I'm not going to say that this novel is bad 
 (Chorus of GR friends : Say it, go on, you know you want to...) 
 but it was pretty ghastly for me. It was strangled to death by a style you could describe as inane wittering, a crew of characters all of which are loveably eccentric and a plot that Ms Desai believes will take care of itself as the inane wittering puthers all over the loveable eccentrics. 
 So, to sum up 
 BAH