The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

I was reading a lot of serious stuff that I made it a point to read something else just for the heck of reading something light.

I looked at this one and thought of one more movie which is going to be unwatched.

This is a monologue of a successful financial analyst in US. And the uncomfortable part of the narrative is that it moves as a knee jerk reaction. It is less surprising and more annoying to keep reading it this way. They call it metafictional and it sounds like an ornamental title.

It is more like a one sided love story, a lot critical of US foreign policy, psychological derangement, and construed plot of a geographical war. I could've said it has a good pacing but it was regularly interrupted by schoolgirls, chai, snacks, jalebi, kababs, family and the waiter at the hotel who don't add anything to the plot or ambience.

I guess the movie might have been different (which will stay unwatched) given the kind of medium it is but the book can be excused.

Peace

The Grandmothers by Doris Lessing

 The noble-ity continues.

Another master piece. This is a collection of four short novels and "The Grandmothers" is one of them.

All four of them reach out to you in a different way and leaves you with a different emotion.

Can't say anything about the plots and characters but it is worth a read.

Love

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots by Deborah Feldman

Of course I wanted to read since there was a series on it.

I could have seen it with New York Times bestseller tag but I went with it anyway.

The books touches a sensitive topic but not sure if it does the justice. A lot of passages sound incoherent and out of place.  And rather than developing the characters it sounded more like blaming everyone else around. Looking at all the pictures from childhood to marriage to motherhood it is difficult to connect the narrative to them.

We carry our crosses and some of us come out shining to tell the tale. But this was not the tale.

Peace

Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro

 This is going to be that Nobel laureate time.

This is a compilation of five stories around the music and nightfall. And I must say that these two fits into every story very well.

I was very keen on the music part of it and it was good to see that not all of them are musicians. Few of them were just music lovers but that doesn't falter the momentum of the narrative.

Second thing, it being about music I was looking for something around the cello. I don't know why but cello and piano sound more like music to me than guitar. Glad to find it in the last but the splendid story.

Music is something which is mostly conceptualise as an art form but that sounds like a narrow look from the listener. For a musician it might just be the way of life. Any kind of thought needs a reciprocation or at least a recognition. In case of music it is not required because music is something which can exist without any medium. It will sound abstract as long as the idea is limited only to the music that we listen to irrespective of the genre. Music is beyond existence which is impossible to convey by any material means.

I'll not go into each one of them but it was definitely a great read.

Love

New Selected Stories by Alice Munro

Alice Munro is a Nobel Prize winner for literature. I was not aware of it until I picked this book. And I was not really sure if the Nobel prize was given for the story writers. I don't know why but I thought it was given to the novelists and poets. While looking for more information I saw that it was given to Bob Dylan for poetry and songwriting. This was a breather to know that it is not limited to the larger formats like novels only.

Well I read this, and was amazed how beautiful these stories are. I read these stories and felt that every single one of them has the potential to be a novel but that doesn't diminish the affect of the story. It only enhances the art of narration in brevity.

The best part that all the characters in these stories sound so real. It is possible that you might not have heard of any such real person around you but reading about them creates that sense of familiarity which can be attributed to the brilliance of the author.

One thing which I encountered was a claim that a she is a feminist writer, and I saw one of her interviews where she says "I never think about being a feminist writer, but of course I wouldn’t know." I understand that this is as good as a writer can say about her/his style of choosing the story they want to tell. If they choose to pick a protagonist of a different gender than it would have been equally strong in the stories.

I definitely loved this one, and would be looking out for more or her works.

Love

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

 I saw this in a corner and kind of looked cute with an off-white cover and title printed in Golden colour.

There was not much information about the author or the content of the book, and in the first look it looked like a self motivation kind of a book given the words printed on back of the cover "Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it end."

I am a bit biased against self help books but this one looked good given the above line and I just picked it up. A 200+ pages don't take much time.

I read the first five pages and I realised what I picked. It was a memoir recording the death of a husband and a daughter on the death bed. It had the death written all over and there were thoughts of not continuing further. Not because it is a sensitive topic but it sounded a bit intrusive as a reader.

As a rule I don't search for author or the book online if I already don't know it and when I finished it the first thing I did was to search the author. A wife couldn't do much for her husband in his last moments and a mother who was helpless in front of her comatose daughter who was in and out of ICUs.

