So if you read this and didn't like it, that's your bad. I mean sure, there's nearly enough here-the outsider story, the satire of small-town life and politics, the failed hero's journey-to make this a teachable book, but it is from start to finish the delightfully ridiculous book it over-and-over announces itself to be. And, for what it is, it's pretty fantastic. No one but a blue-blooded ass-clown would pick this book up without knowing exactly what it is. And you picked this book up thinking just perhps it was your cup o' tea, Satre lover? C'mon negative reviewer: you're not fooling anyone here. Did you read the back cover? The one that says plainly that this is the tale of a life-long loser who climbs a tree to escape the bastards only to be mistaken for a holy man which is all well and good until the drunken monkeys show up? No, really-the monkeys are paste-eating drunk. Not since Breakin' II: Electric Boogaloo has a work so clearly announced itself as ridiculous. I try my best to respond to the text and not to other readers here, but really negative reviewers? REALLY!? The book is called Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. Not a must read, but an entertaining one. In an American context they might stand in for Republicans aligning with religious frenzy for their own ends.
A criminal monkey and his pack are particularly entertaining. This is a fun read, but although I thought I was catching much of what was tossed out to the reader there must be a lot that my western eyes missed that is perceived by South Asian natives. Desai clearly has a bone to pick with the practice of religion (and the postal service) in India. A new cult is born as Sampath tosses out meaningless parables in answer to the many questions asked him by the gullible. The unknowing manage to project onto him a fully undeserved holiness.
After losing his job in a rather dramatic manner, Sampath wanders up the road until he feels the pull of a guava tree and decides to take up residence. Chauncey Gardener in India, Sampath is a slacker of the first order, completely lacking in ambition and as distractible as an infant confronted with moving shiny objects.
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