A bit bland for my taste
I must confess that if it hadn’t been a book club read, I would not have picked up The Mistress of Spices by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. I remembered having read The Palace of Illusions and not liking it at all. It’s been a long time since I read the book and I don’t remember why I disliked it, but it put me off Divakaruni’s work. So, I picked this one up reluctantly.
As a college student, I was once gifted a diary that had quotes at the end of each page. One such quote was something to the effect of “If you like a person, they can empty their plate on your lap and you won’t mind, but if you dislike a person, the way they hold their spoon will drive you up the wall.” My memory is not one of my strengths but the truth of this statement embedded itself firmly in my brain and pops up inconveniently as a reminder of my prejudice.
I think, that prejudice probably explains, to some extent, why I was left underwhelmed by The Mistress of Spices. The book tells the story of an unhappy young girl who lands on the shore of an island, where a mysterious old woman trains young women with aptitude to work the magic of spices. Each of these women are then sent out to different parts of the world where they employ the spice magic to help others. They are restricted by numerous rules and have to accept ageing, taking on the appearance of a much older woman to run the spice stores from which they dispense their magic. The protagonist, Tilo, embraces the life eagerly but cannot help breaking a number of the rules. How her life eventually shapes up is the tale.
I like the idea of there being magic in the spices but I was never fully drawn into the story enough to be invested in Tilo. At times, I was also troubled by some of the powers of the spices. “Vanilla beans soaked soft in goat’s milk and rubbed on the wrist bone can guard against the evil eye.” As I read this line, I thought of the work and death of Narendra Dabholkar. Why did the “evil eye” bit have to be included? I can understand that the spices cure more than just physical ailments, that maybe they can be aphrodisiacs and ease conflicts and sow compassion and help with memory, but must such superstitious belief be sanctioned in a book? I am not sure. Maybe I am nit-picking because I began with prejudice.
A similar bit was the leaving out of milk for snakes. Tilo has a connection with snakes throughout the book, and in her store, she leaves milk out for snakes. Every Nag Panchami, articles abound about how snakes don’t drink milk and the people who have snakes on display drinking milk on the day of the festival usually starve the reptiles so the dehydrated creatures will drink anything! Again, maybe I am being too fussy about this, but in our current environment when we are attributing the capability for brain surgery and wireless communication and air travel to our ancestors, who knows what people will take away from fantasy fiction that presents an exotic and mystical picture of India?
What did I like? There is a wonderfully lyrical quality to Divakaruni’s writing. It is powerful and evocative in places and I loved reading about the association of everyday spices to physical and mental states. And some of her descriptions of spices are beautiful, for instance, comparing powdered turmeric to the “dust from a butterfly’s wing”. [The chapter headings are spices, which brought to mind another read, The Doodler of Dimashq, where each chapter heading is an element of a doodle.] Through the tales of the people who come to Tilo’s store, we see different shades of the Indian immigrant experience. Throughout the book, I felt that solitude was thrust upon Tilo, but that she was, at heart, of this world, so I find her eventual integration into the world meaningful, although not necessarily the manner in which it was wrought.
In spite of all this, I found I was not rooting for Tilo. I did not suffer and rejoice with her. This is probably my prejudice speaking, but I think getting me to read another Divakaruni book might be difficult.
I also discovered something about myself that I am not sure how I feel about. I find it easy to believe in a Granny Weatherwax or a Nanny Ogg or a Tiffany Aching but the magic of a Tilottama leaves me unmoved. I grew up in the city, in a nuclear, non-Hindu home in India. We did not have religious or other rituals and my childhood was drenched in a world of English literature. I find that along with my general physical rootlessness (living in a city that my parents do not hail from but feeling alien in the state they call home), I probably have a cultural alienation so powerful that I seem impervious to the magic of the land my passport says I belong to! Or is this just a book whose rendering of the magic didn’t appeal? I am not sure how to feel about it.
