More mundane matters lie at the novel's heart, however. The 79-year-old Nariman Vakeel presides over his less than affluent family, contemplating as he lies sick his marriage 35 years earlier, and regretting the loss of his non-Parsi beloved whom his parents had prevented him marrying. Later, a daughter who doesn't want him living in her apartment causes a ceiling to collapse as a pretext for keeping him away. Money is short on all sides, and the risks family members run to in order to make ends meet drives the plot.
It is often said that contemporary novelists of Indian origin writing in English are far more loyal to the novel's social realist roots than their British and American counterparts. Martin Amis, for instance, for inexplicable reasons doyen of the UK literary establishment, once wrote a dreadful novel in which time flowed backwards. It would be hard to imagine Rohinton Mistry doing that. Far from embracing any experimental scenario, Mistry's fictional world is reminiscent of the 19th century novelist George Eliot -- a broadly sympathetic humanity focusing on people in a family setting, struggling to resolve differences and find meaning in what is for some of them an increasingly meaningless world. Neither of these authors may admit to any religious belief, but their sympathy is strongly with those of their characters who do.
Yezad's good-natured wife Roxana, for instance, is pure George Eliot, a descendent of Maggie from The Mill on the Floss. And it's wonderful to see these literary connections across the ages, testifying to the continuity of a humane, socially-concerned, warmly sympathetic fictional tradition, in contrast to the blood-spattered and pornographic pages of many best-sellers.
Rohinton Mistry must be one of the gentlest and kindest figures currently operating on the literary scene, and the great success of his second novel, A Fine Balance (1995), was very heartening.
Aspects of family life are presented, though, that none of Mistry's 19th century predecessors would have touched on -- menstruation and excrement, for instance, both make a showing. An unsuccessful attempt to emigrate to Canada also features in this novel (Mistry has lived there since the age of 23).
This book will not be everyone's cup of tea. Some will find it bland, though few will go as far as critic Germaine Greer notoriously did when she declared A Fine Balance to bear no relation to her (far briefer) experience of Indian life. I didn't find it a gripping read, but thoughtful, sane and unneurotic it undoubtedly is. This may prove very welcome to some people.
Publication Notes:
Family Matters
By Rohinton Mistry
487 pages
Faber
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