Books of January

It has been ages since I sat down and wrote anything other than grocery lists. Today I mustered enough superhuman force within to overcome an inertia that has been crushing me. I don’t know where Zuckerberg is with his books, but I am glad to say I’ve been chugging along quite well thank you. Let me start at the beginning of January with the Irish.

The Irish can almost never let me down. Colm Toibin’s “Blackwater Lightship” was one of the best books I’ve read in recent times. Three generations of women come together to set aside their differences to care for the much adored male member of the family who is dying from HIV. What amazed me was how well Colm Toibin can write in the voice of women, that too three generations of them! The humanity in the book, makes you overlook the bleak theme and eggs you to keep reading one page after the other. Made me want to read more of Toibin’s works. 

 On the other hand his countryman John Banville nearly bored me to death with “The Sea”. Oh yeah the language was beautiful and poetic and all that, but the pace was just too slow. As I mostly read before bed time I found it so hard to stay awake with this book in hand. Reminded me of a beach in Kerala called Kovalam where the waves are really slow, that it can put you in a lull – very beautiful in a beach, too soporific in a novel.

1Q84 by Murakami, a 1000+ page Odyssey of sorts hands down ranks as one of the weirdest books I’ve read. I know that criticizing Murakami is akin to committing sacrilege to some folks, but c’mmon this book should’ve been half its size! The third part especially when we all know fully well that the hero and the heroine will meet was drawn out like a daytime soap or one of those Indian Megaserials, that my mom watches that never seem to end. I think Murakami got the message, as Colorless Tsukuru had to be one of the shortest books from him and he toned down on the weirdness. In an ode to Proust, one of the characters remarks that “In search of lost time” is the perfect book to read if you are confined to solitary prison, or under house arrest or marooned on a desert island. You can now add 1Q84 to that list as a backup to Proust.

Then came “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter” by the Noble prize winning Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. Based on the author’s love affair and marriage as an eighteen year old to his 32 year old divorced Aunt (by marriage) Julia, the book chronicles young Mario’s life as an aspiring writer and radio news editor along with the life of a serial scriptwriter Pedro Camacho. Pedro Camacho is hired to churn out radio serials which he does very successfully and at breathtaking speed at first. The serials are presented to us in an alternate chapters of the book, and as the book progresses we see the serials getting weirder as Pedro suffers a breakdown and spirals downwards to end up in a lunatic asylum. The book is packed with comic capers that can make a sitcom envious. Llosa also takes a dig at classifying art into high and low art – Proust Vs Camacho, artistic movies Vs radio soaps. Overall a great read for OBOC – Peru!

I haven't piled up the books for February yet and haven't picked out my OBOC choice, but I do have "In the heart of the sea" and "Wolf Hall" that I want to do this month. Both are coming to the visual medium soon, and I want to read them before I watch them.

In other book news was thrilled to hear Harper Lee's sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird" will be published in July. Needless to say I have pre-ordered my copy of "Go Set a Watchman" and will eagerly await the book.

Prospects for 2015

I spent the first day of 2015 in an international flight over the Pacific in the company of my family and my books (you could say with my two biggest loves). If you read my last post you might have noticed I took an end of year resolution to read Ulysses. I am happy to report this quest is well underway and it has been an absolute JOY! No, I am not done … yet, but I have crossed the turnaround point for most people and have tunneled my way through the prose and have been well rewarded so far. Will have more to say once I am done with this quest.

 

One book which I read as a precursor to Ulysses on my way to India proved to be extremely useful, illuminating and was such a great read, that I have to recommend it to others who have always wanted to get into Joyce’s masterpiece but have held back. Kevin Birmingham’s The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses. How can a book about a book be so full of intrigue and adventure, and such fun to read? Kevin Birmingham is qualified to write a heist thriller for the screen – that’s how well he has portrayed the cast of characters, told the back story, and described the battles for the book fought both on and off courts across continents. While Joyce and Ulysses might be the central characters of the book, the supporting cast of Ezra Pound, Sylvia Beach, Harrier Weaver, Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, T.S.Eliot, Hemingway (in a minor role) and the villains (Comstock specifically) are names that are not to be taken lightly. I loved the book as it clearly established two things in my mind 1) Importance of Ulysses in breaking barriers for all art and artists in the 20^th century 2) Without courageous women Ulysses would not exist. Hands down, the best non-fiction I read in 2014!

