th, 2019
Synopsis: Fair and long-legged, independent and articulate. Janie Crawford sets out to be her own person -no mean feat for a Black woman in the 30’s. Zora Neale Hurston’s classic 1937 novel follows Janie from her nanny’s plantation shack to Logan Killick’s farm, to all Black Eatonville, to the Everglades, and back to Eatonville- where she gathers in “the great fish-net” of her life. Janie’s quest for identity takes her on a journey during which she learns what love is, experiences life’s joys and sorrows, and comes home to herself in peace. (GR)
When I read books for school, it automatically lessens my enjoyment, but honestly, that didn’t really apply in this circumstance.
Janie is such a powerful character.
Despite her, sometimes apparent dependence on men is more culturally and historical, she is actually wonderfully feminist. She has dreams and wishes and expectations of life, and she’s not afraid to go after them, even when sometimes she gets dragged through the mud in the process. I found Janie’s journey very inspiring towards my own path as someone who is trying to figure out the world and my place in it.
Jody is an interesting character.
As much as his treatment of Janie isn’t okay, he really pushes Janie out of her shell and helps her discover that she wants something else, something bigger.
Tea Cake is honestly a babe.
As much as he has his own faults, he cares about Janie actually and doesn’t attempt to control her. He gives love and receives her love, it’s a partnership just as much as it’s marriage. Also, he’s played by Michael Ealy so I can’t really complain.
Because I don’t have time to share my full feelings because I am busy and stressed, I am going to share with you a selection of my favourite quotes.
❝Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.❞
❝The wind came back with triple fury and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.❞
❝She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.❞
❝The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor.❞
❝All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise, they would not be worshipped… Half Gods are worshipped with wine and flowers. Real Gods require Blood.❞
❝So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.❞
❝Sometimes she stuck out into the future, imagining her life different from what it was.❞
❝They plan and they fix and they do, and then some kitchen-dwelling fiend slips a scorchy, soggy, tasteless mess into their pots and pans…So when the bread didn’t rise, and the fish wasn’t quite done at the bone, and the rice was scorched, he slapped Janie until she had a ringing sound in her ears and told her about her brains before he stalked on back to the store.❞
❝She received all things with the stolidness of the earth which soaks up urine and perfume with the same indifference.❞
❝Husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage meant. It was just so. Janie felt glad of the thought, for then it wouldn’t seem so destructive and moldy. She wouldn’t be lonely anymore.❞
❝He was a glance from God.❞
❝Janie, Ah hope God may kill me, if Ah’m lyin’. Nobody else on earth kin hold uh candle tuh you, baby. You got de keys to de kingdom.❞
❝Of course, he wasn’t dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking.❞
❝Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon—for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you—and pinched it into such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her. She hated the old woman who had twisted her so in the name of love.❞
❝He done taught me de maiden language all over.❞
❝She went on in her overalls. She was too busy feeling grief to dress like grief.❞
❝Oh to be a pear tree—any tree in bloom! With kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world! She was sixteen. She had glossy leaves and bursting buds and she wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her. Where were the singing bees for her?❞
❝The sounds lulled Janie to soft slumber and she woke up with Tea Cake combing her hair.❞
❝She tore off the kerchief from her head and let down her plentiful hair. The weight, the length, the glory was there.❞
❝Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all it’s take its shape from de shore it meets and it’s different with every shore.❞
❝She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up.❞
There were so many incredible quotes, I don’t have the time to name them all. But my favourite scene was probably the scene about the mule. Anyways, this book is full of gorgeous quotes. Zora is a goddess, and I love her.
❝No, I do not weep at the world – I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife… Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.❞
Anyways, thank you, Kaufman, I really appreciate the reading selections you made so far, keep up the good work.
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Tell me, one book you had to read for school that didn’t make you want to claw your eyes out a little. Also, tell me about your favourite short story collection or anthology.
Petyr Baeish Books © 2019 by Tova Portmann-Bown
Petyr Baeish Books 
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