This book is now a crappy motion picture starring, of all people, Patrick Swayze. The rating which I have given 'City of Joy' is not a true measure of the esteem in which I hold it. The reason for this is that the subject matter is so powerful as to overwhelm any of the writer's literary frailties. 'City of Joy' plunges us into the slums of Calcutta - a world where life is so hard as to be almost unbelievable.

I will relate one of the anecdotes in an attempt to convey some of the flavour of this powerful and unsettling book. In Calcutta, the men who haul rickshaws around barefoot can expect to live 10 years from the time they begin this job. The reason is that they inevitably contract tuberculosis. In spite of this, their poverty is such that they are overjoyed to gain work as rickshaw men, and support their families for the short term - the pressure to survive makes it impracticable for them to think far into the future. They chew betel nuts, which turns their saliva red; this is so that when they spit red, they have the cold comfort of not being sure that it's the TB which is making them spit blood.

This book is important for the force with which it conveys the terrible conditions in which so many humans are doomed to spend their short lives.

Click here to buy it ($6.39), or to read more reviews.

NEXT BOOK REVIEW