If it had come from any
other author, I would label Selection Day a successful novel. It is quite good,
a cut above the rest, if you will, with a rich story filled with humor, horror
and tragedy, all three spread out throughout the novel, co-mingling with the
greatest of ease. But since it comes from Aravind Adiga, (his third novel and
fourth book overall), it is a giant step back for a writer who wowed me twice
over with his debut novel The White Tiger, still, even seven year after finishing
it a favorite and his second novel, Last Man in Tower, both of which were
novels of India with teeth, forgoing the magical realism associated with
fiction from that area in favor of a gritty, harsh atmosphere adversely
affected by Western values, where the greedy succeed and the good sometimes, if
not always, suffer. This novel is not nearly as caustic or angry as those two,
and while I like it more than his tepid story collection Between the Assassinations,
its’ quality is not too far off. It concerns the lives of two brothers whose world
consists of their overbearing father and the sport of cricket, which they both
excel at. While Radha is primed to make it big, being sponsored by a wealthy
expat with the skills to prove it, his younger brother Manju has skills of his
own, but once he meets Radha rival, his life begins to unravel as new experiences
fill his life with confusion and indecision. I like how it takes an overused
trope, which I won’t spill here and create something new for it, so instead of
it being a story of self-discovery, it is instead a story of the consequences
of inaction. But this little nugget of wisdom doesn’t really help this novel’s
story, Adiga’s weakest or the swath of disposable characters, like Sofia, a
sort of cricket groupie. Adiga is still young and I will chock this little
novel up as a minor misstep.
Rating: 4/5
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