Un perfecto equilibrio

Escrito por Rohinton Mistry

Narrado por Roger Batalla

Esta obra maestra cuenta la vida de cuatro personas en la India de los años setenta que, forzadas por la necesidad, aprenden a mantener un equilibrio perfecto entre la esperanza y la desesperación.

Estamos en 1975, en una ciudad india junto al mar. El gobierno acaba de declarar el estado de emergencia, y dada la escasez de vivienda cuatro personas se ven obligadas a compartir un pequeño apartamento. Forman un cuarteto especial: Dina, una costurera de cuarenta años viuda desde hace veinte y decidida a no volverse a casar. Maneck, que dejó su pueblo de montaña obligado por sus padres a abandonar el hogar para estudiar en la ciudad. El optimista Ishvar y su sobrino Omprakash, dos sastres que han huido de la terrible violencia de castas que existe en su pequeña aldea de origen.

Unidos solo por el hilo impersonal de la necesidad común, estos cuatro personajes ven cómo sus vidas se entretejen de manera inexplicable e inseparable. La confianza, el humor y el afecto, que crecen gradualmente entre ellos, se convierten en un baluarte contra los rigores y las maquinaciones de la vida diaria, manteniéndolos unidos tanto para lo bueno como para lo malo.

Novela ganadora de los premios Giller, Commonwealth Writter y Los Angeles Times.

Esta novela pertenece al #FondoDeEditor de Literatura Random House
«Ni la injusticia, ni la pobreza, ni la desesperación desplazan la belleza de esta historia atemporal y comprometida. Una novela a la que volver.»
Claudio López Lamadrid

Reseñas:
«Una obra genial. Tendrían que leerla todos los que aman los libros, debería ganar todos los premios.»
Literary Review

«Una obra maestra. [...] Como toda gran ficción, transforma nuestra forma de entender la vida.»
The Guardian (UK)

«Una increíble novela [...] llena de sabiduría y carcajadas y toques de una inesperada familiaridad durante una lectura que ilumina la vida.»
Wall Street Journal

«Pocos son los que han recogido tan bien como Mistry la verdadera melancolía y la inexplicable fuerza de la India, la incomprensible criminalidad y la dulzura.»
Time

«Un perfecto equilibrio tiene la ambición panorámica y la numerosísima nómina de caracteres de las ficciones balzaquianas o tolstoianas.»
La Vanguardia

«Además de alta literatura, de lo más recomendable para conocer la India sin escenario, la India desnuda de sus habitantes cotidianos.»
El País

«Esta novela tiene el coraje de recordar y reafirmar quiénes somos, individualmente; siguiendo la tradición de las grandes novelas, celebra la luminosidad y la insaciabilidad del espíritu humano.»
Globe and Mail

«Una destacada obra maestra escrita por un genio.»
The Independent

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Penguin Random House Audio
• Traductor: Aurora Echevarría Pérez
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 13 nov 2025
• ISBN: 9788439745341

Rohinton Mistry

Rohinton Mistry nació en Bombay en 1952. Se graduó en Matemáticas en la Universidad de Bombay en 1974 y posteriormente emigró a Toronto, donde trabajó en un banco y estudió Inglés y Filosofía. Su primer libro de relatos, Cuentos del Firozsha Baag (Literatura Random House, 2007), se publicó en Canadá en 1987 y posteriormente en Inglaterra en Faber & Faber. Es autor de tres novelas: Un viaje muy largo (Literatura Random House, 2003; obtuvo, entre otros galardones, el premioCommonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book of the Year y fue nominado para el Booker Prize en Gran Bretaña), Asuntos de familia (Literatura Random House, 2003) y Un perfecto equilibrio (Literatura Random House, 2007). Con esta última novela, Mistry fue finalista al Man Booker Prize y ganó el Giller Prize, el Commonwealth Writers Prize y el Los Angeles Times Prize.

