Indian Readers discussion
Reading Progress 2023
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Girish's Booking Counter
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I hope you will find a lot of good books also this year!
Mod
Mod
1. The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction - 5 Stars
2. A Short History of Coffee - 3 Stars
3. State of Wonder - 2 Stars
4. Vacant Possession - 3 Stars
5. The Strange Library - 3 Stars
6. Aftertaste - 2 stars
Mod
Rating: 5 stars
Review: "Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different."
"I believe we have an obligation to read for pleasure, in private and in public places. If we read for pleasure, if others see us reading, then we learn, we exercise our imaginations. We show others that reading is a good thing.”
What a mind! Neil Gaiman is the story teller who loves not just the story but also the story behind the story. Words become mirrors of the soul and this book tells us much more about the person.
I started playing this game called "What do you see?" with my daughter when she was 3 years old. The idea is to come up with the most creative and bizarre thing you can imagine. I was astonished with some things she came up with - "A Zombie lion wearing swimming trunks" or "A peacock in suit on the moon". We keep elaborating on what and why. A year into schooling, she now comes up with more of the usual ones - monkeys on trees (with a book) and pandas playing swing and I wish she isn't growing up so fast.
Neil Gaiman is that creative child who managed to retain the freefalling imagination and packaged it as books. Coraline is a scary book for parents that children fail to see why - every parent vanishes into phones these days. American Gods came up with new Gods whom we've pledged our consciousness to (social media got missed). The writing conjures up images that connect with the seeker in you who likes stories (and their grandmothers) and it is definitely for the grown ups.
My first non-fiction by Gaiman was his guide to HHGTG - my all time favorite book. You tend to have a bias for people who like the same books as you do. And then I picked as my first book for this year - The view from the cheap seats. I found the man behind the black and white image more interesting. Why does this man love art so much? Why does he like all the art forms? How is he not envious of his peers or not intimidated by his idols? Is he narcist enough to have his name attached to many book just through his introduction?
This book had so many introductions he had written, so many pieces about artists that were not even in my radar that I felt like I had a reco-machine. I got scandalized when he told a story of how he wrote a review without reading the book and I hope he was not doing it for the money (as good a reason as any btw).This book has many highs and some chapters that are prime for skipping since he asks you to - but persist and you will be rewarded. The love for artforms and for a good story standout in each introduction. The way he has handled his wife's career also standout.
I think the essence from his body of work I've read - is that he is mostly a good person. That's more than what you can say of a lot of people.
My first read of 2023!
Mod
Rating: 3 stars
Review: Two things about the "Short History of Coffee" - it's not short and when they say History, they mean it with all dates, annotations et all. If you are someone who loves a cuppa and thought this book can somehow make you feel good - you may be mislead.
The book is well researched no doubt. From the origins of the concept of a berry extract to the myths surrounding it in early 16th century - the book gives you many references and storylines. The various incarnations of coffee across the various continents and the role it played in religious and political battles of the day - even leading to fall of kingdoms is anecdotal.
Once the product is established, the adoption among masses alongside historically significant events, the role of coffee houses across centuries and continents make for slightly boring read. This is not just the dates but there is a repetition in the storyline across time and geography.
I sort of sleepwalked a bit through 17th and 18th century till i came to things that were unique in the cultural context - the tea drinkers of colonies and the working class revolution. I actually liked the last few chapters on coffee machines, of what constitutes third wave coffee, the different press coffees and beans.
I am not a connoisseur and hence i probably just enjoy my regular caffeine dose. But i love it that it is part of my identity - a coffee lover. This book didn't do much to add to it - except maybe give me a few trivia to drop at coffee house discussions.
Nice cover though.
Mod
Rating: 3 Stars
Review: After finishing the book, I was in a state of wonder. Like - what was the author trying to convey? Why was this book written? What just happened and why so much fuss? This book was one episodic yarn that is fit for a periodical with multiple "twists and turns". Otherwise it was lacking credibility and felt contrived despite the setting.
Dr.Marina Singh goes to join a research party after her colleague dies there and she promises the widow she will find out what happened to him there. Her lover and boss Mr.Fox seems too concerned about the project and sends her off without a care. On reaching Brazil, she finds her luggage, along with her phone, is lost and soon she finds herself being mislead by two Australian gatekeepers who try to keep her away from Dr.Swenson - the erratic head of research.
From there to the Amazon stories with super fertile tribes, anacondas grabbed by hand, a deaf boy who saves the characters and poison arrows/exchange - this book is filled with stuff from comics and 90s view of South America. While I was following the plot - I found the almost lack of depth of characters unsettling. Like doing a stereotype of the obsessed scientist and greedy pharma companies or characters who lie through their teeth. Shallowness is on exhibition when it comes to character arcs.
And the romance between Fox and Marina - what was that about? All these together made this seem like a masala flick - not the reason you go for literature. At least, not always.
Mod
Rating: 3 Stars
Review: Far superior than it's predecessor in it's intelligence and writing, the Axon family's revenge tale is one of karmic coincidences and broken families. Muriel Axon - the demented child-lady in the first book has now, after 10 years, learnt to imitate humans and take on multiple forms to seek revenge for what happened to her mother and child. It doesn't help that she has cheated her way out of a mental health institute and she firmly believes she is a changeling.
The book helpfully fills you in on the critical aspects of the first book - so much so that you do not have to worry about remembering it is a sequel. And then it does something funny - it connects every aspect of the first book and brings life a full circle (nearly). Colin Sydney is now resigned to an unhappy marriage and his first daughter finds herself pregnant with a married man's child. Muriel is in the household in disguise as a help and we see her moonlighting as a nurse at the mental health facility where Colin's mother and Isabel's father are admitted. Colin and his family are insufferable.
Everytime Muriel wants to take revenge - they totally outdo her by screwing up their own lives by being themselves. And therein lies the fun part - the complext mistakes and decisions that are much worse than anything a changeling can bring upong the living. The dark comedy comes to a chilling end with many secrets revealed that completes the circle.
I later found Vacant possession is a legal term for the owner to come and possess the house after the legal tenant has left it empty for a while. What a witty title. Dame Mantel's writing is a lot more purposeful and we actually get what she is upto unlike in the prequel. The last few chapters however were a muddle of instances and horrors that take away the lightness of the earlier chapters.
Not the best, but definitely the better one among the two.
Mod
Rating: 3 Stars
Review: Our worlds are all jumbled together--your world, my world, the sheepman's world. Sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't.”
This Novella by Murakami was a weird one, even by his standards. The weirdest part of the book is the almost linear narrative of a boy getting kidnapped from a library by an old man who wants to eat his brain.
Throw in scenes from possible dreams/nightmares - like the starling or the black dog with crystal. The biggest challenge is you are not sure if you interpreted all that there is to interpret. Since if you don't there is not much in the book.
The story does suck you in while reading the book and leaves you wondering what you just read. Okayish dose of the surreal.
Mod
Rating: 2 stars
Rating: If ever there is an example required for "don't judge a book by it's blurb" this book takes the Bournvita burfee. Namita Devidayal's Aftertaste has blurbs equating it to be an Indian business book and a Marwari family drama - but the book turns out to be an half baked character study of siblings when the matriarch of a business is dying.
