Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard

This is a book that anyone looking for humour with a large portion of wisdom will enjoy. Sampat's initial retreat from the town and ultimate retreat into himself is very well conceptualized. Read this book for its characterization, its humour, it's people, the hilarious series of events that end in its denouement and the sense of a better-than-imagined future to come.

A book with profusion of words evoking images and ideas, a book with a very refined sense of humour which will nevertheless make you laugh out loud; not merely smirk, a book with a stronger regional flavour than any other indian author i've read, a book so so simple in its construction yet so all encompassing...what more can i say! Kiran Desai though residing out of india writes with such minute detail about the commonplace in indian suburbia. She does not describe the beauty of the local mountains or rivers as some other indian authors do, or portray the traditions and customs of the region; she goes to the very daily life of the characters with which any reader can connect it with. The scene in which sampath is sleeping in a hot room full of snoring people or the scene in which his father upbraids him for his lack of enthusiasm and initiative in life are occurances the ordianry reader must have gone through and yet one cant but help but laughing at the way in which these domestic senes are described.The characters are also very well developed and though there being nothing extraordinary about the characters(in fact u might find most of them in your home or in the neighbourhood) each of them has some idiosyncracy. For example the extremely epicurean sampath's mother, Pinky's vainglory, sampath's father being very worldly wise and seeing an opportunity of making money where others might fear a loss, and of course sampath of whom i need say nothing about.The ending though others say is wierd or some others dont understand is i think the best way to end this type of book. One must'nt expect a logical or rational ending to a book which is one of the best works of creative writing that i have ever read. the ending is equally creative. Another critisism of this book is that it could be written better, it was very simply written. My answer to that is in the title of the review. Anyways the book is not as simple as it seems at first sight. Its a microcosm for humanity. It depicts the eternal struggle for personal space, the human tendency to make profits out of any situation, and the eternal pursuit of happiness by all in their own different ways.Its a bit of Douglas Adams, Salman Rushdie, Joseph Heller and Tolstoy. U cant afford to miss this one

I'd like to add my two cents' worth to the question of whether this book was written "for a western audience" - nonsense! It's for anyone, Western or Eastern, Southern or Northern, as long as they enjoy a funny story and an unerring, sharp-eyed take on humanity. And, not to get technical, but this book follows a traditional Indian form of literature, the story of the reluctant guru (of which probably RK Narayan's classic "The Guide" is the best-known example in the West). And the humor (speaking as someone who has lived there) is very typically Indian. It's really a wonderful book - to be enjoyed!

It has been some time since I read this delightful book, so all of its details aren't crystal clear to me now. But I feel like I must respond to those (both here and in a few periodicals) who claim Desai wrote this book for a "Western" audience. I don't think Desai wrote this book for any other reason than the sheer joy of putting together a fun, sharp story. This is no Oprah's book of the month marketing hogwash here, and it is preposterous to claim that Desai was "targeting" an audience at all, except, perhaps, the audience that simply enjoys a story for the story's sake. When I checked her biography on the book's jacket, I didn't see anything referring to her obtaining a degree in marketing. I think this is a stimulating and beautifully written first novel by a young writer who probably had no alterior motives in writing it except to tell a story. One recent reviewer here stated that Desai was trying "to show how the East really is ... whether it is like that or not" and used a sentence - a single sentence mind you! - as proof of that point. C'mon. Lighten up. This is a nice piece of fiction and it should be enjoyed for what it is, not for what hypersensitive, politically charged minds think it is trying to be. I do understand the criticism of the ending. But I would suggest that those who didn't "get it" go back and read the last few pages again. I love the way the events leading up to the last sentence begins crescendoing a few pages before. It was almost (cliche alert) like a jazz composition in its thought and rhythm. Read it out loud (that is how I enjoyed it fully) and you'll see what I mean. And it does come to a Bang! stop. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Going back to the jazz metaphor, it snapped me back to the reality of self and forced me to think about what it was that I had just read, like a composition that ends on a beautifully punctuated note. No cushy fadeaway scenes here - which are, by the way, the preferred ending for those "targeting" the "Western" audience.

HULLABALOO IN THE GUAVA ORCHARD IS THE MOST OUTSTANDING BOOK I HAVE READ IN YEARS!!! THE CHARACTERS WERE DELIGHTFUL, DEEP, EMOTIONAL, AND COMPLETELY ORIGINAL. I CAN ONLY COMPARE THE EXPERIENCE OF SAVORING THIS BOOK TO BITING INTO A MANGO FOR THE FIRST TIME, SEEING A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE MOON, OR GOING ON YOUR FIRST AMUSEMENT PARK ROLLER COASTER RIDE ..KIRAN DESAI HAS CAPTURED THOSE ONCE IN A LIFE TIME TREASURES OF THE SOUL IN THIS EXQUISITE NOVEL. THIS NOVEL IS A DREAMERS DELIGHT! IN A WORD...MAGNIFICENT!!!!