An Undeserving Booker for The White Tiger

I would have called The White Tiger a reasonable potboiler, probably given it a few points too in the name of literary justice. That is, if the author were just another curious software professional who, one serendipitous day, suddenly took to writing novels; if this novel wasn’t awarded the coveted Man Booker Prize which, as per the website, promotes "the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year"; if the judges had not called it "compelling" and "darkly humorous" with "enormous literary merit" which "shocked and entertained in equal measure."

It's not about showing the darker India or the politically incorrect narrative of social issues, but the book fails as a work of fiction. Despite Adiga’s confession "that narrator is not me... I don't agree with a lot or most of what he says", much is left desired through the entire narration.

For an epistolary, it makes a weak reading. What in the world would prompt an entrepreneur, albeit less educated, to write 280 pages long letters addressing a Chinese premier? The connection is never established, and it looks like the author just happened to confuse a first-person narrative by mixing elements of a diplomat’s visit and the letters which barely fit in the context of the story. The first line of the letter is a rather juvenile attempt at starting the novel with an oxymoronic humor.

Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.

If no one would read a letter why should it be written? If Balram cannot speak English, how did he manage such grammatically correct letters spanning over 280 pages? Probably the idea of letters was just an excuse for Balram to vent out his anger in some form, but it’s still very weak as a literary fervor.

The characterization of Balram lacks depth and is inconsistent. While Balram claims that he knows "by heart the works of the four greatest poets of all time – Rumi, Iqbal, Mirza Ghalib, and a fourth fellow whose name I forget", it’s puzzling to understand how a person knows by heart the works of a poet but forgets his name. Or do we assume Balram was just trying to exaggerate himself in his introduction to the Chinese premier? And when he claims "I'm tomorrow", what kind of tomorrow does he represent – one where success is gauged by embracing corruption?

Writing about his village, Adiga has Balram saying that the villagers banter about politics "like eunuchs discussing the Kama Sutra". If this was an instance of what the Booker judges call as "darkly humorous", it means the world of fiction is struggling so badly for a dose of humor, that any sarcastic scoff of a genetic disability is mistaken to be "darkly humorous".

Balram writes that he would call his life’s story "The Autobiography of a Half-Baked Indian". It could be a coincidence that Adiga made it sound similar to Nirad C. Chauduri’s "The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian" where he courted controversy in the dedication of the book itself. Published just after independence he proclaimed in the book, "...Because all that was good and living within us was made, shaped and quickened by the same British rule" – a tone similar to Balram’s portrayal of the darker India. Well, so much for an accidental symbolism in a half-baked fiction.

Aravind Adiga is a good writer and has done a decent job at his debut novel. But presenting it an award which, in the past, has coveted books like The Sea The Sea, Midnight’s Children, The Blind Assassin (just to name a few), is an undeserving exaggeration. Adiga has Balram write early on:

Before we do that, sir, the phrase in English that I learned from my ex-employer the late Mr. Ashok's ex-wife Pinky Madam is:
What a fucking joke.

The Booker for The White Tiger sounds precisely like that.