Talk:A Fine Balance

Amazing
a fine balance is amazing...an interesting story...

It isn't set in Mumbai; the only implication is it's set in a big city, nothing more. Am I right or not? -anon


 * It never says in the novel, but it is certainly implied, and I think that the author has said it is Mumbai. Peregrine981 06:48, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's set in the 'city by the sea' where many Parsis live – hmm, where could that be? ;-) QuartierLatin1968 23:43, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * But, not all the chararcters are parsis yaar. so, dont make assumptions.


 * The strong parsi influence, the "city by the sea," the jhopad patris, the big city theme, and the fact that mistry himself is from mumbai speak for itself! Mumbai is a very diverse city, one of the only paces left in the WORLD where there is a substantial zoastrian population, i dont think there's much of a question of where this novel is set. 68.124.23.123 06:56, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
 * the towers of silence referred to in the book are in mumbai

This book blows me away with the characters outlook for life. It is a fantastic insight into the Indian state of mind. The endless positive manner, even in dire circumstance, is an amazing cultural virtue! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.149.146.29 (talk) 20:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Spoiler warning for main themes section?

This was one of the very best novels I have ever read
It felt to me like reading The Plauge or a great existentialist novel, only so much better because the reality was so shocking. It was like the Trial only more compelling with the description of the kids trying to knock down the mangos and life outside the building. The character of the proofreader reminded me of whoever it is in The Plauge who writes and rewrites,the sentence "one fine morning in May....." also it felt like Anna Karenina at the end only more chilling and real. I cried and cried when it was done. What a fantastic book! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjf123 (talk • contribs) 23:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

An evil Maison Ikkoku?
Having just read A Fine Balance, I am struck by the protagonists' similarity to those of the Japanese series Maison Ikkoku.

Kyouko and Dina are both widows whose grief sometimes has them teasing the edge of madness, Godai and Maneck are both somewhat aimless university students in their charge, Sakamoto and Avinash are the students' erstwhile dormmates with clashing temperaments. Godai's neighbors and Dina's taylors are underprivileged people contending with life in an uncaring Asian megalopolis (Tokyo in one case, Mumbai in the other.)

However, the the heroes of A Fine Balance seem like careful and systematic (and profoundly dark) deconstructions of the characters in Ikkoku. Dina's flaws are as irredeemable as Kyouko's are superficial, Maneck is utterly hopeless where Godai is simply green, the tailors are simple hardworking people who are treated horribly by life while the neighbors are quirky slackers who skate through life with ease. In Ikkoku a heavy authorial hand railroads its cast toward a very unnatural-seeming happy resolution, whereas the cast of A Fine Balance slide with ghastly inevitably toward an all-too-believable doom.

I have no reason to think Mistry was familiar with the other work, but the temptation to think of A Fine Balance as a sort of angry broadside fired at Maison Ikkoku is hard for me to resist.99.226.22.222 (talk) 22:21, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Why I have tagged this article
This is one one of my favourite books. The article in its current form - 12 January 2016 as I write this - is good summary of the book, but a poor encylopedia article. As examples:
 * In the lede: "Set in Bombay, India between 1975 and 1984 during the turmoil of The Emergency..."
 * First of all, there are no references for the assertion that those parts of this ficton set a " 'city by the sea' where many Parsis live". While it may be obvious to us that the "this city by the sea" is the then Bombay, drawing inferences from the author's personal life and our knowledge is original reseach on our part. WP:NOR is one of the Core content policies.
 * More broadly, the one citation given in the current version of the article is taken from a personal blog. (My apologies to good faith contributors if they have previously added references from reliable sources in previous versions of this article.

We've (including me) identified the problems, now lets (including me) look for solutions. --Shirt58 (talk) 10:33, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Character list
The list was started by this edit by an IP and later gradually extended. It is unsourced and I believe it can not be sourced (except of course to the book itself which we do not allow). It also mixes significant charachers with utterly minor and unimportant characters (like for example Shanti is mentioned twice in the whole book and does not play any significant role). All comments are original research; those which can be reliably sourced should go to the plot section (which also need to be trimmed, but this we will do later). The concerns have not been addressed in six years after the article was tagged. I propose to remove the list.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:58, 24 June 2022 (UTC)