This week’s teaser is from Delhi Mostly Harmless by Elizabeth Chatterjee – a book about the author’s experiences of living in Delhi for a year.
At the entrance of the Metro surfaced an Auntie, one of India’s terrifyingly disapproving older matrons. She was a particularly large example of the species, swaddled in an aggressively green and expensively silken sari. She cast a cold predatory eye over the narrow tube of the carriage. There were no seats. Suddenly, without seeming to move a muscle, she materialized in front of me, and turned in a slow wordless arc, and began to reverse.
For a long moment I stared at a vast onrushing expansion of green. I had a strange sensation of falling, like a skydiver plunging headfirst towards a well-tended lawn. And then she sat on me.
~ Delhi Mostly Harmless by Elizabeth Chatterjee
I like the author’s irreverent writing style but I am a little torn about the tone of the book. While I don’t expect a writer to go gaga over a place she’s visiting, there is a little too much mockery of Delhi and its people to suit my taste.
Still, I’m just a few chapters in so hopefully things change later on in the book.
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Even from the teaser, I felt what you said about the tone – I’ll be interested to see whether you think it stays like that all the way through…
This sounded very entertaining!
I love the teaser, I’m not sure how I’d cope if someone sat on me!
Glad to hear your feedback on this! Curious to see the official review to learn if the tone shifts…Delhi isn’t my favorite place, but there is certainly a ton to do and see and it has it’s own character and charm.