Winner of the 2008 Man Booker Prize, Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger
The narrator and hero/anti-hero is Balram, known as the White Tiger, a poor boy who is determined from a young age not to remain poor and stupid and in the Darkness of rural India. He lies, cheats, and eavesdrops his way into opportunities like a job as a driver for the son of a local oligarch, one that brings him into contact with greater wealth and with the urban chaos of New Delhi. This new experience brings him greater opportunities for advancement and for stepping on or destroying people in his way until his actions eventually escalate to murder. Through this diary of his experiences, told through seven letters to the visiting Premier of China, Balram is cheerful, mocking or criticizing everyone from his idiot rich boss to the traditional Indians who remain happy stuck in the mire to the rich classes whose government and the gods to keep the teeming multitudes in penury.
White Tiger is a disingenuously quick read, with fast, witty prose, but underneath it Adiga is posing tough questions without really answering them. Was Balram a hero or an anti-hero? It’s tough to justify most of what he does in the novel, except that just about everyone he stepped on or hurt or killed had it, or at least something, coming. And who can blame someone raised in that kind of poverty and hopelessness for grabbing indiscriminately at an opportunity to escape it? Does one’s environment determine the morality of one’s actions? Does Balram feel guilty about any of his actions – hence his rationalizations – or does he believe that he’s fully justified?
Adiga’s targets are wide, but a huge portion of his satire – or just his ire – is aimed at “modern” India, which he views as segregated and corrupt, ruled by idiots who are simply smarter than the “slaves” in the country’s massive underclass. The corruption is endemic, from bribes paid to government officials to sinecures in local towns, but the characters’ mass acceptance of “how it is” is terrifying, and the one person who objects – because he has spent time in the United States – is too weak-willed to do much more than complain. The party that purports to represent the poor is every bit as corrupt as the one that rules the country for the rich, and both parties promise reforms to the masses without delivering anything.
I also read White Tiger while wondering if it was possible to write a book this funny and compelling with a moral central character. Balram simply has no moral center – he has rejected the dictums from his family, the faith of his caste (although he hasn’t given up on its superstitions), and the respect for authority that the authorities demand. He lies and acts to get what he wants, and has no compunction about his deception. A book like this almost requires a central character – or maybe just a narrator – who respects nothing and no one and is unflinching in his rejection of old institutions. Anything he does believe in, religion or tradition or family, would have to be home-brewed. If you’ve read a book that disproves this theory, I’d love to hear about it.
And, since I know someone will ask, yes, I expect The White Tiger
Next up: John Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The only book that comes to mind for me that might similarly skewer everything is Candide. Which from the sounds of what you describe is almost exactly opposite. Embracing everything instead of rejecting everything. Of course, I haven’t read The White Tiger, so maybe I’m not quite getting what you’re going for.
Enjoy Tinker, Tailor. It’s brilliant. I’d say, as far as spy novels go, better than The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, though with less subtext. Also the BBC miniseries starring Alec Guiness is a fantastic watch after you’ve read the book.
Good to hear, I’m about to start this this weekend and had heard some mediocre things about it.
Do you plan to read the entire “Karla trilogy”, or are you just going with Tinker, Tailor for now?
I just finished the “Karla Trilogy” — I had read Tinker, Tailor a number of years ago then went back to read the others. I think The Spy Who Came In From the Cold is a much tighter and leaner book, but that the trilogy books ultimately stick with you more. The Honourable Schoolboy is almost unbearably bleak.
I really like this review, respect your work highly and I think it’s hilarious that I had just finished the book and written a review, though not as thorough as yours. That’s for sure. Keep up the tremendous work!
Many friends who have read White Tiger also recommend Shantaram and Three Cups of Tea – have you dabbled in either?
It’s been a few months since I read this book but my impression of the main character Balram was a little more hopeful than your’s. First off, i got the feeling that if any one had shown him any kindness or justice along the way he may have turned out differently. And second, in the end he didn’t turn out so bad. Through unscrupulous means he got to a place where he could maintain a moral center. He sacrificed himself to break a rottenm, vicious social system. And this leads to the main theme that i carried from the book of a fated path or destiny. Multiple times it was as if Balram wasn’t making decisions for himself but just acting out the path laid in front of him. I feel the author sees no redemption in the institutions of Indian society. There may be hope for the future but the institutions must be deposed. And that process or path is a perilous one for the individual.
Keith, I think that Balram DID show a moral center towards the end of the novel. From the beginning of his tale, he showed an acute sense of self-awareness. The fact that he mentions he should have killed the “Mongoose” (the cruel elder brother of his employer), he rturns to take his young nephew along sparing him from the police, and the way he handles the auto accdient near the end of novel..these incidents show that despite murdering someone, he has a very clear sense of what is “right”.