Bimz is the brainchild of Mummyji in the 70s when she was trying to protect her husband from a bad loan. The sweet shop business takes off with a lot of manipulation and smart tactics. After her husband passes away, Mummyji pulls the strings of her four children and grandchildren till the day she suffers a stroke. The book unravels with a lot of flashbacks and episodes going back to childhoods and recalling ultimately insignificant events.
Rajan Papa, the eldest son gets into money trouble and gets outmaneuvered by his brother Sunny in expanding the business. Sunny is an adulteror caught by his wife after he has an affair with a young cinema extra. Saroj the dutiful daughter who stays with her mother after her husband is cut out of his family business, is the epitome a good child. Suman is the sister who professes simple living, all the while being burned up on the aspect of her mother's diamonds.
When Mummyji has the stroke 4 days before Diwali, things change for the four characters who are in their own personal hells. There is also the next generation kids like Rahul the grandson - whose most complex confusions on sexual orientation get marginalized to 3 paragraphs before he is seen as a loving grandson.
There is a sense of hurry to the book, as if the time is limited. Each anecdotal character talks more about what happens than building depth to any character. Not to mention there were quite a few lazy sentences that seemed like fillers.
The book could have been edited more crisply I felt to at least keep the story engaging. A half decent book which could have done without the hype.
Mod
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: “They looked like two children," she told me. And that thought frightened her, because she'd always felt that only children are capable of everything.” - This is the description of the killers.
Tragedies come in many forms - but the inevitability of one where people who could stop it didn't is the worse. This book is a beautiful narrative of an inescapable catastrophe of killing.
We know in the first paragraph Santiago Nasar gets killed by two brothers outside his own door. As a journalist many years later, the narrator pieces together the movement of the people of the small coastal day on the fateful day and the impact of this event on their lives. Like the neighbour who confused his death cries as festive sounds from the bishop's arrival or the friend who didn't know how to operate the gun and hence could not stop the killers.
The writing is unique where every chapter alludes to the event without detailing the actual. By the end of third chapter we get a declaration "They have killed Santiago Nasar". We get to know how each of the characters come to know of the intent of the killers and how they were dismissive or did not try to stop since a woman's "honor" is in question. What do people do if they know something untoward is about to happen?
Angela Vicaro is returned back to her mother on her wedding night when her husband, an influential man, finds out his wife is not a virgin. After being slapped for hours by her mother she names Santiago Nasar as "her perpetrator". The journalist, also a childhood friend, raises questions on if she told the truth and we never know conclusively. They say Santiago was confused on why her brothers were waiting to kill him with a pig knife. The brothers make the announcement to avenge the honour of their sister to almost everyone in the town and even they are hoping someone would stop them.
There is this last chapter where the event actually happens and the killers are amazed on how difficult it is to take a human life. The book is extremely skillfully written with no drag and yet packs the colours of a carribean coastal island. There is a subtle allusion to stereotypes of the arab settlers when the author notes in Italics "Give me a bias and I will turn it into a revolution".
Fantastic writing.
Mod
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: My first joint read with my daughter - who is all of 4 years old and it was an amazing experience!
Started this book immediately after reading Gaiman's non-fic where he makes a case for doing away with "Children's fiction" as a term. Part done to test out the hypothesis and part to make my own bonding time with my daughter. The results exceeded expectation!
The world of other mother and other father captured the little one's imagination. Fear and excitement abound as we read the tale of Coraline. I knew she was invested when someone in the book mispronounced as Caroline, she would correct me or how her toys with button eyes became "Other Elephant" and "Other dinosaur". We read few pages a day till towards the end - she wanted to finish the last 2 chapters the same day.
It did help that she has just started reading and hence Beldam became her favorite word (and she wants to become as tall as the Beldam).
I think I can safely say - for best experience read the book through the eyes of a toddler and you would rate it 5 star everytime!
Mod
Rating: 4 stars
Review: “A certain feeling comes from throwing your good life away, and it is one part rapture.”
“For the first time in her life she could see perfectly well how a person arrived on that flight path: needing an alternative to the present so badly, the only doorway was a high window.”
The book is an extremely crafty work of fiction. It brings a scientific phenomenon to change the life of a home-maker and in the process addresses climate change, role of science, miracles and relationship. In the story featuring the Monarch butterflies described as flames multiple times (Burning bush - biblical reference?), the home maker comes out of her cocoon and finds her own wings.
Dellrobia is in silent rebellion with her family - a narrow minded husband from an unintended marriage, kids from whom she seeks peace and her controlling in-laws, especially Hester the matron mother-in-law. She is about to throw this all away and have an affair at the top of the hill. She sees an orange column of fire on the trees and the "miracle" makes her change her mind.
We find out later, through a logging contract being challenged, that it is the annual winter migration of Monarch butterflies, except they are supposed to be in Mexico and had no business in their small town. This bewilders the scientists and church alike and while one party claims it a miracle, the other brings Dr.Ovid to Feathertown. The study of this unexpected change turns the life at the silent farm upside down and brings together environmentalists, students, tourists and reporters.
The book stays focused on Dellrobia's story when she joins as an assistant with the scientists trying to decipher the phenomenon. She develops a crush on her boss and through their dialogues poses some important conversations on role of scientists in educating the masses on climate change. There are some hard-hitting takes like how environmentalists propose irrelevant pointers to avoid global warming that leave most of the common folks out of the journey. And of course, the media baiting was nicely done.
The most fascinating part for me is the writing. Barbara Kingsolver is a wizard when it comes to words and she finds some of the most beautiful ways to express ideas. She dares to present an unromanticised mother, the way they are, who wants peace and quite and time for herself. Her sassy friendship with her best friend and the witty diatribes worked well.
"She wondered if humiliation would run it's natural course and peel off like sunburn"
“The last generation's worst fears became the next one's B-grade entertainment.”
“Will you explain to me why people encourage delusional behavior in children, and medicate it in adults? That’s so random. It’s like this whole shady setup.”
She is definitely an author I want to read more of.
Mod
Rating: 3 Stars
Review: When you read a series beyond the third book, I think you get to know the template of the novel by it's predecessor. It does not mean you can't make it interesting - like why don't we make the author a prime suspect in a murder investigation?
After the insipid third book, Horowitz sort of makes a comeback with this book - which has us invested in the story from the first chapter. Anthony and Hawthorne are done after the three book contract and Anthony is busy with his story for the stage production. One of the critics who offers a scathing review of the first day play is killed with Anthony's dagger(?) and his hair and fingerprints are on the knife.
A scorned police seargent is after him with a reason and he has no choice but to reach out to his "friend" Hawthorne who works against time to keep Anthony out of jail.
The template of a flashback to past crime(s) at 60% is followed and sometimes I wonder if it is really all necessary. Yet, this book kept it's cool without going overboard on the motive and yet execution used a lot of coincidences.
If the last chapter is to be believed this is just the 1st book in the new book contract of 4. Wonder if we are going to wait till they share a tender moment.
Mod
Rating: 5 Stars
Review: If there is ever a silent metamorphosis in books - it is that self help books have reinvented themselves from being high handed and preachy to logical and reasoning.
