The Space Between Us (novel)
Encyclopedia
The Space Between Us is the second novel by Thrity Umrigar
, published by William Morrow and Company
in January 2006. Set in present-day Mumbai, India, the novel follows the lives of two women: Serabai Dubash, an upper-middle-class widow, and her domestic servant, Bhima. The pair experience similar situations in their lives: abuse, the death or absence of a husband, a pregnant dependent, and the hope for a better future. Told using an omniscient third-person narrative in mainly present tense
, the novel incorporates Hindi words and phrases amongst predominantly English text.
Influenced by Umrigar's real-life experience with the employer-servant relationship, the novel explores social class
in India and the division of power in society. Umrigar, who was born and lived in Mumbai until the age of twenty-one, modeled Bhima after a domestic servant of the same name who worked in her childhood home and for whom Umrigar had much admiration. Upon its release, The Space Between Us received largely positive reviews from English-language critics. While the majority of reviewers enjoyed Umrigar's simple, descriptive prose, a few questioned whether she depended on cliché
s and exaggeration. Critics praised her lively depiction of Mumbai and the sympathetic characters, and noted the social commentary
present in the novel.
widow, and her domestic servant of more than twenty years, Bhima. Now sixty-five years old, illiterate Bhima lives in the slum
s of Mumbai
with her pregnant, unwed granddaughter, the seventeen-year-old Maya, whose college tuition is paid for by Sera. Through flashbacks
, Bhima remembers her husband, who, after a work-related accident caused him to lose three fingers, became an alcoholic and abandoned her, taking their son Amit with him. She also remembers her daughter Pooja, who married, but died of AIDS together with her husband, leaving Maya an orphan at a young age.
Since the sudden death of her physically abusive husband three years ago, Sera has cared for her disabled mother-in-law, who had insisted on isolating her from the family when Sera was menstruating. Sera also tends to her pregnant daughter Dinaz, and pays for Maya's abortion
. A while later, Maya reluctantly tells Bhima that Dinaz's husband Viraf impregnated her and told her to keep it a secret so that she could continue her education and Bhima could keep her job. Angered, Bhima confronts Viraf, and he later accuses her of stealing from the cupboard. Sera dismisses her, unable to listen to Bhima's hints about Viraf's actions towards Maya. Bhima leaves, and recalling a balloon seller whom she had admired, buys worth of balloons and goes to the seaside. She resolves to deal with tomorrow.
wrote much of the novel in the present tense
and used adjective
s, simile
s, and metaphor
s frequently in her descriptions. She also incorporated Hindi words alongside English ones in the novel: "What is this, baba? So-so much money," says one character, for example. According to The Independent
s Aamer Hussein, "Umrigar's preoccupations are the classic and abiding tropes of domestic middlebrow fiction: love and families, marriage, childbirth, betrayal, lack and loss."
Among the many issues explored—"poverty engendering poverty; the power of privilege and wealth; domestic violence
;... education; women's rights
; AIDS"—the novel examines the class system in India. The protagonists experience parallel situations in their lives: abuse from men they loved, enduring "shame and disappointment", expecting the successes of their children to bring them happiness, and comforting each other through their bond. Claudia Webb of the London Financial Times stated: "The one element that separates them is money." While the protagonists share a closer relationship than many servants and masters in India, Sera looks down upon Bhima and refuses to let her sit on a chair in her house or drink from the same glass. Ligaya Mishan of The New York Times
saw a parallel in Sera's "mother-in-law's superstition and her physical aversion to Bhima, whom she imagines to be covered in a 'sheen of dirtiness.'" Additionally, Umrigar explored the strength of friendship among the characters, which the class system and its bias threaten. The character Dinaz has some of the views about the master-servant relationship in common with the teenage Umrigar; Umrigar believed that children in general are able to "see through the social clutter" of the classes.
