Q & A by Vikas Swarup
I read this book before it was even a twinkle in Danny Boyle’s eye and I still haven’t seen the film, so I’m writing this review untainted by Oscar mania.
I approached it with trepidation as it seemed to have all the elements usually guaranteed to make me hate a book – all injustice, hardship and abject poverty. But even though it has its fair share of those, it’s curiously un-harrowing. Maybe it’s the device of constructing the story around a well-known quiz show, explaining how the “slumdog” hero is able to answer all 10 questions to win the prize by relating them to events in his past, or maybe it’s the fact that each story reads almost like a child’s fable, but you don’t finish this book wanting to head straight for the gas oven. Yes, it deals with the underbelly of Indian society, and Swarup throws everything into it bar the kitchen sink (there’s even a Bollywood theme in there somewhere), and some might find the quiz show device over-clever, but all in all it’s a rattling good read, and how many books set among the street kids of modern India can you say that about?
Oonagh, Blackrock Library
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