Khushbu Lakhupota
MA Semester 4
Paper 207 Contemporary Literature in English
Written Assignment
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
A Very Special Novel.
Batch 2020-2022
Submitted to: Department of English, MKBU.
khushbu22jan93@gmail.com
18 March 2022, Friday
The MINISTRY of UTMOST HAPPINESS
ARUNDHATI ROY
Booker Prize-winning author of THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS
'Breathtaking' Observer
'Unmissable' Time
ARUNDHATI ROY is the author of The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize in 1997 and has been translated into more than forty languages. Since then Roy has published several works of non-fiction, including The Algebra of Infinite Justice, Listening to Grasshoppers and Broken Republic. She lives in Delhi.
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK
At its best, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness can be miraculous in its ability to evoke a thousand small acts of tenderness and everyday pleasures-Nilanjana Roy, Business Standard
[Roy] can make the light of language illuminate dense material reality in ways few writers can match'-Tabish Khair, The Hindu
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness has flashes of brilliance and lines that will take your breath away-Open
'Gripping, shocking and brave-Asian Age
"The Ministry of Utmost Happiness elevates itself above any genre and yet at heart it's a novel, a work of fiction, by being which it tells truths that other truths can't reveal-Statesman
'A ruthlessly probing and wide-ranging narrative on contemporary
India-Zac O'Yeah, The Hindu
An epic of our times'-Week
The novel fulfils its creative covenant in a simultaneous act of destruction... Ministry is a book-world-being which would show us the nightmares of our waking hours, the canopies of our future, gather us into movements, console us when the catastrophes come, haunt us from the horizon-Divya Dwivedi, Wire
Magisterial, vibrant... Roy's second novel works its empathetic magic upon a breathtakingly broad slate-inviting us to stand with characters who refuse to be stigmatized or cast aside'-Liesl Schillinger, O, Oprah Magazine
Compelling... musical and beautifully orchestrated. Roy's depiction of furtive romance has a cinematic quality, as well as genuine poignancy and depth of emotion. Her gift is for the personal: for poetic description fand an ability to map the complicated arithmetic of love and belonging The Ministry of Utmost Happiness manages to extract hope from tragedies witnessed'-Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Fearless... staggeringly beautiful - a fierce, fabulously disobedient novel . . . so fully realized it feels intimate, yet vibrates with the tragicomedy of myth. . .
Roy is writing at the height of her powers. Once a decade, if we are lucky, a novel emerges from the cinder pit of living that asks the urgent question of our global era. Roy's novel is this decade's ecstatic and necessary answer-John Freeman, Boston Globe
'Roy's novel will be the unmissable literary read of the summer. With its insights into human nature, its memorable characters and its luscious prose, Ministry is well worth the wait'-Sarah Begley, Time
Propulsive, playful... this new book finds Roy the artist prospering with stories, and writing in gorgeous, supple prose. Again and again beautiful images refresh our sense of the world. Sections of the book filled me with awe - not just as a reader, but as a novelist for the sheer fidelity and beauty of detail- a terrific novelistic noticing. Roy writes with astonishing vividness-Karan Mahajan, New York Times Book Review
Powerful and moving... Roy's second novel reminds us what fiction can do. Her exquisite prose is [a] rare instrument. She captures the horrors of headlines, and the quiet moments when lovers share poems and dreams. Ministry is infused with so much passion political, social, emotional - that it vibrates. It may leave you shaking, too. Roy's is a world in which love and hope sprout against all odds, like flowers pushing through cracked pavement'-Heller McAlpin, San Francisco Chronicle
'A gem - a great tempest of a novel: a remarkable creation, a story both intimate and international, swelling with comedy and outrage, tale that cradles the world's most fragile people even while it assaults brutal villains. Ministry is a thoroughly absorbing work of art-a hybrid of satire, romance, thriller and history. It speaks to the universal struggle of minority people to be free. Here is writing that swirls so hypnotically it doesn't feel like words on paper so much as ink on water. This vast novel will leave you awed by the heat of its anger and the depth of its compassion'-Ron Charles, Washington Post
