Nectar in a Sieve (Signet Classics)

Book Description

Named Notable Book of 1955 by the American Library Association, this is the very moving story of a peasant woman in a primitive village in India whose whole life was a gallant and persistent battle to care for those she loved.

"Comparable in many ways to Cry, the Beloved Country...if anything...better." (Saturday Evening Post)

Customer Reviews:

Nectar in a Sieve Book Review.......2007-10-04

Set in a small village locate somewhere in India, Kamala Markandaya's Nectar in a Sieve is a gripping novel that tells a story of a woman's struggle to find happiness and her own inner strength in a changing India. At the age of twelve, Rukmani was married off to a tenant farmer named Nathan, whom she had never met. Frightened at first, Rukmani soon adjusted to her new life as a farmer's wife. Over the years, Nathan and Rukmani's marriage becomes filled with love, compassion, and many children. It was not long until she found her self mingling with many of the women in her neighboring village. There she met Kali, a kind and cheerful woman who was kind enough to teach her how to perform her household duties. She also meets Kunthi, the village beauty and her friend Janaki. Unable to bear a son for quite some time, Rukmani became very depressed. Misfortune seemed to have found a great home in the lives of Rukmani and Nathan, causing as much problems as it could. A tannery built near their village would forever alter Rukmani's life, being that the change from an agricultural community to an industrial community frightens her. Unhappy and struck by poverty, Rukmani watched her first born child, Ira, go into prostitution, her son Kuti die of starvation, her teenage son Raja beat to death for stealing, and her two oldest sons, Thambi and Arjun set off to Ceylon to work in a tea plantation. Under such harsh conditions, Rukmani survived. Nectar in a Sieve is an influential, depressing, yet optimistic novel of a life lived out by one particular woman who will do just about anything and everything for her family.

Devon Mills reveiw Nectar in a sieve (GO KNIGHTS).......2007-10-04

At first glance, Nectar in sieve seemed like a very uneventful and boring book (kind of like a chick flick). This is however, not the case. Nectar in a Sieve is a classic tale of the epic tragedies and triumphs that we all share through life. The way Kamala Markandaya unfolds the story of a simple Indiana women as she travels through life has a magical pull to it that sucks you in and leaves you asking what is going to happen next

Rukmanni is a young girl forced to marry at 12 to a farmer named Nathan. Together they moved to a new village and start their new life. Having a boy to carry the family name is one of the most important things in Indian culture, and At first Nathan and Rukmanni fail to conceive a boy and have a girl named Ira. Undaunted they try again and with some help they have 5 boys. As each new baby is born they plunge themselves in to debt. With no food or money, everything seems to turn against them.

With out warning the giant iron beast of industry invaded the small sleepy village that Rukmanni and Nathan lived in and changed their lives forever. First, tons upon tons of workers came in to town and caused a lot of racket. Since those men came in to town, it caused all the prices to go up which meant that they couldn't afford to buy anything. Finally, two of her sons go to work at the massive tannery instead of helping their father on the fields. This causes Nathan much hardship. Then a few years later they get a visit from already-married off Ira to find out that she can't bear children. Worst of all there is a drought that kills the crops, and then if that wasn't bad enough, after that a mammoth flood utterly destroys their crops and most of the village. Through it all they get back up and get ready for the most terrible thing to happen to them.

A good read.......2007-10-03

The novel Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya follows the long and tragic life of a young woman, Rukmanni, who is thrown into this type of life at the early age of12. The book follows her from her wedding day until the end of the troubles she endures in her life.
It is hard not to enjoy the strong and caring character of Rukmanni, who despite the troubles thrown to her, maintains a optimistic and controlled manner even in the worst circumstances. She is a wonderful wife and mother to her family ; she puts the well being of her children and husband before herself and would do anything to ensure there success. She also holds her friends and neighbors high, and help them when it is possible. When Rukmanni leaves to live with her husband Nathan in a small village, she meets the neighboring women, Kali, Janaki, and Kali. Their relationship, though it takes a turn later on, is kind and warm, since they are like a new family to here because she has moved far from her original home. In this new village she works on the rice fields with her husband. Though the land is not theirs, they live in a house near by.
She enjoys her peaceful life until things start to change.First, a giant tannery is built in the middle of town, bringing in more people and noise to the once peaceful village. Rukmanni absolutely despises the tannery. Then two of her sons leave to work there. A few years later, they get a surprise visit from their already-married-off daughter, Ira. She has been unable to bear children for her husband, so he has decided to leave her. She is forced then to live with her mother and father, along with her younger brothers. Later, worst of all, their is a great flooding of the village. Their rice is destroyed and they go into poverty. The lack of food and money leads to the death's of their last two sons and her daughter prostituting to earn money to live. When there are first signs of fate turning good, even more troubles come their way. Despite all this, Rukmanni keeps her head and remains a strong and unbreakable spirit.
All in all, this was a wonderful read. The book was very detailed and made you feel like you actually knew Rukmanni. Also, coming from a completely different lifestyle, I enjoyed learning about this cultures way of life and cultural values. It is not a very long book page wise, but it is a long story with many interesting events. Like all books, it is not a book for everyone, but if you enjoy historical fiction novels and tales of people who overcome their hardships to have a better life, you will absolutely love this book.

