Fabian's Reviews > The White Tiger

The "White Tiger of Bangalore" is cunning, fast, intrepid-- the perfect symbol for this perfect novel that reminds the reader of characters like Scarface & friends-- Antiheroes all. Adiga's yarn is utterly engrossing; it's a mystery unraveled in the purest tradition of classic storytelling. It has that picaresque quality (which is one of the hardest tricks for a novelist to pull off, truly, really) needed to balance out all the heaviness of a constant train of melancholic events (violence and tenderness masterfully intermingled), an oppressive setting (modern day India), & a tale that when stripped of its resplendent coat of heavy whites and blacks, is all pulpy, red, meaty, nasty-- still retaining a beauty that is more than the reader expected or felt entitled to. Coincidentally, it has hints of some of my favorite books/film: Ishiguro's "Remains of the Day", Indra Sinha's "Animal's People" & Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire."

I wholly give FULL endorsement to this marvelously universal yet blissfully irreverent novel.