Atomic habits is that book that everyone should read and imbibe rather than review. Reason - it is a very practical way to approach improvement by creating tiny changes. While i myself have driven multiple kaizen programs across organisations - it is very different when it comes to your own habits due to 2 reasons - self awareness and motivation. And hence i found this book filled with oodles of sense - the simple, practical approach to drive 1% improvement every day.
I had already read Charles Duhiggs power of habit that details out the theory of habit formation. Here James Clear brings it to application by engineering stimuli/cues, redesigning environment and tools to keep you on track.
This is one of the books made to gift to people and appear non condescending (as against something like 'how to win friends'). Of course i read it after almost the entire world had read it.
A useful and recommended book.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: Alavayan - an alternate sequel to Mathorubagan is the world of Ponni and the women. Following after the dramatic climax of Mathorubagan (one part woman), it imagines a world where Kaali commits suicide at the shame and now it is Ponni coming into her own breaking her dependencies.
The writing is raw and in almost a matter of fact tone of three women - Ponni, her mother in law and mother - the author shatters every construct of today's modern appropriateness. Of normalised incest and temple orgies - the world of Perumal murguan can be a social bubble burster. The fact that the tale is interwoven with an all-women struggle with lamentations, hope and resilience makes it a book of hope.
The book did raise a few thoughts. The village custom that if a wife is found with a child after her husband's death she has to declare to the entire village that the father was indeed her husband and nobody in the village should ever doubt it afterwards - Isn't this a barb wire fence of a community? The book's departure into supernatural gave it an eerie other worldly feel.
This is a powerful book no doubt. Heavy and yet filled with hope while it relentlessly questions the moral fabrics of the society. Maybe why people live in the present is not to confront the past.
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: Anyone in their right mind would never undertake to write a novel in the first place. Given the circumstances, therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to be deranged as long as you are aware of that fact.”
Murakami's Novelist as a Vocation is one of those books that is more fun for the how things are conveyed than the what. This one part memoir, one part peek into the writing process and one part advice to aspiring novelist often contradicts itself and gets jarring in it's "advice".
And yet, the book helps understand the mind that creates that unique brand of fiction that non-Japanese love. What makes the writer step out and write in simple English such complex ideas. As he clarifies, this is his chosen style since he is not sure of how to differentiate himself from his Japanese peers. He also touches upon the significance of literary awards (none), the problem with the Japanese cultural ethos and how the creative writing process is less fun and more of sanctioned forced labor.
The author is highly opinionated and that is something I admire - though I might not agree. If you are a budding novelist or an author looking for inspiration - this book might achieve a bit of the opposite - deglamorizes the entire game and lays it out threadbare. Still this is worth a read since his best advice is to read thousands of books if you want to write.
Sane book - but not the one you expect.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: “What is a game?" Marx said. "It's tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. It's the possibility of infinite rebirth, infinite redemption. The idea that if you keep playing, you could win. No loss is permanent, because nothing is permanent, ever.”
Towards the end of the book the two main characters - Sam and Sadie - discuss on how reality needs a few VFX fixes like how the moon needs to be a bit brighter and the buildings could do with a bit of blur. I smiled at this. If you have ever played a game in a console on a summer afternoon, you know how true this is. It is all consuming making you lose touch with the "reality" and if you have had a particularly good afternoon at the games you feel invincible.
Gabrielle Zevin's tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow is a heart touching story of two friends over three decades, always in love but never lovers, who have the passion of creating new worlds and games hold their life together. All the other characters are NPCs - non-playing characters who still have so much depth and fit into the story. The book crosses each hurdle and keeps leveling up over the decades with personal losses, success and failures and over every phase the friendship evolves.
“This is what time travel is. It’s looking at a person, and seeing them in the present and the past, concurrently. And that mode of transport only worked with those one had known a significant time.”
“Memory, you realized long ago, is a game that a healthy-brained person can play all the time, and the game of memory is won or lost on one criterion: Do you leave the formation of memories to happenstance, or do you decide to remember?”
The writing is really good with clever usage of constructs. You are not the player ever and still you put yourself in the character's shoes easily. The games themselves were interesting in the world they created. I personally loved the idea of "Solution" the first game created by Sadie, not so much about Ichigo. I will not draw parallels, but I loved the way the book kept resisting the urge to bring the two leading characters into a relationship. Because real world cannot be programmed.
“I love that world more, I think, because it is perfectible. Because I have perfected it. The actual world is the random garbage fire it always is. There's not a goddamn thing I can do about the actual world's code.”
"A doorway, she thought. A portal. The possibility of a different world. The possibility that you might walk through the door and reinvent yourself as something better than you had been before.
"You are a gaming person, which is to say you are the kind of person who believes that "game over" is a construction. The game is only over if you stop playing. There is always one more life."
I really liked the world created. It may not be perfect, but flaws are the most real parts of this world.
Mod
Thank you DivReads!
Mod
Rating: 3 Stars
Review: “Perhaps this was the first time I realized how simple it was to act as if certain parts of the past did not exist.”
This is a complex and layered tale that made more sense after reading the author's background. For certain generations, the past is something that you could not wish away and escape starts with protecting the next generation. This book explores lives of a generation just before the 1989 Tiananmen square where Democracy was still a debate in China through the eyes of the next generation.
Su Lan, a brilliant physicist, self made from the working class, has managed to get out of China to America with her daughter. We piece her story through 3 perspectives - a neighbour who sees ghosts and took care of her after childbirth, a schoolmate who gets to hear about Su Lan's death and her daughter Liya. All three narratives move across time and are often contradictory. The image you get of Su Lan, with her physics theories and a sense of hopelessness, is one of someone who wishes to escape.
When Liya embarks on finding the truth about her father which her mother has tried to erase, she opens a pandora's box. In a sense Liya realises everything she knows about her life is constructed by her mother. She is an US immigrant distanced even by language who comes back to Shangai to find out about her family and childhood. Since her discovery is laden with conflicting facts you pause to get into the thinking process of the people from that generation. When there still was hope for Democracy, before the tanks and guns fired did people find ambition and politics linked?
The book does not work on smoothening the edges or tying the loose ends. The introduction chapter about Su Lan's childbirth - a fleeting image of the husband before admission who is not there after the child is born - let's you assume the obvious given the significance of the date. I found the neighbor and her marriage to a blind man a bit eerie and out of place. She thinks she is seeing ghosts and even mistakes Liya for Su Lan. Yet she faithfully reproduces Su Lan's theories - as if it did not have any import on her beliefs.
In the end, I felt I missed quite a lot of context but gained curiosity to understand. I saw a review that called this the "immigrant experience in reverse" and I felt it summed it up best. Confident debut.
Mod
Ratings: 3 Stars
Review: This country will kill you in a heartbeat and still people love it.”
I finished the book and I am pretty ambivalent by the philosophy quoting body-bag counting story set in the drug ridden Mexican border. And oh, it gets a while to get used to reading without punctuations. It does give you a character that can make you hate with all you can muster and still be scared.
Chigurh is a vile character who does not think twice about blowing the brains out of another human being or philosophizing to them and tossing a coin to decide if they should live. He is on the loose from the police. In the deserts of Mexico, where there are more drug deals happening than coyotes, one drug deal goes wrong. Llewyn Moss, a chance hunter, walks away with the bounty - a lifetime earning knowing fully well some people will start looking for it. Problem is Chigurh now knows Moss has it. It starts a ruthless chase and Sheriff Bell, the third POV and a war veteran is trying his best to make sense and save lives.
