It took me fully 2 months to read this book. The cast of characters was large, and it took a long time to work my way through some of the longer and more wandering descriptions. 

I picked this up because I enjoyed the author's State of Freedom. While I think State of Freedom is probably the better book, this one spoke to me much more. Partially it was the family drama that felt more relatable. While there certainly was violence in this one (the book literally begins with a man self-immolating after killing his family in desperation), it didn't feel as intense as State of Freedom. 

I found the pace slow and frustrating at times. The author kept dangling tantalizing plot details before switching over to a different POV or timeline. And I had a lot of trouble keeping the cast of characters together, since we were introduced to them piecemeal. I do wish some of the storylines had wrapped up a bit more. 

Overall, I enjoy Mukherjee's works in their focus on the communist movement, classism and casteism in Indian society, and unflinching (though sometimes alarming) portrayals of life. 

I would start by saying that this book is not for me. At 500+ pages, I honestly found it too long. I have no problem with long books and there are actually books that I’ve read that are 1000 + pages that I wish would have been longer. 

The book is a multi-generational glimpse in the life of an upper middle class family in Calcutta. Through the lens of this family, we get to see the cultural and socio-economic conditions at that time.  One of the main storyline is that of Supratik who is a political activist and then walks out of his family home, leaving only a note behind.

Part of the novel is told in third person wherein the readers explore the story of the different members of the Ghosh family. Another part is told in first person at the point of view of Supratik where he is talking/writing/addressing another person in his head. Supratik’s narrative is at the latter part of each chapter, being a kind of sub-chapter. I think this is a major reason why the book ultimately did not work for me. I felt the change of style between the chapters too jarring and it made it very hard to connect to the characters. 

The book is ambitious and tries to tackle a lot of issues but at the end of the day, it felt like it tried to take on too much and it ended up saying very little.