A Fine Balance

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Rohinton Mistry’s third novel recalls the 19th-century epics of
Dickens and Hugo in its sheer size and scope. But there the resemblance
ends. A Fine Balance is a modern-day Mahabharata played out by common
people against the backdrop of India’s gnawing poverty and political
corruption. It is not a feel-good story. When tragedy strikes, there are
no Rambos, Mother Teresas, or princes-posing-as-paupers to set things
right; the heros and heroines merely learn to cope and carry on.

Mistry’s characters are not immediately likable. A widow runs a
sweatshop in her living room. Her landlord tries to evict her so that he
can turn the building into luxury condos. A gangster protects the widow
because her employees owe him money. A police sergeant alternates
between abetting the landlord and abetting the gangster, depending on
who is paying the biggest bribe.

With 700 pages at his disposal, the author is allowed the luxury of
presenting his characters in full detail. Mistry crosses and recrosses
the same territory from different perspectives, revealing his
protagonists occasionally as scoundrels and villains, but also investing
them with momentary glimpses of humanity. Although not generally given
credit as a humorist, Mistry is skilled at gallows humor and
drawing-room farce.

Although not as urbane as Mistry’s previous books, A Fine Balance may
be more important in the larger domain of Canadian literature.