Nectar In A Sieve .......2007-10-03

Nectar in a Sieve, by Kamala Markandaya is the struggle between life and death in a poor society. The main character, Rukami, married Nathan, a tenant farmer. In her culture, to have a boy is the most important thing to any women and family. Rukami's first born was a girl named Ira. After many attempts to conceive a boy, Rukami needed someone to turn to for help. She turns to Kenny, a white doctor who assists and helps the people of her village. He helps her overcome her infertility and they become friends. Rukami and Nathan eventually conceived a son and named him Arjun. After him, Rukami has 5 more boys. With each birth, food becomes scarcer.

A Reviewer.......2007-09-29

This book was phenomenol. It blew me away. I didn't think I'd like it at first (foreign books don't usually appeal to me). But once I started, I wanted to keep reading. I loved every minute of this wildly refreshing book. Rukmani is a superb main character and how sweet she is. Her husband, Nathan, is great too. I checked this book out at the library, but now, I want to buy it. This book is captivating and naturally beautiful. It doesn't matter who you are or what books you like to read: "Nectar In A Sieve" is exceptional. A book that is filled with tragedy but in the end, gives you a surplus of hope deserves to be read by everyone of all ages.

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Gentle and Endearing Style
Straddling 1947
A success
A taste of India
A Powerful, Beautifully Written Novel Of Two Women & India

Heat and Dust
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Manufacturer: Touchstone
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0671646575

Book Description

A profound and powerful novel, winner of the Booker Prize

Set in colonial India during the 1920s, Heat and Dust tells the story of Olivia, a beautiful woman suffocated by the propriety and social constraints of her position as the wife of an important English civil servant. Longing for passion and independence, Olivia is drawn into the spell of the Nawab, a minor Indian prince deeply involved in gang raids and criminal plots. She is intrigued by the Nawab's charm and aggressive courtship, and soon begins to spend most of her days in his company. But then she becomes pregnant, and unsure of the child's paternity, she is faced with a wrenching dilemma. Her reaction to the crisis humiliates her husband and outrages the British community, breeding a scandal that lives in collective memory long after her death.

Customer Reviews:

Gentle and Endearing Style.......2006-09-04

Heat and Dust concerns itself largely with the love affair of Olivia, the wife of a minor English imperial official Douglas Rivers with the local prince, the Nawab, as related by the granddaughter of Rivers and his second wife when she travels to India 50 years later. The granddaughter's experiences are quite similar to Olivia's, in fact one wonders whether she is conscously mimicking Olivia.

India's impact on these English is strong and not necessarily beneficial. The extremes of weather, exotic food, languages, religions, indeed the heat and the dust overwhelm. A particularly interesting character is 'Chidi', a young Englishman temporarily turned Hindu mystic.

Jhabvala is an enormously accomplished author and screenwriter with an intriguing background. Born to Polish parents in Germany, moved with them to ondon to escape Hitler, and married an Indian architect and lived in India from 1951 to 1975 and now resides part-time in NYC. Jhabvala won the Booker Prize (best book by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland in the English language)

Told in a gentle, open and endearing style.

Straddling 1947.......2005-05-31

The British experience in India is a subject that has been given thorough literary treatment during the past century, and most of these books have tried to highlight some aspect of the cultural contrast between east and west. E.M. Forster's "A Passage to India" is perhaps the most comprehensive of these, but Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's "Heat and Dust" makes an admirable effort to contribute to the Forsterian legacy by updating the milieu to a post-independence setting while keeping one foot firmly in the past.

The novel concerns a young English woman, the narrator, who arrives in Bombay intending to make it her home for a while and to reconstruct the story of the doomed marriage of her grandfather, a law officer named Douglas Rivers, and his first wife, Olivia, from a collection of intriguing letters that Olivia had written to her sister Marcia. From the beginning Jhabvala splits the novel into two parallel narratives, alternating between the Riverses in 1923 and the narrator in India fifty years later, who presents her adventures, thoughts, and reflections in the form of a journal.

