Word Attack!!

Smell

April 19, 2008 on 11:43 pm | In Book Reviews |

Naturally I was intrigued by the name of the book when I came across it in the library. It was a debut novel by Radhika Jha, and reading the blurb on the back intrigued me further. I got it back home and was caught up in it, in no time at all.

Smell is an unusual book, one that really had me stunned at times with the evocative language. It is the story of Leela, living a carefree life in Kenya until her father dies and her mother sends her to Paris to live with her father’s brother’s family. Leela’s perspective of Kenya, the wide open spaces and then Paris, the confined living arrangements and how she breaks free form the beginning of the book.

The name of the book comes about, because of Leela’s acute sense of smell. Where others see and merely look, Leela can smell. Some of the descriptions of the smells actually had my nose twitching. Leela escapes the humongous Aunt Latha and her husband(her father’s brother), and with the help of a friend, learns French and then moves in and out of relationships quite predictably. However, it is at this time, that she discovers that she too has a smell. It is fetid and she is afraid of being rejected because of it. Her relationships suffer because of her preoccupation with her own smell, until of course, she finally finds someone she is really happy with. The smell comes in here too, attacks her when she least expects it, and there follows a period of extreme madness in which she travels across most of Paris, on train and by foot, trying to rid herself of the smell.

A very interesting book, written beautifully, and apparently, this was a best seller when it was released. However, there are places where it drags and you kind of lose interest in Leela and her life. It picks up pace languorously and then moves in a steady momentum till the end.

Still, a definite recommendation to read it from me!