Plot:

The book is narrating the story of life of two middle/upper class American characters, Erica and Harold, from birth to death. They lead wealthy, mostly stable lifes in a safe environment.

The added value of the book

In itself, the protagonists’ life journeys are neither especially exceptional nor dramatic and also the pen of the writer is rather functional than thrilling. However, the author David Brooks adds a layer of rationale to the story by commenting on the various events from a scientist’s point of view. For example, when he describes the first romantic date of the young people who are to become the parents of Harold later on, he explains what science knows about the conscious and subconscious, chemical and psychological processes commonly known as “falling in love”.

Brooks repeats his pattern of analysing the various events of the story, drawing upon philosophy, history, psychology, management theory, cultural theory and many more. As a result, the reader learns about the underlying models influencing many a human behaviours.

Besides conveying knowledge on specific settings, the books also illustrates possible stages of human lifes, letting the reader reflect on their own story and provides an reference example for comparison.

My Opinion

I liked the book because I enjoy learning about the underlying patterns which explain our behaviour – and that is what the book provides: scientifc explanations in an easily consumable form, embedded in a story. I think the book is valuable for younger readers, as it may help them to broaden their insights and use the knowledge and references from the book to find their way quicker. I recomment having a highlighter at hand when reading this book – to remeber some of the bits and pieces from the story which may fit in well with the jigsaw puzzle of making sense of our own human behaviour.

However, it has to be said that all in all, it took me two years to read through the story, as the life stories of the characters are partly tiresome. To me, the depth of the science referenced is sufficient – but it may not for truely scientific minded readers.

About the author

David Brooks is a journalist writing for The New York Times. He has published the book Bobos in Paradise in 2000 and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense in 2004.

Further Information

Book reviews on amazon

Plot

Balram Halwai was born and raised poor in the village of Laxmangarh where the school inspector tells him that he is like a white tiger, so outstanding that one of his kind is only born once a generation. Because of his cleverness and persistence but also by his unscrupulousness he manages to escape his life as a servant and becomes an entrepreneur in Bangalore.

Style

The whole story is told as a written conversation between Balram and China’s Premier Minister Wen Jiabao. In fact, it is a monolouge because naturately the Premier never answers as Balram goes on to send him letters for seven days, detailing the story of his life and the true rules by which India actually operates.
The author Aravind Adiga uses a rich vocabulary to bring the story to a colorful life.

My opinion

I read to book because I wanted to know if it would really help to “better understand Asia”. Well, I think no book could do that because Asia is too diverse, but I still read it to better understand India.

In the beginning the story really felt to me like it was set in the past, a hundred years back in time because the differences between poor and rich were so stark. But the story is set in the present, Wen Jiabao is still China’s Premier. IBM, HP and Apple had no offices in Bangalore a hundred years ago. In an interview the author said that the story “is build on a substratum of Indian reality”, so in that sense: Yes, it made me learn something about India – namely that it is really tough to break through the “rooster coop” – which is the analogy used to picture the static mindset of the poor that prevent them from improving their situation. According to the book, India also has a serious corruption problem and the rich always rip off the poor.

Another interesting facet of the book relates to the fact that Balram eventually kills his master and lets his family die to reach his goal to break out of “The Darkness” (as he calls the poor life) In the story his ways seem reasonable – would you let him win you over and accept his crimes?

Links related to this post

• The White Tiger on Wikipedia
• The White Tiger on amazon