Olivia Rivers is a bored housewife who has little to do besides playing the piano and chatting with the other British officers' wives until she becomes enamored with the charming Indian prince, called the Nawab, who governs the district Douglas serves. A living emblem of amoral corruption and aristocratic gluttony, the Nawab dwells in an ancestral palace that arrogantly overlooks the wretched slums of the neighboring town and supports an entourage of servants and sycophantic companions including an effeminate Englishman named Harry. Jhabvala employs these elements to shape a dramatic arc that leads from extramarital attraction to adultery and finally to Olivia's disgrace following an ugly scandal for which she could never be forgiven back in England.

The narrator's analogous existence within the pages gives the novel an even broader context; she too falls in love with an Indian man, although a much humbler one, a meek clerk named Inder Lal. She also observes that India is a magnet for Europeans in search of a certain spirituality that they have failed to find in Western religions; in particular she meets a young Englishman who has become a Hindu ascetic, calling himself Chid, but who cannot handle the hardships of a land of such disease and poverty. The novel's title refers to the general climate of the region of which the narrator writes, a scorching exacerbation of the hopeless squalor in which the vast majority of the population lives.

I am aware that Jhabvala has written screenplays based on classic novels, including Forster's, for the Merchant-Ivory film team, and I confess that I somewhat expected "Heat and Dust" to be a pastiche of Forster, but I was pleased to find that Jhabvala, although like Forster a lucid and elegant prose stylist, has a distinctive literary voice, specifically in her shrewd eye for the particularities of Indian culture. From the suttee stones, morbid monuments to Hindu widows who have immolated themselves in their husbands' funeral pyres, to the British cemeteries memorializing the soldiers fallen in the 1857 mutinies, "Heat and Dust" is a valuable tour through 1920s and 1970s India.

A success.......2005-03-10

I've read this book twice, and each time I had the same feeling about it. Very satisfied.
one could feel the heat and dust coming from the story as if he were living with the characters.
Ruth Jhabvala is very talented in describing every little detail and makes you live inside the scene, especially when she comes to describe the state of India and the crowed, disgust, infections, and poverty.
I really felt disgusted reading some lines that I had to stop for a moment thinking of what I've just read.
What I liked the most is having two parallel stories separated by two generations.
The first woman is the narrator who travels to India to discover more about the scandal of Olivia, and unconsciously she follows the same path
claiming that India changes whoever lives there and finally the two characters experience the same end.
The language of the book is simple and fascinating I think everyone would enjoy it .

A taste of India.......2005-03-08

Olivia Rivers, married to Douglas, a civil servant in India, caused a scandal in 1923 in the small town of Satipur when she eloped with and Indian prince. In the 1970s, Olivia's step-granddaughter goes back to the heat and dust of Satipur to solve the mystery of the outrage caused by Olivia's flight.
Mrs Jhabvala's novel sounds like a warning. Both Olivia and the narrator do not seem to withstand India because they are fine and sensitive people who come to love the country very much, too much perhaps. Indeed there are many things to love in India: the landscapes, the history, the music and the physical beauty of men and women which may become a danger to the European. The characters in this novel are immersed by the Indian culture - and in Olivia's case, destroyed by it - they seem to be softened by an excess of feeling for India and finally they are dragged over to the other side. But according to Mrs Jhabvala's description of India - the smells, the sounds, the poverty, the filth, the beggars and cripples - it is difficult to imagine that Europeans can be as totally immersed in that culture as were both Olivia and the narrator. Is it plausible at all that such a foreign culture can be powerful enough to lead one to perdition?

A Powerful, Beautifully Written Novel Of Two Women & India.......2004-04-17

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's powerful and beautifully written novel of an "outrageous" Anglo-Indian romance in 1920s Khatm and Satipur won the Booker Prize in 1983. The author has crafted parallel tales of two young women, distantly related and separated by two generations. Anne, the story's narrator, travels to India to discover more about the mystery surrounding her grandfather's first wife, Olivia.