2015 began with an amazing book – Richard Flanagan’s Booker winner “The Narrow Road to the Deep North”. Many many years ago when I was in middle school, my dad dragged my brother and I to a movie which he thought was a must-watch for us. It was the William Holden, Alec Guiness starer “Bridge on the River Kwai”. As I read “Narrow Road”, I couldn’t avoid flashes of the movie entering my brain. Set during WWII the subject matter of both involve building the Burmese Railway by POWs under unimaginable circumstances and extreme duress. But “Narrow Road” moves beyond WWII and follows the life of the protagonist Doctor Dorrigo “Big Fella” Evans as he survives the camp and becomes a national hero in his home country Australia. In many ways Dorrigo’s life after the war seems a lot more painful than during the war (“It’s the everyday living that does us in”). What does it mean to be a good person, a hero to the outside world when inside you feel that all of it is just a charade and lies? Dorrigo and his counterpart Nakamura find their post war lives completely dominated by their experiences on “The Line” and they live with such internal conflict for the rest of their long lives. “Do you still believe in God? Dunno Colonel. It’s human beings I’m starting to wonder about” – haven’t we all felt like this at some point (today especially after hearing about the shootings in Paris). A poignant book that will remain with you, and am glad it kept Richard Flanagan from going to  work in the Tasmanian mines and focus on his writing, as we really need to hear from him more.

With that powerful start, I am hoping 2015 will remain a good year for me and my reading adventures. It was also good to hear about Mark Zuckerberg’s resolve to read a book every other week in 2015! If 2015 is anything like 2014 I should be able to achieve that. Am working on two in parallel this week – The Sea and Blackwater Lightship, in addition to Ulysses. Certainly looks like an Irish month!

End of the year resolution

I wrapped up this year’s OBOC with Suad Amiry’s “Sharon and My Mother-In-Law: Ramallah Diaries” as the book from Palestine. I had originally thought I would read one of Raja Shehadeh’s works for Palestine, but was thrilled to find this book which also helped me towards my goal of reading more woman writers this year. Also marked my 93^rd book for OBOC – had hoped to hit 100 this year, but oh well a couple of 700 pagers and writings from my other favorite writers came out to distract me this year, so I fell short of the 100. 

 Back to this book. No matter where you fall in the matter of Israel and Palestine, what your opinions on who is doing what to whom, this book is well worth your time. Yes, it distinctly represents the Palestinian voice, but that is a voice we don’t hear in the media/ public often.  

How does one carry on living amidst curfews, shortages and ridiculous bueraucracies? How does it feel to live your life knowing your fate is being determined not by you, but in distant places like Oslo, Washington by people who don’t have to stand in line for 3 hours to get a loaf of bread, or get an Israeli id for your dog so the dog can get vaccinated, or deal with having a wall suddenly come up on land you were growing olives on or having to prop up a 90 year old woman over a fence to get her out of a curfew zone? Suad’s recipe is a bit of insanity, mixed with unwavering stubborness and a generous helping of humor.

Of late I have found myself in some ridiculous situations (sometimes at work, on the road, dealing with contractors etc) when I caught myself laughing instead of getting bogged down. Although light years from living in Ramallah, I felt Suad’s style of writing and her view on life and that of average Palestinians has a lesson for me.

Switching gears I picked up “The Dubliners” by Joyce again, and found myself enjoying it more this time around. I have a general fascination for Ireland don’t know why (maybe it was mind boggling for an Indian to associate fair-skinned folks with victims of colonialism). I devour Irish movies or movies set in Ireland, love their folk music, and their writers. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, release of Mandela, I think the Good Friday Agreement ranks as one of the important events fueling optimism around the world for people of my generation. 

Anyway I’ve told myself I would visit Dublin only after I read and understand Ulysses so that might be many many years from now. Maybe my daughter would read it before I do! But “The Dubliners” on the other hand is a fascinating read coming from someone who is not a fan of short stories. I have seen Dublin in my mind’s eye thanks to Joyce’s evocative descriptions, and this re-reading has prompted me to ditch all my other efforts and attack Ulysses one more time like Mahmud of Ghazini who plundered India 17 times (only in my case, much more timidly and so far unsuccessfully over 17 years almost!). This time I am well armed with guides that claim to help me go through Ulysses with a cheat sheet and a compass. 

That’s my end of the year resolution!