'Glorious... remarkable, colorful and compelling... Roy has a passionate following, and her admirers will not be disappointed. This ambitious new novel, like its predecessor, addresses weighty themes in an intermittently playful narrative voice. At the novel's heart are three male friends from university and the woman they all loved and continue to love... Their lives come together like puzzle pieces; the telling involves an unusual combination of epic and classic echoes; of unexpected detail; and, unforgettably, an unflinching realism. You will [be] granted a powerful sense of their world, of the complexity, energy and diversity of contemporary India, in which darkness and exuberant vitality are inextricably intertwined'-Claire Messud, Financial Times
'Gorgeously wrought-Entertainment Weekly, 'Summer's Must-Read Books' 'Her novel larger, more complicated, more multilingual, more challenging as reading experience than The God of Things, no immersing. This intricately layered passionate novel, studded with jokes and horrors, has room for satire romance, for rage politics and for understatement. A work extraordinary intricacy and grace-Gillian Beer, Prospect (UK)
Ministry is follow-up we've been longing poetic, densely populated contemporary novel in tradition Dickens Tolstoy. From beginning, one swept up in the story. If The God of Things was lushly imagined, intimate family novel slashed through politics, Ministry encompasses wildly different economic, religious, cultural realms across Indian subcontinent and as far away as and California. Animating it is kaleidoscopic variety bohemians, revolutionaries, and lovers... With exquisite dynamic storytelling, Roy balances scenes suffering corruption with flashes humor, giddiness, and transcendence-Daphne Beal, Vogue
If want know world behind corporate-sponsored dreamscapes, you writers Arundhati Roy. shows what's really going on-Junot Diaz, Vogue
'Affecting... rangy roving novel multiple voices; intimate picture of diverse cast characters... We see in detail not only everyday lives but their beliefs, and contexts that inform their actions... Tilo is book's beating heart, beautiful rebellious woman and magical focal point toward which desire in novel flows. Roy's instinct satire is sharp as ever, and stories build to broader portrait India over past decades. Roy's sentences marked by eloquence even as string together various ideas elements. Her prose is in sense radically democratic. And unmistakable style and her way seeing world become something larger, too'-Amitava Kumar, Bookforum
'Roy returns fiction with tales that span from mourned in graveyard to beating hearts of people Delhi, masterfully conveying the ranging perseverance of human soul'-Steph Opitz, Marie Claire
"To this book "highly anticipated" is a bit of an understatement. The Ministry Utmost Happiness will be a welcome gift for who've missed Roy's dazzling fiction-Eliza Thompson, Cosmopolitan, "11 Books You Won't Be Able to Put Down This Summer'
It's finally here! Fans of The God of Small Things have been waiting for Roy's next novel, and it doesn't disappoint. The Ministry of Uter Happiness is big, both in physical heft and in ideas. It features an unforgettable cast of characters from across India whose stories are told with generosity and compassion. The novel's greatest feat is showing the ways in which religious belief, gender identity, and even our safety in the world, are not fixed- they have as much fluidity as Roy's astute plotting -Maris Kreizman, Valture, Summer Reading Preview
The first novel in 20 years from Roy, and worth the wait: a humane, engaged, near fairy tale that soon turns dark- full of characters and their meetings, accidental and orchestrated alike to find, yes, that utmost happiness of which the title speaks-Kirkus Reviews
'Ambitious, original, and haunting... a novel [that] fuses tenderness and brutality, mythic resonance and the stuff of headlines... essential to Roy's vision of a bewilderingly beautiful, contradictory, and broken world -Publishers Weekly
'A masterpiece... Roy joins Dickens, Naipaul, García Márquez, and Rushdie in her abiding compassion, storytelling magic, and piquant wit... A tale of suffering, sacrifice and transcendence- an entrancing, imaginative, and wrenching epic'-Donna Seaman, Booklist
