I picked up this award winning novel from India at ALA too. It didn't give me the insight into the life of India I had been looking for, but it gave me some insight into its soul. Other than a vague sense of the relationship between the British and well to do Indians, unfamiliar foods woven into the story, and the panthers and monkeys, I didn't get much of a feel for India.
But the language - though it was English (and not translated as far as I could tell) was unlike any I have read before, e.g. "elegant, as though a hymn wrapped in a sari." I hate to cheat, but the Newsweek quote on the cover says it well: "An erotic tale of love and loss, loaded with magical realism... The aching wisdom in this meditation on love truly satisfies."
The book is full of different forms of love - a beautiful, but sad love between wife and husband, parents and children, two men, two older artists and a young girl, women friends, and a strange house that plays a larger than usual role in the lives of its inhabitants. The eroticism is also of a much more varied sort than usual. (finished reading in Northport)
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