The book expands the horizon of a crime novel by raising questions on decadence and fairness. The obsessiveness with money that will end up risking everything you ever cared about is borderline craziness. Sheriff Bell too has his past to contend with and he is obsessing over capturing Chigurh before the body counts grow. I found the author's trick of skipping critical episodes and meet us at the aftermath pretty interesting. You are continuously filling the blanks as to what would have happened. Having said that I couldn't make sense of some developments like the hitchhiker.
The last two chapters - long after the episode with Chigurh and Moss are completed, there is morality reflection by Sheriff Bell. And the pointlessness of the chase becomes evident as if it did not matter from the beginning.
Not the same caliber as The Road, but definitely more engaging and easy to read.
Mod
Rating: 2 Stars
Review: “I was nothing to you. You never saw me as equal. You were more concerned that slavery should be a moral stain upon white men than by the actual damage it wreaks on black men.”
For most stories one journey is more than sufficient to develop the character, make them ponder and grow wiser. This book for some odd reason needed multiple journeys, majority of them incredible, to deliver home a point. Therein the book becomes a bit untenable.
Young Wasington Black (Wash) is born a slave on a plantation where people hope to kill themselves to escape from the tyranny. When he is chosen by Titch, the younger brother of the master, for his science experiment because he is the right weight, he did not what he was getting into. Titch is an abolitionist who is secretly trying to fight for equality. He treats Wash with decency and even considers him a friend. When some unforeseeable episode happens at the farm, Titch and Wash escape in a "cloud cutter" - a helium based experimental contraption before the aeroplane from the plantation in Barbados.
From Barbados to a ocean liner to the eskimos to Nova Scotia and finally to London, the book covers the years of growing up through some incredulous episodes. In the meantime the slavery at the plantations is abolished and Wash is still trying to make sense of his identity especially after he loses touch with Titch. Wash gets defined by his abandonment by Titch and so he grows up being wary of white men. He coincidentally runs across his illustration role model and starts working with him on "marine biology".
I did not understand the need for so many fantastic journeys nor did I find it effective in communicating the thread. A 12 year old boy who is taken away from his surrounding is expected to be a skilled artist and a genius scientist. If that was a stretch, you have him design the first aquarium and give away the credit to a white man.
The timeline of the book- I had a problem with the entire setup. I could not share the concerns of Washington Black nor the motives of his white friends. The last reveal, though expected to be a twist, was merely a matter of fact. I am not going to judge Ms.Edugyan- if anything I would judge the Boooker Panel for the hype. Hope to read more of her lyrical writing preferably with lower word count.
Mod
Rating: 1 Star
This is no psychological thirller. This is more like someone inspired by Pshycho has written what seems logical to them (It isn't). Also making almost all the characters women makes it misogynistic too.
The story alternates between present and three years ago when a 5 year old disappears from school and is not found. The narratives alternate between her single mom Toni who was on sedatives after her husband's death and bears the guilt of taking up a job. There is her mother who keeps getting offended and telling Toni what she should be doing. There is a super creepy teaching assistant who wants to prepare the poor girl for the world by harassing her. And there is Toni's real estate agency colleagues and personal friends.
We go through a whole lot of petty squabbles and episodes that take away the severity of the situation and make it seem like a soap opera. It's three years now and we start at the hospital with someone with a locked in syndrome blaming herself for the girl's disappearance and even goes on to believe she knows she is alive somewhere. I was getting frustrated with the continuous bickering unmindful of the crispness. Also, the police and doctors seem to be totally incompetent missing obvious things.
A couple of years ago I read this book called "Black Seconds" by Karin Fossum about a girl's disappearance which made me lose sleep and made me feel anxious. This book, on the other hand, put me to sleep.
Skip it.
Mod
Rating: 4 Stars
Reveiw: Whenever people ask me why I only write about unsolved murders, I always say the same thing: because I hate the guy who got away with it.”
I finished the book and I think the overarching emotion is one of awe. How have these people, citizen helpers, dedicated their life to putting the vilest of humans to justice - immaterial of no personal gains nor popularity. A couple of years ago I had read Michelle Mcnamara's I will be gone in the dark followed by Evil has a name that talks about the hunt for Golden State killer and, in no small measure, explains the contribution of citizen detectives using internet forums and communities to solve crime. What I took to be an obsession at first dawned as an exercise in perseverance.
Billy Jensen is one of the more successful ones who worked shoulder to shoulder with Michelle Mcnamara (and even finished her book for her when she suddenly passed away) but he had his own triggers and influences. The book starts with many searches that do not add up to the utopian good triumphing over bad. But like in Bollywood style, some clues or leads separated by time (at times 15 years or so) help in bringing an closure to the cold cases. Identifying the who is just the first step of the process of justice and it is worth mentioning, that the odds have slightly improved.
The facebook ad campaigns in search of news about an ongoing unsolved crime is one of the more constructive uses of the platform. Aside the DNA matching and family tracing that featured heavily in "Evil has a name" is explained in this book and the constrains of the tool to be solved is also relevant. The resource constraints of the police department and the fast piling cases is a very real thing and the long process of justice served to the victims is also not easily understood.
This book made me develop a respect for all people who go out of their way to contribute to balance the evil in the society.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: “Grief was a hole. A portal to nothing. Grief was a walk so long Hazel forgot her own legs. It was a shock of blinding sun. A burst of remembering: sandals on pavement, a sleepy back seat, nails painted on the bathroom floor. Greif was a loneliness that felt like a planet.”
"She knew violence, from the lifetime she had spent chasing it—she knew how it lingered, how it stained. Violence always left a fingerprint."
There is something about a serial killer that fascinates us all - what part of human psyche can allow to kill someone in cold blood. The victims get irrevocably associated with that killer and people forget all the other characters who were part of their stories till the violence etched everything like acid. This book tries to focus on the other characters in the backdrop of an execution.
Ansal was abandoned as a child by his mother to escape violence. He had a history of violence that started with abuse at the hand of the father, then animal violence and slowly real victims. The focus is not on the act itself but the stories of Lavender (his mother), Hazel (the sister of his wife) and Saffy (an ex-girlfriends and detective). These people piece together his life and interactions in search of if they could have seen what was to happen and done anything to change it. The parallel universe theory which is Ansal's pet theory is also a common thread in all the three narratives - a string of ineffectual "if only" and "what ifs".
The author shows great prowess in portraying emotions and philosophy. The character paths are not spoon fed and like in real life, not all rational. What I felt could have been avoided is the explicit focus on Ansal's magnetism or charisma with every other woman fancying him. It felt a bit reductive - even Hazel and Saffy are not spared from fancying him. Also not understandable is his last victim's devotion to him.
I thought the climax was a bit melodramatic and I do not know why the blue house holds so much significance. We get the most earnest reason for why he killed - "I don't know". The parts narrated by Ansal are in second person narrative "You" which is partly unsettling for the reader - you are forced to put yourself in the shoes of the serial killer - so much for empathy.
I found this a promising author's book!
