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The Toss of a Lemon Padma Viswanathan Books

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The Toss of a Lemon Padma Viswanathan Books

A toss, that's all it took. The mid-wife's tossing a lemon to the expectant father waiting outside the birthing room's window, allowed him to calculate and chart his newborn's life. Just a toss. Lives were foreshadowed, marriages arranged, and destinies set.

Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to live in your own great-grandparents' era? What customs were they bound by? And how differently they viewed their time, what we see as `history'.

Reminiscent of great epochs such as War and Remembrance (Wouk) and The Manor (Singer), The Toss of a Lemon (Viswanathan) brings us into her family's late 19th century home in southern India. We become the fly-on-the-wall. From her great-grandmother Souvakami's marriage as a child bride, to her demise decades into the 20th century, we see life through her eyes.

Viswanathan's plot isn't exceptional. It's that of every family; living, rejoicing, and grieving. And as mundane as that may be, she breathes life into each character--and there are many--letting each one speak with his own point of view and voice. Her objectivity as narrator is a remarkable quality. It allows us to watch with an unbiased eye.

She empowers the reader to vividly sense locale, food, and customs. The author transports us to the hot, dusty paths of the fields and the exclusive quarter of Brahmin homes. One can almost taste the curries and vegetables with Viswanathan's descriptions of food preparation, cooking, and spices. Rather than explaining Brahmin ritual, she portrays it. Whether incorporating them in the food's placement on banana leaf plates, the proper behavior of a widow and her inability to touch anyone before sundown, or divining a suitable marriage partner with a horoscope, we learn the Brahmin way of life.

Swept up in the changing political tide, we see old values discarded, much like shells left on the shore as the sea foam ebbs. British imperialism, the caste system, and its values are questioned. The price for a modern India is embodied in the losses Souvakami endures.

As sophisticated as we like to think we are, nothing surpasses entertainment as that of the ancient storyteller. With The Toss of a Lemon, Padma Viswanathan holds the primitive `speaking stick'. Sit. Allow yourself to be spellbound. Follow the tapestry she weaves of her family's tale.


Tags : Amazon.com: The Toss of a Lemon (9780151015337): Padma Viswanathan: Books,Padma Viswanathan,The Toss of a Lemon,Harcourt,0151015333,Cultural Heritage,Families;India;Fiction.,India;Social life and customs;Fiction.,Women;India;Fiction.,American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +,Asian American Novel And Short Story,Domestic fiction,Families,Family Life,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction Cultural Heritage,Fiction Family Life,Fiction General,History Asia India & South Asia,India,Modern fiction,Women

The Toss of a Lemon Padma Viswanathan Books Reviews

This book was good for about he first 3 chapters and then it basically just kept repeating itself. There was no real point or story line. I kept waiting for it to get better but it never happened!
I enjoyed the first half of the book but that's where it ends. The first half was captivating getting to know the main characters, there beliefs and customs. I was looking forward to reading about what the future held for them. However the writer soon lost my interest in the second half. There was far too much detail in describing the character and day to day lives of the ever increasing family members, soon becoming dull and boring. This is the first book I could not finish. I kept hoping it would get more interesting but it never did.
We are reading this book for my book club at the suggestion of a woman who loves it. Two people really enjoyed it, although one is the woman who recommended it. (Our club has not met yet for the month, so I cannot tell you if there are any negative responses.) I never really got into it. I just never cared what happened to the characters. Frankly, I find myself wishing a flood would take out the whole village where they live, but I know it will not because I have three hundred pages left. This book is nearly six hundred pages long. A similar book I enjoyed far more is Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya, which is far shorter and was a best seller. However, I believe this book deserves three stars because other people really liked it.
I have told so many people about this book since I first read it several years ago that I ended up buying it for myself. Written by an American east Indian writer, based on family history, this book makes you feel that you've experienced so many aspects of Indian life and history that you become a part of it. The title is based on an event in the very beginning of the book, where the astrologer/father in early 19th century India asked the midwife to help him record the birthtime by tossing a lemon through the window once the child is born. The father reads the child's horoscope--and thus the story is born. I loved it!
A toss, that's all it took. The mid-wife's tossing a lemon to the expectant father waiting outside the birthing room's window, allowed him to calculate and chart his newborn's life. Just a toss. Lives were foreshadowed, marriages arranged, and destinies set.

Have you ever wondered what it must have been like to live in your own great-grandparents' era? What customs were they bound by? And how differently they viewed their time, what we see as `history'.

Reminiscent of great epochs such as War and Remembrance (Wouk) and The Manor (Singer), The Toss of a Lemon (Viswanathan) brings us into her family's late 19th century home in southern India. We become the fly-on-the-wall. From her great-grandmother Souvakami's marriage as a child bride, to her demise decades into the 20th century, we see life through her eyes.

Viswanathan's plot isn't exceptional. It's that of every family; living, rejoicing, and grieving. And as mundane as that may be, she breathes life into each character--and there are many--letting each one speak with his own point of view and voice. Her objectivity as narrator is a remarkable quality. It allows us to watch with an unbiased eye.

She empowers the reader to vividly sense locale, food, and customs. The author transports us to the hot, dusty paths of the fields and the exclusive quarter of Brahmin homes. One can almost taste the curries and vegetables with Viswanathan's descriptions of food preparation, cooking, and spices. Rather than explaining Brahmin ritual, she portrays it. Whether incorporating them in the food's placement on banana leaf plates, the proper behavior of a widow and her inability to touch anyone before sundown, or divining a suitable marriage partner with a horoscope, we learn the Brahmin way of life.

Swept up in the changing political tide, we see old values discarded, much like shells left on the shore as the sea foam ebbs. British imperialism, the caste system, and its values are questioned. The price for a modern India is embodied in the losses Souvakami endures.

As sophisticated as we like to think we are, nothing surpasses entertainment as that of the ancient storyteller. With The Toss of a Lemon, Padma Viswanathan holds the primitive `speaking stick'. Sit. Allow yourself to be spellbound. Follow the tapestry she weaves of her family's tale.