It feels deliberately intellectual and lacking in personality. The book is just very difficult to enjoy. It is set across the span of many years, through the partition of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, but these times of tremendous upheaval and horror were narrated coldly. However, there is a confusing mess of characters introduced throughout the book and I found it hard to warm to anyone. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness essentially follows two main characters in South Asia - Tilo and Anjum - the former is dragged into the center of an independence movement, while the latter is intersex and living among ghosts. A reader who puts beautiful, complex writing over plot and emotional pull a reader who doesn't mind looking back over almost 500 pages and realizing very little has happened, even if it was told with pretty language. These kind of books have a special place in the heart of a certain type of reader. It took me a couple hundred pages of squinting hard to see the truth: there is no story. Perhaps it was a mistake to put it off and opt for Roy's newer release instead, but all I can say is my expectations have significantly lowered after reading The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.Īt first, I thought the story was slow, dense and hard to follow. It's been on my mental longlist of books to read since before Goodreads existed.

I, like many people, have heard of the success of Roy's The God of Small Things from twenty years ago.

The ministry of utmost happiness book