Mod
Ratings: 3/5
Review: The Plane that wasn't there - I picked this book after seeing the teaser of the Netflix show. Since Jeff Wise seemed to be pretty vocal on the logical reasoning and science part, I expected this book to attempt at explaining the unsolved mystery. I remember the panic and excitement when it happened but slowly it moved out of the conscious concerns list.
I found the book's detailing of the factual events accurate and well researched. The parts that offered a plausible alternative, first started out as a stretch, but then he lines of events and possible evidences to convince you. Will you be convinced? I am not so sure since you have identified a villain who is easy to fear.
I found there is a sequel written in 2019 after every department failed spectacularly in finding the wreckage despite Wise warning them this would happen. By failing to prove him wrong, Wise would try to convince you the 100% of his tale. Plausible and probable are at loggerheads in this with conflicting "data backed insights" and lack fo research. I kept wondering if there was someone hidden in the passenger list that was the intended victim.
As far as documentary books go, this book is a decent one. Peace to the family of all the victims.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: The curious case of history of caste in TamilNadu is most parts retrospective outrage and guilt followed by some parts of violence. When something is an established order - doesn't matter if right/wrong, not many people in/outside the system question them - which is what makes it a societal norm.
Poomani's Piragu talks about the story of a particular downtrodden community in a particular village just after independence. Chakiliya people [from sanskrit for "cow eaters"] earned their livelihood around cattle - prepare the wells, they take care of the farms, breed the cows, make slippers from leather and take care of the carcass/dead. When the societal construct and values changed - they were left unequipped to rise in the world and ended up marginalised. The beauty of the book is that it plays out the entire reactions as apt as it would be in the timeline it happened.
Alagiri comes to the village as a migrant and gets accepted by the community thanks to an elder Kanthaiyan and gets allotted work. Alagiri is soon widowed and ends up with a toddler Mari and he goes and remarries another woman Avadai. The book, through episodes and various snippets of conversations establish the evolving norms or resolve personal vendettas, take us till Alagiri is a old man in the village. The practices and thoughts of the community when it comes to unhappy marriages, community interests or discrimination is understated and never loud. People in the book move on.
Special mention to the narrator who used so many different voices to narrate the story. The writing takes us to the raw language of the people peppered with swear words and aphorisms that make you smile Eg in tamil: "Fight with the guy who shat on your land than with shit". There are quite a few unforgettable characters in the book and some hard hitting chapters.
Hard hitting book which may not be a thriller, but full of life. Definitely one of the very unique books you will read in Tamil.
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: “You go into the dark to get away from what you know, and if you go far enough, you realize, suddenly, that you'll never really make it back into the light.”
This book has my heart and probably a lot more of my thoughts than I normally invest. The book reads like a tripping experience on pages taking you to surreal worlds through words that breaks down a scene into a spectrum of perspectives. When has someone pointed out the contradiction on the popularity of the Dalai Lama while sitting beside him discussing Tibet? Or wondered how Sebald and Ishiguro write more than fiction in the worlds they create filled with characters that are unsettled like ghosts? And the flights into foreign as a means of escape from who you are.
The writing does things to you - like transporting you to the streets and rooms where you were the alien - in the sense of not belonging. When you crossed a face in the crowd and recalled it later for no reason at all. During my consulting phase I was travelling like crazy and used to say that I spend more time at the airports than at client locations and swear, I could remember the air hostesses names on some frequent routes. Sitting in a hotel room, I spent inordinate amount of time on twitter just to have some familiarity to interact with.
Iyer does the opposite - urges you to get lost in the foreignness of the place. In one of the chapters called Nightwalking he explores the state of being jet lagged - how cities come alive in the night like DC's Gotham. In a chapter in Bali - he casts a spell on the night life and paints a magical interaction with a local. The ruins of Ankor sends us cartwheeling into time as the blood shed history of Cambodia meets the hopes of people for a better tomorrow. The colonization of the colonizers language had me laughing.
A bookstagram friend of mine told me this is not even Iyer's top 3 books. I jumped in joy inside with the assurance I have some beautiful worlds to lose myself into later.
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: This book is the life of Alice Kelly who has the rare condition of Synesthesia (dubbed Aura Migraine) whereby she can see the colour of people's aura and lives in a dysfunctional family. It is not clear if she was born with it or developed it later, but she is suffering alimentation and feels cursed. Ollie her younger brother soaks in his mother's blue and red (Depression and Anger) while Hugh her older brother with his Pink (Love) manages to be the beacon of sanity for Alice.
When she goes off to school for difficult children (with anger issues and lack of concentration) due to her mother and later come back home as a carer for her now invalid mother - the events are more fill in the blanks. I was waiting for critical events to happen - but they never did except for when Ollie gets released from Prison and she is forced to go out.
I know the adage it is not the destination but the journey that matters, but Alice's journey is more of the same. It felt a bit like a mega serial (soap opera) with an extraordinary person since the mini-events happened to be nothing life changing or from a novel form story line altering. I did admire the author's conviction to see the world in it's colors and some of it's passages around light and prism to demonstrate maturity. Some parts like wearing a shield or her sales roles through aura mirroring seemed a bit stretched. The last part of her family was in super fast forward mode like done around the publishing deadline.
The book is a laudable effort and appeals to you if you are patient and want to understand a unique life.
ARC: I would like to thank HarperCollins and Netgalley for the ARC of this book.
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: “Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.”
“When you develop your opinions on the basis of weak evidence, you will have difficulty interpreting subsequent information that contradicts these opinions, even if this new information is obviously more accurate.”
“The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know”
“I will repeat the following until I am hoarse: it is contagion that determines the fate of a theory in social science, not its validity.”
Thinkers of every generation have tried to communicate one core principle "Not everything can be explained" which gets lost in our general liking for smooth narratives and popular opinions that get traction enough to become "truths". In that sense this book is more a book of philisophy that asks us to question every expert and forecasting that ignores the very fact that absence of proof is not proof of absence of an imporbable event.
There were quite a few chapters and anecdotes that were totally engrossing. What TTB terms "Extremistan" include most aspects of current human society that people expect to predict that does not follow the bell curve. As a six sigma student, one of the lessons that they try to teach you is that what kind of data can you apply the tools to and surprisingly it matches The Black Swan theory - deterministic data to explain the outcome is an integral part. If you cannot explain something, then you do not have sufficient data. Black Swan assumes that people ignore this disclaimer and hence find it difficult to factor in the "improbable" - like 9/11 or Corona.
Also important is what gets predicted and controlled are no longer black swans. IBM does a comprehensive risk planning workshop which factors preparedness for highly "improbable" events including nuclear war, floods, bank meltdown, hacking attack to see their systems are resilient. Hence the last time the banks collapsed globally systems still continued to run. But it is what is not factored that will bring the company to it's knees.
I found the book having one core idea going on for about 400 pages that makes it a bit trying. But I think the author has done a very good job in preparing people for coming to terms with the unexpected. Poses an interesting question - If someone tries to explain what has happened as a "Black Swan" event - will it defeat the core purpose of the book?
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: "They had long felt troubled and afflicted; there were many things they didn’t understand. They had a hard time understanding why God, the God of beggars, crucified between two thieves, needed such pomp. Why his ministers needed luxury of such embarrassing proportions. Why the God of the poor was so strangely on the side of the rich, always with the rich. Why his words about giving up everything issued from the mouths of those who had taken everything."
