Jasmine | Bharati Mukherjee | Powerful and honest

Jasmine | Bharati Mukherjee | Compulsively readable!

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Jasmine

	Jasmine Bharati Mukherjee Grove Press, 1999 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 45 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

When Jasmine is suddenly widowed at seventeen, she seems fated to a life of quiet isolation in the small Indian village where she was born. But the force of Jasmine's desires propels her explosively into a larger, more dangerous, and ultimately more life-giving world. In just a few years, Jasmine becomes Jane Ripplemeyer, happily pregnant by a middle-aged Iowa banker and the adoptive mother of a Vietnamese refugee. Jasmine's metamorphosis, with its shocking upheavals and its slow evolutionary steps, illuminates the making of an American mind; but even more powerfully, her story depicts the shifting contours of an America being transformed by her and others like her -- our new neighbors, friends, and lovers. In Jasmine, Bharati Mukherjee has created a heroine as exotic and unexpected as the many worlds in which she lives. "Rich?one of the most suggestive novels we have about what it is to become an American." -- The New York Times Book Review

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Powerful and honest

I read this book in a literature class on the PostColonial Indian Novel. It has been a while since I read it but I will relate that this book is very special because it is as quick and fun to read as a light beach read, while at the same time dealing with very serious topics and being incredibly moving. This is RARE in a novel.
Jasmine is a novel I would recommend to anyone, it is so beautiful (some of the quotes I have memorized, even!) I didn't ever want it to end... and it unfortunately takes only a couple hours to read!
The story is of a woman who starts out in a very small village in India and eventually is married to a progressive Indian man who convinces her to think for herself and break away from the feudal ideals that make her think she must be nothing but a subservient baby maker/house keeper. Her husband is murdered early in their marriage and Jasmine, who is turning into a real fighter, makes a terrible and unforgettable trip to America to honor her husband's memory. The rest is history as Jamine finds her way and searches personal fulfillment and self-actualization... she becomes to some extent assimilated in this process, though she always carries her past along with her.

And I can attest to the fact that it is not simply a women's novel: my boyfriend and I read this together and he fell in love with the book too!

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Compulsively readable!

Don't let the cheesy cover fool you, this book is amazing. It is brutally honest and intense, as well as impossible to put down. The story revolves around a woman with a multitude of identities, one to fit each phase of her ever changing life. "Jasmine" (aka Jyoti and Jane) is a woman who survives poverty and ignorance in a small Indian village, only to be rewarded with brutality. Her journey to America is beyond taxing, and what she must do to survive it is harrowing, if not downright shocking at times.
Jasmine is faced with much turmoil and many choices, none of which are easy. Her life is far from conventional, but it says volumes about what it must be like to forge a new life in a new place with an identity that even she is not certain of.
I found that the ending was a little abrupt, but other than this, I have no complaints. Mukherjee is a vivid and serious writer, one who will leave you with an often times visceral reaction.
Warning: I have heard some complaints about the beginning chapters being mildly confusing concerning character introductions, but I assure you, if you stick with it, what she is doing will become clear quite quickly. This author's technique of introducing characters is very unique and effective and gives the reader a real sense of time without being exactly linear.

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Well-Crafted, Powerful Novel

I recently taught a class on Mukherjee, and this novel was a huge hit! I love the way Mukherjee uses the idea of incarnations as a springboard for the narrator's transformation. I also love the way she ties in the story of Kali (goddess of death) into her tale. If you are rusty on your knowledge of hindu gods, you may want to look a few references up.

Mukherjee also does an excellent job of portraying the modern immigrant experience -- through a compelling tale.

Great, great book!

I read the review titled "Sloppy Piece..." and felt cautious in my decision to continue reading this book. I am so glad I did! I loved this book! I loved Mukherjee's insight into her creation of such a beautiful, believable character, and loved the insight it provided on the topic of what it means to be a part of America. I highly recommend this book.

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Review of Jasmine

This was my first novel that I have read by Bharati Mukherjee and I found it difficult to read sometimes. There are parts in the beginning of the story that are hard to understand but once you read through the novel everything starts to make sense to you. Mukhejee tends to skip around throughout the novel and this causes it to become confusing.
The story deals with Jasmine trying to deal with the past in order to move on with the future. She has trouble dealing with her past because she has survived so many traumatic situations in her life. She also does not know how to do deal with the past and tends to carry it along with her.
Mukherjee had great themes throughout the story. I found that one of the themes was finding your true identity in a chaotic world. Jasmine goes through many names throughout the story including Jyoti, Jazzy, Jane, and Jase. Her life becomes very chaotic because she has to go from place to place trying to find out who she wants to be in the American world. Another theme that I found intriguing was that we are never satisfied with what we have. Throughout this story Jasmine always wants more. She wants the American lifestyle and in the end we see that. She has the right to choose Bud who she will have a laid back lifestyle and many people believe that he represents the Indian culture or she can choose Taylor who will give her an adventurous lifestyle. She has to choose whether she is happy with what she has with Bud or does she want more.
I enjoyed the story overall because she caught my attention with her vivid descriptions in her scenes. The one scene that always sticks out in my mind is when she compares the room where she murdered her rapist to a slaughter house. She used great vivid details to describe the stabbing.

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