The Tossed Salad

Looking for a light, racy read this summer or maybe a witty read to divert those few hours during the boring bus ride- Sophie Kinsella’s ‘The Undomestic Goddess’ would be just the right choice for you! Categorising this book as a chick-lit would not be doing justice to the work. After all it does have its own moments of dark humour targeted especially at the world of ruthless corporations and their even more competitive employees.

Samantha Sweeting is a workaholic attorney whose life revolves around her work. Her aim? To attain the coveted position of a partner of the legal firm she is working with. After working her nights and days for the firm, and hours before she is about to be made a partner, she realizes that she has overlooked and lost documents of a client which would cost the firm millions of dollars.

In a depressive haze she walks out of her London office and catches a random train to the suburbs. As she alights in a particular village, she follows her whims which lead her to a fancy residence where the owners mistake her for an interviewee for the position of their housekeeper. Even on a bad day she does clinch the job. It is another matter though that her housekeeping skills can be best described to be zilch.

Living under an assumed identity, as she learns the basics of housekeeping without letting her employers know about her shortcomings, she also experiences the first pangs of an earlier unheard of emotion- love, induced in her by the gardener of the household.

But does her blissful existence remain unscathed by the ghosts of her former life? Had she really been careless in her work or had she been a victim of someone’s jealous trick? Does she go back to her humdrum existence or be the humane person that she had just learnt to be? These are some of the questions that can be best answered by reading the book itself.

The book upholds a vivid picture of the cut-throat yet thriving corporate world and its contribution in the mechanization of human beings. The incidents of how she manages to satisfy the various demands of her extravagant employers just in the nick of time do make you hold your breath. At the same time the palpable comedy, especially through the character of her flamboyant yet kind-hearted mistress, shall keep you entertained throughout. The well-sketched character of the protagonist makes you laugh and cry with her- a hallmark of any endearing read.

This breezy socio-comedy from Dell publishers has been acknowledged by the New York Times to be a bestseller in the United States. So do grab a copy and spend a couple of refreshing hours. Priced at a little above hundred it is a definite ‘worth it’ addition to your collection of books.

Note: Sophie Kinsella is a pseudonym used by Madeleine Wickham. She is also the author of ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic’ which has been shot as a film by Disnay and released this year ie 2009.

Ankita Ray

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[image courtesy: http://tinyurl.com/cf4ddd]

Author: Ankita Ray
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