Climbing the Stairs -- Padma Venkatraman

Vidya is fifteen and hopes to finish high school and then go on to college -- not at all the common path for for an Indian girl during WWII.  Her father is a progressive man, though, and her dreams will very likely become reality.

When he is struck down during a demonstration against India's British occupiers, life for Vidya changes drastically.  She and her family are forced to move in with her father's family.  She finds life in this much more traditional household chafing, tiring and frustrating -- the only real bright spots are her grandfather's library, her brother Kitta and a young man named Raman. 

I had mixed feelings about Climbing the Stairs.  The major difficulty I had was that it seemed like most of the dialogue in the first fifty or so pages was expository.  It felt that there was a lot of telling rather than showing, and that, for the purpose of passing information on to the reader, the characters said much more in conversation than they would in real life.  Like:

"Amma," I said.  "Why do you look so worried?"

"Do I look worried?" she asked evasively.

"Yes," I said.  Maybe she had a lot left to do before periappa's visit.  "I'll help you as soon as I get back from school tomorrow," I offered.  "I know you have to send the cook away and prepare all the meals yourself because periappa won't eat anything that isn't cooked by Brahmin hands."

Vidya's relationship with her brother was well done, as were her issues with her father's condition and the romance, but most of the minor characters were pretty two-dimensional.  While the romance was nice, I felt that some of the conversation between Vidya and Raman was stilted and forced -- it felt at times like Vidya was being used as a mouthpiece for the author.  I did read a review copy, though, so it's possible that some of that may have changed. 

I loved the setting and the time period -- British-occupied India isn't one I've run across very often in the YA section.  I loved reading about a culture that I haven't read all that much about, and I loved that Padma Venkatraman made the complexities of the time clear:  That for Indians who joined the battle against the Nazis it meant working for and fighting with their own oppressors, and that joining the fight against the Nazis also went against against the principles of nonviolence.

That part of the story, though, was secondary to Vidya's struggles, and Vidya's struggles, for the most part, fell into the Historical-Fiction-About-A-Girl-Raised-in-a-Non-Traditional-Manner-Forced-to-Adapt-to-a-More-Strict-Environment-That-Is-More-In-Keeping-With-The-Time-Period-So-The-Reader-Can-More-Easily-Identify-With-The-Protaganist category.  Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  It's just a formula I come across quite a lot.  I do think that it would be a decent pick for young fans who enjoy reading about living inother places, times, and cultures, who would like to read about the ins and outs of living with a large extended family, or who would be interested in philosophizing about The Greater Good vs. One's Own Personal Principles.

Comments

[Patti]

I read a published version and felt the same way about the writing. I often felt like I was getting a history lesson in dialog. I enjoyed it, but subtle it was not.

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