Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee
Compulsively Readable!
&quto;Lifetimes ago, under a banyan tree in the village of Hasnapur, an
astrologer cupped his ear ... and foretold my widowhood and exile, relates
Jyoti, fifth cursed daughter in a family of nine. Though she cant escape
fate, Jyoti reinvents herself time and again. She leaves her dusty Punjabi
village to marry as Jasmine; travels rough, hidden airways and waters to
America to reemerge as Jase, an illegal day mummy in hip Manhattan;
and lands beached in Iowas farmlands as Jane, mother to an adopted
teenage Vietnamese refugee and wife to a banker. Bharati Mukherjee
(The Middleman and Other Stories) makes each world exotic, her lyrical
prose broken only by the violence Jasmine almost casually recounts and
survives.
Personal Review: Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee
I read this book in a literature class on the PostColonial Indian Novel. It
has been a while since I read it but I will relate that this book is very special
because it is as quick and fun to read as a light beach read, while at the
same time dealing with very serious topics and being incredibly moving.
This is RARE in a novel.

Jasmine is a novel I would recommend to anyone, it is so beautiful (some
of the quotes I have memorized, even!) I didn't ever want it to end... and it
unfortunately takes only a couple hours to read!
The story is of a woman who starts out in a very small village in India and
eventually is married to a progressive Indian man who convinces her to
think for herself and break away from the feudal ideals that make her think
she must be nothing but a subservient baby maker/house keeper. Her
husband is murdered early in their marriage and Jasmine, who is turning
into a real fighter, makes a terrible and unforgettable trip to America to
honor her husband's memory. The rest is history as Jamine finds her way
and searches personal fulfillment and self-actualization... she becomes to
some extent assimilated in this process, though she always carries her
past along with her.
And I can attest to the fact that it is not simply a women's novel: my
boyfriend and I read this together and he fell in love with the book too!
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