What the Body Remembers - Softcover

Baldwin, Shauna Singh

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0676973183 ISBN 13: 9780676973181

Publisher: Vintage Books Canada, 2000

Synopsis

The year is 1937, and Roop, a sixteen-year-old Sikh girl from a small village in Northwestern India, has just been married to Sardarji, a wealthy man in his forties. She is a second wife, married without a dowry in the hope that she will bear children, because Sardarji's first wife, Satya, a proud, beautiful, combative woman whom he deeply loves, is childless. The wedding has been conducted in haste, and kept secret from Satya until after the fact. Angered and insulted, she does little to disguise her hatred of Roop, and secretly plans to be rid of her after she has served her purpose and given Sardarji a son.

Besides being a landowner, Sardarji is an Oxford-educated engineer, who hopes that he can help India modernize. As a rising man in the Indian Irrigation Department, he works with British engineers, designing canals to help Indian farmers grow food for the country, and hydro dams to bring even greater prosperity by producing electric power. The British have promised India independence some day, but the timing and conditions of their departure have not yet been settled. Sardarji is instinctively conservative and believes that it is better to work with the British rulers than to agitate against them. But many others are working to drive the British out. Unfortunately, the leaders of the independence movement, in arousing nationalistic emotions, are also deepening the the religious divisions between the Hindu and Muslim populations -- if India is free, which religion will be the dominant force? The Sikh community, to which Roop, Sardarji and Satya belong, is linked with the Hindus by their common history and some shared traditions, but the Sikhs also have historical grievances against the other religious communities. Intolerance and hatred are growing and the stage is set for bloody conflict.

About this title

Review:

No, no child is an innocent. Especially not a girl-child. Why, men of every colour and creed find blame in girls for rain that comes or doesn't come, but mostly, men blame girls for living.

. It is 1938 in the Indian Punjab and Sikh couple Satya and Sardarji have been childless for many years. So, although Satya is still beautiful at 42, her well-born husband has taken another younger wife, Roop. What the Body Remembers follows the evolving relationships between the three: the older woman's intense jealousy of and ultimate cruelties towards the younger (who innocently believes she has found her salvation through this marriage); the fears and vulnerabilities of the newcomer as she desperately tries to please; the expediency of the man. The tension intensifies as the two women find very different ways of coping with their predicament. These central relationships cast shadows on other characters who crowd onto the page, giving the novel colour and vibrant life. The men--particularly Sardarji--sometimes seem two-dimensional but they too are trapped by the expectations made of them.

Most of all, the novel makes flesh its social and political backdrop--the pluralist India of 1938 moving towards and through its independence: "Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, they are like the three strands of [Roop's] hair, a strong rope against the British, but separate nevertheless". The country as described is complex, seething and sometimes violent and the descriptions are disturbingly beautiful. What the Body Remembers is powerful, evocative and affecting. It is both a vivid account of a pivotal period of the history of India and a moving portrayal of what survival entailed for the women of that society. --Christina McLoughlin

Review:

"A stunning first novel.... Intensely atmospheric -- an artistic triumph."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[She] displays the gifts of a first-rate social observer [and] passionately records the longings, losses and compromises of her characters' lives."
--Winnipeg Free Press

"The characters shimmer with life, their predicaments grab the reader by the throat, their fate has the reader on the edge of the seat--. An enthralling read [that] offers a glimpse of humanity that is both intimate and universal."
--The Times (UK)

"An impressive debut."
--The National Post

..".a shining new novel--What the Body Remembers heralds the arrival not only of a significant new talent, but also of a fresh perspective on history, rarely experienced before."
--The Readers Showcase

"Shines--an ambitious debut."
--Entertainment Weekly

"Wonderful! Wonderful! I just finished What the Body Remembers -- what an amazing novel! I
feel it has expanded my understanding of the world vastly. And as a writer, I feel nourished, replenished. I drink your words!"
--Sandra Gulland

"An epic of heartbreak and honour set in Northwest India in the dying light of the Raj.... Painstakingly researched, its characters frankly convincing, and set against a rich backdrop of gods, politics and tradition, this novel earned its Montreal-born author the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2000 for Best Book in Canada and the Caribbean."
--National Post, Dec. 30/2000

"I very much admired the strength and control with which the author keeps her complex story going, and at the same time keeps it clear, and true to the spirit of India."
--Penelope Fitzgerald

"If you're one of those readers of novels who likes to think ahead, you might want to clear some space on the bedside table for What the Body Remembers... It's not going to be out for another year, but already the buzz is stuff of the highest voltage.... The Next Big Thing."
--Stephen Smith, "Grub Street," The Globe and Mail

"Engaging."
--The Globe and Mail

"Baldwin describes the scenes of the Independence movement with great verve. For the subcontinent, Partition was the most momentous event of the 20th century. But men who were affected by it...have written most of the literature. This is a woman's perspective. And because women suffered most when their homes were uprooted, this book becomes a more intimate account."
--India Today

"While What the Body Remembers will be read as a story of familial relations, it will be remembered more as social history -- the customs, traditions and mores of rural Punjab, many still unchanged."
--India Today, September 1999

"an impressive first novel, hype or no hype. Baldwin's passion for re-membering her dis-membered homeland, and her desire to tell women's version, propel the last half of the novel and make it particularly potent."
--Quill & Quire

"A richly textured often poetic story ... Newcomer Baldwin's theme -- the grueling uses to which women's bodies and spirits are put, and their abuses at the hands of men -- combines with the political analogue of India's struggle for independence to produce a lush, sensuous drama."
--Kirkus

"What the Body Remembers is an engaging story of life in pre-partition India, and a compassionate look at the lives of its two protagonists -- Sikh women who are practically voiceless within their own culture...History is merely a background to the domestic story, but its intimacy is what makes this novel work...What the Body Remembers is a worthwhile read."
--Edmonton Journal

..".a shining new novel...What the Body Remembers heralds the arrival not only of a significant new talent, but also of a fresh perspective on history, rarely experienced before."
--The Readers Showcase.

..".Baldwin both overwhelms and educates as she takes readers on this crowded and eventful ride through the complexities of life in 20th century India."
--Monday Magazine

"Shimmers with life...An enthralling read."
--The Times (UK)

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage Books Canada
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0676973183
• ISBN 13: 9780676973181
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 528