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Animal's People
by Indra Sinha
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (UK) (2007-03)
ISBN: 0743259203
EAN: 9780743259200
Binding/Media: Paperback - 384 pages
SKU: L1-48090215001
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comments: This copy is in very good condition. No visible markings, highlights, underlining, tears to text. Tight spine. Copy has a slight bend. No Dust Jacket. Soft Cover has light/minimum, shelf/edge wear. Very interesting copy, worth having at an affordable price. (L1-48)
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
'I used to be human once. So I'm told. I don't remember it myself, but people who knew me when I was small say I walked on two feet just like a human being...' Ever since he can remember, Animal has gone on all fours, the catastrophic result of what happened on That Night when, thanks to an American chemical company, the Apocalypse visited his slum. Now not quite twenty, he leads a hand-to-mouth existence with his dog Jara and a crazy old nun called Ma Franci, and spends his nights fantasising about Nisha, the daughter of a local musician, and wondering what it must be like to get laid. When a young American doctor, Elli Barber, comes to town to open a free clinic for the still suffering townsfolk - only to find herself struggling to convince them that she isn't there to do the dirty work of the 'Kampani' - Animal plunges into a web of intrigues, scams and plots with the unabashed aim of turning events to his own advantage. Compellingly honest, entertaining and entirely without self-pity, Animal's account lights our way into his dark world with flashes of pure joy - from the very first page all the way to the story's explosive ending.A NIMAL'S PEOPLE is a stunningly humane work of storytelling that takes us right to the heart of contemporary India.
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Customer Reviews
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Resonance
Rating  (5)
Date: 2010-06-01
The best contemporary literature I've read since One Hundred Years of Solitude. Indra Sinha gave his readers emotional depth, divine and angst relationships, connected characterizations, extravagant scenery, payback for crimes and best of all - humanity among the poor who only sought death for eternal peace. The end of the story was a little rushed in the last twenty pages, but the overall reading resonance was exceptional.
I'm Ben Campbell, the author of Dubrovnik, Kissing Freud and It's All Make Believe, Isn't It? *Marilyn Monroe Returns*. Please visit my amazon.com blog and comment on my books. Thank you.
KISSING FREUD
DUBROVNIK
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A great new voice
Rating  (4)
Date: 2009-06-12
This is a very good book. Animal is a creation not to be forgotten easily. The voice and telling of the tale is this novel's chief attraction. I really loved the way he combined (in a way very similar to Rushdie) high English with low Hindi to form a language that is entirely his own and that reflects the craziness of India that he is trying to capture in the book.
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1984 Bhopal disaster
Rating (5)
Date: 2009-03-05
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
A Breath of Fresh Air
An absolutely stunning, sad and horrifying read, yet with a very human touch and an (almost) happy ending! At first I found it a bit difficult to get used to the writing style, but once I got into it I found it very hard to put this book down.
While I am not going to write about the books contents (the other reviews and the product description have already taken care of this), I would like to recommend that you visit the author's website [...] if you are interested in background information on the book and why it was written. Also have a look at [..] - an entire website created around the book and the fictional city of Khaufpur! Look at the classifieds - you can take singing lesson from Awaaz-e-Khaufpur or see Dr. Barber at her clinic... Lastly, you should visit http://www.bhopal.org/ where you can find full details on Bhopal (Sinha's Khaufpur)and the terrible disaster that happened there in 1984. While I was too young to consciously remember it when it actually happened, I found out about it a few years ago when I read Amulya Malladi's book "A Breath of Fresh Air", which I can also highly recommend and which will give you another account of families affected by the Bhopal tragedy. People in Bhopal are still suffering, and I can only hope that books like "Animal" and "A Breath of Fresh Air" will keep it in people's minds!
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A deceptively light serious read !
Rating (5)
Date: 2008-12-29
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
Indra Sinha's Booker shortlisted novel "Animal's People" takes as its subject the aftermath of a chemical contamination disaster in India that has poisoned, maimed and destroyed whole communities including its self-named central character Animal who due to a deformed back is now reduced to walking like an animal on all fours. Serious issues of government corruption and cover up from inducements offered by unscrupulous multinationals, western perspective of third world realities as seen through the eyes of liberal journalists, etc are dealt with in a vernacular ridden narrative - shades of David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" - that reads like a post-apocalyptic comedic nightmare.
The pidgin-like language is initially hard to get into - what a bother to consult the large glossary of hindi words at the back of the book - but you soon get used to it when read fast. Animal's sex deprived sex obsessed psyche is funny and touching to a point but it is the essence of his surviving humanity beneath his deformed shell that draws its sharpest contrast against the rest of normal humanity and their unconscionable acts. Sinha's characters are never less than fascinating - there's the Mother Theresa type figure of the French nun driven mad by the catastrophe, the courageous educated local hero willing to sacrifice his life for justice, the female love interest in a three ( no, make that two and a half) cornered love affair, the romantic musician, and not least of all the righteous doctor from the first world taking up the cause of its victims.
The story gallops along nicely until stalled by an overlong clinic boycott episode before quickly regaining pace and building up to a thrilling climax which has each side lined up against the other for a fight to the death. Having said that, the drug induced dream like sequence just before the end is rather confusing and nearly ruined it for me.
Sinha tells a serious story but his tone is comic and satirical throughout. Animal's cultural misunderstanding of the significance of a kiss between the western doctor and her visiting husband is a hoot. "Animal's People" is so life affirming and has so many great moments you cannot fail to be charmed by it. A highly recommended read.
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Not up to his usual writing
Rating  (2)
Date: 2008-11-13
0 out of 5 customers found this reveiw helpful
I started this book but could not make any rhyme or reason out of the plot, the writing style disjointed, confusing, and subject matter depressing..I never finished it..
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