Behind the Beautiful Forevers, by Katherine Boo is a masterfully written, exhaustively researched recounting of lives in a Mumbai slum by a highly accomplished journalist. The book is almost too depressing to read, and it offers little hope that the injustices it lays bare can be eliminated. Furthermore, Boo demonstrates that the evils done, especially by the less poor to the poorest, have their origins not in particular personal failings, but in an environment that encourages the corruption that innately and universally afflicts the human race. To quote the timeless assessment of human behavior by a better known author, “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” For anyone who believes that humans need only search within themselves to find true selflessness, this work is a powerful corrective. Its very bad news should lead anyone with eyes to see that we must search outside ourselves to find untainted justice and goodness.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 21:52:37 +0000
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