Comentarios para Un perfecto equilibrio

[castlelass · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Beautifully written literary fiction set in India in 1975 during the “state of emergency” in which civil rights were suspended for political purposes. The story follows four protagonists of differing socioeconomic backgrounds who form into an unlikely “family” in their struggle to survive. Themes include political corruption, abuse of power, the passage of time, overcoming differences, poverty, dignity, injustice, memory, and the different facets of change.

Dina, at forty-two, has made her living as a seamstress but her eyes are failing. She desires to retain independence from her controlling family, so she hires two tailors, Ishvar and his nephew Omprakash, from rural India, who have broken away from the traditional caste system at great personal cost. She also takes in a border, Maneck, a college student from the mountains of northern India, to make ends meet. The tale is intricate and complex, flowing forward and backward to provide the backstories of the main characters.

It is a tragedy, a dark and sad tale that does not shy away from describing the many cruelties people inflict upon each other. Fortunately, it also describes acts of kindness. The characterization is stellar, and the author takes his time in developing them. In contrast to many books these days that create primarily unlikeable characters, the main characters in this book are basically good-hearted people trying to make the best of extremely challenging circumstances.

The book feels intimate, and I cared what happened to these people. I also felt I learned a great deal about India, its cultural variety, and its history. The drawbacks were few. It is rather lengthy at over 600 pages and I wish the ending had been as well-crafted as the rest of the book. Overall, I found it touching, heart-breaking, thought-provoking, and memorable. Recommended to those that can handle sad tales of endurance of the human spirit in the face of great hardship.

[vancouverdeb · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

A riveting read, all 713 pages. It's 1975 in India, and the government has just declared a state of Emergency. Maneck is urged to leave his village to seek an education, and Dina is a young widow who wants to manage on her own. Two tailors, Omprakash and Ishvar have fled the violence and upheaval of their small town. The four end up living together in a dilapidated flat.

There is so much here. Poverty, sorrow, class, caste, beggars, forced sterilization. I learned so much about India in this time period . Though it is heart breaking at times, there is humour too. I will be reading more books by this author.

Highly recommended.

[adonisguilfoyle · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Such a frustrating novel - a commendable and brutally honest account of Indian history, sympathetic if not always likeable characters (all of human life is there, as they say), and some powerful scenes, but too long. Why does everyone and their dog get a backstory? If the author had related the pertinent facts for the main characters - dead husband, murdered father, loss of land - in dialogue or a brief paragraph, this book could have been a good hundred pages shorter. Reading 600 pages of teeny tiny print was a chore, but I didn't want to DNF or start another title, or I knew I would never finish. Very educational, especially about the Emergency of the mid 1970s, but felt never ending.

[japaul22 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

[A Fine Balance] is a sweeping drama of four people who unexpectedly end up living together during a tumultuous year, 1975, in India. Dina is a middle-aged widow desperately trying to hang on to her independence, despite her brother's efforts to get her to re-marry. Maneck is a young man in the city to attend college, who left his beautiful mountain town at his parents' behest to try to better his life. The student hostel is so disgusting that he ends up renting a room from Dina, who is a distant family friend. And then there are Ishvar and Omprakash, who are tailors that end up working for Dina out of her apartment. They were also living in a rural town where their family had been on the rise out of their lower caste. But misfortunes keep arising to keep them down. The four will spend a year together during a State of Emergency declared by the Prime Minister that upends life for the lower classes in some truly horrifying and gruesome ways.

The book is grim and has moments of utter despair, pure bad luck, and unfairness. There are despicable characters, horrible deaths, and plenty of squalor. Usually I can't stomach a book like this. However, Mistry somehow balances this with some good, some lighthearted moments, and impressive writing. I was completely invested from the first chapter and just had to see where it was all going to end up. I don't think, in a book like this, it's a spoiler to say that things do not end well for all the characters. It's clear from the get go that a book this realistic will not have a fairy tale ending - though I did keep hoping for one. And I suppose that's where the title comes in. Life is "a fine balance" of hope and despair. In 1970s India, if Mistry's portrayal is at all accurate, this is all too true.

