The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai.

Although this book is the 2006 winner of the Man Booker Prize, it receives only 3.5 stars from Amazon reviewers, many of whom find it to be well written, but with little plot. Indeed, many reviewers find the book boring, some to the point of not being able to finish it.


As I have written before, it seems that although some writers are gifted with words and gifted at capturing the descriptions of people or events, they have difficulty imagining great stories. Kiran Desai is a gifted writer. Her descriptions are far more elegant than those of most writers. Indeed, the elegance of her descriptions is almost mesmerizing. However, her story lacks interest. Her characters seem to drift and her story drifts. It seems that the title of the book is accurate -- the characters are a bunch of losers who go on losing right to the end of the book. Finally, we just don't care what happens to them. Surely she could have imagined more interesting characters and a more interesting story. The title of this book could just as easily have been, "Everyone's a Loser".