Death is a strange event in life. The departed don't have much of a say afterwards (given a chance they wouldn't have agreed to it) but the survivors have their lives turned upside down. This is a situation for which nothing can prepare you not even witnessing multiple deaths of loved ones. Every death is a road closed in the journey of life. A road that you never believed to be closed. You expected turns, obstacles and what not but never a closure.

It was specially strange when in the last one I was reading was about someone who just wanted to let go of life and in this one they can't let go of dead. And yes they are totally different letting go. In one you are a participant and in the other you're just the observer.

Peace

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

 Never say no to a recommended book specially if it is recommended by strangers.

This one was recommended by two different people and I just looked it up in the local library and found it. It was a bit strange to go to the library with a knowledge of what you're going to pick.

This was a light read for sure. It is a story of a bad day leading to an out-worldly experiences for Nora Seed.

It was going well until the author did the Christopher Nolan hat and jumped into explaining multiverse and quantum physics. And later morphed into a lot of quotations for good life.

Positivity is never a problem and specially in a story revolving around depression and personal loss it is even better until a fictional work starts sounding like a self help book. But you can never question the author because it was not written for you.

Choice is a small word with lifelong consequences. But nobody knows the future, and we all are good at making bad choices. And it is not about choosing the education, friends, jobs, partners which play a big part but even things like what we choose as a hobby, ideas we perceive and why not even the civic duties. But the more important aspect is how we react to any outcomes of all the action/inaction in our lives.

Decent read but if you don't then you'll not miss much.

Love

Medusa’s Ankles: Selected Stories by A.S. Byatt

 I couldn't finish this. I just couldn't go beyond 350 out of 430 pages. And this is the one in a real long time that I couldn't see till the end.

This is the second book from A S Byatt that I picked (first was Ragnarok) and the idea was that the short stories would be good from such an imaginary writer. I don't know how I reached that conclusion but that was the first thought.

However, it was too much of the abstract narrations. I really enjoy a writer painting a picture with the words but than I was not looking for a palette. There were too much of colors which kind of led to the edge.  Ornamentation is an integral part of any narration but what if there are just ornaments and nothing else.

I can't really say if I liked any of the stories and the introduction was full of praises, even claiming that there are multiple styles of writing which some of the great writers had shown in their genius works. It sounded like an oversell and yes it was. An average reader like me don't read for the style of the writers but because their work speak to you. A reader can't connect with everything but a good book is a sign that writer was saying something which resonates with you. Also, a writer is free to write whatever s/he wants to write but so are the choices of a reader.

I never cared about the style. I actually don't understand when they say lyrical prose, magical realism, complex structures and what not. The complexities doesn't make things beautiful but it is the simplicity which brings the true beauty in any work irrespective of the style or medium.

I'm not sure if I'll be picking up anything again from her work but this was a really difficult one.

Love

Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020 by Salman Rushdie

I've read three of his books and this is fourth and I'm writing it here not as a fan but someone who appreciates his style of writing. I never found them magical even if they call them magical realism. All I was looking for was a good story and it never disappoints you.

This one is a non-fiction which is a collection of essays, memoirs, and anecdotes. It is more of thoughts on stories rather than being a story. So, you can call it a story of stories if that helps.

Saying things in the easiest way possible is the sign of genius. A thing well said is half done. And this simplicity I have always enjoyed in his writing and when I was reading this one it was easy to understand without a lot of pomp. It never dulls the reading and keeps you engaged with the content rather than getting stuck in deciphering the content.

A world of stories is always fascinating and a good story is good irrespective of language or time it was told. A good one is going to be timeless and it is not just the moral ones that survive. They may have stood strong through the test of time but even the not so moral ones survived for long. These stories tell you the things which you may not hear otherwise. It is the attraction of the unknown that brings us to them. A lot of stories specially which are autobiographical in treatment may lead to some voyeuristic pleasures but in a whole they are just stories.

I hope we keep celebrating these stories not just for the entertainment but how they define us as a human being - the only storyteller among all the inhabitants of this planet.

Peace

Interpreter of Maladies and Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

I got a combo of two books and just picked it up. I was interested in Namesake more but a collection of stories doesn't hurt.

So, Namesake was on the list since the movie was out more than a decade ago. I watched it long back and wanted to read the book. So, here I got it.