Gender and the division of power play a prominent role in The Space Between Us. The male characters often use their power and advantage in society to mistreat others through "cruel and abusive ways", according to The Washington Post
s Francis Itani; Feroz, Viraf, and the administrator from Gopal's factory thrive in the class system, using their power to bully and cheat others. Friendship among the female characters is presented as a potential way for them to overcome "individual isolation and loneliness". Judy Budz of The Boston Globe
wrote: "Will women support each other in the face of family obligations, powerful husbands, and the desire for upward mobility in a downwardly mobile environment?" Umrigar considered the novel more about the division, use, and effects of power in society, rather than the gender divide. She viewed many of the male characters as "victims", instead of abusers. She cited Gopal as an example: he suffers an accident at work, the cause of which she attributed to "the greed of others," and ultimately falls apart as a result. Additionally, Feroz shared a loving relationship with Sera in the beginning; Umrigar suggested that his mother may have negatively influenced his attitude towards women.
in a middle-class extended family
of aunts and uncles in addition to her parents. Growing up, she witnessed poverty, which greatly impacted her childhood as she could not forget it. As a teenager, the newly socialist Umrigar felt "uneasy being a card-carrying member of the middle class" and possessed much admiration for Bhima, a domestic servant who worked for her family and whom she later modeled the protagonist of the same name after. One day, after a year of the teenage Umrigar's efforts to learn about her life, Bhima sat on the couch—which she cleaned, but was forbidden to sit on—and asked her to play "an old Marathi folk song" instead of the foreign "Let It Be" by The Beatles
that she had been listening to. Umrigar recalled: "[T]he authority in her voice thrilled me, made me feel that we were equals at last, that the cursed roles of servant and mistress had shattered for one fragile, shimmering instant."
Umrigar moved to the United States
at the age of twenty-one and after attending Ohio State University
for two years, worked as a journalist for seventeen years. In spring 2003, she started her second novel, The Space Between Us, and finished the first draft in under six months. When she began the novel, she knew the beginning and final lines and that the two would serve "as bookends to the novel." Her goal for the story was to portray "the connections and the separations, the intimacy and the distance between women of different classes." Having completed the first draft so quickly, she could not recall much about the process of writing or crafting the plot, only "specific moments." One of her chief concerns while writing was presenting an authentic, present-day India even though she moved away more than twenty-three years ago and did not follow the pop culture there; she resolved to "write about things that are timeless." While on trips to visit her family in India, she mentally recorded the current dialogue and the changes in Mumbai since she had left. Umrigar dedicated the book to "the real Bhima and the millions like her." William Morrow and Company
, an imprint of HarperCollins
, published The Space Between Us on January 10, 2006.
s or exaggeration. Mishan praised Umrigar as "a perceptive and often piercing writer, although her prose occasionally tips into flamboyant overstatement." Calcutta Telegraphs Sreyashi Dastidar wrote the empathy that Umrigar writes with made up for "the situational clichés and the forced Indianness of the English dialogue." While noting "Umrigar's reliance on cliche," Karen R. Long of The Plain Dealer praised "the book's musicality, enhanced with a smattering of Hindi words and cadences" and Umrigar's depiction of guilt and "the way love mixes with cruelty and loneliness." The Book Report's Jennifer Krieger enjoyed "the clarity and simplicity in Umrigar's style as well as a devotion to detail" and the images which she populates the text with. Umrigar's depiction of Indian everyday life also was praised as realistic and engaging. Writing for The Scotsman
, Natasha Mann described Mumbai as the "perfect setting" for a novel about the class system, but questioned the absence of characters other than "middle-class, insular" Indians. "To read these comparisons is to understand that Umrigar's Bombay is a place where robust foods figure prominently, elements like wind and sea are driving forces, and religious beliefs underscore everything," commented the San Francisco Chronicle
s Lynn Andriani. In general, the characters of Bhima and Sera have been regarded as realistic and sympathetic by reviewers.
