The White Tiger

Adiga, Aravind

ISBN 10: 1409112349 ISBN 13: 9781409112341

Publisher: Orion, 2008

Synopsis

Meet Balram Halwal, the 'White Tiger': servant, philosopher, entrepreneur, murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells his story...

Born in a village in the dark heart of India, the son of a rickshaw puller, Balram is taken out of school by his family and put to work in a teashop. As he crushes coal and wipes tables, he nurses a dream of escape of breaking away from the banks Mother Ganga, into whose murky depths have seeped the remains of a hundred generations.

His big chance comes when a rich village landlord hires him as a chauffeur for his son, daughter-in-law, and their two Pomeranian dogs. From behind the wheel of a Honda, Balram first sees Delhi. The city is a revelation. Amid the cockroaches and call-centres, the 36,000,004 gods, the slums, the shopping malls and the crippling traffic jams, Balram's re-education begins. Caught between his instinct to be a loyal son and servant, and his desire to better himself, he learns of a new morality at the heart of a new India. As the other servants flick through the pages of Murder Weekly, Balram begins to see how the Tiger might escape his cage. For surely any successful man must spill a little blood on his way to the top?

THE WHITE TIGER is a take of two Indias. Balram's journey from the darkness of village life to the light of entrepreneurial success is utterly amoral, brilliantly irreverent, deeply endearing and altogether unforgettable.

Read by Kerry Shale

About this title

Review:

Winning the Man Booker prize is something that most authors dream of, although -- ironically -- the reputation of the prize itself was under siege a few years ago. Books that won the award were acquiring a reputation of being difficult and inaccessible, but those days appear to be over -- and unarguable proof may be found in the 2008 winner, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. Apart from its considerable literary merit, the novel is the most compelling of pageturners (in the old-fashioned sense of that phrase) and offers a picture of modern India that is as evocative as it is unflattering. The protagonist, too, is drawn in the most masterly of fashion.

Balram Halwai, the eponymous ‘white tiger’, is a diminutive, overweight ex-teashop worker who now earns his living as a chauffeur. But this is only one side of his protean personality; he deals in confidence scams, over-ambitious business promotions (built on the shakiest of foundations) and enjoys approaching life with a philosophical turn of mind. But is Balram also a murderer? We learn the answer as we devour these 500 odd pages. Born into an impoverished family, Balram is removed from school by his parents in order to earn money in a thankless job: shop employee. He is forced into banal, mind-numbing work. But Balram dreams of escaping -- and a chance arises when a well-heeled village landlord takes him on as a chauffeur for his son (although the duties involve transporting the latter's wife and two Pomeranian dogs). From the rich new perspective offered to him in this more interesting job, Balram discovers New Delhi, and a vision of the city changes his life forever. His learning curve is very steep, and he quickly comes to believe that the way to the top is by the most expedient means. And if that involves committing the odd crime of violence, he persuades himself that this is what successful people must do.

The story of the amoral protagonist at the centre of this fascinating narrative is, of course, what keeps the reader comprehensively gripped, but perhaps the real achievement of the book is in its picture of two Indias: the bleak, soul-destroying poverty of village life and the glittering prizes to be found in the big city. The book cleverly avoids fulfilling any of the expectations a potential reader might have -- except that of instructing and entertaining. The White Tiger will have many readers anxious to see what Adiga will do next. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

The must have audio this month - a tale of two Indias: the rich and the poor, the light and the dark. (DAILY EXPRESS)

"Balram's rise from rickshaw-puller's son to mega-successful Bangalore entrepreneur is a psychological crime thriller stuffed with uncomfortable insights into the ugly underbelly of India's political and social divisions ... Brilliantly savage." (OBSERVER)

Moving, illuminating, funny and shocking, and written with huge measures of heart and intellect, Adiga's novel was a worthy winner of last year's Man Booker prize. (SUNDAY TIMES)

I'm now going to say how brilliantly Kerry Shale reads the new Man Booker prize winner about a ruthless rickshaw-puller's son. ..He's ruthless, but he's also hugely engaging and, most of all, funny. Shale's accent doesn't detract, it enhances. It's what good audiobooks are all about. (Sue Arnold GUARDIAN)

On the page, this novel is a worthy winner of the Man Booker prize ... yet it ups its game a thousandfold when read by the truly phenomenal Kerry Shale. It's near impossible to believe that one person could bring a cast of magnificently various Indian voices so raucously to life. But he does. It is a tour de force. (Sue Gaisford INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY)

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1409112349
• ISBN 13: 9781409112341
• Binding: Audio CD