The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny is Kiran Desai’s third novel, published nearly twenty years after The Inheritance of Loss which won the 2006 Booker Prize. It is a monumental book of great scope and ambition. In many ways, it reminded me of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace.
In telling the story of Sonia and Sunny and their families, Desai explores multiple themes: the impact of country and culture, gender and generation, class divisions, migration, travel, and history itself. Even the destruction of the twin towers in New York features. We see the event through multiple characters’ eyes.
At heart, the novel is a love story. In their twenties, Sonia and Sunny have come from high caste Indian families and both live for a time in the USA. Despite their obvious attraction and their families’ attempts to matchmake them, they need to overcome personal damage before they can commit to another person. Sonia has suffered from a destructive love affair with an artist and Sunny is psychologically trapped by the possessive love of his widowed mother.
Supernatural elements add another dimension to the novel. Sonia’s experience of evil with her artist lover is embodied in a ghostly hound who pursues her in dreams and intrudes in real life only to vanish as suddenly as it appeared. Desai’s description of the hound is spine-tingling. A protective talisman that belonged to Sonia’s grandfather is central to the story. As in a fairy tale, it must be found and returned before Sunny and Sonia can be reunited.
My only challenge with The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny was its sheer length. For the first two thirds of the novel, I was in its thrall. By the final hundred or so pages, I become impatient with the multiple diversions and rich descriptive prose which I had enjoyed so much before. I wanted to learn the fate of the two main characters. Then the ending saved it for me. The secret is to slow down and allow yourself time to enjoy every aspect of this amazing novel.