Reviewers also discussed the social commentary
present in the novel. Kirkus Reviews
called it "[a] subtle, elegant analysis of class and power." Beacon Journals Mary Ethridge wrote: "The Space Between Us is not meant to be read as a social commentary about race or class, although it certainly has some powerful messages along those lines. Rather, it is an elegant novel of the heart and spirit whose characters are testament to the essential human drive – to find joy, peace and love where we can." Andriani compared The Space Between Us to Khaled Hosseini
's The Kite Runner
, a 2003 novel set mainly in Afghanistan which deals with characters of various social classes. The Economist
attributed the novel's success in not becoming "emotional soup" to the variety of issues examined. Budz describes the novel as "a treatment of modern India, where women recognize their sameness but cannot bridge the space that separates them."
Thrity Umrigar
Thrity Umrigar is an Indian American writer, who was born in Mumbai and immigrated to the United States when she was 21. She is a journalist and the author of the novels Bombay Time, The Space Between Us and The Weight of Heaven...
, published by William Morrow and Company
William Morrow and Company
William Morrow and Company is an American publishing company founded by William Morrow in 1926. The company was acquired by Scott Foresman in 1967, and sold to Hearst Corporation in 1981. It was sold along to the News Corporation in 1999...
in January 2006. Set in present-day Mumbai, India, the novel follows the lives of two women: Serabai Dubash, an upper-middle-class widow, and her domestic servant, Bhima. The pair experience similar situations in their lives: abuse, the death or absence of a husband, a pregnant dependent, and the hope for a better future. Told using an omniscient third-person narrative in mainly present tense
Present tense
The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
, the novel incorporates Hindi words and phrases amongst predominantly English text.
Influenced by Umrigar's real-life experience with the employer-servant relationship, the novel explores social class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
in India and the division of power in society. Umrigar, who was born and lived in Mumbai until the age of twenty-one, modeled Bhima after a domestic servant of the same name who worked in her childhood home and for whom Umrigar had much admiration. Upon its release, The Space Between Us received largely positive reviews from English-language critics. While the majority of reviewers enjoyed Umrigar's simple, descriptive prose, a few questioned whether she depended on cliché
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
s and exaggeration. Critics praised her lively depiction of Mumbai and the sympathetic characters, and noted the social commentary
Social commentary
Social commentary is the act of rebelling against an individual, or a group of people by rhetorical means, or commentary on social issues or society...
present in the novel.
Plot
The Space Between Us takes place in present-day India and centers on two women: Serabai (Sera) Dubash, an upper-middle-class, ParsiParsi
Parsi or Parsee refers to a member of the larger of the two Zoroastrian communities in South Asia, the other being the Irani community....
widow, and her domestic servant of more than twenty years, Bhima. Now sixty-five years old, illiterate Bhima lives in the slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
s of Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
with her pregnant, unwed granddaughter, the seventeen-year-old Maya, whose college tuition is paid for by Sera. Through flashbacks
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
, Bhima remembers her husband, who, after a work-related accident caused him to lose three fingers, became an alcoholic and abandoned her, taking their son Amit with him. She also remembers her daughter Pooja, who married, but died of AIDS together with her husband, leaving Maya an orphan at a young age.
Since the sudden death of her physically abusive husband three years ago, Sera has cared for her disabled mother-in-law, who had insisted on isolating her from the family when Sera was menstruating. Sera also tends to her pregnant daughter Dinaz, and pays for Maya's abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
. A while later, Maya reluctantly tells Bhima that Dinaz's husband Viraf impregnated her and told her to keep it a secret so that she could continue her education and Bhima could keep her job. Angered, Bhima confronts Viraf, and he later accuses her of stealing from the cupboard. Sera dismisses her, unable to listen to Bhima's hints about Viraf's actions towards Maya. Bhima leaves, and recalling a balloon seller whom she had admired, buys worth of balloons and goes to the seaside. She resolves to deal with tomorrow.