[gypsy_boy · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This is an extraordinary second novel (shortlisted for the Booker). Although Mistry has his tics (he loves to throw in a big, unusual word every now and then, among other things), those tics are—I suspect—the bad habit of a young writer searching for his voice. I will be reading his other books soon, I hope, and will be interested to see how his writing evolves. But the book, you ask? In a nutshell, it follows a central core of characters from very different backgrounds thrown together by chance. We learn their individual histories and then follow them in Bombay (unnamed, but clear) during the Emergency, a truly dismal period in the mid/late 1970s. Indira Gandhi, desperate to remain in power, chose to break the law and invoke extraordinary and unlawful powers to run the country as she saw fit, regardless of consequences. This book is about those consequences. Contrived situations are few and Mistry has drawn indelible, human characters, complete with flaws as well as virtues. Some of the circumstances Mistry portrays are brutal and even painful. Yet the book contains a great deal of satisfying and even funny episodes. Mistry takes his epigraph from Balzac—a master whose writing this book resembles in many ways; from Le Père Goriot: “But rest assured: This tragedy is not a fiction. All is True.” Very highly recommended.

[dibble-203135 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

A multi-layered masterpiece. Please read it.

[arubabookwoman · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This was a reread. I first read it at about the time of its publication in 1995, and have always remembered it as one of my favorite books ever. I wanted to see if it still held up after all these years.

iI won't keep you in suspense: I still love this book, although on this reread I noticed more than a few blatant coincidences that should have bothered me, but didn't. It is an epic tale of India during the 1970's. It is set primarily in Mumbai during the so-called "Emergency" when Indira Ghandi's government imposed a series of harsh and repressive measures, and there was much unrest and violence. Along the way we experience many of the horrifying events in India: the Partition, the violence against Muslims, the violence against the untouchables, beggars, the massive slums, forced sterilization, con men, thugs, official corruption, and much, much more.

Two tailors, Ishvar and Om, uncle and nephew, of the untouchable caste, have come to Mumbai from their small village to make their fortune. Although Ishvar and his brother Narayan trained as tailors in order to escape their caste, they were still violently abused in their small village, which led to the death of Narayan. Ishvar brings Narayan's son Om to the city to overcome that past.

In the city, they obtain work producing garments with Dina, a widow desperately trying to maintain her independence. They also develop a friendship with Dina's young boarder, a student. Through these four marvelous characters we come to view the panorama of Indian life. Of vastly different backgrounds, and initially suspicious of each other, over time, the four form a family of sorts.

One of the things I remembered from my first read of this book was how Dickensian it was. One horror after another overtakes these characters, but they, especially Ishvar and Om, just keep coming up for air, and keep on keeping on. Despite the seemingly constant tragedies, there is much rejoicing in the book, and the book at several points references life as "a fine balance" between despair and hope. I will say, however, the has one of the most devastating endings I have ever read, though even then there is hope in what the characters make of it.

The book begins with the epitaph: "This story is not fiction. All is true."

I guess I would still put this book in the category of books I think everyone should read.

5 stars

[secondhandrose_1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

I wish I could give this more than 5 stars. Quite possibly the best book I have ever read!

[gbill_7 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Truly brilliant, feeling a little bit like a throwback to “classic” novel forms, and very well written by Rohinton Mistry. Put simply, it tells the story of a widowed tailor and three men who come into her life: a student sent to the city to go to college who rooms with her, and a lower-caste uncle and his nephew she employs. It’s set during 1970’s India and the country’s period of “Emergency” under Indira Gandhi, and has sociopolitical commentary about the rampant corruption, suspension of civil liberties, and cruelty of the forced sterilization program. In telling the backstories for the characters, it goes back to the Independence and Partition of India, as well as the religious violence that ensued. The two tailors who come to work for the widow, for example, have had their families murdered in barbarous ways.

I loved the way Mistry brought these characters into the story in layers, telling their backstories after we’ve already seen glimpses of them and formed first impressions. In seeing their own struggles with life afterwards, we feel greater understanding and empathy, and get the powerful realization that this is how it is with the people in real life, that despite how they may be rubbing us the wrong way, they each have their own story and demons they’re wrestling with.

