This is actually a story between an old man and a little girl

Winner of the 2006 Booker Prize for Literature, the novel offers a journey through time and space across two continents and three generations. The characters in the book are all lost walkers on this journey, and everyone is an orphan of their hearts.

The story unfolds in two parallel lines. The main story of this book is set in the Himalayas. The small town of Kalimpong in the book is located on the border of India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim and China, and the Kanchenjunga Snow Mountain is a vista against the daily life of its residents. In a dilapidated colonial house in the snow-capped mountains lives a retired judge, her granddaughter Say, who has lost both parents, and a cook who has been with the judge since she was 14 years old.

Originally, it looked like it was completely unattractive, an old man and a little girl, well, and a story of a cook.

What can be the charm of this?

Readers are first moved by the author's writing, and then read on, and the further down they look, the heavier their mood becomes.

"I hope the content is more exciting." This is the case with Professor Patel.

In the story, when the judge is twenty years old, he travels across the ocean to study at Cambridge University in England, a humiliating memory that he does not want to think about but keeps flashing back in his mind, where his mind "begins to twist" because of the color of his skin, his strange accent, his strange smell...... Always preferring more shadows than light, more gloom than sunshine, he always suspects that the sun will expose him, and his ugliness will be unobstructed. ”

Seeing this, Professor Patel's heart was strange. Even dignified and stunned.

"How so."

In the text, before he left for England, the retired ** official was just a poor student named Jem, born into a tenant farmer family, living in a makeshift shack, "on the palm-fronded roof, rats scurrying through".

The father was a troublemaker in the local low-level judiciary, training the poor, the scoundrels and the desperate to practice false testimony and defraud property; Her mother was an ordinary peasant woman, obsessed with following superstitious ways to express her maternal love, splashing cold well water on Jem every day and rubbing his hair with oil, supposedly to promote brain development.

In India, where the caste system is deeply entrenched, people like Jem have no chance of turning around. For thousands of years, social laws and regulations have ensured the supremacy and status of the Brahmin caste, but as the colonizers flocked to the country, the regime and laws were sidelined, and the conversion to the cultural identity of the colonists brought him unexpected blessings.

With his excellent academic performance and his father's vision, Jem was given the opportunity to study at Cambridge. He seemed to be on the verge of becoming a senior official in India's Home Ministry, as his father had expected, but his experience of studying in England turned out to be an indelible humiliating history for his entire life.

Before he went to England, he had never noticed the color of his skin and his accent; When he came to England, he felt that his skin color made him look "not like a person", and no one on the bus wanted to sit with him because girls would giggle: "He has a stinky curry smell in his mouth!" Over time, Jem stopped talking, and the only one willing to be with him was the landlord's dog.

Seeing this, Professor Patel had lost his composure, "How dare he write!" How dare he write it! ”

Professor Patel had an incredulous sense of horror in his heart because the author had mentioned the serious problem of caste in Indian society, and he had a hunch that the author would not just mention it, but probably throughout the whole text.

This is something that many Indian writers and literati are reluctant to talk about!

This is the thrill in the hearts of Professor Patel and most readers at this moment when they see this passage from "The Lost Inheritance"!

"By the way, he's still a student."

Professor Patel was relieved to remember that the author was just a child.

Children, not so much scheming, it's normal to be bold

Understandable, understandable

Psychologically comforted.

Professor Patel had sat up straight, having been lying on the couch and reading in a very casual and comfortable position. Now it seems much more serious.

Read on

This poignant history of humiliation did not forge Jem into a strong nationalist, on the contrary, after returning to China and becoming a ** official, Jem continued to embrace the inequality of India's inherited justice system, and did his best to dress himself up as a disguised British gentleman. The novel begins with a glimpse of his struggle to maintain the dignity of English afternoon tea in his destitute old age – teacups, saucers, teapots, milk, sugar, filter hoods, "Mary and Dellit" brand biscuits.

In the novel, people like Jem represent the loss of Indian identity after the arrival of colonialism, and only by hiding under the cultural identity of the decent colonizers can they complete the transcendence of their innate caste. It is worth noting that the novel epitomizes this transformation of Jem in his attitude towards the women around him.

Before arriving in England, his mother carried his awe for the image of Indian women - "the mother is a ghost in a dark courtyard"; His innate awe was shattered on the ferry to England, when his mother, out of love for her son, filled his bag with onions, green peppers, salt and bananas.

He also knew the reason for bringing bananas - "in case he doesn't know how to use a knife and fork." For the first time, he felt vulnerable and helpless in the face of the fact of circumnavigating the globe alone, "He didn't have the courage to go to the ship's restaurant, he wouldn't use a knife and fork." The mother's kindness to save her son from humiliation angered him, "the mother actually considered the possibility of him being disgraced", and the awe and attachment to the mother was like the banana in the bag—"so shameless, so disgusting." ”

"This kid is too bold······" Professor Patel frowned thoughtfully, but he was actually out of breath.

As a true Indian, Professor Patel, who had received a British higher education, no longer knew what to say.

In the article.

When the reverence for the female figure is broken, Jem completely turns to the male figure. This turn is a symbol of extreme Indianization, which Professor Patel believes is one of the traditions of the Indians, who have always been afraid of women, who are traditional symbols of impermanence and unpredictability.

Jem rejected the former and succumbed to the latter.

The latter, on the other hand, often embodied colonialism in the form of the subjugation of weak Eastern women by powerful Western men.

This makes Professor Patel. It's even more difficult to accept.

Jem was short of a financial aid before he went to Cambridge, so he married the daughter of a wealthy family, 14 years old, shy and simple. There was a hazy love between them, as simple as that of all boys and girls, just riding a bicycle, letting his wife's hands around his waist and letting his wife's head rest on his back, and his heart trembled. They didn't have a round house before they went abroad, because the shy bride always wanted to escape, and the honest Jem didn't take the accident of the passerby, and tolerated her, with the same awe of his mother.

Unfortunately, this love disappeared when the judge returned to his hometown, and he hated his rustic wife and the Indian dress on her wife, the sari.

He tore off the sari as if to strip himself of the Indian mark, and he raped his wife, as if in this way he had become a powerful British Empire, capable of raping weak India with impunity!

"The author is crazy," Professor Patel muttered softly at this.

He no longer said that Amirhui was bold, and in the eyes of Indians, this is even more of a bitter social problem. At this time, I am afraid that someone outside is already trying to tear up the newspaper.

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I recommend you to watch: "The God of Small Things", "Lost Inheritance" and "City of Elves" can learn more about India.