I just finished The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai. It took me two months to read and it felt like it, too. I just piddled along reading maybe ten pages a day, not feeling like I was making any progress, because I wasn't. I liked the story, in fact, I liked the story a lot. I just couldn't make myself read it. It was the oddest thing. When I discussed my problem with a nephew at a recent gathering he suggested I needed to set aside a block of time with the book so I could immerse myself in it. He also suggested trying the audiobook. I did and that did the trick. Within a few days of switching formats, I found myself completely captivated by the story. When I wasn't listening, I was wishing I was. Within a week I had finished the book -- no easy feat since the book is 670 pages long and over 26 hours of listening time. No wonder I felt like high-fiving myself when I completed it.
Oddly now that I am finished, I miss the book. Ever feel that way? It makes sense, though, for it was my constant companion for the better part of the summer. I just learned that the author, Kiran Desai, took 20 years to write the book. Gulp! In an interview with Alexandra Alter, Desai said she didn't realize how thoroughly the story would swallow her and she feared she would never finish the book. Now that it is done she feels lonely without it. "It was so much my entire world that life seems very thin on the other
side of this book. I don’t quite know what to do with myself. It was my
companion all these years,” she said. (NYT) I thought 2 months was a long time to be immersed in a story, just imagine living inside a story for 20 years!
The book starts in India with Sonia's grandparents and aunt, Mina Foi, discussing what the cook should make for the day's meals since the cook must go directly to the market. This begins not only to show the stark differences between Indian and American cultures but also a recurring theme of kebabs.
It was Mina's fifty-fifth birthday, the first day of December in the year 1996, and the mutton for the dinner kebabs had been marinating overnight in the kitchen. 'Rice or Roti?' Ba [grandma] shouted. She was growing deaf, but she knew she must raise her voice over the morning traffic thundering past the front gate and the cawing of hundreds of crows -- their racket and the sun's struggle so closely linked, it was as if each morning the crows gave birth to the light. --Mina Foi, Ba, and Dadji, pg. 1
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny deals with, um, the loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, two Indians living in the United States, feeling displaced and isolated from family and culture. Yet when they return to India, each doesn't feel quite at home there either.
'I spend all my time trying to pretend I am not lonely! If you are lonely, you feel ashamed, and the only relief to your shame is being alone, which is what makes you lonely in the first place.' -Sonia, p. 49
One thing seemed certain: If India existed, then America could not, for they were too drastically different not to cancel each other out. Yet despite this fact, they refused to remain apart. India invaded his life all the way from the other side of the world, and then life here became instantly artificial, a taunt. He became an impostor, a spy, a liar, and a ghost. -Sunny, p. 82
The book begins with Sonia attending college in Vermont with dreams of becoming an author. Sunny is living in Brooklyn after graduating college and working for the AP as a copy editor in the New York office, with dreams of becoming a journalist. As their loneliness and sense of isolation deepens both try to find ways to cope. Sonia by starting a relationship with a mentally ill artist who is very controlling and demeaning. Sunny by disappearing as a whole person.
There was so much life in this country that Sunny needn’t bother to create one. His life could be simply looking upon life. -Sunny
As both Sunny and Sonia pursue their writing careers separately, their lives seem to be on a collision course. First Sonia's family proposes an arranged marriage with Sunny, which he dismisses out of hand. Later in a pivotal moment in the story back in India, they are on the same train heading to Allahabad, where their families have a connection. This brief encounter sets up future interactions. Still later they meet up on in Goa (Southwest India on the coast) where they get to know each other better and love blossoms. It would seem that a full throttled romance was on its way but what happens is much more tangled and twisted.
So what is the story about? It is about culture and displacement. It is about family and traditions. It is also about post-colonialism, superstition, and magic. And ultimately it is about finding self awareness and acceptance. Maureen Corrigan, reviewing the book for NPR described The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny as a book of ideas. Nalini Iver, writing for the International Examiner, says "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is a deeply satisfying, profoundly moving, witty, and occasionally heart-rending novel that explores immigration, alienation, the relationship between art, the artist, and artistic subject. It also probes the changing role of women in contemporary society." Nobody can quite put their finger on all the themes covered in this book. Just suffice it to say there are a lot!
My favorite parts of the book shined a light on differences in cultures and the ways that people within those cultures view property, nature, parenthood, etc. and how the characters viewed themselves in those other cultures. For example, here Sonia is talking to Babita, Sunny's mother, try to explain what it is like in America:
'It was all the things I’d have to do alone.' 'Why would you have to do anything alone?' asked Babita. 'It’s the premise of being American: You are an individual, therefore you are alone. Therefore you must be able to do everything by yourself. Rent a car at an airport, drive yourself cross-country to a job in a place you’ve never heard of, defeat your enemies, trap a rat, make money to pay bills to look after yourself even when you are dying—' -Sonia to Babita
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny was a 2025 Booker Prize finalist, therefore I thought that would be a great place to start as I looked around for book club discussion questions. I will be leading the discussion on the book the end of this month. Here are two resources I thought would be helpful:
My rating for The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is on a sliding scale. I give the book a 5-star rating for the writing, the complexity, and the epic nature of the story. But I give the book a 4-star rating rating based on my reading experience with it. I just had such a hard time actually reading it. Suffice it to say, it is a beautiful, rewarding, yet hard book to read.
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| At 670 pages, this qualifies for Big Book Summer Challenge |
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