like OCD or schizophrenia.
Kiran Desai left us mysterious. When I first read of the eye in Ilan’s painting studio in the barn, I wasn’t sure if it was a real, living eye. Sonia thought the evil eye followed her because she was spying into Ilan’s painting studio.
Sonia again saw this eye, or another eye, when she was in Big Cloud, her mom’s neonatal home. She was rummaging in the attic when she thought she saw an eye looking at her through the attic’s window. She wasn’t sure. She also thought that could have been a figment of her imagination, since she was emotionally, mentally and psychologically upset over her breakup with Ilan, because his wife turned up at his home and caught Sonia staying there.
There’s a practice in some cultures, of wearing an eye, in a piece of jewelry (jewellery), to ward off evil.
Later, Sunny learned, by his own intuition, what the eye was. He thought the eye was Ilan’s eye. When he painted, he painted his own eyes into the faces of his subjects, so that his subjects became him. He owned his paintings’ subjects. What Sonia saw was Ilan’s paintings of humans or animals with eyes. Since she was gripped with guilt for spying into his barn studio, her imagination was overwrought and she imagined the eye staring back at her.
It is only when people discover the truth and the tricks of illusion behind conjured power, that they become free. When Sunny understood Ilan’s secrets, he became the suitable person to help Sonia heal over Ilan’s abuse.
Main book review is at https://artmater.com/explaining-the-loneliness-of-sonia-and-sunny/