A fiercely unforgettable novel... a love story with characters so heartbreaking and compelling they sear themselves into the reader's brain-Patty Rhule, USA Today
Moving... powerful... The kind of book that makes you feel like you've lived several times over. [lt] contains so much of everything: anguish and joy and love and war and death and life, so much of being human. Ministry ripis open the world to show us everything that is dazzlingly beautiful and brutally ugly about it... Roy centers the vulnerable and the unseen, making clear that love is the only way for individuals to really meet across the borders of skin or country. Everything is alive in Ministry, from emotions to people to the country itself. It is this aliveness of every human as well as every animal and thing that makes this novel so remarkable. Ministry is the ultimate love letter to the richness and complexity of India - and the world - in all it hurly-burly, glorious, and threatened heterogeneity. Roy is a treasure of India and of the world'-Anita Felicelli, Los Angeles Review of Books
'Epic in scope, sharply realized... an engaged story, with many threads, that blends tragedy and political outrage with a humane and hopeful vision of the future... The Ministry of Utmost Happiness place[s] Roy at the forefront of Indian literature-Gregory McNamee, Kirkus Reviews
'Dazzling ... expansive, touching... a novel teeming with indelible characters. Roy shifts places, time periods, and viewpoints with the grace of a master choreographer ... Ministry is a beautifully written, powerful story [that] spans a continent and several decades of war and peace and people who live in places and on the streets, as well as undercover and underground - a novel that's worth the wait. Once again, Arundhati Roy has told a real story-Renee H. Shea, Poets & Writers
'A deeply rewarding work... Roy writes with unabashed beauty... Images in The Ministry of Utmost Happiness wedge themselves in the mind like memories of lived experience'-Laura Miller, Slate
'Stirring... humane and impassioned... beautiful and rich. The novel has the feel of a yarn... Roy's observations unspool as vivid and gimlet, whether she is describing personal catastrophe or national disasters… Brilliant writing - an ambitious story with a profound moral integrity and a deep emotional impact'-Kathleen Rooney, Chicago Tribune
'Brilliant... well worth the wait. Roy looks unflinchingly at poverty, human cruelty, and the absurdities of modern war; somehow, she turns it into poetry. Highly recommended'-Kate Gray, Library Journal
'Arundhati Roy's Ministry of Utmost Happiness was fantastic. The novel is unflinchingly critical of power, and yet she empowers her underdog characters to persevere, leaving readers with a few droplets of much-needed hope. It's heartening when writers live up to the hyperbole that surrounds them'-Hirsh Sawhney, Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year 2017
'A lustrously braided and populated tale woven with ribbons of identity, love, mourning, and joy-and tied together with yellow mangoes, cigarettes, and damask roses'-Sloane Crosley, Vanity Fair
'Stunning-a feat of storytelling... Roy's lyrical sentences, and the ferocity of her narrative, are a wonder to behold. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness [is] a celebration'-Zak M. Salih, Richmond Times-Dispatch
'Arundhati Roy's new book is an overflowing work a la Balzac: the stories of many characters interlace the plot with the humanity that lives in the dizziness of New Delhi. They resemble the twin protagonists of her f novel who grew up, were bruised and matured here: their voice tells us tha India is no place for children'-Stefano Massini, La Repubblica (Italy)
'Like in an ancient saga, but also as in an intensely personal and passionate drama, each of the story's many characters finds himself or herself at the center of the eternal and ever-new clash between good and evil, each with his own wounds and weaknesses, which become the winning weapon is this battle-Elisabetta Rasy, Il Sole 24 Ore (Italy)
'It is a wonderful and wild world of a book, incredible and contradictory like the subcontinent it portrays. A magical and cruel fairytale, original and unsettling, where everything holds together and everything is lost, where gender identities and religions become mixed up, and where the only ones to save themselves are the outcasts, a handful of characters that get under the reader's skin and stay there, growing in stature and depth as you more forward through the novel's pages'-Caterina Soffici, TuttoLibri, La Stampa (Italy)