Set at the cusp of the Protestant reformation, this almost movie script/wikipedia entry like novella, paints the image of one forgotten people's movement against the rich and powerful church. Thomas Muntzer who was instrumental in firing up the rebellion borrowing God for good measure becomes the central character.
The author's earlier novel "Order of the Day" reimagined conversations behind closed door - but this book did not find the need to. Where things were not recorded, the author sort of paints it as if he was there. Like the rape of a farmer's daughter or the cruelty meted out to Muntzer's pregnant wife to punish. The shock of the class attack on the "bourgeois" is relatable to every revolution that has ever happened. In that way, this book is timeless - not just as a history book.
Muntzer opened up the Bible to the peasants by doing a mass in German which enraged the church. He asked the poor to take up swords if need be and lead a mob of nearly five hundred people to their sure defeat. This book in a sense is the template of any uprising in history. I read up the entries on Muntzer and found he was vilified, martyred, worshipped and then marginalised into the grey forgotten in German history.
As far as narratives go, this book is a product of what is included than what is left out, to make it smooth. Of course, I did not know why this had to be shortlisted for international booker.
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: The Thursday Murder club is a witty, feel good book about a group of septuagenarians trying to solve murder mysteries. Feel good and murder mysteries don't go well unless you are a sociopath, but then this book is an exception since at the core of it is people with good hearts - even all the suspects. The best part of the book is the way the elderly club ends up staying ahead of the police with their unconventional mysterious ways and the charming and intimidating Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, Ibrahim, Joyce and Ron meet every Thursday in the jigsaw room of their old age home to go through old police files and try to solve cold cases. They kind of coax a police officer Donna who comes to deliver a lecture and later her boss Chris into helping them with information and vice versa. When a murder happens right at their door step, they can't stop themselves from being involved / meddling in the affair as it seems fit. The book starts building yarns soon and soon we have 3 murder mysteries to solve and a lot of secrets come tumbling out.
I found it a bit tiring towards the end to understand the logic of the "why-now" question and to be honest, it didn't make any. Logic aside, the book also suffers from too many red herrings - a rookie error if you may call it that. For any lover of mystery, a well rounded story is less important than the satisfaction of reading the clues. This book, that way, remains aloof and unapologetic, using the likeability of the oddball characters to distract you. For example the subplot between the police officers and the romance in their life or the widower who repents the "mistake" he has done.
Lot to like, but not as a murder mystery.
Mod
Rating: 2/5
Review: There's nothing wrong with the book - far from it, it is a memoir of an adventurous life from WW II that can't be repudiated. But the title with Betchley park and Pentagon and a promise of code breaking - the book sets wrong expectations.
Betty Webb, a centenarian and celebrated war veteran, recalls her memories from a time when official secrets act sealed your life from your family. Structured on different aspects of the life - like the life at the billets (accommodation), the staff and in passing some assignments - the book is a detailed reconstruction of the memory. Ms.Webb is honest in stating things like she did not about the Enigma machine or how her job was mostly clerical. She even borrows from an unpublished memoir of another one of the BP women to compare notes.
Sometimes the book feels too much unrelatable content. I did not understand the voyage to the US or the life since war - as in the relevance and context. This renewed interest in history is often vested and hence I felt protective about Ms.Webb being called for veteran’s day and asked to give speeches. Also with so many speeches, the inconsistencies in memory are ironed out and you get a version that need not be the entire truth.
Taking nothing away from the author and her contribution and sacrifice at the time of the war, this is a book that is not the most compulsive read. This is more for research - especially the fiction authors.
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: “The cosmetics that had seemed superfluous were necessary now, not to improve her but to define her somehow.”
Jhumpa Lahiri understands the Confused desi emotions like no other and she writes like she is wielding a painting brush. This collection of short stories is the work I liked the most where she writes near perfect gems that create an impact. While I did like some stories more than the other, the writing is top notch (and hence the 5 stars!).
The first story of a couple dealing with their lost baby over a span of power cuts was powerful and memorable. The other two stories that stood out for me was The third and final continent that almost gives voice to any of the million migrant person's story and Mr.Pirzada comes to dine that speaks of empathy for someone else's misery. Both the stories are hat tips to resonance of emotions irrespective of the differences - pronounced by politics. Mrs.Sen's was a funny warm story while Sexy was a bold hardhitting one.
I am sure, if i read some analysis I will find a common thread for these stories, but for me it did not matter. Here I was listening to the story during a walk and pausing to replay a beautiful passage or appreciate the depth of an interaction. It kept me invested in the lives and probably made me reflect more on the writing.
Definitely recommend this book for someone who is trying to find joy in short story format.
Mod
Rating: 2/5
Review: “Because to live in a world in which no one is forgiven, where all are irredeemable, is the same as living in hell.”
“A man may ask anything of a woman, but unless he wishes to behave like a brute, he must make it possible for her to act in harmony with her deepest self-deceptions.”
"it's not your enemies who condemn you to solitude, it's your friends"
In the surprising author's note, Kundera clarifies this is the fifth translation in English just to ensure there is fidelity to the original text - in terms on tonality of characters and conveying the right attitude. I was surprised since I felt that is the part of the book that was lost in translation. And hence my review is at loggerheads.
Unlike the light and witty existential writer we know, he wears on the coat of great men like Dostoyevsky and Camus in dunking characters in situations and let them be. This was a very different Kundera from all the other books I have read.
Was this a political book? Yes, in the time in which it was released where your idealogies mattered and you could be stamped anything by the people in power. So young Ludwig who writes a silly text as a joke in a postcard to his much older lover in the party - he gets branded against the party. His entire future is hijacked and he is at a pressure to live up to the new label than clearing his name. There are black band division of army who have been labelled and given the most gruelling training regime to do their duty for the nation.
Was this a love story? I am not so sure. Lucie is the woman who torments Ludwig by refusing to give herself to him and consequently make him get in touch with the animal side of him. The closure was shocking. There is also another woman who falls in love with him - his enemy's wife whom he wishes to conquer to take something away from him. The shallowness of the character and the hatred that dominates the protagonists thinking - even while he is helping is not the love of the romance variety.
The parts celebrating the procession of kings - a folk ritual carried on year on year (even today) in Moravia - I did not know what they were. Then out of curiosity I looked it up. The context of an age-old ritual in a changing political climate is explored as observations, cynicism and a vehicle for pointing out the absurdity of the political view points.
On the whole - this was a tough read for me and I did not enjoy it as much as I enjoyed his other books.
Oh PS: This was a banned book when it released.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: Note the tone - I would like to say this to anyone planning to read Basheer and probably have a longish conversation with you if have already read his many masterly writings. This is the fourth book of Basheer I read, third in Malayalam and I can safely say, I lost minimum 30% of the book in translation - and yet loved it.
When a cat strolls into his sprawling household (a mini farm), accompanied by the sounds of conch, where the author and a white leghorn are the outnumbers male species - the dynamics of the household changes. The many friends of his missus in the neighborhood addressed every time as "sowbaghyavathy" have a decidedly high influence on the happenings in the house. Throw in a philosopher Sadhu and a Hindu-Muslim philosophy discussions. Slowly the tale keeps changing shape with entertaining anecdotes and the cat ends up performing it's many "miracles".
