What is Anita Desai's writing style in Clear Light of Day?

The writing style of Clear Light of
Day takes its readers back to the tragic events of Partition in 1948 and then
forward to see how those events have influenced the rationship between the two Das
sisters, Bim and Tara. Of the novel's four sections, the first and the last are in the
fictional present, while the two central ones are flashbacks. Within the flashbacks, the
narration does not follow a strictly chronological order but follows the working of the
sisters' memories, juxtaposing events through childhood associations. The psychological
investigation of the difficult relationship between the two sisters is intertwined with
imagery and symbols that stress decay and stagnation. Significantly, the novel opens
with Bim's description of Old Delhi as "a great cemetery, every house a tomb. Nothing
but sleeping graves" (5). These images contribute to increase the sense of
claustrophobia and entrapment felt by the chracters. This feeling of entrapment markedly
contrasts with Bim's realization, once she has gone through and partially solved her
family's conflicts and tensions at the end of the novel, that "her own house and its
particular history" did not bind the family "within some dead and airless cell" (182).
On the contrary, Bim compares past family history to a fertile soil that can help the
different characters develop their inner selves.