Many a Pickle Makes a Mickle, or Show a Clean Set of Teeth

Drunk monkeys, a holy man that's not, and a confused ice cream boy.
I just reread a very funny, bizarre, but sweet story about a family in India.

Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai is one of my favorite reads. It's been around awhile. This is the author's first novel, and it's a "whimsical" first novel!

                                                          
Sampah is a young man whose life is not going as it should. Fed up, he runs away to a guava orchard, climbs a tree, and refuses to come down. Very quickly he becomes the town's sage.


What makes this story so fantastic is that the absurdity of the situation is somehow familiar.

The author expresses so many insights into people, the private thoughts that we have and pretend to not.

The family of Sampah are delightfully odd - selfish and selfless, miserable and happy, all rolled into one - from his father whose love for his family drives him to greediness, to his angry, aggressive, yet sympathetic sister.

Don't these juxtapositions sound like real people?

The townspeople are equally enjoyable to read about, and the description of the countryside- the smells, the colors, and the foods - really make you want to visit this guava orchard, and perhaps stay there with Sampah.

Pick this up for a nice relaxing read, or to delve deepaahhh and deepaahhh into your soul. I'm not a deeeeep person, so I just enjoyed the hilarity of it all. Best reading, bookworms!