Burnt Sugar Annotated

 My next annotation, Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi, is up now!

This is a relationship fiction novel, following the inner thoughts and actions of the main character, Antara, while she processes the trauma put upon her by her difficult and sometimes abusive mother, Tara. Tara feels equally resentful and spiteful of Antara, whom she has had in her singular care ever since abandoning her own arranged marriage, escaping to live in an ashram, then become homeless and dependent on her estranged husband and in-laws.

 If I was desperate for any respite after the difficult read of The Wasp Factory, I found none here. Unlike Factory, however, I was enthralled by this book. I can't say I enjoyed my time with it, the novel is miserable and trauma-dumpy and I wanted to find my loved ones and give them a hug, but the way the constant internal and external conflicts are equally traumatic, empathetic, brutally honest, and sometimes humorous, was very compelling.

I feel equally compressed and claustrophobic as I do stretched thin and weathered by the book.

The novel is full of these kinds of simultaneous contrasts and conflicts. The author’s utterly candid description of the main character Antara’s inner thoughts of impulsivity and analysis, spiraling from her historically traumatic and dependent relationship with her mother who is currently afflicted with Alzheimer’s, made me feel just as suffocated and agoraphobic as Antara. A slave to fate while also stunned by decision paralysis. I felt like I was on the edge of a panic attack at all times.

A book I highly recommend, but it is not a light read.

On the subject of formative elements of a novel, there’s something about first person present tense narrative that always gives me the feeling of disconnection or dissociation despite being in the immediate thoughts and actions of the character. Does anyone else feel that way? Maybe it just reminds me of Dr. Manhattan’s book in Watchmen.