The Booker winning novel has recently been adapted as a Netflix film
June's meeting discussed Aravind Adiga's 2008 Booker winner The White Tiger with some division between members on how invested they were in a book which paints a brutal picture of modern India.
There were members who found the novel delivered fully in terms of character, plot and ideas with a compelling well-paced story. Even if the events were often brutal and uncompromising, there was a feeling it had much to say about the treatment of the inequality of modern India, as well as global capitalism.
Fans of the book found narrator Balram a compelling narrator, and as well as its exposure of the ills of Indian society, they also found plenty of humour and wit in his account of how he escaped poverty.
Members agreed this was an unflattering portrait of a modern, capitalist India, with everyone on the make, and prepared to exploit the poor for their own benefit, and that did meant Balram could only escape by adopting at least some of the same ruthlessness.
Some members though did struggle with the lack of sympathetic characters, feeling that Balram only achieved his rise through violence and the abandonment of his family, and any moral compass.
The real villains of course were his employers - and there was agreement they were well-drawn, with the Westernised Ashok and Pinky Madam perhaps the least-deserving of sympathy because of their hypocrisy.
There was some discussion about whether the exploitation detailed in The White Tiger was specific to India, and its caste system and politics, or whether the book also exposed wider facets of a globalised capitalist economy which treats people as expendable commodities.
For some members, it was clear why the novel with its energy and themes had won the Booker, and appreciation of Adiga's prodigious talent as a debut novelist. But for others, although they could see its qualities and the skill of the author, it was not a book that they relished reading or would return to.
There were members who found the novel delivered fully in terms of character, plot and ideas with a compelling well-paced story. Even if the events were often brutal and uncompromising, there was a feeling it had much to say about the treatment of the inequality of modern India, as well as global capitalism.
Fans of the book found narrator Balram a compelling narrator, and as well as its exposure of the ills of Indian society, they also found plenty of humour and wit in his account of how he escaped poverty.
Members agreed this was an unflattering portrait of a modern, capitalist India, with everyone on the make, and prepared to exploit the poor for their own benefit, and that did meant Balram could only escape by adopting at least some of the same ruthlessness.
Some members though did struggle with the lack of sympathetic characters, feeling that Balram only achieved his rise through violence and the abandonment of his family, and any moral compass.
The real villains of course were his employers - and there was agreement they were well-drawn, with the Westernised Ashok and Pinky Madam perhaps the least-deserving of sympathy because of their hypocrisy.
There was some discussion about whether the exploitation detailed in The White Tiger was specific to India, and its caste system and politics, or whether the book also exposed wider facets of a globalised capitalist economy which treats people as expendable commodities.
For some members, it was clear why the novel with its energy and themes had won the Booker, and appreciation of Adiga's prodigious talent as a debut novelist. But for others, although they could see its qualities and the skill of the author, it was not a book that they relished reading or would return to.
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