Open Confession to a Man from a Woman by Marie Corelli

So I got this book lying around with some old books which I took out recently from the packed boxes. I didn't even know the author when I started reading it, and went ahead for the sole reason of the title of this book. Of course, the book being only 114 pages on a small size paper in a big type was also a reason, and I completed the book in 2 hours flat in 2 days.

While reading the book I got curious about the author, and found some interesting details about her. Her novels actually far exceeded in sale to her contemporary authors which count  Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and Rudyard Kipling all put together. This was some serious news for me, and I dived deeper into the book.

The book was very interesting, and initially I took as a memoir or a soliloquy. But as I moved ahead I realised that this book is simply written by a jilted lover. The initial pages were good, and were written very well but once the venom started it became a bit annoying. She actually wrote like she is a queen, and the poor lover is a cur from some deep dungeons. I know I can be judged as what is commonly known as male chauvinistic pig but there were a lot of mentions where the author tried to give upper hand to all her decisions, and it was all the mistake of her lover or a basic nature of a man in general.

She mentioned a lot of things which she appreciated in the early part of their relationship, and after break up (he actually married some other girl) she found all his traits mere trifle. She even sympathised with the girl whom her lover married, such a sham. And she justified it by proving that marriage is something which kills the romance from people's life which was the most absurd of the objections. I actually felt that this was the main reason for her hatred towards the institution called marriage, but I bet given a chance she'd have done it first thing herself.

She in fact sounded so rude while glorifying her own achievements. Of course, she said that all man around her are jealous of her success while not knowing that there were a lot of men who were actually paying to buy her novels. But accepting this fact would be belittling her own argument.

I didn't feel quite write after completing the book so no matter how famous she was I'm not going to read any of her novel in future.

Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh

Finally, I read the last of the Ibis trilogy, and ended up wanting for more.

This is the last book of the trilogy, and it is as good a story as the prior two parts. There are some new characters, and the story extends further to what happened to the runway prisoners of Ibis.

The story telling is in it's best form and I couldn't put it down (not literally as I was reading the ebook). It took some 15 hours of reading spread over 3 weeks, and I feel like I'm reading slower now even when I was engaged so much with the narration.

One thing that happened very frequently with me was that I was able to connect the dots across the narration. I was aware of the outcomes of a lot of things, and twists before even reaching them. This may be due to the fact that I've already read the first two parts, and I was aware of Amitav's style of writing. The events which I guessed easily were the the tryst of Zachary, fate of Mrs Burnham & captain, fate of Shireen & Zadig, and Ah Fatt.

There is long list of references which are too big to look at but as mentioned in the epilogue I was not very sure if it was based on real story. We know the details of opium war and world war, which writer has included beautifully. I was not really looking for some real facts, and the story itself is a reward of reading it, forget about how much is fact based and how much is fictional.

A good read, but you will have to finish the first two parts first to keep running through the narrations and not referencing to the previous books to understand anything which happened in previous journey.

Peace 

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

It took me a while to finish this book. It actually took me 2 months to read all those 720 pages, and given that it took him 3 years to write, it was worth it.

If you're aware of Dickens' style of writing than you can't be untouched with the do good, and happy ending spirits in his novels. This is the 3rd novel of Dickens which I read after A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. I love the way he writes which keep the readers engaged, and no matter what people end up seeing the goodness in the end.

The whole story revolves round the two girls Bella, and Lizzie who look at life differently but ended up with the best a life can offer.

I'll not go in the details of the plot as that is not my aim here. But I'd like to mention that the characters were quite evolved, and portrayed in the best way possible. However, I doubt that we'll get some of those moral characters in our day to day life. They sound so perfect, and generous that they seem to be impossible to exist.

This I'm not registering as a complaint but a lot of times the situation were a lot dramatic and I understand that a writer has to keep that curiosity alive and their reader engaged.

In a nutshell, gem of a read, but need a lot of patience to reach the end. There will be many moments when a reader feel that s/he can guess the end, and I assure you that your guess will be correct. But beauty lies in completing the book otherwise we could have read a one page synopsis of the book.

Peace