the city of joy
Book Review: The city of joy by Dominique Lapierre
Feb.14/2012
The city of joy is a touching international bestselling novel turned movie, which depicts a story of love, kindness and faith in the slum of Anand Nagar. The novel features 3 main characters Stephan Kovalski (a Catholic priest), Max Loeb (an American doctor), and Hansari Pal (an Indian rickshaw driver). The novel goes into depth about the different trials and tribulations these 3 men face. Their lives in the slum are that of starvation, poverty, hopelessness and violence. The novel discusses each man’s journey through such treacherous living conditions and their personal growth that arrays from being placed in such unforeseen circumstances. Amongst such pain, poverty, and misery the people of Anand Nagar still manage to view life as a gift and continue to have hope without any real causation. Throughout this essay Ill discuss the main theme of the book, its relevance to urban studies as well as my own personal opinion.
The main theme of this novel is finding hope, I believe the point it’s trying to get across is that you’re not defined by where you are, but by who you are. A few other themes of this novel are spirituality and religion as well as compassion. Spirituality and religion are linked to this novel because people often find out who they really are once they’ve been placed in stressful situation. Many find the strength to move forward through religion or some form of spirituality. As for compassion, the characters in the novel learn that by helping others you receive better gratification then what they’d given. I feel this book has great relevance to urban studies as well as topics we’ve discussed in class. A brief background of Anand Nagar (at the time that the novel was published) was that it was under political turmoil and facing numerous natural disasters such as flood and famine. The city was at its capacity with numerous infiltrators from places such as East Pakistan and
Feb.14/2012
The city of joy is a touching international bestselling novel turned movie, which depicts a story of love, kindness and faith in the slum of Anand Nagar. The novel features 3 main characters Stephan Kovalski (a Catholic priest), Max Loeb (an American doctor), and Hansari Pal (an Indian rickshaw driver). The novel goes into depth about the different trials and tribulations these 3 men face. Their lives in the slum are that of starvation, poverty, hopelessness and violence. The novel discusses each man’s journey through such treacherous living conditions and their personal growth that arrays from being placed in such unforeseen circumstances. Amongst such pain, poverty, and misery the people of Anand Nagar still manage to view life as a gift and continue to have hope without any real causation. Throughout this essay Ill discuss the main theme of the book, its relevance to urban studies as well as my own personal opinion.
The main theme of this novel is finding hope, I believe the point it’s trying to get across is that you’re not defined by where you are, but by who you are. A few other themes of this novel are spirituality and religion as well as compassion. Spirituality and religion are linked to this novel because people often find out who they really are once they’ve been placed in stressful situation. Many find the strength to move forward through religion or some form of spirituality. As for compassion, the characters in the novel learn that by helping others you receive better gratification then what they’d given. I feel this book has great relevance to urban studies as well as topics we’ve discussed in class. A brief background of Anand Nagar (at the time that the novel was published) was that it was under political turmoil and facing numerous natural disasters such as flood and famine. The city was at its capacity with numerous infiltrators from places such as East Pakistan and