Douglas Rivers, an upper echelon English civil servant, married and brought his adored wife, Olivia, with him to India in 1923, during the British Raj. She was a beautiful, spoiled and spirited young woman, who found it difficult to adjust to life in the British colonial community of Satipur. Feeling suffocated by the inbred group she was forced to socialize with, Olivia longed for independence, intellectual stimulation and a more passionate life. She hoped that a baby would solve her problems but found it more difficult to become pregnant than she had thought. Shortly after their arrivel in India, Douglas, Olivia and some of the more important members of the community were invited to the palace of the Nawab of Khatm and she was immediately intrigued by the handsome, charismatic prince. He courted her friendship aggressively and then the friendship turned passionate. When faced with a crisis Olivia was forced to make life altering decisions which would have far reaching effects and cause scandal throughout British India and England that would last for generations.

Anne stays in the town where her grandfather and Olivia lived fifty years before. Trying to piece together the puzzle that was Olivia and discover what motivated her to change her life so drastically, Anne visits the places her "step-grandmother" frequented and interviews people who knew her or knew of her. She also reads the letters and journals that Olivia wrote so long ago, and oddly enough, Anne ventures into experiences similar to Olivia's adventures, but more acceptable in our modern time. Anne's spiritual and sensual journey in the 1970s parallels Olivia's as the color, heat, exotic landscapes, and people of India penetrate her western upbringing. Anne writes in her own diary: "Fortunately, during my first few months here, I kept a journal, so I have some record of my early impressions. If I were to try and recollect them now, I might not be able to do so. They are no longer the same because I myself am no longer the same. India always changes people, and I have been no exception."

This short and delicately written novel packs a powerful punch and paints an extraordinary portrait of British colonials in India, with their sense of cultural and moral superiority over the local population. However, even more compelling and unusual, is the story of two women, generations apart, who follow similar paths under the spell of India.
JANA

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Love Prevails

Married To India
Amy Regina MacEmcy
Manufacturer: PublishAmerica
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Family Health | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
General | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1413783988

Book Description

In this true story, two people from two very different countries, the United States and India, are united through the Internet. A divorced single mother, not knowing what is to become of her fate, having fallen in love with a man from India whose path in life was most likely decided since birth, embark on a journey together, starting out by struggling to get his parents' blessings, earning them, and then learning to adapt and live in peace, unifying culture, religion and family tradition throughout it all.

Customer Reviews:

Love Prevails.......2005-09-17

Even if you are not involved with someone from India it is a wonderful read. This story is a journey of a relationship with reflections on the past, learning daily and leading to a path of uncharted territory.

The Author brings you through tearful trials, fearful decisions, and the encounters in which love prevails.

Read Amy's Journey, see what love 'CAN' do being MARRIED TO INDIA.

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A Tale of A Clash of Cultures Beautifully Told
Magical Southern India
You can live in India without leaving home.

The Ivory Swing
Janette Turner Hospital
Manufacturer: University of Queensland Pr (Australia)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0702223255

Customer Reviews:

A Tale of A Clash of Cultures Beautifully Told.......2004-09-14

Sometimes if I read a writer's books out of the order in which they were written, I think that had I read the first one first, I might not have read any further. This certainly would not have been the case with this fine, beautifullly written first novel by Janette Turner Hospital. It certainly is as good as her other two later novels I have already read. David and Juliet, a young married couple from Ontario, along with their two children, travel to southern India where David, a college professor, will do research. They are not quite prepared for the India they discover. Ms. Hospital writes with the sensitivity and succinctness of a poet. The novel abounds in metaphoric language that works-- the image of Krishna and Radha on the swing of carved ivory keeps recurring. And this passage, for example: "It seemed that all understanding passed between them, the knowledge of all women who braid their own years into shackles, who weave with love and resentment the silken cages of their lives." The writer creates characters we will not soon forget: the overworldly beautiful and tragic Yashoda ". . .like a woman on an ivory swing -- translucent, a trick of the light, an artist's fantasy" and the boy Prabhakaran, whom we Westerners would love to tear away from his native land and take him home with us. This novel is all about what happens when two cultures clash, do Westerners have a right to impose their values on other cultures, and if so, how much, and are we ready to suffer the consequences? Do we from the West have all the answers or even the right ones?

This would have been splendid as an only novel. How fortunate for us as readers that it was not, that Ms. Hospital continues to write one fine novel after another.

Magical Southern India.......2003-12-11

This book is good on a number of levels. It is one of Hospital's earlier books - which are better than her more recent attempts. There are plots/subplots and good descriptions. The spooky widow is a very well developed character. Excellent balance of expatriate life in India and the personal demons that haunt them from across the seas.

You can live in India without leaving home........2002-09-02

I heard Janette Turner Hospital interviewed on public radio, and researched her at Amazon. I'm glad I did.

If you have the least amount of wanderlust in you, with just a touch of yearning for the experiences of living in South India, get this book. You can do all the aforementioned without leaving home.