Morbid Musings

Atul Gawande, Margaret Atwood, Kira Salak, PJ Harvey and Cillian Murphy pretty much made it a morbid November for me. Maybe it is the change in season bringing early darkness that draws me to such stuff; whatever the reason, the mind has been mooring in morbid lands at least on paper and on screen.

I read "Being Mortal" over the weekend. A fantastic piece of work by Dr.Atul Gawande, that is so very needed particularly in a time when we think we can and should fix everything! I recommend the book to everyone who is part of the sandwich generation like me - caring for young ones, while also caring for aging parents. I know that end of life decisions are not great conversation starters under any context, but if you've had to deal with anyone with terminal illness in your life, this is a book to read. Took my mind back to a decade when I had to make such decisions on behalf of my dad, and to some extent on behalf of a friend much younger than I. Dr.Gawande does not offer ready made prescriptive solutions, but by sharing some intimate experiences both as a surgeon and as a son he gives us great ideas on how to deal with the inevitable.

Atwood is one of my favorite writers period, so I picked up "Stone Mattress" her latest work - 9 short tales, that tackle everything from aging, imperfections, aggression. Typical of her works most stories have an undercurrent of dark humor. The title tale was my favorite and also had an ingenious murder woven into the plot. I wondered why she referred to these short works as tales instead of stories. Having read them I see they all had some unsettling elements, something macabre, almost ghostly that maybe they did share more things in common with folk/fairy tales.

I then read "Cruelest Journey" by Kira Salak as part of OBOC - Niger. Yes I cheated here, the Niger Kira was journeying on was the river not the country, and most of the action was in Mali. Still I had heard of her and had wanted to read one of her books, so chose it for Niger. A woman goes kayaking for 600 miles on the Niger all by herself, attempting to re-create Mungo Park's historical journey - she had me hooked! What an adventure, and she is a great writer too! I loved the book as she also quotes extensively from Mungo Park, and compares and contrasts her experience with her predecessor's and we find that not many things have changed in 200 years! Kudos to Kira and I hope to read more of her works in the future. Makes me want to pack my bags and start traveling again, although unlike Kira, I prefer hot showers, nice beds, and actual food as opposed to Snicker bars.

The soundtrack of this month has been all PJ Harvey all the time. Thanks to Cillian Murphy and the Peaky Blinders I've revisited PJ Harvey's tunes a lot this month. "When under the ether" especially is playing constantly in my mind and rounds out morbid November for me.

I plan to take a break from OBOC and catch up on some more Murakami and Louise Erdrich this holiday season. Also trying to wrap my head around "The Science of Interstellar" by Kip Thorne.

So much to read and so much to see and so little time....nope not being morbid, just behind at chores:)

OBOC - Netherlands and Nicaragua & Murakami's latest

Just when you think you've read a million books about the Second World War, you discover there is one more "must read" book that you somehow overlooked. "The Assault" by the Dutch author Harry Mulisch was one such book for me that I doubt if I would have picked up but for OBOC.

12 year old Anton's life is forever altered the night his family was executed by Nazis as a retaliation for the murder of one of their own by the resistance. Anton's family only mistake was geographical. The murder of the police officer happened in their street and the body was moved in front of their home by one of their neighbors. Following such a dramatic event, the rest of Anton's life seems almost uneventful. Adopted by his uncle and aunt, he graduates from college and has a career as an Anesthesiologist, falls in love, marries and has a child and is actually a good father, but as a reader you end up thinking this can't be real! There is a certain level of disengagement that Anton feels that you as the reader end up sensing that he has not yet completely put things behind him.  Sure enough, chance encounters with people from the past makes him confront the history, albeit reluctantly. During these episodes we come to learn about the incident, and what really happened and why. I found the book riveting with the drama coming not from action but from inaction. Fascinating read!

Onto Nicaragua. I chose "The Inhabited Woman" by Gioconda Belli. Really wanted to like this book. Loved the premise. Lavinia the heroine is from one of the upper class families of the fictional country of Faguas. She is fiercely independent, outspoken, smart and a strong feminist, but lives very removed from the struggles faced by the working classes of her country. How she transforms from her bourgeois background to an underground guerrilla taking up armed resistance forms the crux of the story. The story is told in alternate chapters with two points of view - one the life of Lavinia, the other the spirit of an Indian warrior woman who inhabits the orange tree in Lavina's backyard and infuses her spirit of freedom into Lavinia's mind and body.

