Welcome back to my Blogger page. Today, I am going to review a new book. This novel is again by Anuradha Roy and is mostly a nature-themed novel. The title of the novel is The Folded Earth. This is again a very nice novel by Roy just like her previous one, All the Lives We Never Lived.
So, I am going to write a review of the new novel for you all. I will be discussing all the points that I liked and what I disliked about the novel. So, let's get started.
This is the story of Maya who is also the narrator of the entire novel. She is a young widow as she lost her husband, Michael Secuira during a trekking trip. She now occupies a small cottage in Ranikhet and her landlord is the former Diwan of Surajgarh.
The main characters of this novel are Maya, Diwan Sahib, Maya's parents, Veer, Michael, Charu, Ama, Puran and the others who come in and out throughout the novel. The setting is mostly in the different cities of Uttarakhand and towards the end in Delhi.
On the one hand, Maya is retelling the readers the story of her childhood and how after growing up, she fell in love with a Christian man, Michael after which her family disowns her. Her father becomes very angry after he hears what his daughter did. He instantly banishes her from his house.
But, her mother continues to meet her secretly and tells Maya all the things happening at home. Maya and Michael are a happily settled couple in Hyderabad where Michael runs his trekking company and takes various trekkers on different treks.
But, during one such trek, Maya's life changes completely as she hears that Michael is no more and she starts mourning his loss.
Because of this, she decides to settle away from Hyderabad and she finds Ranikhet a perfect location to make her next home.
The story then moves a bit towards Charu, who is the local village girl of Ranikhet and lives on the same property as Maya which is owned by Diwan Sahib.
Maya also picks up a job as an English teacher in a convent school where the principal is Miss Wilson. Maya tries to be a good teacher to her students but they are all unruly.
Her life begins to change when one day, Diwan Sahib's nephew, Veer comes to his house to meet him after many years. He and Maya develop a chaotic romance in which she is able to spend time with Veer for only a few days and the rest of the time he is out of the picture.
On the other hand, Charu also starts a romantic relationship with Kundan Singh when he first arrives with his masters in Ranikhet. They fall so deeply in love with each other that they cannot live apart even for a second.
But, one fine day, Kundan's masters decide to leave Ranikhet to go back to Delhi and from there to Singapore. This upsets Charu so much that she elopes from her house and marries Kundan Singh.
Maya also tells the readers about the political situation in Uttarakhand as two candidates fight against each other to grab the maximum votes.
Additionally, we also come to know about the lives of Army people in the novel. Anuradha Roy, through Maya, has given a detailed description of the Ranikhet cantonment area.
The rest of the story is very good, sometimes it's spine-chilling as well. So, make sure you read the novel right till the end.
What I liked about this novel is that it is so nature-friendly. Roy has described Ranikhet in so vivid detail it feels like you have reached the place yourself and are seeing things through your eyes.
I loved the descriptions of the forests and the wildlife of Uttarakhand as well. The stories of Maya and Charu have been well-written by Roy and they intertwine at the right junctions.
However, the novel sometimes stretches a bit so that is the only flaw I found with this novel. Maya sometimes becomes slow in narrating the events of her tale and this makes the reader want to finish the novel quickly.
This was my exact thought yesterday but today, as the novel was coming to a close, I was feeling a bit sad as I was going to be separated from the characters of Ranikhet for one last time.
I have so far loved both of Anuradha Roy's books and will now be reading her third one which is An Atlas of Impossible Longing. That one is also a great novel. I have read just a single chapter but will try to finish it fast.
I know that I have been posting these reviews after huge lapses of time. But what can I do? My hobbies have taken a backseat because of my content writing jobs. Whenever I get time to spend with my books, I feel like the luckiest person that day.
I want to write these reviews as fast as I can but the reading portion takes a lot of time, for example, a month or two-three months.
So, this was my book review for The Folded Earth. Hope you like reading it and would like to purchase a copy for yourselves as well. Now, I am going to share the links for both international and Indian readers.
The Folded Earth by Anuradha Roy: Link for International Readers
The Folded Earth by Anuradha Roy: Link for Indian Readers