Style and themes
Using an omniscient third-person narrative, The Space Between Us divides itself between the stories of its two protagonists, Sera and Bhima. Although the novel occasionally explores their memories in flashbacks, Thrity UmrigarThrity Umrigar
Thrity Umrigar is an Indian American writer, who was born in Mumbai and immigrated to the United States when she was 21. She is a journalist and the author of the novels Bombay Time, The Space Between Us and The Weight of Heaven...
wrote much of the novel in the present tense
Present tense
The present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
and used adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s, simile
Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words "like", "as". Even though both similes and metaphors are forms of comparison, similes indirectly compare the two ideas and allow them to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas...
s, and metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
s frequently in her descriptions. She also incorporated Hindi words alongside English ones in the novel: "What is this, baba? So-so much money," says one character, for example. According to The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
s Aamer Hussein, "Umrigar's preoccupations are the classic and abiding tropes of domestic middlebrow fiction: love and families, marriage, childbirth, betrayal, lack and loss."
Among the many issues explored—"poverty engendering poverty; the power of privilege and wealth; domestic violence
Domestic violence
Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
;... education; women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
; AIDS"—the novel examines the class system in India. The protagonists experience parallel situations in their lives: abuse from men they loved, enduring "shame and disappointment", expecting the successes of their children to bring them happiness, and comforting each other through their bond. Claudia Webb of the London Financial Times stated: "The one element that separates them is money." While the protagonists share a closer relationship than many servants and masters in India, Sera looks down upon Bhima and refuses to let her sit on a chair in her house or drink from the same glass. Ligaya Mishan of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
saw a parallel in Sera's "mother-in-law's superstition and her physical aversion to Bhima, whom she imagines to be covered in a 'sheen of dirtiness.'" Additionally, Umrigar explored the strength of friendship among the characters, which the class system and its bias threaten. The character Dinaz has some of the views about the master-servant relationship in common with the teenage Umrigar; Umrigar believed that children in general are able to "see through the social clutter" of the classes.
Gender and the division of power play a prominent role in The Space Between Us. The male characters often use their power and advantage in society to mistreat others through "cruel and abusive ways", according to The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
s Francis Itani; Feroz, Viraf, and the administrator from Gopal's factory thrive in the class system, using their power to bully and cheat others. Friendship among the female characters is presented as a potential way for them to overcome "individual isolation and loneliness". Judy Budz of The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
wrote: "Will women support each other in the face of family obligations, powerful husbands, and the desire for upward mobility in a downwardly mobile environment?" Umrigar considered the novel more about the division, use, and effects of power in society, rather than the gender divide. She viewed many of the male characters as "victims", instead of abusers. She cited Gopal as an example: he suffers an accident at work, the cause of which she attributed to "the greed of others," and ultimately falls apart as a result. Additionally, Feroz shared a loving relationship with Sera in the beginning; Umrigar suggested that his mother may have negatively influenced his attitude towards women.
Development and publication
Born in Mumbai, India, Umrigar lived there for almost twenty-one years as an only childOnly child
An only child is a person with no siblings, either biological or adopted. In a family with multiple offspring, first-borns, may be briefly considered only children and have a similar early family environment, but the term only child is generally applied only to those individuals who never have...
in a middle-class extended family
Extended family
The term extended family has several distinct meanings. In modern Western cultures dominated by nuclear family constructs, it has come to be used generically to refer to grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins, whether they live together within the same household or not. However, it may also refer...
of aunts and uncles in addition to her parents. Growing up, she witnessed poverty, which greatly impacted her childhood as she could not forget it. As a teenager, the newly socialist Umrigar felt "uneasy being a card-carrying member of the middle class" and possessed much admiration for Bhima, a domestic servant who worked for her family and whom she later modeled the protagonist of the same name after. One day, after a year of the teenage Umrigar's efforts to learn about her life, Bhima sat on the couch—which she cleaned, but was forbidden to sit on—and asked her to play "an old Marathi folk song" instead of the foreign "Let It Be" by The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
that she had been listening to. Umrigar recalled: "[T]he authority in her voice thrilled me, made me feel that we were equals at last, that the cursed roles of servant and mistress had shattered for one fragile, shimmering instant."
