What the Body Remembers: A Novel
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Description
Out of the rich culture of India and the brutal drama of the 1947 Partition comes this lush and eloquent debut novel about two women married to the same man.
Roop is a young girl whose mother has died and whose father is deep in debt. So
she is elated to learn she is to become the second wife of a wealthy Sikh landowner in a union beneficial to both. For Sardaji’s first wife, Satya, has failed to bear him children. Roop believes that she and Satya, still very much in residence, will be friends. But the relationship between the older and younger woman is far more complex. And, as India lurches toward independence, Sardarji struggles to find his place amidst the drastic changes.
Meticulously researched and beautifully written,
What the Body Remembers is at once poetic, political, feminist, and sensual.
Shauna Singh Baldwin's
What the Body Remembers begins and ends with rebirth--an apt metaphor, perhaps, for the tragedy of Indian partition that forms the backdrop for her story. Though politics overshadows the lives of all the characters, the heart of this first novel is in the home where Sardarji, a middle-aged Sikh engineer, has brought his new wife, 16-year-old Roop. The only problem is, his
current wife, Satya, is less than thrilled about sharing hearth and husband. Satya's inability to bear a child has led to Sardarji's recent marriage, and this fact, combined with jealousy has turned her heart "black and dense as a stone within her." Her rival is not only 25 years younger, but of considerably lower social rank, and her husband's obvious infatuation with Roop rankles considerably:
Can a young woman ever know his friends and laugh with them in that rueful way? How will a young woman know that he breathes deeply when he thinks too much, that he wipes his forehead in the cold heart of winter when the British settlement officer approaches to collect his yearly taxes? How can a young woman know how to manage his flour mill while he is hunting kakar with his English "superiors"? How will she know how to give orders that sound as if she is a mere mouth for his words? How will she know that his voice is angry with the servants only when he is tired or hungry? How can she understand that all his talk of logic and discipline in the English people's corridors and his writing in brown paper files about the great boons of irrigation engineering brought by the conquerors are belied by his donations to the freedom-fighting Akali party?
The rift between the two wives widens when Roop gives birth, first to a daughter and then to a son, and both children are sent to Satya for rearing. Eventually the younger wife demands the ouster of the elder from the household, and Satya is sent away. But her spirit is not exiled entirely, and years later, when Roop and Sardarji find themselves swept up in the bloody partition of India and Pakistan, it is memories of the elder woman's strength and wisdom that Roop draws on to survive. Baldwin develops her characters' personalities and interactions against the backdrop of changing Anglo-Indian relations; sometimes the political bleeds into the personal, as the novel juxtaposes India's struggle for independence with the smaller outrages and betrayals Satya and Roop suffer at their husband's hands--and each other's.
What the Body Remembers is a powerful combination of historical and domestic drama, marking a promising debut for Shauna Singh Baldwin.
--Sheila Bright
Customer Reviews
What the Body Remembers
This is a beautifully written novel. Shauna Singh Baldwin creates intricate characters that are completely believable in their complexity. And her plot is continually full of surprises. Once I started reading the book, I couldn't put it down. Nor could I help wondering: What if Sardarji had not chosen a second wife, had grieved his not begetting a child with Satya, and had devoted his life to her? What if Satya had transformed her anger and resentment of Sardarji and believed in his goodness to her? What if Satya had transformed her jealousy of Roop and befriended her rather than taking revenge? In her own way, Shauna Singh Baldwin does weave transformation into her characters.
The title of the book is most apt in this age where we are increasingly appreciating the truth of what the body remembers.
Enjoy a great read!
2010-02-27
(New Mexico) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
The book held my interest.
This book was amazing. I truly felt each part of the sadness and tears and joy in the book. The struggle for equality being a woman, being a Sikh, Muslim or Hindu. I was scared for the lead character, for the people who were caught in a partition they did not create. This book will forever be on my top 10 Indian Books list. You have to see this in the same light as Midnights Children. Well worth the effort to read it.
2009-07-13
| Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
You'll be glad you read it
Many of the other 5-star reviews provide an excellent summary of the book. the characters--men and women--will remian in your mind and heart long after you've finished the book. And after a long tale filled with some happiness and some great sadness, the ending will change everything. this is one of those books that you willl be very happy to have read.
2009-05-28
(Hudson Valley, NY) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5
Woman's Fate
This was a very interesting story linebut the book could have benefitted greatly from the addition of a glossary. The use of Indian terms was somewhat confusing and a glossary would have made it a much smoother read.
2007-06-09
(Norfolk, Virginia United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3
What the body remebers
A little too verbose. Difficult to get through the first 1/4 of book. However, well written, historically interesting.
2007-03-22
| Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 3
