Meatless Days

I spent an entire week on Meatless Days, having picked it up after reading one of the book's chapters in an anthology of Indian writing. As a teenager, I'd just like to share my views about the book. Do note that it wasn't part of any required reading list, so I wasn't forced to complete it, nothing like that.Calling it her memoirs might not be completely accurate, because Ms Suleri has stated that not everything in the book actually happened, ie she did make up some of the events. However, she does insist that the language is a true reflection of the way in which she thinks, and speaks. If she is to believed, I think that makes her quite an extraordinary woman. Of all the Sub-Cont. writers whom I've read, no other writer quite matches up to the complexity of her language, and the intricacy with which she readily assembles metaphors for largely universal concepts such as 'the enigma of arrival' (to borrow a Naipaulian title) and gender in the Indian/Pakistani home.Her writing is a joy to 'decode', and it really amazed me how she often drops hints of a certain image early in a chapter only to develop it beautifully many paragraphs later. I found myself intrigued by her style. This is a book that requires, and deserves utmost concentration in the reading. Missing out on a single conceit might render whole sentences incomprehensible to the less-attentive reader. I actually plan to re-read Meatless Days, just to enjoy it from the perspective of someone who has already made initial acquaintance. I do recommend re-reading it to most who've have the opportunity to finish this book once.I also enjoyed Ms Suleri's fresh, and often satirical insights to such things as deaths, mourning, religion, and family. She certainly does put across her arguments very interestingly, and evocatively. There is a paragraph in which she cannot locate the graves of her mother and Ifat, and decides to leave the cemetery altogether, because she doesn't want to disrupt them from their restful peace. Not something that the reader might agree with, but the beauty of the book is that nothing is forced down the reader's throat. Ms Suleri certainly doesn't come across as someone who is philosophising at all.Very highly recommended!

Sara Suleri's memoir is a wonderful example of the kind of literary production our faculty memebers should be producing--inspired, original, and compelling. Her non-academic writing, like her literary criticism, moves me to believe there are still people in the academy who understand what it is all about.Suleri is definitely more cerebral than a lot of more mainstream novelists of the subcontinent, and that is to be expected. It is part of this memoirs charm that there is a pull between her intellectual curiosities/asides and the more narrative moments of pathos. This book does exactly what a memoir *should* do--it represent memories as the palimpsests that they are, all the while communicating the lingering feeling that the author associates with them. Really, a wonderful book.

Here is a book written with much candor, about a time and place most consider best left untouched. Suleri fills page after page with the heart-rending nostalgia of an immigrant who has gone, but has never forgotten. Her childhood, her innermost tormented thoughts, her journey across bonds and across continents - yes, even poor old Daadi - all are things that drive home the eloquence and the wit of her carefully crafted memoir. Not only is Meatless Days a gem in the miniscule canon of Pakistani literature in English, it is a treat for readers of the postcolonial experience the world over. It is highly recommended.

I looked briefly at the one-star reviews of this book, and for a moment wondered if they had read a different book. This book was wonderful. I read it at the end of a several-month visit to India, while I was in Calcutta. Having read and written (in university and during my visit) about other contemporary authors dealing with the subcontinent's history and weaving it together with their personal histories in novels, essays, and other works--Rushdie, Seth, Desai, etc.--I still found Suleri utterly original and provacative. One of these reviews uses the word 'incomprehensible'; Suleri's articulate and sometimes absolutely perfect sentences are much less deserving of the term than the review itself. Read it again--you missed something.

I fell in love with Sara Suleri after reading her writing style in Meatless Days. It is definitely a masterpiece of English literature. It is not very often that a reader can relate to such a private account of events as in this case.