Review By Rob Stout

Fasting, Feasting (Mariner Books) is Anita Desai's twelfth novel. Considered to be one of the foremost Indian authors writing in English today, she has been widely praised as the finest of her generation and one of the few Indian writers to establish an international reputation well before the wave of notoriety from Salman Rushdie or Vikram Seth in the 1980s.

Desai's stories are short, concise and could be considered slim novels or plump novellas. Regardless, they never fail to convey the tangled complexities of Indian traditions with an economy of language that is clean, simple and elegantly straightforward.

From her debut, Cry, The Peacock in 1963, to 1995's Journey to Ithaca, her story lines rarely stray from the emotional tribulations of women whose independence is still suppressed within Indian society. Her heroines -- urban and rural, young and old -- stand as lasting reminders of the traditionally male-dominated institutions of marriage, camaraderie and, yes, literary art.

Believing that one purpose of literature is to show the reader, "the plain face of truth," Desai again returns to her time-honored theme. But in this most recent effort the subjects are no longer exclusively Indian as she has cleverly juxtaposed the extremes of both Eastern and Western cultures.

Fasting, Feasting takes place in two very different worlds, both physically and metaphorically. The first is the rural Indian village where Lima, the youngest daughter of a provincial official, cannot escape her lowly position in a staunchly patriarchal family. Therefore, resigning herself to the role of spinster daughter, she becomes the caretaker of her aging parents.

The second world is inhabited by her brother, Arun, who is afforded a privileged Western education in suburban Massachu-setts. He, however, winds up living with a foster family whose value-free lifestyle clashes with his strict Hindu background.

The American father, an ethnocentric rube with a backyard barbecue grill, serves up large chunks of red meat to his horrified guest every night. His wife, when not transfixed by the latest holistic gimmickry, lives in a tanning bed. Melanie, their only daughter (if one has not already surmised) is an anxiety-ridden bulimic, the unfortunate result of parental neglect and years of failed therapy.

In the adept counterpointing of these two worlds, a rather tragic reality is posed for the author's largely female readership. Which world poses the bleakest of alternatives? To be so aimlessly alienated you attempt to starve yourself to death? Or to be at the whim of a society in which status and birthright are determined strictly by male heritage?

Desai leaves no resolutions, only more of the social inequalities she has left her readers to ponder for over 35 years.

Fasting, Feasting was short-listed for the 1999 Booker Prize in England, as were Desai's previous works, Clear Light of Day and In Custody. Apart from this honor, she also carries the reputation as a peerless chronicler of Indian culture for an appreciative Western audience, as well as, the emerging English-speaking world. ©

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