There is a lot of grit to this novel, as the characters struggle with poverty and the unspeakable violence they witness. There is also a great deal of cynicism expressed in human nature and the political process. While it may be weighty in places, Mistry offsets this with fantastic bits of humor in the dialogue, which feels natural and alive. It’s the story of the struggle of good people in the face of these things, and indeed, the title, as expressed by one character, is in the need to “maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.” I’m not sure I completely bought the ending, but it certainly doesn’t fall into the trap of sentimentality, and is powerful.

Quotes:
On God:
“I prefer to think that God is a giant quiltmaker. With an infinite variety of designs. And the quilt is grown so big and confusing, the pattern is impossible to see, the squares and diamonds and triangles don’t fit well together anymore, it’s all become meaningless. So He has abandoned it.”

Later, on this same quilt, and its various pieces connected to personal events, and symbolic of life:
“That’s the rule to remember, the whole quilt is much more important than any single square.”

On life:
“After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents – a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to that one big calamity we call life.”
And later:
“In fact, that is the central theme of my life story – loss. But isn’t it the same with all life stories. Loss is essential. Loss is part and parcel of that necessary calamity called life.”

On memories:
“Memories were permanent. Sorrowful ones remained sad even with the passing of time, yet happy ones could never be re-created – not with the same joy. Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.”

On politicians, my doesn’t this sound familiar:
“…I knew the blather and bluster favoured by professional politicians. My modus operandi was simple. I made up three lists: Candidate’s Accomplishments (real and imaginary), Accusations Against Opponent (including rumours, allegations, innuendoes, and lies), and Empty Promises (the more improbable the better). Then it was merely a matter of taking various combinations of items from the three lists, throwing in some bombast, tossing in a few local references, and there it was – a brand-new speech.”

[kslade-1 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Excellent novel set in 1970s India, when Indira Gandhi was being very strict, about some poor people that keep going through hard times. Sometimes difficult to read but very moving.

[cecrow · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Discovering this 1995 novel all these years later, it drew strong comparisons for me with "The Kite Runner" in its style and subject matter, and how it dispenses with all the needless magical realism of "Midnight's Children". This one is arguably braver than either of those novels for being utterly unflinching. The four central characters represent a swath of India's population on the social economic scale in the 1970s, and the course of their lives explores every corner of the worst things that period had to offer. Mistry never identifies Bombay/Mumbai by name, and 'the Prime Minister' never has her name stated. I thought this was strange distancing in a novel that refuses to shy away from harsh realities, but perhaps the lesson is that India's past should not be dismissed as having no bearing on its present.

At over 700 pages this novel might have been shorter, but it never feels long with its brisk pacing, its dramatic highs and lows. As other reviewers have noted, it is the man whom Maneck meets on the train who delivers the key line, "You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair." But another telling quote is, "They are so rich in foreign countries, they can afford to fear all kinds of silly things." The epilogue is earned and it is pitch perfect.

[fbgnewbies · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Four people are thrown together by happenstance, become friends, and form a kind of family in a city in India where the prevailing atmosphere is poverty, corruption, injustice, and despair.

[pattylee-621744 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

The fine balance is between hope and despair, between justice and injustice, between humanity and cruelty. But I really felt the stars tended to cruelty, injustice and lack of humanity. Realizing the setting is Indira Ghandi’s India doesn’t change it, but just makes the examples crueler and harsher and very difficult to take. Quite a portrait. Bring a strong stomach.

[kittycunningh-815148 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

Not the book to read when your government is full of crooks and there is no safety net. I was as depressed as Maneck when I finished.

[sparemethecensor · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Beautifully written but tragic. I knew very little about India's unrest of the 1970s so it was a learning experience within a story of four friends from different castes.

