The Death of Vishnu
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REVIEW BY AMY RYCE
Manil Suri, a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, says that in writing, "each line should be as correct and necessary as an equation." Mathematics is a world where the unnecessary step is a wasted one, and the incorrect step is doomed -- a starkness one doesn't usually associate with fiction. In Suri's debut novel, The Death of Vishnu, the prose is flexible and elegant, but no narrative feels tedious; no unnecessary description taxes the modern, impatient mind. Suri writes with perfect efficiency, and he dreams most beautifully. A Bombay apartment building provides the basic structure of the novel; the whole of India is embodied in its residents and their lively interactions. We see in the characters the fantastic Hindu mythology, ethnic rivalries, caste divisions and clashes between modern and traditional ways of life that characterize contemporary India. Homeless, dying Vishnu, named for the Hindu deity who protects and preserves, passes his days in the stairwell of the building. His inconvenient and familiar form ties all of the building's residents together -- all are used to stepping over him, feeding him and feeling guilty about their loathing and disgust toward him. The apartments surrounding his stairwell are kept by Hindus, Muslims, lovers and bickering wives. Suri infuses each character with believable details -- a pop-culture obsessed Hindu girl is described as accurately as her lover's intellectual and brooding Muslim father. From within the building's social complexities, Vishnu reflects on his life and contemplates its meaning. The gradual ascension of his soul shrinks the world down, until from Vishnu's divine perspective, his neighbors resemble a colony of ants -- sacred souls in transition between one state of being and another. Manil Suri's literary talents first came to light in a writing workshop given by Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Hours. Excerpts from The Death of Vishnu have appeared in The New Yorker, and publishing rights have been sold in 13 countries. As the new year begins, join the rest of the world in its happy discovery of a dazzling new literary talent, Manil Suri. Amy Ryce teaches music at Renaissance School in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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