Untouchable

I know I still have a bunch of posts to catch up on, but keeping in the theme of reviewing a book right after I finish it I am going to do things a little out of order. I promise I will make a post about Dragon*Con as well as first day reactions to my other two classes very soon.

This story follows the life if a sweeper-boy, Bakha, through a day in his life. It is set in India during British occupation and the influence of the British has a strong influence on Bakha who has adapted their clothing. As a sweeper Bakha cleans the latrines and the streets of excrement that the upper-caste members leave. However this job makes him seen as unclean by the other members of the Hindu religion and he is no allowed in their homes, to touch them, and a number of other actions without the member interacted with being purified. This of course leads to a lot of conflict and shame in Bakha's life. The story ends with words from a Christian missoriany, Ganhdi, and a poet who all have different ideas about how the Untouchables can raise above their fate. 

I personally found the story interesting in subject matter, but boring in the way it is written. I know little to nothing about India besides that it was a colony of the British Empire for quite some time so it was interesting to get a look into the culture. However following one character mostly for just one day was rather boring and after a while I found myself uninteresting in what was going on. I also felt that the entire meaning of the story was crammed into the last ten pages or so. I would have much rather we start or have a small  lead up to the three ways to escape untouchable status and then see what Bakha does with this knowledge. The style was rather slow and even the action sequences were not all that exciting to read. 

If you are interested in Indian culture and way of life I recommend you read this, it is a little dated obviously since there is no toilets in the town where Bakha lives, but still an interesting incite into the culture. If you aren't interested in that sort of thing, well, it would be a good idea to leave this book alone. Maybe it is just me, but if I didn't have to read this for World Literature in English I would have felt like I wasted my time reading the 156 or so pages. I found the preface more interesting then the actual book. It gets a 1.5 out of 5. 

The Friends of Eddie Coyle

The thing I remember most about this novel is how much I hated it and that is about the only thing that I remembered about it. I had to go and look up summaries and things online to even remember character names and plot points. Now I did read this a couple months ago, but I feel as if I just blocked it from my memory because of the horribleness of this novel.

Eddie Coyle, the main character of sorts, is a small time criminal that is also trying to inform to the police in exchange to avoid going to jail in New Hampshire after transporting liquor. Eddie at the time is also by guns for bank robberies for mob members lead by Jimmy Scalisi and Artie Van. Jackie Brown is the gun dealer and the first character that we are introduced to who is also trying to sell machine guns to a young couple. Coyle wants to turn over Brown to Dave Foley, an ATF, in return for staying out of jail. Foley captures Brown when he goes to sell the machine guns, but he tells Coyle that this isn't enough to keep him out of jail. Coyle is going to tell Foley about the bank robberies, but Foley has already been informed about it after Scalisi's disrespected the woman he was living with and she told a cop friend she ran into. The robbers are busted and Coyle is pinned as being the informant. Dillion, the local bar owner and hit man, is hired and after taking Eddie out of the town shots him.

I seriously took and hour looking all this up because I couldn't remember a lot of it so here is hoping that this isn't a major part of the test. Overall I extremely disliked this book and it seems that I am in the minority. Higgins is a great writer, but the characters were unsympathetic and the plot was rather boring. It was just really dark and boring for me, but it seems that a lot of other people really enjoyed it. Maybe I am just not into dark detective novels or I just don't know what I am talking about, but I would not recommend this novel to anyone.