I liked the premise of the story and although a fairly long book it was a reasonably quick read, but I just didn't connect with the voice of the story. I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende and many other voices from Central and South America and their rich tradition of magical realism. In this novel it seemed a bit too contrived. Still worth reading as the political climate and its impact on everyday life was beautifully done.

Now onto a non-OBOC book. "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his years of pilgrimage" had to be the most anticipated book this year. Launch of a book by Murakami is probably the only event that comes close to the launch of an iThing by Apple - religious fervor, anxious anticipation, long queues. So when I made the reservation for the book in my local library I had no hope of reading it this year (and the fact that I reserved it in the library should tell you I am not one of the serious Murakami fans) Surprisingly I was able to get the book much earlier than anticipated, and I wrapped it up in 2 days partly because the book was short and hard to put down, and partly because I didn't want to deprive other serious Murakami fans. This book I would say is a good introduction to Murakami for anyone who is dreading reading anything he has written. This is an easy entry, and has enough poetry and enough humanity to keep you enticed, and enough ambiguity to make you ask "Huh? what just happened here?". I won't say more but I regret not paying more attention to the train station of Shinjuku when I was in Tokyo. Give it a shot if you've never read Murakami or an experienced reader.

OBOC - Zimabwe and Nepal + a couple more

Work related travel and waiting in the Jury lounge have fringe benefits that aid readers like me to quickly get through their reading pile. So here I go, two more countries done – Zimbabwe and Nepal. Picked “We need new names” by NoViolet Bulawayo for Zimbabwe and “Arresting God in Kathmandu” by Samrat Upadhyay for Nepal.

In “We need new names” NoViolet describes the slow decline of her country under Mugabe leading to emigration of many to neighboring countries and to the West. It traces the life of Darling, a  girl born in post-colonial Zimbabwe, who roams around the shanty town ironically called Paradise with her gang of friends, stealing guavas from rich neighborhoods and shoes from corpses. She is offered an escape to the west as her aunt lives in “Destroyedmichigan”, but she soon realizes despite life being much better than in Paradise, America was not really the Paradise she had imagined.As most immigrants Darling becomes acutely aware of her outsider status despite her efforts to fit in, and has mixed feelings about leaving Zimbabwe. NoViolet describes the feeling of belonging neither here nor there beautifully, and there were a few passages in the book that resonates with any immigrant even if you have not fled your mother country because of war or poverty. Overall a good book, although I had some minor issues with the writing style - seemed to be a bit contrived and focus is more on the style. Still an awesome debut!

"Arresting God in Kathmandu" on the other hand failed to arrest my attention. As the first novel written in English from Nepal, it received rave reviews, and I can see why - the stories are all about juxtaposing the modern with the traditional. I thought after my recent positive experiences with short stories, I will be more inclined to read short stories, but this one did not appeal to me much, and none of the stories stayed with me.

Besides OBOC have been reading a couple of other great books. "The Goldfinch" by Donna Pratt  was a fantastic read, and very hard to put down. At 700+ pages it is not a book for the faint-hearted, but well worth the effort. I was on a 5 hour flight after a really long day, and thought I will start the book and then get some shut eye. Instead i reached home wide eyed and wired up and stayed up for a couple more hours reading the book. My only gripe, the book could've used some editing - the last section in Amsterdam was too dragged out and went on and on like a stream of consciousness narrative (which are always hard for me to read).

Just wrapped up "The Plague of Doves" by Louise Erdrich who is fast becoming one of my favorite contemporary women writers. I finally understand what one means when they describe the writing is lyrical. Absolutely loved the book.

A big let down was "A visit from the goon squad" by Jennifer Egan. I really wanted to like this book. I like puzzles, warped timelines, twists and even enjoyed the chapter written in powerpoint. But I feel the book focused so much on form and style over plot and substance. I don't know why it received the Pulitzer, maybe for the innovative style? To me it is fundamental that fiction should have a plot. Gimmicks are secondary. That's why i loved "The Luminaries" - despite all the gimmicks, hidden tricks, the plot was strong and was a perfect combination of Literary + Genre fiction. "Goon squad" on the other hand was probably written for other writers and not for readers.

I have 4 more to read on my book pile and will write about those when I get done. Have been very busy with children's literature as this is the "Golu" season and i wanted to pick out books for all our young visitors. Keeping my fingers crossed and hoping they would love my selections just as my own young one did.