The Age of Shiva: A Novel

by Manil Suri

Overview

"A stunning novel, proof that Manil Suri is a major storyteller of heart and intelligence." —Amy Tan

The Age of Shiva is at once a powerful story of a country in turmoil and an "unflinchingly honest" portrait of maternal love—"intricately interwoven with the ancient rites and myths" (Booklist) crucial to India's history. Meera, the narrator, is seventeen years old when she catches her first glimpse of Dev, performing a song so infused with passion that it arouses in her the first flush of erotic longing. She wonders if she can steal him away from Roopa, her older, more beautiful sister, who has brought her along to see him. It is only when her son is born that Meera begins to imagine a life of fulfillment. She engulfs him with a love so deep, so overpowering, that she must fear its consequences. Meera's unforgettable story, embodying Shiva as a symbol of religious upheaval, places The Age of Shiva among the most compelling novels to emerge from contemporary India. Reading group guide included.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393067828
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/12/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	464
File size:	786 KB

About the Author

Manil Suri is a distinguished mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Author of three acclaimed novels, including The Death of Vishnu, he is a former contributing opinion writer at the New York Times, for which he has written several widely read pieces on mathematics. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Editorial Reviews

We all live in the shadow of history, and the play of its lights and shades over individual lives is the stuff of historical fiction. In his sweepingly ambitious, captivating second novel, The Age of Shiva, Manil Suri creates a woman who is never an actor in the great events of India's post-independence decades but cannot escape their power to shape her…The novel would have been richer if Suri had infused it more deeply with the world-shaping changes that surround his heroine. He is not writing that kind of politicized fiction, though, and doesn't need to. In Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie has already created what may be the definitive—and is certainly the most richly imagined—novel of the Indian partition. Suri's contribution is to have invented a woman so vivid and individual that she reminds us, in her meandering connection to history, that no two people ever respond to its pull in the same way.
—The New York Times

Caryn James

The second novel from Suri (The Death of Vishnu) follows Meera Sawhney from her unhappy 1950s marriage to aspiring singer Dev Arora through to her own son's coming-of-age. After an impulsive act forces Meera's marriage at 17, her complex, controlling father decries her tying herself (and, by extension, her family) to the provincial, lower-class Aroras. Meera soon finds herself pulled in different directions by her in-laws' religious orthodoxy, her father's progressivism (which doesn't run deep), her husband's self-pitying alcoholism and her own resentment. She finds salvation in the birth of a son, Ashvin; mother love, which Suri describes in intensely physical terms, gives her life passion and purpose, and overwhelms her adult relationships. But as India modernizes, Meera senses that Ashvin, and she herself, must live their own lives. Suri renders Meera's perspective marvelously, especially in small particulars (such as Meera's deliberations around the cutting of Ashvin's hair) and in the perils and conflicts Meera faces in her relationships with men. He also takes a close look at Hindu practices and charts the rise of religious nationalism in the years following Gandhi's death. Suri's vivid portrait of a woman in post-independence India engages timeless themes of self-determination. (Feb.)

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Publishers Weekly

This second novel in a proposed trilogy is not really a sequel to Suri's first, the 2002 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award-winning The Death of Vishnu, although it, too, is set in a Bombay apartment building. Obsessive love is the theme, and Suri once again displays a fine touch for details. Meera, living in 1960s Bombay, is a headstrong 17-year-old girl whose impulsiveness leads her into a troubled marriage with Dev, a charming singer. But Dev never quite makes it in the Bombay music business and soon starts drinking heavily. In conflict not only with her husband but also with her autocratic father, Meera channels all her love toward her young son, Ashvin. As the boy grows up, Meera's maternal devotion turns suffocating and claustrophobic. Non-Indian readers will be able to relate to the family dynamics here, but a passing knowledge of Indian customs and recent history, especially during Indira Gandhi's four-term rule as prime minister (1966-77; 1980-84), would be helpful. Recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ9/1/07.]
—Leslie Patterson

Library Journal

The second novel from Suri (The Death of Vishnu) follows Meera Sawhney from her unhappy 1950s marriage to aspiring singer Dev Arora through to her own son's coming-of-age. After an impulsive act forces Meera's marriage at 17, her complex, controlling father decries her tying herself (and, by extension, her family) to the provincial, lower-class Aroras. Meera soon finds herself pulled in different directions by her in-laws' religious orthodoxy, her father's progressivism (which doesn't run deep), her husband's self-pitying alcoholism and her own resentment. She finds salvation in the birth of a son, Ashvin; mother love, which Suri describes in intensely physical terms, gives her life passion and purpose, and overwhelms her adult relationships. But as India modernizes, Meera senses that Ashvin, and she herself, must live their own lives. Suri renders Meera's perspective marvelously, especially in small particulars (such as Meera's deliberations around the cutting of Ashvin's hair) and in the perils and conflicts Meera faces in her relationships with men. He also takes a close look at Hindu practices and charts the rise of religious nationalism in the years following Gandhi's death. Suri's vivid portrait of a woman in post-independence India engages timeless themes of self-determination. (Feb.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

School Library Journal

"Sweepingly ambitious, captivating. ... Affirms [Suri's] position as a writer worth serious attention."

New York Times Book Review - Caryn James

"A sensuous, nuanced portrait of motherhood."

The New Yorker

"Suri once again triumphs."

St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Charles Gershman

"As in his first novel, Suri uses tales of Hindu gods and goddesses to illuminate mortal hearts. A rich and multilayered read."

O Magazine

"Drawn by this compelling narrative, I read this marvelous book in one sitting."

Kiran Desai