A Burning: A Read with Jenna Pick: A Novel

Megha Majumdar’s “A Burning” is a contemporary story following three people that are tied together by a shared past. That common connection is rushed into the present and placed under a bright spotlight by a tragic event. The character arcs, plot, and through lines weave masterfully together and play out against the backdrop of a changing India. A country trying to balance all of the social and economic challenges across its broad landscape and simultaneously create a coherence around a single national identity. What Majmudar shows us is that, on the ground level, individual lives are so pressed for survival that they don’t have time to see their shared suffering. As a result, there are no real happy endings here. Majmudar’s greatest skill is her ability to pull the reader deep into each scene. She employs just the right details to place you right smack in the middle of the heat, noise, filth, scents, and sounds of the lives of our characters. The dialogue is punchy and underscores the culture and the various dynamics between the castes. It reads like an experiential journey through the crushing weight of over a billion people trying to chase one dream. That experience shattered routinely by violence; horrible acts flamed by the tensions that destroy the innocent and guilty alike. The story stresses you in every way. Our characters are all pawns in a larger game played by others. All of them chasing after any semblance of agency over their seemingly predetermined fate. Each has to make moral compromises to find any path forward. All of this highlights that where there is no real concept and application of justice, there will be no recognition of individual humanity. In its place the novel reminds us that no good deed goes unpunished. Indeed, the best line in the book comes near the end when we are reminded that “Only one of us can be truly free.”