Somewhere I had read (or at least I think I had read) that Neruda preferred that his poetry be read aloud. And why not? Poets throughout time, from Homer to Emerson, wrote poetry to be read to an audience, and for the audience to read out loud in the quiet of their homes or in lonely moments in nature. Previously I have read Neruda’s Selected Poems aloud, as well as collections by Gary Snyder, A.E. Housman, Allen Ginsberg, some ancient Greeks, and the poems occasioned upon in places like The New Yorker, World Literature Today, and other periodicals. There’s just something about forcing the words (and their underlying rhythms) into the vacant air.

It was the blurb on the back of this book that initially attracted me. The synopsis likens this Indian novel to a synthesis of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces and J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, with an Indian twist. I see now where the comparisons come from, but I think Chatterjee’s novel—though excellent—falls just short of such a literary pinnacle.

In 2006 I read Elizabeth Royte’s Garbage Land(Little Brown, 2005), wherein Royte traces her trash through the labyrinthine American waste system. Royte asked, after we toss it into the garbage can, where does it go? What is the impact of the item’s life post-use? What does the vast and growing collection of too-easily disposable products in our landfills say about American lifestyle, priorities and, yes, morals? Since reading Royte’s accounts I have been composting all my food waste, and I strive to maintain a higher conscience of wasteful purchasing habits (e.g. I try to buy used or pluck from the trash rather than buy new).

Warning: plot spoilers below