[starbox_2 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Four very different characters come together in a small flat in 1970s India- a time of massive corruption, thuggery and evil under Indira Gandhi. This is a tale of the (changing) balance between them, but also, another kind: "there is always hope- hope enough to balance our despair. Or we would be lost." (But IS there hope??)
First there's widowed Dina Shroff; struggling to keep her independence from a controlling brother. Then student Maneck, son of an old schoolfriend, now coming to lodge with her, after a traumatic time living in a hostel.
And lastly two impoverished tailors, coming to work for her as she tries to start a sewing business; uncle and nephew, once Untouchables, they too have a story to tell...and aspirations.
This is a truly shocking expose of an era I knew nothing about. Bribery, gangs, beggars, slave labour...
The end is so UTTERLY beautiful, that you have to read the whole thing to get the full import of how Maneck's life works out. As perhaps the most sensitively drawn of the four characters, it totally tears the heart strings.

[maryreinert · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

I loved almost everything about his book except that it was really just too long. This is the story of friendship. Set in a large city in India, this tells the story of a strange and unexpected friendship between a widowed woman, two lower caste tailors, and a young man from the country who is attempting to escape his family's business.

Plot is very complicated with so much happening; much of which is almost unbearable to read. Life in India is so hard - beggars, horrible food, sleeping on the street, corruption at all levels of government.
The most interesting characters are Ishvar and his nephew Om who were from the lowest caste of tanners, but were able to learn to be tailors. Although there is such a detailed look at the abject poverty in their lives, the story is told in a very straightforward manner; this is not a sentimental look at India.

Although I've read several books revolving around poverty in India ("Djinn... purple line" and "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" ) this book probably paints the most accurate picture.

[trinker-2 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

If you love SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, you'll love this book.

[rglossne · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

The setting is India in the 1970s, a time of upheaval, poverty, and repression. This sweeping novel tells three stories, which come together in an unnamed city by the sea. Dina comes from a middle class background, but the tragic death of her young husband leaves her on her own. She refuses to become the aunty in the home of her brother, and makes her way by sewing. The tailors are from a remote village, where they are part of the untouchable caste. They have endured unspeakable tragedies and injustice, before coming to the city to sew by day in Dina’s home, and live by night in slums, and on the street. A young student from an idyllic hill station rents a room from Dina while he is in school. These characters move from distrust and dislike, to friendship and love. The fine balance they seek is between hope and despair, and each finds it in their own way.

[pilgrimjess · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

"After all, our lives are but a sequence of accidents-a clanking chain of chance events. A string of choices, casual or deliberate, which add up to that one big calamity we call life."

Set in 1975 in an unidentified Indian city, Mrs. Dina Dalal, a financially pressed early 40's Parsi widow, is determined to keep her independence from her bullying brother's influence, decides to take in a paying boarder, Maneck Kohlah, the son of a Parsi school chum, and hires two Hindu tailors, Ishvar and Omprakash Darji, to sew dresses for an export company. Gradually Dina's apartment is transformed, initially into a sweat shop and finally into a home full to bursting point.

Each of the four main characters is a refugee from one thing or another. Dina seeks to escape from the suffocating strictures imposed upon respectable, single, ageing women. Maneck, the paying boarder, has been sent down from the hill country to attend college in an attempt to get a qualification and entry into "an industry that would grow with the nation's prosperity."

In contrast he tailors, Ishvar and Om, are refugees from caste, communal and institutional violence. Om, 17, is the son of Ishvar's murdered brother, and Ishvar, in his 40's, who has never married, has dedicated his life to being father-protector to his nephew. Living from hand to mouth, at the mercy of the social upheavals. Each time they are beaten down, they are forced to pick themselves up and start over. Dina's apartment becomes a haven for the tailors.

As the four start sharing their life stories, then meals, then living space they become an unconventional family where background and caste becomes irrelevant but there will be no happy endings because what follows is misfortune and catastrophe.

Balance is obviously in the title but is also central to the book. No doubt the story is a little coloured by the author's own political leanings but is possibly also an indictment of Mrs. Gandhi's regime. Similarly the author treads a fine line between the past and the present, between foreground and background, and between haves and have nots. Generally the haves come out of this very poorly, being cruel and uncaring whereas the have nots are almost heroic in their struggles to survive.

