Book Review: The Toss of a Lemon

Sivakami is a ten year old betrothed to a doomed astrologist. The astrologist predicts that the birth of his son will render his demise, and as he is a talented astrologist, he does soon die. The rest of TheToss of a Lemon picks up quickly as the reader is taken on a journey with a rebellious Brahman woman who simultaneously adheres strictly to her caste traditions. The Toss of a Lemon speaks to the reader in present tense for all six hundred of its pages, forcing the reader to become engulfed in every tiny facet. While some readers may find the amount of delicate detail cumbersome, the inquisitive ones will revel in the glimpse into a culture otherwise largely glossed over by western education systems. Through the span of three generations, Padma Viswanathan perceptively describes the cultural changes in India from 1896 onwards. She does so through the experiences and personal views of her characters, thus showing many sides of the cultural shift. With a writing style evocative of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Toss of a Lemon entertains the intelligent reader through the trials of the declining caste system.
                A particularly poignant description of caste life is when Sivakami dons the widow’s whites, and has her head shorn to become an untouchable throughout daylight hours. Viswanathan writes, “As he lifts the first hank from her neck, Sivakami’s deprived body thrills to the sensation, and the shame of this thrill makes her glad that he is cutting it off” (65). Viswanathan’s simple portrayal of human emotion is a large part of the draw of this novel. There is no character that enjoys a well-defined role of either protagonist or antagonist. This, above all else, creates a believable world into which the reader is drawn.
                The closest Viswanathan comes to an antagonist is through the character of Sivakami’s son, Vairum. Vairum is the cause of his father’s death, though it was never fully explained to him. Vairum is the complete opposite of his mother, openly rebelling at every chance to the caste into which he was born. Though the modern reader will recognize the canon of the rebellious child and generational shifts, Viswanathan brings it home on a personal level. An example is when Viswanathan writes concerning a court case which Vairum wins, “It wasn’t only the victory, though he wouldn’t have enjoyed losing. It was the sense that he was on the side of fairness, of modernity” (240). He seems to be the antagonist in the story because Viswanathan spends so much time cultivating the story of Sivakami that the reader is compelled to side with the antiquated views of widowed mother.
                The Toss of a Lemon is a book in which the reader may lose his or herself. It is a superb account of coming of age and the loss of and desperate clinging to the ways of old.