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness strikes right at the heart. Brimming with condemnation, captivating and full of despair, it points the spotlight on people who are invisible, everyone that the new India, the superpower of the Hindu nationalism of Modi, concerned with flexing its muscles and counting money, has confined to the shadows or repressed with violence Inconsolable souls, shattered by life, who search for refuge in love-Mari Accettura, D, La Repubblica (Italy)
'2017 is only half over: but I know for certain that The Ministry of Utmost Happiness will be my book of this and any other year'-Catherine Dunne, Vanity Fair (Italy)
"In The Ministry of Utmost Happiness Roy doesn't focus solely on one grand story, instead she brilliantly interlaces dozens of different tales packed with a cast of colourful and vivid characters. On an often overwhelming sometimes exhilarating, journey through the small stinking streets of Old Delhi, she takes you from its twinkling shopping malls to the eternal snow of the Kashmiri mountains-Jan Stevens, Knack (Belgium)
'Having long carried the conscience of her country, Arundhati is back with her second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. And what has she shown us? She is back, better than ever before'-Marnix Verplancke, De Morgen (Belgium)
'A novel as monstrous, chaotic, dazzling and overwhelming as India itself, but, like the country, it gives us a glimpse of the immeasurable beauty that can be found in the most unexpected places and the complex poetics of love and loss, due to Roy's writing, which is sumptuous in details, lyrical in the description of its landscapes and profound affections, without a single atom of exoticism or sentimentality'-Helena Vasconcelos, Público
Arundhati Roy makes her comeback to fiction with a breathtaking story of love and protest. Far from trying to impose points of view, Roy gives us a moving watercolour painting of contemporary India - its complexity, energy and diversity in which charismatic characters cross the limits of ethnicity, religion and gender to reach the utmost happiness-Sonia Nolasco, Valor Econômico (Brazil).
'Colourful, poetic and magnificent, Roy's writing demands not only time. but also a creative process that balances lucidity and insanity, control and relief-Bolivar Torres, Jornal O Globo (Brazil)
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is like a submerged city where it is easy to lose yourself. And the only way of entering this dazzling story is just that: by losing yourself. Marveling at the ones Roy tries to give a voice to, hugging them, and embracing those to whom the book is dedicated: "the unconsoled "-Laura Ferrero, ABC (Spain)
"It's an ambitious novel that aims to say more than is perhaps possible. It is rich and extensive. The author herself points to Gabriel García Márquez as a great source of inspiration. This is especially noticeable when it bewilders and becomes magically magnificent'-Maria Schottenius, Dagens Nyheter (Sweden)
"The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is a determined, wild, sad, encouraging and deeply original story, with its rich cast of characters and its flow between poetry and politics. It is, as mentioned, an original story. A novel that tosses and turns, and does not follow any templates-Margaretha Levin Blekastad, VLT (Sweden)
'Glorious, colourful and compelling... Roy's second novel proves as remarkable as her first' FINANCIAL TIMES
At magic hour, when the sun has gone but the light bas not, armies of flying foxes unhinge themselves from the Banyan trees in the old graveyard and drift across the city like smoke...'
So begins The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy's incredible follow-up to The God of Small Things. We meet Anjum, who used to be Aftab, who runs a guest house in an Old Delhi graveyard and gathers around her the lost, the broken and the cast out. We meet Tilo, an architect, who, although she is loved by three men, lives in a 'country of her own skin'. When Tilo claims an abandoned baby as her own, her destiny and that of Anjum become entangled as a tale that sweeps across the years and a teeming continent takes flight. . .