The characters, in particular Dina and Ishvar, are fully rounded and beautifully drawn, and you feel their joy and their despair. The secondary characters are interesting and add colour and interest. My only fear it that for many of the country's inhabitants little has really changed in the intervening years.

To read this is is to experience an absolute roller-coaster of emotions. There is sorrow and joy, tears and laughter, hope and despair. At the end I felt emotionally drained but thoroughly enjoyed it.

"The human face has limited space. If you fill it with laughter there will be no room for crying."

[tinwara · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

I always feel happy when I discover a gem such as this novel in the depths of my bookcase. It ia a beautifully written novel about India in the 1970's. I didn't know much about this period and was quite shocked to learn about the state of emergency Indira Ghandi declared and the political violence that ensued. Through the eyes of 4 main characters we get an idea of what this was like.

At the same time it is a horrible book, as things end so bad for all of them. I guess that is what happens in reality, but still, I loved the characters and I wished so badly for things were going to end well for them. The ending made me feel really sad. Still, a very good book.

[stevelindahl · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

A Fine Balance tells the story of India in 1975, during the state of emergency, when the opponents of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (who is never mentioned by name) are jailed and Gandhi’s son, Sanjay Gandhi, spearheads a forced sterilization campaign in an attempt to deal with overpopulation.

The story looks at cultural sexism, religious prejudice, the caste system, and police corruption from the perspective of the poor and lower middle class. It touches on the lives of some wealthier individuals, but only briefly, looking primarily at their opinions of the poor.

The publisher's description states that the novel has “a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens.” Like Dickens, Rohinton Mistry focuses on the underprivileged and like Dickens, his style includes numerous minor characters who keep reappearing throughout his story and plot twists that depend on coincidence.

The title comes from a character referred to as “the proofreader.” He states, “You have to maintain a fine balance between hope and despair.” The scales seem to weigh heavier on the latter of those two choices, but the book is well worth reading. The ending is particularly engrossing. I couldn't put it down.

Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul, White Horse Regressions, Hopatcong Vision Quest, and Under a Warped Cross.

[randymetcalfe · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

In a country as vast and varied as India, perhaps only a story that focused on the particulars of very small players could provide the sense of scale appropriate. Dina is a strong-willed widow finding it hard to make ends meet. Maneck is student at the college seeking accommodation. Ishvar and Om are tailors seeking employment. When their lives intertwine, it is as though fate itself is drawing them together. And piece by piece the quilt of their lives takes shape. But given that it is stitched with misery, injustice, and calamitous bad fortune, it may not be a quilt that anyone would care to use.

Rohinton Mistry sets his many, many pieces in motion and successfully keeps them going through all the changes. Personal joys and tragedies are set off against a backdrop of national events and Emergency. Sometimes it’s a bit clunky how history keeps intruding, but for the most part the stories of Dina, Maneck, Ishvar, and Om sustain our interest and see us through. Whether the Yeatsian fine balance is ever achieved however is an open question. Despair — justified despair — seems all too likely.

Gently recommended.

[bookbuddies_1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

Life for poor/lower castes in Bombay is pretty grim.

[seriousgrace · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

I could tell I was going to like A Fine Balance when I got to this line early in the the novel, "How much gratitude for a little sherbet...how starved they seemed for ordinary kindness" (p 8). The writing is so graceful and honest. This is the story of the daily lives of four people in an unnamed seaside town in India, thrown together by a housing shortage after the government has declared a state of emergency. At the center is Dina Dalal, a widowed seamstress. As a matter of pride she will not remarry just to be supported by a man. In order to stay self sufficient she takes in borders. One such border is Manek Kohlah, a student attending college in the city. He is studying refrigeration. Ishvar Darji and Omprakash, two other borders, are tailors fleeing caste-centric brutalities in their village. There is no doubt in my mind most people find this story incredibly tragic, considering its ending. I found it sad but with a thin thread of optimism. When a once bitter character can laugh by the end of it, you know the human spirit has not been broken.

