Not much to say about The Inheritance of Loss

90. The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai. Fiction, 10-12, pp. 324

I should have something to say about this book, which won the Booker Prize, but I don’t. I finished it Thursday. It’s Sunday and I still don’t have anything to say. I haven’t thought about the book since I put it down, except to fret about not posting to the blog and not having anything to say.

It’s written well enough, although the author indulges in the occasional obscure riff that I find annoying. It is set in both New York and in India at the foot of the Himalayas near the Nepal border. The Indian immigrant to New York has a tough time, is mistreated by both Americans and fellow Indians alike, is engaged in demeaning work and never fits in.

The characters in India are caught up in an insurgency by Nepalis who want their own country. Since they apparently can’t have their own country, they content themselves with taking what others have. The insurgency comes between two young lovers, who seem to have been less in love with one another than in love with the idea of being in love.

Nothing in this novel resonated with me. It did not haunt me. It did not move me. I guess it was OK. Others might find something to say about the bitter residue of colonialism or the immigrant experience or the global conflicts of nationalism, religion or race, but I don’t have anything to say about that.

I liked the title more than the book itself. I like the title a lot.