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Title: Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
ISBN: 0747259690
Author:
Suketu Mehta
Publicate Date: 2005
Publish: 2005
List Price: $5.00
Average Customer Rating: 3.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $5.00
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $3.98
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Some Great Stuff Buried in a Mountain of Unedited Prose
Having recently read several books about the explosion of unregulated urban development in the second and third world, I was eager to check out this well-reviewed book about Mumbai and its 18+ million residents. Written by an "NRI" (non-resident Indian) who grew up there, and then spent majority of his adult life in New York -- the book kicks off with the author relocating his wife and young children to Mumbai in his attempt to rediscover the city he'd been away from for twenty years. Unfortunately, this is as close as the book comes to having any kind of framework, and as a result, it rambles on for almost 600 pages where 300 would do nicely. If ever a book needed a firm editor to shape and slash it, this is it.
The format largely involves Mehta hanging around various people and places he finds interesting, and then reporting back in excessive detail. To be sure, most of his subjects are inherently interesting, such as the Indian film industry, the hidden lives of bar girls, the murky world of gangsters, hit men, and the colorful cops who battle them, the sordid side of sectarian politics, and Jain mystics. However, his encounters with each of these are largely formless and meandering, further confused by leaps in chronology. This is exacerbated by the time lag between his research and the book's publication, since the fortunes of a number of his subjects had shifted considerably even by the time the book came out.
As a reader, one struggles to tease out the golden nuggets from the mountain of prose, some of which is repetitive, and much of which is simply not very interesting. He's also far too willing to let his subjects go on extended monologues, failing to ask many difficult questions or challenge them on their assertions. The result is lengthy reportage and description with little to no analysis or synthesis. Meanwhile, other than a few anecdotes about daily life, his own family concerns are left unexplored. The raw material is mostly there, but it lacks a form editorial hand to give it shape and purpose.
The best parts of the book are those concerning the city's 1992-93 sectarian riots and bombings, which threatened to spark widespread Hindu-Muslim violence. This is also what puts him in contact with the police and the underworld, and the influence of the gangs on daily life is somewhat eyeopening. On the other hand, the datedness of the material makes it hard to know to what extent life has moved on in the intervening decade. Ultimately, it's hard not to suspect that one might get a more complete understanding of Mumbai's police and thieves material -- and perhaps the city itself -- in Vikram Chandra's sprawling novel Sacred Games. Which is kind of funny, since Chandra is referred to several times by Mehta as a friend and fellow researcher of the underworld.
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2: The Best
Fantastically written...In no better way could have the author penned down his feelings for Bombay!
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3: Maximum City delivers in a Maximum Way
Author of .How to Mediate Like a Pro: 42 Rules for Mediating Disputesand How to Negotiate Like a Pro: 41 Rules for Resolving Disputes
I just got back from a trip to Mumbai, specifically looking at the Art Deco architecture. Even though we saw a lot of Mumbai and learned a lot from our guide, I had a lot of questions and Maximum City answered them for me. I liked the way Mehta broke it down into various topics: the water, the sewers, the mafia, development, police corruption and honesty, Bollywood, garbage, beliefs, education, religions,and prostitutes. No one topic can be looked at in a vacuum. I am still processing my visit in my mind. Mumbai was my favorite city in India and that is partly because I have some understanding after reading Mehta's book. I hope he writes an update soon on the latest developments
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4: Bombay Underworld, Nightlife, Bollywood....
I received this book as a gift from my sister, who went to college in Bombay. I myself have lived in Bombay 6 months at the most in a stretch, but have visted it many many times and have several relatives there.
If you have never been to Bombay and you read this book, it might scare you. Bombay might seem like this ominous city under the control of gangsters, trigger-happy policemen, self-serving politicians, and such. Although these are undoubtedly aspects of the underbelly of the city as perhaps of many large cities around the world, a casual visitor to the city will of course experience none of this in all likelihood. But then, this isn't really intended to be a tour book for the casual visitor either.
This book could perhaps be called "Bombay Underground", and that would be an apt title for it too. It takes you into the undercurrents of Bombay that you suspect exist, and which you might see surface and manifest themselves in the mundane day-to-day happenings of the city from time to time, but nothing quite like this book describes. In that sense, this is a brave undertaking and an intrepid journalistic venture -- Mehta meets with the glitterati of Bollywood and the good cops, but also with the lost souls and downright dangerous criminals of Bombay. I also found Mehta to be an objective observer although the Bombay riots really touched a deep communal nerve and discussing the riots, the aftermath and the judicial process could be a highly divisive and controversial issue. Despite having deep roots in Bombay and a conservative family background growing up, Mehta doesn't take sides and raises the right questions.
My only grouse with the book, like many others have also commented, is that it is perhaps too long and could have been edited a little more tightly. However, it did provide me with an excuse to read a little longer and anyway, it's not just the size of the book that matters as we all know. As the cliched Hindi film advertising joke goes: This book has drama, emotion, tragedy, romance -- you gotta have all that in a book about Bombay, and I had fun reading up on a different perspective on the city!
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5: Hugely disappointing
I live in Bombay at the moment and many people recommended this book. I am quite surprised that it has such a good reputation both critically and at the grass roots level. The material is desperately in need of a good editor, and frankly, a better writer. The gangster stories are repetitive and far too long, the chronology of the book is extremely confusing, and much of the material is very out of date (the state of the criminal world ten years ago is far different from today). The writer's prose is literally incomprehensible at times, often muddled, and frequently infuriating in its laziness and inexactitude. By the end, I didn't much care what the author had to say, because he was so hard to read. In addition, he inserts himself far too often into the descriptions of life in Bombay. This is particularly true whenever he deals with a situation involving an attractive young woman. I felt embarrassed for him and his narcissistic need to hint at his growing emotional intimacy with the bar girl Monalisa. Really in poor taste for a man whose story begins with him moving to Bombay with his wife and children. What of them? Key at the beginning, then forgotten. Furthermore, the author fails again and again to dig deeper with his interview subjects when they say things that beg for further questioning or clarification. A little of that goes a long way. One thing I can say definitively, which I think says it all: I will never read another piece by this author, because there are too many good authors out there with a prose style that makes a book a joy to read, not a chore.
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