The word that comes up time and time again when describing Mistry's work is depth. Depth of characters, depth of plot, and of human emotion. That being said, pay attention to Dina. Her transformation is the best part of the book.

[tinkerbellkk · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

This is a beautifully written story of 4 people in 1970's India whose lives intertwine due to their individual circumstances. They are from different backgrounds, different cities and different castes. However they bond together to form a lasting friendship and support each other. It is not an easy read as it depicts a bleak political period and a time when the people of India were treated extremely poorly. It also does not have a nice little tidy happy ending.

Very well written.

[sydneyspaniel · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

A very depressing book. Nothing goes right for anyone and everyone just ends up accepting bad things.

[cindamac · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

At times difficult to read at other times heart-warming. A well-written story of four unlikely friends, crossing caste (and gender) boundaries to live together in modern India.

[lara335 · Calificación: 4 de 5 estrellas]

Beautifully-written story about India set in the 1970's. Focusing on the rife corruption, cruelty, fear and poverty, as seen through the experiences of four characters: an independent widow, a student, and two 'untouchables' who learn to sew; with a large cast of memorable figures including beggars, a beggar-master, a rent collector and a monkey-man street entertainer.

Mistry writes in a way that makes you care about his well-drawn characters. But for me (and hence only 4-stars) there was little balance between 'hope' and 'despair'. I found myself willing an alternate ending, whereby the four main characters found a new life in an invigorated shop in the hills.

Knowing little of India, I have no idea how true a picture this novel depicts of the time. And it would be fascinating to know what Indians living through those times made of this beautiful but bleak book.

[laytonwoman3rd · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

What to say, A Fine Balance is brilliant, and its length only a small obstacle.
I was very surprised at how quickly I moved through 50-page chunks of this story as I became engrossed in the lives of several unfortunate citizens of an un-named Indian city during the official Emergency of 1975. What a cast of characters: A widow, determined to be independent and not to remain under the thumb of her older brother; a college student with an unclear vision of his own future; 2 tailors who have broken caste restrictions that would have kept them competing for animal carcasses and immersed in tanning chemicals as their fathers and grandfathers before them; a beggar mutilated as a child to make him more profitable to the Beggarmaster; the Monkey Man, whose street performances required a very fine sense of balance indeed. These lives intertwine in ways variously beneficial, detrimental, and tragic. There is little fairness, justice or order during the Emergency, and almost no basis for hope or dreams. In fact, very few of these people have any hopes for themselves beyond basic survival. They seem unsophisticated, fatalistic, almost simple-minded, to the Western reader, and have no points of references with the world beyond their limits. Sleeping in a doorway under the protection of a night watchman becomes a privilege to be held dear. People disappear regularly, victims of government round-ups for “supportive” crowds at an appearance by the Prime Minister, or for impressed labor, or even for involuntary sterilization. Although the college student’s parents, in their remote and, by contrast, idyllic, mountain home have dreams for their son and the elder tailor has dreams of marriage and children for his nephew, neither young man is able to share or even pretend enthusiasm for these hopeful imaginings. The reality of their existence is too forceful, the government presence and control too pervasive. As Maneck the student observes when asked if he believes that God is dead: "I prefer to think that God is a giant quiltmaker. With an infinite variety of designs. And the quilt is grown so big and confusing, the pattern is impossible to see, the squares and diamonds and triangles don't fit well together anymore, it's all become meaningless. So He has abandoned it." As grim as it all is, there are moments of kindness, compassion and connection among the principals, as they occasionally find that balance between hope and despair that keeps the human spirit alive. "There is always hope--hope enough to balance our despair. Or we would be lost." Despite a few touches of dark humor, there is no doubt that reading this book is a heart-wrenching experience. As the 4 main characters come to care for one another, the reader comes to care for them, and to dread the inevitability of the college student’s repeated observation that everything always ends badly. With a bit more lightness, this would have been a 5-star read for me. But then it would have been slightly less brilliant, perhaps.