My year of reading women around the world started off with a bang with my January book, Wayétu Moore’s She Would be King. Thus, I jumped into February with equal tenacity, excited to delve into yet another work that would help me explore more traditions, more cultures, just . . . more.
February’s book is Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s One Amazing Thing. This book seemed to come to me almost by some divine inspiration, as it was given to me by a close friend before I had told anyone about this project.
“Read this,” she said. “I loved it.”
As every good nerd knows, you never turn down a book that finds you in this way. You may love it; you may hate it. But, no matter what, you’ll have something to talk about in the morning.
I think reading a book recommended to you by a friend does more than just provide you with a new book — it shows your friends that you care about them and that you’re willing to invest in them. While it’s pretty common to share articles, tweets, instas, etc. with friends, it’s also pretty common to share these things with the entire world as well. How often do we post pictures or retweet an article? Every day? Every hour? Every ten minutes? But, it’s not super often that we have have the opportunity to invest several hours, maybe even days, into a prolonged project like a book simply because a friend asked us to do so.
Like any good project, books are a gift that keep on giving. They go beyond just the reading and carry us into conversations and thoughts far beyond the pages that we read. The investment is more than the book. It’s the conversation we share over coffee the day we finish. It’s the fandom we create surrounding the universe. It’s the knowledge of someone else’s experience that never leaves us, expanding our world to more than just ourselves and opening our eyes to the infinite.
One Amazing Thing
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an Indian-American writer and poet who moved to the U.S. from Calcutta in pursuit of a Master’s degree and, eventually, a Ph.D. While Divakaruni is an established novelist, she is also a prolific poet and short story writer with publishing credits in over 50 magazines and anthologies. Divakaruni writes extensively about her experiences in India and America, exploring the ways in which immigrants are both tied to and estranged from their old homes.
One Amazing Thing is a book that combines all of Divakaruni’s skills. The overarching plot connects a group of strangers who are trapped in an embassy building by a sudden earthquake. In an effort to remain calm and pass the time, each member of the group shares a short story — one amazing thing that has happened to them during their life.
While the connecting plot of the novel often felt awkward and even campy to me, Divakaruni’s skill shines in the individual stories. Full of detail and heartfelt emotion, the stories of the individuals captivated me from beginning to end. All were full and complete in and of themselves, drawing me through the pages of the book, even when the actual plot of the novel was not as naturally spoken.
Perhaps the most interesting of the stories was one told by an elderly Chinese grandmother who had grown up in Calcutta’s Chinatown but was eventually forced to leave for America. The realization that her story was one of a double immigration and double displacement exposed so much of my own privilege. Of course, we are comfortable with our own Chinatowns in LA, Chicago, New York, wherever; but, it had never once crossed my mind that those places exist elsewhere and that the circumstances that force an individual to leave their home can happen to them more than once.
This reality seemed painfully obvious as I was reading her story, but the Euro-centric literary culture we maintain in the United States erases many of these narratives unless we are actively seeking them.
Many of the stories told within the novel are not themselves particularly “amazing;” yet, Divakaruni explores the truth that really nothing is in and of itself truly “amazing.” Nothing makes our lives particularly interesting until we tell someone about it. Whether we are talking to a friend, a lover, a relative, or a stranger, the mundane details of our lives make up a greater narrative of adventure and discovery.
As Divakaruni reveals, it is not the story itself that is amazing, but rather the shared experience of the telling and hearing of stories that is amazing.
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