A Fine Balance

By: Rohinton Mistry

Narrated by: Madhur Jaffrey

With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future.

As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state.©1995 Rohinton Mistry; (P)2001 Random House Inc., Random House Audio, a Division of Random House Inc.

Critic reviews

"Astonishing. . . . A rich and varied spectacle, full of wisdom and laughter and the touches of the unexpectedly familiar through which literature illuminates life." --Wall Street Journal

"Monumental. . . . Few have caught the real sorrow and inexplicable strength of India, the unaccountable crookedness and sweetness, as well as Mistry." --Pico Iyer, Time

"Those who continue to harp on the decline of the novel . . . ought to consider Rohinton Mistry. He needs no infusion of magic realism to vivify the real. The real world, through his eyes, is magical." --The New York Times

A Fine Balance

Excellent listen.... Unique and poignant. Don't expect a "feel good" Hollywood happy ending. Unfortunate that it was abridged.

Well Done!!

"Life is a Fine Balance between hope and despair", and I found this book an excellent listen. It was well done, well read, and sits with me still now that I'm done. I highly recommend you take the chance and read it. You will not be disappointed.

DON'T RENT THIS UNABRIDGED VERSION

This unabridged version of the book loses the nuance and beauty that make Mistry's writing great. The reader may be a wonderful cookbook writer, but she's a bored, flat, and grating as a narrator.

Please join me in protesting the lack of an UNABRIDGED VERSION.

Not a great abridgement, but good narrator

The narrator was very good, and while it is difficult to abridge such a long book down to 6 hours, it could have been done better - with bridging sentences in between sections where large cuts were made. Transitions were disjoined and clearly left out info that listener needed to know.

I found the story horribly depressing, with tiny bits of hope in these characters' lives that were soon squashed. Wish I could be more positive...