Megha Majumdar

Reading Megha Majumdar's A Guardian And A Thief  for a book club. 

Why am I just noticing Calcutta is now spelled Kolkata? It was changed in 2001! I need like spelling updates on Bluesky, except Bluesky has only really existed for me November 2023. 

My experience reading this book is one of horrified anxiety. What terrible thing is going to happen next? I hope to connect to my hope, that they will surmount these trials, but I'm not so sure. In a way it's perfectly set up to tug at my heartstrings. The father is off working in another land. The mother cares for a little girl and an elderly father in a starving Kolkata, where all ethics is out of the window as people steal food. There's a fragile preciousness as lots of things almost happen and the horrors build. 

I don't like the title, it makes you focus on who the thief is, but that is the point of the book. Beautiful cover art.

The first apocalypse novel I read was Lucifer's Hammer. I remember thinking the genre had potential. I was on my honeymoon, and it all seemed remote. Now I'm older and my world is shrinking and I wonder if these kind of novels prepare you for aging, and I'm having nightmares, and this novel touches me very deeply. 

In my life, everytime the water goes off, or the electricity doesn't work, I ask, is this it? I hear a loud boom in the distance.

She lies to her husband so he won't worry, that is maybe a kindness, but I wouldn't want to be lied to. To lie to someone is to infantilize them. Perhaps it's wise, shielding the truth about which someone can't do anything. I never considered lying can help maintain relationships as The Departed (2006) suggests. 

I think it's cool, when someone does something irritating and then you get their back story, and then you can see where they're coming from. 

When I first started reading the book, I needed to read 7 pages a day to be ready for the book club. Now after 5 days not reading because of the flu, I need to read 30 pages a day to be ready. 

I pick the book up today and I struggle to want to keep seeing problem after problem. Why am I so fragile, why do I struggle to see this as art, instead of rubbing my nose in it? Does this novel toughen me up? I'm not sure what sort of reward I'm looking for.

Mosambi is what they call lemons in India. 

I had a really hard time finishing this novel. I know it's only 205 pages, but I'd read a page, and it was be so bleak and depressing. I finally finished it. Took me 2.5 months to read. Really hard for me to read. 

Links:

No Saints or Villains: An Interview with Megha Majumdar (Chicago Review of Books).

Megha Majumdar on the Joy of Asking Questions (Literary Hub).

I watched Mother (2025) directed by Teona Strugar Mitevska, about the last 7 days before Mother Teresa started her order, with permission. It is set in Kolkata. I think there are some authentic recent scenes of Kolkata. Maybe somewhat staged. I watched the Apu trilogy, and even though it's 1950/60 kolkata, it's a great bunch of movies, I really liked them.