Ms Turner-Hospital has written a descriptive account of life for an expatriate in India. Her story is a good one, with sufficent drama to keep you interested, all the way to the last climactic events. And she paints a very good picture as she tells the story. I felt I could draw every building and every scene.

The book is hard to find. I bought mine from Amazon, second hand, in pristine condition.

Customer Reviews:

layered exposition of Indian Mind.......2007-04-23

This is a book that is to be read over and over again. Every time one reads it, a different layer reveals itself and the mastery of the story telling craft makes it enjoyable to read every time. This is not a book of a story. Its about the search for meaning and wisdom. The quest is presented by two view points one Eastern, i.e. Brahminical and other Western. To my mind, this is the closest that any one came near to synthesize the essentially different view points of Western and Eastern philosophies.
A definate read for any one seriously inclined towards literature.

The Title says it all..........2003-07-19

The book lives up to it's title, as it takes the reader through two perspectives of a single goal, one Eastern, esentially intuitive and Brahmincal, the other Western, essentially sensitive French.

I thought the book was hugely interesting, not because of what it presented, but because of the way it presented two thoughts towards the same target.

Serpent? Rope? how do YOU see it...

I see something new every time I read this book, and I guess I will continue to do so.

Raja Rao Rules.

And yes, I am the proud owner of one of the earliest prints, thanks to my father.

A great book that I have enjoyed in many rereadings.......2000-10-27

This is one of the greatest books ever to have been written by an Indian. I also rate it as one of the great novels of the 20th century. It has had enormous influence on Indo-English writing.

Married To The Empire: Gender, Politics and Imperialism in India, 1883-1947

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Married To The Empire: Gender, Politics and Imperialism in India, 1883-1947
Mary A. Procida
Manufacturer: Manchester University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

South Asia | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

History | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0719060737

Book Description

In Married to the Empire, Mary A. Procida provides a new approach to the growing history of women and empire by situating women at the center of the practices and policies of British imperialism. Rebutting interpretations that have marginalized women in the empire, this book demonstrates that women were crucial to establishing and sustaining the British Raj in India from the "High Noon" of imperialism in the late 19th Century through to Indian independence in 1947.

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I loved this story
Absorbing tale of exotic locale and relationship conflict

Persistent Rumours
Lee Langley
Manufacturer: Milkweed Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Psychological & Suspense | Thrillers | Mystery & Thrillers | Subjects | Books

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Distant Music: A Novel

ASIN: 1571310142

Book Description

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Novel (Eurasia) and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain Best Novel Award.

A childhood mystery has haunted James Oakley all his life: the disappearance and unexplained death of his mother far away in India. Years later, in an attempt to unlock the past, he returns with his unhappy wife Daisy to the islands where he was born, a place of treacherous seas and hurricanes, which conceals an appalling secret.

Customer Reviews:

I loved this story.......2006-05-17

Part mystery (what happened to James' mother off the coast of India when he was just a boy away at boarding school?), part love story between a husband and wife, and part adventure story that primarily takes place on an island off the coast of India, this story is unique and beautifully written. A tragic event in James' life shapes his personality and relationships in ways that are incredibly realistic. I loved that we DO find out what happened to James' mother, and I thought the ending was terrific. One side note: character development is fantastic, but you have to wait until Part Two to really feel like you know these characters. Lee Langley is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. Also recommended: Distant Music by Lee Langley, (this is my all-time favorite book) plus Resistance, Fortune's Rocks, Where or When, and All He Ever Wanted, by Anita Shreve.

Absorbing tale of exotic locale and relationship conflict.......1999-04-21

A recent article in Scientific American about the aboriginal people of the Andaman Islands made me recall this book with pleasure. I found it to be an absorbing and fascinating tale about colonial Britain and one of its more far-flung outposts. It also provides a sharp portrait of the "hidden" sides of marriages. I have recommended this book unabashedly to friends and I think it is both intellectually and emotionally intriguing for the discerning reader.

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I married a dinosaur
Lilian MacLaughlin Brown
Manufacturer: Dodd, Mead
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Asia | Travel | Subjects | Books

Dilemma of married women teachers in India

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Dilemma of married women teachers in India
Sandhya Narang
Manufacturer: Distributor, Arya's Book Centre
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Gl Nectar in Sieve/Rdgs 0 (The Glencoe literature library)

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Gl Nectar in Sieve/Rdgs 0 (The Glencoe literature library)
Glencoe00
Manufacturer: Schools
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Readers | Words & Language | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0028179919

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