Have you read The Mistress of Spices? How do you feel about it? Are there other books in the Indian magic realism or fantasy genre that you would recommend to someone unimpressed by it? (Not Salman Rushdie, please!)
As a college student, I was once gifted a diary that had quotes at the end of each page. One such quote was something to the effect of “If you like a person, they can empty their plate on your lap and you won’t mind, but if you dislike a person, the way they hold their spoon will drive you up the wall.” My memory is not one of my strengths but the truth of this statement embedded itself firmly in my brain and pops up inconveniently as a reminder of my prejudice.
I think, that prejudice probably explains, to some extent, why I was left underwhelmed by The Mistress of Spices. The book tells the story of an unhappy young girl who lands on the shore of an island, where a mysterious old woman trains young women with aptitude to work the magic of spices. Each of these women are then sent out to different parts of the world where they employ the spice magic to help others. They are restricted by numerous rules and have to accept ageing, taking on the appearance of a much older woman to run the spice stores from which they dispense their magic. The protagonist, Tilo, embraces the life eagerly but cannot help breaking a number of the rules. How her life eventually shapes up is the tale.
I like the idea of there being magic in the spices but I was never fully drawn into the story enough to be invested in Tilo. At times, I was also troubled by some of the powers of the spices. “Vanilla beans soaked soft in goat’s milk and rubbed on the wrist bone can guard against the evil eye.” As I read this line, I thought of the work and death of Narendra Dabholkar. Why did the “evil eye” bit have to be included? I can understand that the spices cure more than just physical ailments, that maybe they can be aphrodisiacs and ease conflicts and sow compassion and help with memory, but must such superstitious belief be sanctioned in a book? I am not sure. Maybe I am nit-picking because I began with prejudice.
A similar bit was the leaving out of milk for snakes. Tilo has a connection with snakes throughout the book, and in her store, she leaves milk out for snakes. Every Nag Panchami, articles abound about how snakes don’t drink milk and the people who have snakes on display drinking milk on the day of the festival usually starve the reptiles so the dehydrated creatures will drink anything! Again, maybe I am being too fussy about this, but in our current environment when we are attributing the capability for brain surgery and wireless communication and air travel to our ancestors, who knows what people will take away from fantasy fiction that presents an exotic and mystical picture of India?
What did I like? There is a wonderfully lyrical quality to Divakaruni’s writing. It is powerful and evocative in places and I loved reading about the association of everyday spices to physical and mental states. And some of her descriptions of spices are beautiful, for instance, comparing powdered turmeric to the “dust from a butterfly’s wing”. [The chapter headings are spices, which brought to mind another read, The Doodler of Dimashq, where each chapter heading is an element of a doodle.] Through the tales of the people who come to Tilo’s store, we see different shades of the Indian immigrant experience. Throughout the book, I felt that solitude was thrust upon Tilo, but that she was, at heart, of this world, so I find her eventual integration into the world meaningful, although not necessarily the manner in which it was wrought.
In spite of all this, I found I was not rooting for Tilo. I did not suffer and rejoice with her. This is probably my prejudice speaking, but I think getting me to read another Divakaruni book might be difficult.
I also discovered something about myself that I am not sure how I feel about. I find it easy to believe in a Granny Weatherwax or a Nanny Ogg or a Tiffany Aching but the magic of a Tilottama leaves me unmoved. I grew up in the city, in a nuclear, non-Hindu home in India. We did not have religious or other rituals and my childhood was drenched in a world of English literature. I find that along with my general physical rootlessness (living in a city that my parents do not hail from but feeling alien in the state they call home), I probably have a cultural alienation so powerful that I seem impervious to the magic of the land my passport says I belong to! Or is this just a book whose rendering of the magic didn’t appeal? I am not sure how to feel about it.
Have you read The Mistress of Spices? How do you feel about it? Are there other books in the Indian magic realism or fantasy genre that you would recommend to someone unimpressed by it? (Not Salman Rushdie, please!)
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