FAMILY MATTERS, by Rohinton Mistry, Knopf, 434 pages, $26.
It has been seven long years since Rohinton Mistry hit the literary big time with his critically acclaimed "A Fine Balance," a novel about the culture of India in the 1970s. Now he has leaped ahead to the 1990s for the book that may well be seen as his masterwork, "Family Matters," once again set in Bombay.
The central character, Nariman Vakeel, 79, is suffering from Parkinson's disease. It is a notably sad ending to a life that has had more than its share of misery and despair.
Nariman has never gotten over his family's opposition to his proposed marriage to Lucy, the love of his life, a woman who was not a member of his community. Forced into an arranged marriage with Yasmin, a woman he did not love, he became stepfather to Jal and Coomy, who never really accepted him. The unhappy marriage has ended with Yasmin's death.
As the novel begins, Vakeel is undergoing resentful treatment by his grown stepchildren, even though they all live together in his own house. They insist on controlling his every move on the pretext that they are protecting him from his illness. Vakeel did father another child with Yasmin, Roxana, who lives in a tiny apartment
on a tight budget with two sons and a loving husband.
Unfortunately, Vakeel falls and breaks his leg one day when he's out on his daily walk, a walk that is against the wishes of his stepchildren. Immediately, the highly verbal and thoughtful old man, a former professor, becomes bedridden, forced to rely upon Jal and Coomy's care. They resent it so terribly that they both shirk their responsibilities and plan a way to shift Vakeel from his spacious house to Roxana's tiny dwelling.
Afterward, only a few days into Vakeel's stay, Roxana's husband Yezed becomes resentful and angry, too. In the midst of all the discord, the old man remains the epitome of love and good feeling. He feels bad about being a burden to the family, and he endures shabby treatment without allowing his temper to explode.
The author takes this predictable problem, experienced by many people in other cultures, and gets inside it. Although there is a lot of bickering and unpleasantness, the amazing result for the reader is the acquired desire to be a better person. Mistry manages to tell his story in such a gentle manner that the reader is totally immersed in these people's troubled lives, rooting for them, hoping they will overcome with wisdom and peace.
In spite of the contention, there are many funny moments. The only troublesome turn comes when Yezad switches from a natural, fun-loving, joke-cracking guy into a religious fanatic who estranges his family from him. This seems an abrupt and inexplicable change inconsistent with the rest of the story.
The author also uses a number of religious and cultural words and sentences that cannot be understood by readers unfamiliar with the culture of Bombay — but it does not interfere with the thread of the story. Mistry's decision not to include a glossary of terms proves to be a good one; it would have just interrupted the story's flow.
The characters are people like you and me. They have obvious strengths and weaknesses, and often they unwittingly become their own worst enemies. But for that reason, they are real and believable. The temptations they fall into are usually marginal moral matters, things with which we can identify. When Vakeel's 9-year-old grandson, who is a school monitor, accepts bribes from some students so he can bring the money to his poverty-stricken family, we empathize.
Mistry also gives us many sound examples of how little most of us know or understand about our own culture — about the problems that surround us, from the elite to the homeless. He is a gifted writer who tells an unusually good story.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com