Response to Reading Rohinton Mistrys A Fine Balance Essay -- A Fine B

Response to Reading Rohinton Mistrys A Fine Balance I chose to read Rohinton Mistrys A Fine Balance, a account about four very contrastive people living in India during a menstruum of great civil unrest known as The State of Emergency. I found this book incredibly easy to get into because of the way Mistry writes. He seems to take the story around you, placing you in the setting as a viewer, involving you in the lives of the characters. Mistry clearly outlines the political and economic situation of India at the time, further emphasizing the charter of the main characters. The first thing I noticed about Mistrys writing style is his incredible ability to make you feel like youve really shifted to another country, another continent even. His descriptive ability allowed me to imagine so many little details in the book, the smell of the street, the loud, boisterous vendors screaming their slogans as pedestrians walk by. You really get to feel as if you are witnessing the e vents as they unfold. The first part of the book explained the story but then it promptly switched to abbreviated histories of each of the main characters before introducing them to the main plot. Mistry gives you the diverse backgrounds of all the main characters, using his beautifully descriptive language to make even simple things brilliant. The story takes place in an unnamed City by the Sea somewhere in India, exploring the lives of four very different people. Mistry creates characters that come from a very different sphere than Im used to, making the story all the more interesting for me. Mistry included many cultural references in the story that I looked up so that I knew a little more about the basis of the story. Before I had read this novel I had no friendship of the State of Emergency (having been born after it took place) so I found reading about it from the perspective of a person experiencing it, very informative. This first incisionalisation of the novel dis plays the interaction of the characters quite differently form the interaction they eventually have. All the characters are stiff and formal with each other. It is not until the next section of the book that they start to warm up to each other.Reading Response Journal 2 The beginning of this section marks a change in the book as all the main characters are now living under one roof and their attitude... ...of writing impressive and elegant without being over the top. He takes you on a roller coaster of emotions throughout the novel, leading you from happiness to depression in the blink of an eye. This book taught me something I had already vaguely known, that the world can be a very cruel place. The problem was I had never truly imagined it this cruel and abusive. It broke my heart and completely re-enforced my plans as to what Im doing after I finish university. I plan on working for th UN in underdeveloped countries, focussing on social interactions and medical exam servic es. The way Mistry wrote this book affected me deeply. I think the theme of this book was about the power of human perseverance and the ability of the downtrodden to always look for defend to the next day with optimism. The four characters in this novel face tremendous ordeals and yet they still manage to maintain a small amount of go for over their lives. Mistry writes in such a way that you can see their vulnerability, but you can also see how mentally and physically strong they are. They materialize comfort in the small things we take for granted, and as such they truly show their faith in a society that is failing them.