The book as a whole was lighthearted and yet if you filter the tone, there is a thinking man's novel. This was the case with his other books as well, where an animal is thrown in as the main character, while social commentary is far more on the top of the author's mind.
Ignore the sarcasm and married men jokes for best results. If there is a translation of this book in Tamil or English, I think I would give it a go again.
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: That was the thing about war. It was everyone's business, a uniquely shared experience, and it made personal responses to it everybody's business, too"
This book is a testament of how best a real incident be reimagined with a POV. During the WWII, cities were bombed frequently on both sides and civilians used to bunker when the sirens go up and come out not knowing what if their house will still be standing. London, in response to the bombings, where men were already at war, rolled out a program for evacuating by sea the children to Australia or Canada so that their future generation is safe from the ravages of war. The children called "seaevacuees" or "Seavacs" were shipped with convoys across the ocean - except when one of the German U-boats decided to hit one such ship. More than 80% of the children were lost at sea and one life boat drifted off beyond the search grid carrying children and escorts. All this is true history.
The book alternates between the POV of 2 strong women characters. Widowed mom Lily has to make the tough decision if she should send her children Georgie and Arthur to Canada during the war. Alice King, a librarian, volunteers as the escort for the children to be useful during the war, leaving the comfort of her sister and CO brother. The book does not rush into the story and keeps building up the characters - like the Air force deserter or the seaman who jumped into the ocean after he couldn't save his wife. Stranded in the ocean for 6 days, the plotline made the reader seasick with the kind of description usage.
Where I felt the author probably missed a trick was making it too easy for the main characters to get what they want. Like how Lily has the confrontation with the MP on not specifically mentioning a clause of "Limit of convoy" or how Kitty is able to get enough data for them to figure out one more lifeboat is still to be rescued.
Other than those small niggles, this is a real fine book which has the right amount of compassion that goes missing in the times of war.
Note: Thank you Netgalley and Harper collins for the ARC of the book. The book releases in June.
Mod
Rating: 2/5
Review: Cary Fagan's Animals was a confusing book for me. Just when I felt the author was going for a fable style modern story, the book took away the focus from Animals and stayed with dangerous humans.
Maybe that was the point. Dorn, a miniaturist in the village is a simple shy man who has to put up with a dysfunctional family and a lady love to whom he can't express his feelings. In this background, the Govt rolls out a scheme for people to adopt wild animals and keep them at home.
The book gives up on this plot only to use it as a pivot for the other plot around complex relationships and attitude towards life. Like how his father at 70 goes off to climb a mountain with his new lover or how Ravenna, a school teacher surprises him when she gets arrested.
I didn't like the book much though it was engaging. Sometimes you wonder just what is the point.
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: The 2020-21 Test series down under was for me, the most defining cricket for the world hobbling back from COVID and lifted spirits of the cricket crazy Indian crowd.
After a humiliating 36 all out at Adelaide, to winning at MCG to saving the Sydney test with sheer resilence to breaching the Gabba - this particular Indian team and the support staff have attained not just fame, but respect from everyone. This insider account by Bharat Sundaresan is one that does with sports writing what was achieved on the tour.
Filled with narratives and chapters dedicated to some heroes (more unsung ones), the book tries to make sense of how this bunch was brought together more by what was happening off the pitches. Injuries, power struggles, media circus - all that is part of a tour down under were magnified by the COVID regulations. As he mentions towards the last chapter "The dressing room changed from who's who to who's left"!
Most chapters made you go back and watch the highlights - sometimes specific days, even sessions. You developed a lot of respect for the likea of Rahane, Pujara, the coaching staff and the Australians. Without getting scandalous, the anecdotes were matter of fact and inspiring.
Fantastic piece of sports writing that captures the spirit of a fight than just give the blow by blow details.
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: Jerry Pinto's murder mystery with a journalist as the protagonist gives him an excuse to explore the most interesting character in the book - Mumbai city. When a brutal murder investigation in a public toilet in Matunga comes the way of retired journalist Peter, who has just discovered his son is homosexual, he gets pulled into the city's gay circuit and corruption.
Showing off his research, the book loses it's interest in the murder at hand, which seems to be solving itself without too much investigative work and more by providence. Characters just confess or willingly tell things to random journalist. The taboo around homosexuality relegates the characters to the dark and prone to exploitation and humiliation. More often than not, the social commentary stands out and there is an indirect messaging on Article 377 and it's implications.
Most of us know Jerry Pinto after his beautifully written Em and the big Hoom. In that context, this book seems like an half hearted attempt though I understand the effort it must have taken to uncover the Indian male homosexuality circuit.
Aside, the title kept bugging me. If it is alliteration they were going for can't it have been Murders in Mumbai or even Matunga for accuracy?
Mod
Rating: 2/5
Review: “Aurel hoped that women writers would disobey the laws that bound men’s books. It was time for women to take language for themselves, Aurel said, even one word at a time, to take their own names and become. To become even one word.”
The most honest review I could write about this book is that I finished it. I could wax eloquently about the writing style, the poetic nature of words deployed and the reimagination of lives lived - but it does not explain the helplessness I felt in placing real people whom I did not know about, whose lives the author seemed to infiltrate.
The women, mostly artists and authors, had to break the societal expectation of women in favor of choice in their personal lives brandishing their love for Sappho and lesbian love. The voice is a collective "we" that bucket characters across time. They have to resort to convention to express themselves in art forms - a male character who is actually a woman in the author's mind.
The problem for me is the writing style which did not account for readers who may lack context. Who may need to know the writing is a lot more than poetic brilliance. Quoting Sappho from time to time throws you off and the social commentary, though intriguing in parts becomes nothing more than an instant emotion that has no bearing on the rest of the story.
Mod
Rating: 5/5
Review: "Hurtling sounds like a little hurt being, like earthling, like something aliens from another planet would land on earth and call human beings who have been a little bit hurt. Take me to your leader, hurtling."
Ali Smith's take on interrupted lives is a rapture of imagination and wit on paper. You can feel the author is enjoying herself writing those words eliciting a "ha-ha" through the character on particular witty word plays. And then of course of note are the literary devices unique to Ali Smith's post modernist writing.
At the center of the story are a family of four - a 12 year old Asterid with her obsession to video journal dawn and record lives, a 17 year old Magnus who is guilty for his role in a classmate's suicide and their parents Eve - an author writing biographies of dead people imagined as living and a Michael an English professor who has affairs with his students. When Amber enters their holiday home and reaches the dining room - everyone assumes she is the other person's guest - thereby explaining the state of the family.
Amber is an enigma - someone the author does not explain purposefully. She is vague and you are left to draw conclusions as to who she might be and why she is there, while she herself talks about cinema and art form in her narrative chapter. She upends the family totally in the first two parts flipping the lives of the members till Eve kicks her out at the end of the second part.
The family comes back from their holidays and find themselves struggling to get back to normalcy. The third part titled End is anything but and the last line of the book makes the whole book changes the perspective of the entire novel.
Ali Smith does not belittle the reader's intelligence with explanations or motives. She would rather dazzle you with a bit of wordplay or puzzle you with constructs so intelligent that you whistle out loud. She scolds her character who comes up with a boring revelation through Amber asking "Is that it?". She even paraphrases Guardian and Independent book reviews to describe Eve's book. That is the craziness of Ms.Smith.
