Perfectly irrational

Be warned, this post is a several years-overdue rant about a book I hated the first time I read it. There, now it's out.

I'm an indiscriminate lover of words, and I will read anything, almost. Even as I crib about a horribly written novel, I will finish reading it- its an instinct something like being unable to take your eyes away from a train wreck or a massacre. Given this, it takes quite a bit to make me stop reading an award-winning book that comes highly recommended by several people with impeccable taste.

It's got a fantastic story. A boy and a little zoo adrift in the Pacific in a  tiny lifeboat. You know the one, don't you?

A completely unbelievable story, of a boy and a tiger and their strange names and even stranger relationship. That I found completely plausible. But I've never heard a government official or a hotel concierge in India use the word 'bamboozle'. In fact, I've only ever heard it used in the most amused contexts, always with implied humor. Never met a Muslim man or woman with the name Kumar. Never, ever met a child of less than ten who "loved religion". Loved God? Possibly. Loved temples, or churches, or rituals? Certainly. But "I loved religion", coming from an eight or twelve year old? No.

Add to that a semi-traditional mother and a liberal/ atheist father in South India. Expect that these parents will be accepting of their ten year old running off to namaz or confession or pray endlessly to the deities of three religions. Once again, no and no. Add to this the thirty chapters of introducing animal behavior, which are essentially a schoolboy's essay version of Gerald Durrell's theories on zoos.

And even if I were to believe it all, pretending it part of some magical adventure, there is no narrative spell strong enough to pull these incongruous threads into that little boat. Even with my meager editorial skills, I could have cut every reference of religion out of the book, and it would still be an amazing story.

That is to me the part that hurts the most. If the unneccessary words hadn't gotten in the way, this would be an even greater story than it is. The book, as a whole, feels like an attempt to make a perfect line through a perfect circle in an even hundred chapters just went terribly wrong, adrift on choppy detail that nearly drowns a story that really will make you believe in God.

Just this once, watch the movie instead.

(In case it wasn't clear from the annoyed introduction, I did actually, finally finish reading the book this week, on the third try.)