L's Reviews > Such a Long Journey

Poor Rohinton Mistry - he must know that the downside to writing one of the best books ever is that all of his other books will consistently get reviews that say "not as good as A Fine Balance".

This is indeed true, but this should not dissuade the reader from giving Such a Long Journey a fair crack as there is a lot about this book that is very, very good. Mistry's writing style is lyrical and eloquent. His dialogue is written so that you can feel as if you are in the kitchen with Gustad and Dilnavaz as they have a pop at each other. His secondary cast, including not-quite-all-there Tehmul and the superstitious pseudo-witch Mrs Kutpitia are entertaining and help to make the Khodadad Building feel like an authentic neighbourhood.

I think many readers who came away disappointed might have felt that Mistry did all the legwork to set up a heck of a rollercoaster but then did not choose to send Gustad on the ride. It would have been easy for the author to condemn Gustad to many shades of tragedy if he had been so inclined. However in real life when everything seems to go wrong at once, it is more usual to go through exactly the sort of despair that Gustad feels without actually encountering total catastrophe. In fact the usual outcome is a re-arrangement of one's priorities, which I think is what this book is about.