'...to negotiate the inscrutibility of life'

July brings more reading pleasure my way. . .too hot to do much else except swim and read. Not a bad combo. So, I've picked up The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri, put it down, checked it out from the library and finally bought my own copy at a yard sale. As in, it has followed me, not the other way around. I can now say it is like eating a homemade Sunday dinner with pie instead of a hamburger from the $1 menu. Here's all you need to know:

'Vishnu, the odd-job man in a Bombay apartment block, lies dying on the staircase landing. Around him the lives of the apartment dwellers unfold...'

These two sentences seemingly kept me from reading the novel. It predicted a story almost too sad even for me who can read the most depressing stuff with the big girls, but. . .now halfway into this wonderfully written novel of Bombay (by a native), I can't stop--except to show you an interesting take on 'faith' from one of the characters who lives upstairs from Vishnu.

please click on each page for a closeup of the text

Seems he has spent years trying to do the right thing at the same time being open to similarities between the world's religions. He is nonplussed by his wife's supposedly simple, unintellectual belief--a flaw. Then he thinks the flaw might be with him. Interesting take on faith at the purest level.