'Astonishing ... filled me with awe' THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
'Captivating' LA REPUBBLICA (ITALY)
'A gem - a great tempest of a novel: a remarkable creation, a story both intimate and international, swelling with comedy and outrage' WASHINGTON POST
'Amazing' THE HINDU (INDIA)
'An astonishing, intimate epic' DAILY TELEGRAPH
Astonishing. An intimate epic...covers the last twenty years of Indian history seen through the eyes of outsiders: an intersex woman living in a Delhi graveyard who befriends a blind Muslim imam; a young Dalit (or Untouchable) who changes his name to escape a violent history; a landlord with a dark past in Kashmir, and the woman he loves in vain' DAILY TELEGRAPH
'A richly written wonder'
'A masterful writer whose gift for language informs every page' DaY EXPRESS
'Will take your breath away' orx (1801)
Powerful and moving. Roy's second novel reminds us what fiction can do. Her exquisite prose is a rare instrument... infused with so much passion - political, social, emotional - that it vibrates... Roy's is a world in which love and hope sprout against all odds, like flowers pushing through cracked pavement' SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
A great tempest of a novel both intimate and international, swelling with comedy and outrage, a tale that cradles the world's most fragile people even while it assaults brutal villains.
'A thoroughly absorbing work of art-a hybrid of satire, romance, thriller and history. It speaks to the universal struggle of minority people to be free. Here is writing that swirls so hypnotically it doesn't feel like words on paper so much as ink on water. It will leave you awed by the heat of its anger and the depth of its compassion" WASHINGTON POST
'Gorgeously wrought' ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
Exquisite... The follow-up we've been longing for - a poetic, densely populated contemporary novel in the tradition of Dickens and Tolstoy. From its beginning, one is swept up in the story... Roy balances scenes of suffering and corruption with flashes of humour, giddiness and even transcendence' VoGUE
'If you want to know the world. behind our corporate-sponsored dreamscapes, you read writers like Arundhati Roy. She shows you what's really going on' Junot Dius, voGUE
'An epic of our times' THE WEEK (INDIA)
'Fans of The God of Small Things have been waiting for Roy's next novel, and it doesn't disappoint.. Big, both in physical heft and in ideas. It features an unforgettable cast of characters from across India whose stories are told with generosity and compassion' VULTURE
'Wise, vivid, evocative. We've had to wait twenty years for Arundhati Roy's follow-up to The God of Small Things. It has been worth it' Sebastian Shakespeare, TATLER
'Gripping, shocking and moving' ASIAN AGE (INDIA)
'Captures India's chaotic beauty. A tumultuous tragicomic story' Boyd Tonkin, NEWSWEEK 'Dazzling' Laura Ferrero, suc (SPAIN)
'Dazzling' INDEPENDENT
'Magisterial, vibrant. Roy's second novel works its empathetic magic upon a breathtakingly broad slate O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
'Compelling, musical and beautifully orchestrated' Michike Kakutani, THE NEW YORK TIMES
'Magnificent' O GLOBO (BRAZIL)
'Superb' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
A sprawling kaleidoscopic fable'
GUARDIAN, BOOKS OF THE YEAR
'Fearless. Staggeringly beautiful - a fierce, fabulously disobedient novel. So fully realized it feels intimate, yet vibrates with the tragicomedy of myth. Roy is writing at the height of her powers' John Freeman, BOSTON GLOBE
'A rowdy, multi-angled saga' METRO
'A feat of comic-fabulist genius' OUTLOOK (INDIA)
'Enchanting. A passionate political masterpiece' THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
'Compelling, musical and beautifully orchestrated. Roy's gift is for the personal: for poetic description and an ability to map the complicated arithmetic of love and belonging' Michiko Kakutani, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Glorious... Roy has a passionate following, and her admirers will not be disappointed. At the novely heart are three male friends from university and the woman they all loved and continue to love. Their lives come together like puzzle pieces; the telling involves an unusual combination of epic and classic echoes: of unexpected detail; and, unforgettably, an unflinching realism.
You will be granted a powerful sense of their world, of the complexity, energy and diversity of contemporary India, in which darkness and exuberant vitality are inextricably intertwined. Roy's second novel proves as remarkable as her first FINANCIAL TIMES
'A riotous carnival, as wryly funny and irreverent as its author' GUARDIAN
The unmissable literary read of the summer. With its insights into human nature, its memorable characters and its luscious prose, it is well worth the wait' TIME
'Gripping, always interesting' SUNDAY TIMES
Works Cited
Roy, Arundhati. Ministry of Utmost Happiness. Random House India, 2018.