Detailed plot synopsis reviews of The Golden Son |
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Anil and Leena go to Girish's house to rescue two kids who are imprisoned there. They rescue them and Leena promises to adopt them. Their names are Ritu and Dev. They sound like names of space aliens.
Anil offers to move Leena, Mrs. Leena, and the two space alien children to America with him. He even promises to get a plastic surgeon to fix Leena's burns. She'll enjoy the wealthy life of being married to a doctor in America.
Leena refuses. She enjoys making clay pots in India. She would rather be a poor clay pot maker with burns on her skin in India, than be a wealthy healed woman in America. This is totally, totally, totally implausible.
Anil goes back to America. He can't get a specialist residency so he can only be a generalist doctor. Sonia tells him how great that is. But coming from a woman who thinks it is great not having ovaries, her judgment is more than a little suspect.
Click here to see the rest of this reviewAnil becomes an American citizen. He doesn't want to be lumped in with all those illegal aliens who come to America and stick around without becoming part of the country.
Anil goes back to India periodically to run his clinic. But there is much more money to be made in America so he mostly stays there.
Then Anil learns that Geeta is pregnant and will be giving birth to his child soon.
What?
Who is Geeta?
Haven't I mentioned Geeta before?
No, I haven't, and it's because Geeta just APPEARED OUT OF NOWHERE. Suddenly, in the very last pages of the book, Anil is suddenly married to a woman named Geeta and has gotten her pregnant. How's that for great book writing?
The end.
Literary Criticism:
This was not the worst book I've ever read. But it was boring. Much of the book concerned Anil's medical rounds at the hospital, and it was as boring as it sounds. It could have been more dramatic. Perhaps it could have focused on a single patient who was sick and showed us how Anil struggled to cure him. Perhaps it could have gotten other personalities involved. Maybe a competing doctor who looked down on Anil until Anil could show that he was better than the competing doctor. Maybe Anil could have discovered an unethical doctor and exposed him, or a doctor stealing the organs of dead patients.
But there were no other real characters at the hospital except for Sonia with the exploding ovaries, and she was just sort of the vague supporting friend, not very interesting.
Leena's part of the story was a little more interesting when she was in Girish's home but once she fled, it quickly became boring. Leena did pottery... Leena did pottery... Leena did pottery... there's only so many times you can spin that wheel.
The whole purpose of the story seemed to be getting Leena and Anil together. But when they did get together, there was ZERO description of their romance. I'm not even sure if there was any romance! Anil just declared his love and that was it.
And then when Leena rejected him, it felt like everything that the book had been building to had been flushed down the toilet. Anil suddenly shacked up with another woman we had never met before. as the book ends. For dramatic effect it would have been much better if he had ended up with someone who he had built a relationship with during the course of the book.
It almost felt like this book was written by two or three different people, each with their own idea of what the storyline should be. Overall very disappointing.