Careful when this author is carrying a pen - you might just make it onto the pages of her next book!
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: "Young humans can be impulsive. The trick is keeping them around long enough to become old humans."
"I didn’t care what humans were doing to each other as long as I didn’t have to a) stop it or b) clean up after it."
"So they made us smarter. The anxiety and depression were side effects."
And the smartass series addicted murderbot (SecUnit) is back, this time making friends with a research transport system called ART. If I thought the first part was an interesting premise for a science fiction, the second book takes it up a notch where systems are communicating with each other and evolving.
The depressed SecUnit decides to find some more about the critical incident that earned itself the name and decides to visit the mines again. It's memory has been wiped about the incident and newspaper reports are it's only clue. Enroute, watching the Sanctuary Moon for the umpteenth time, it finds it's network invaded by the research transport bot. They strike a friendship enough for it to trust ART to do alterations to make it seem like an augmented human who can get a security contract.
The rest of the book is how human clients are a pain and keeping them safe is despite their best efforts to get killed. By the end of the book, we know more about the episode and also we see the Secbot evolving itself towards being wiser and calmer.
Loved the second part in the series!
Mod
Rating: 4/5
Review: That's war, it's when God lags behind the music of men when he can't untangle the threads of so many fates at the same time."
If reading a book can induce you PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), then this book could be a serious contender (Seven Moons will be in the list). With a size that belies the potent and violent content of the book, this shape shifting narrative of the spiral into madness can be a real challenge.
Alfa Ndiyae is one of the "Chocolat" soldiers from Senegal fighting for France in the first world war. He had refused to slit the throat of his wounded "more-than-brother" Mademba Diop and feels guilty for both the suffering and his friend's reckless action. He becomes an avenger who stays back as a corpse after the day's war and inflicts on a German soldier what happened to his friend. He collects back an arm of the soldier as a trophy (and hides them in the salt to preserve them - Yuck).
Initially the French are proud of him, celebrating him as a hero. But after the fourth, they start worrying about his mental state and they try to coax him. A french General, who kills his own troop as a punishment of disobeying, suggests Alfa should take a break. Such parallel episodes exposes the construct of sanity as seen in the time of war.
"Yes, I understood, God’s truth, that on the battlefield they wanted only fleeting madness. Madmen of rage, madmen of pain, furious madmen, but temporary ones. No continuous madmen. As soon as the fighting ends, we’re to file away our rage, our pain, and our fury."
The second part of the book disoriented me a bit as a doctor tries to cure him. We get to the know the Senegalese upbringing - of his mother who was taken away, his obsession with art and the brotherhood. There are quite a few references here to the African exploitation by colonies, but the focus keeps shifting back to the two men and one woman.
The last two chapters change the colour of the book with an absolutely unseen turn. The book packs quite a punch in less than 150 pages and I can see why it won so many awards.
Not for the weak hearted.
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: The pathetic hope of an honorable exit had consumed thirty years and millions of dead, and this is how it all ends! Thirty years for such a farewell. Maybe dishonor would have been preferable.
According to Mr.Vuillard, Wars are the most meaningful things to happen since they are cold and logical. Idealogies are peddled to lobby support, but the ultimate motive is greed. So he urges us to call battles in Vietnam by it's proper name - like Battle of Cao Bang is actualy The Battle for the Pewter Mining company of Cao Bang.
Reads more like an all knowing documentary, the book starts with a visit to a rubber plantation in Vietnam where labourers are tortured and suicides are a norm. In parallel he speaks of Michellin reporting profits. These sorts of juxtapositions pave wave to outright allegations of who said what behind closed doors that changed the war. There are too many scenes of what seems like unconnected events that bring out the gigger hidden picture of the economics of a war.
Like the French General who slips up in a media interview and recovers by invoking socialism. Or how the business families make sure the wealth stays in the family by marriage alliances, which with a pause, the author calls incest. Or how the industrialists offer to sell nuclear weapons to Indo-china to put an end to the war. The allusion to well choreographed global events sometimes makes you wonder - what is the author not saying.
I liked the book since it was dealing about the French occupation of Vietnam. What I didn't is the French names and contexts that I couldn't keep track of.
Eric Vuillard is in his comfort zone writing this book.
Mod
Rating: 3/5
Review: “When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue—you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night—there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean.”
Christopher Morley's old world book Parnassus on Wheels is set in a time around 1900 when Feminism is about a woman making her choices and standing by it. While the essence holds, written by a male author, this book silently undermines the aspirations and wants.
Helen addresses herself as a "fat old spinster", who keeps count of the days she is left to cook and cleanup while her farmer/author brother Andrew trods off on writing books. She silently burns the letters he gets so that he doesn't get encouraged more and even a commission to write another book. She is bored and disgruntled when the "Professor" lands at her farm. He wants to sell his Parnassus - a travelling bookshop with a horse and dog to her brother so that he can write his own book.
Helen decides to buy it herself and go on a holiday to sell her books. She writes a taunting letter to her brother and sets off quickly before her brother returns. The duo of Professor and Helen travel together and experience the life of a travelling salespeople - enthralling neighbours and people with conversations about books and smoothly selling them books.
The chapters around books were ok. But when Andrew catches up with duo or later when Professor stays back to ensure she is safe, the book goes back to "old world charm" of damsel in distress. Extremely predictable, but then the book was supposed to be a warm cozy read between all the war and gory books.
Simple read.
Mod
Rating: 2/5
Review: “Y’all got a good reason to hate. All the wrongs been done to you and yours? A people who been whipped and beaten, hunted and hounded, suffered so grievously at their hands. You have every reason to despise them. To loathe them for centuries of depravations. That hate would be so pure, so sure and righteous—so strong!”
Last year I read Perceival Everett's Trees which wanted to bring back the dead and wronged back to avenge the racist white men - Blacks, Indians and Asians. This book is a fantasy that dwells on the hate as a weapon of destruction and healing through a collective reliving of the tragedies.
Having said that, the book doesn't make it easy with sassy Black and Brown girls in the ring taking on monsters. Klu Klux Klan are monsters in disguise killing black families and there is a threat of rise of the Cyclops. There is quite a bit of allusion to the returning of the dark age (irony) what with "Birth of a nation" getting ready for a rescreening - the original movie The Clansman was a source of hate. Contrast it with the make America great again campaign and we have a fantasy of allegories on how normal people can become monsters.
I probably lost patience with a zombie movie like plot with predictable tropes for the hero. The fantasy elements like magic sword and summoning ghosts to avenge were not the most convincing for me. I do not understand white hate. I do not understand the healing in hatred and so this book was more of gore.
Not my genre - despite great narration.
Indian Readers
Books mentioned in this topic
The Rumor Game (other topics)Loitering With Intent (other topics)
The McKinsey Way (other topics)
We Could Have Been Friends, My Father and I: A Palestinian Memoir (other topics)
"What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character (other topics)
More...
Challenges:
Challenge 1: 10 Non-Fiction
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Challenge 2: 10 Regional Language Books (Tamil/Malayalam/Hindi)
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Challenge 3: 20 Award Winning/Shortlist books
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Challenge 4: Bookerslam (attempt)
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