Umrigar moved to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
at the age of twenty-one and after attending Ohio State University
Ohio State University
The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
for two years, worked as a journalist for seventeen years. In spring 2003, she started her second novel, The Space Between Us, and finished the first draft in under six months. When she began the novel, she knew the beginning and final lines and that the two would serve "as bookends to the novel." Her goal for the story was to portray "the connections and the separations, the intimacy and the distance between women of different classes." Having completed the first draft so quickly, she could not recall much about the process of writing or crafting the plot, only "specific moments." One of her chief concerns while writing was presenting an authentic, present-day India even though she moved away more than twenty-three years ago and did not follow the pop culture there; she resolved to "write about things that are timeless." While on trips to visit her family in India, she mentally recorded the current dialogue and the changes in Mumbai since she had left. Umrigar dedicated the book to "the real Bhima and the millions like her." William Morrow and Company
William Morrow and Company
William Morrow and Company is an American publishing company founded by William Morrow in 1926. The company was acquired by Scott Foresman in 1967, and sold to Hearst Corporation in 1981. It was sold along to the News Corporation in 1999...
, an imprint of HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
, published The Space Between Us on January 10, 2006.
Reception
The Space Between Us received largely positive reviews. While most reviewers enjoyed Umrigar's prose, several questioned whether or not she used clichéCliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...
s or exaggeration. Mishan praised Umrigar as "a perceptive and often piercing writer, although her prose occasionally tips into flamboyant overstatement." Calcutta Telegraphs Sreyashi Dastidar wrote the empathy that Umrigar writes with made up for "the situational clichés and the forced Indianness of the English dialogue." While noting "Umrigar's reliance on cliche," Karen R. Long of The Plain Dealer praised "the book's musicality, enhanced with a smattering of Hindi words and cadences" and Umrigar's depiction of guilt and "the way love mixes with cruelty and loneliness." The Book Report's Jennifer Krieger enjoyed "the clarity and simplicity in Umrigar's style as well as a devotion to detail" and the images which she populates the text with. Umrigar's depiction of Indian everyday life also was praised as realistic and engaging. Writing for The Scotsman
The Scotsman
The Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
, Natasha Mann described Mumbai as the "perfect setting" for a novel about the class system, but questioned the absence of characters other than "middle-class, insular" Indians. "To read these comparisons is to understand that Umrigar's Bombay is a place where robust foods figure prominently, elements like wind and sea are driving forces, and religious beliefs underscore everything," commented the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
s Lynn Andriani. In general, the characters of Bhima and Sera have been regarded as realistic and sympathetic by reviewers.
Reviewers also discussed the social commentary
Social commentary
Social commentary is the act of rebelling against an individual, or a group of people by rhetorical means, or commentary on social issues or society...
present in the novel. Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus . Kirkus serves the book and literary trade sector, including libraries, publishers, literary and film agents, film and TV producers and booksellers. Kirkus Reviews is published on the first and 15th of each month...
called it "[a] subtle, elegant analysis of class and power." Beacon Journals Mary Ethridge wrote: "The Space Between Us is not meant to be read as a social commentary about race or class, although it certainly has some powerful messages along those lines. Rather, it is an elegant novel of the heart and spirit whose characters are testament to the essential human drive – to find joy, peace and love where we can." Andriani compared The Space Between Us to Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini , is an Afghan-born American novelist and physician of ethnic Tajik origin. He is a citizen of the United States where he has lived since he was fifteen years old. His 2003 debut novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide....
's The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner
The Kite Runner is a novel by Khaled Hosseini. Published in 2003 by Riverhead Books, it is Hosseini's first novel, and was adapted into a film of the same name in 2007....
, a 2003 novel set mainly in Afghanistan which deals with characters of various social classes. The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
attributed the novel's success in not becoming "emotional soup" to the variety of issues examined. Budz describes the novel as "a treatment of modern India, where women recognize their sameness but cannot bridge the space that separates them."
External links
- The Space Between Us at Harper Collins' official website