But before Namesake I read the stories and one of which became the title of the story collection (interpreter of maladies).

Most of the stories have immigrants as the main characters, and I was not surprised to see that Namesake sounds more like the extension of these stories because it has a similar theme. You can practically say that the stories were the trailer for Namesake.

First thing, the movie has cut down a lot of details and built on some others but that has more to do with the medium (book vs movie).

Second thing, the book is definitely worth a read if you liked the movie.

Last thing, is more of a thought on immigrants. Do all the immigrants are bitten by that travel bug which brings you to these countries where you don't have anything in common but your curiosity got you there? Or this is just a better job/life prospects that bring you here? Is it an act of refuge to get away from anything that you are facing right now? The list can be longer because everyone has their own reason. And it is very common to see them struggle, be in denial, being miserable or even being successful which is all part of a game.

So if you're there, just hang on and don't forget why did you come in the first place.

Love

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

In a royal conflict it is always obscure to pinpoint a single reason which is responsible for the whole mayhem. It can be anything from jealousy, lust, or rivalry to power, domination or greed. I do hear the arguments as the justifications that this is a primitive human nature which we couldn't evolve from. The whole idea of being an authority/power in the name of divine or intellectual is a botched attempt to over simplify the things which does more harm than the actual events.

I read the 600+ pages in a real long time because a lot of time it was difficult to focus on the plot when you don't remember the dynamics between the different characters (coming form a family or a camp or neutral). This revolves around the England in 1520 and what role did Thomas Cromwell played in the politics of kings, queens, church and noble men.

I don't have the courage to give a brief of such a big book here but the reasons I mentioned above can pretty much summarises how most of the characters behave. Their actions are based on one of the above irrespective of their stature in the society. They are always chasing one or the other oblivion to the other things until they face the consequences. 

As of now I'm still digesting it and not sure if I like this or not but this is the first book in the trilogy which Hilary Mantel has written and I'm not going to read the rest of them.

Peace

Under the Wave at Waimea by Paul Theroux

This is a story of a surfer Joe Sharky whose best days are behind him. A surfer who didn't anything in his life apart from surfing. Surfing sounds exotic for the story but if you replace him with any other trade the story would have left you the same way.

The turning point of the story is definitely an accident and how it jolted his routine life to bring him to introspection.

There are some minor characters who are portrayed as eager to exchange lives with our surfer because he is presumed to have the best of lives. But that again comes back to the point that he might have been an singer, dancer, painter or what not and people would have said the things (in the novel too).

The downside was that in the 400 pages it was a bit repetitive a lot. But that can be the writer's style as well.

Maybe not the best one but I did get to know some words in Hawaiian which has a really deep meaning. And yes, Pakalolo :) 

Love

The Food of the Gods by H.G. Wells

 Not a fan of science fiction but why not sometimes.

So, I picked this up and any fan of sci-fi fantasies would swear by Wells. He brought up so many of the concepts which were not only ingenious but also philosophical in nature. It brings a different kind of reality to the forefront which leaves you comparing your current reality to it, and being successful in finding some of the definite matches.

This one revolves around a scientific invention which make the ordinary subjects of giant size. This chemical is called food of the gods because this puts the mere humans to an inhumanly growth.

It was all going fine until one day the humans start seeing these giants as their rival. A threat to their own existence. A crisis which can end the current form of humans as the giants roam the earth.

If you look closely the giants are just humans with a bigger body. They have the same thoughts, feelings, and hunger as any other human of a different size. But this difference goes deeper than just being the physical one. It brings out the fear of a society which only understands the language of power. A grammar of victor and the loser. And before it goes out of hand they want to do what power tells you to do - crush what you don't understand.

Different species on the planet respond to their survival calls. Which is one of the reason that we see the clash between the hunter and the hunted. But it is not always the strongest that survive. It is always the adaptable who see it to the end.

But that is more rational thought and in the real world people go with prejudice and group thinking. Which means that there is no thought.

I don't consider this last line as a spoiler but the book doesn't have a traditional ending which gives you a champion but it ends on a note that opens up the possibilities of choice, and that is a fine ending.

Peace

Chances Are... by Richard Russo

 Hell we love a story well told.

This sounds too dramatic sometimes with love, friendship, college days, vacations, a lot crazy and music all mixed up in one with a bit of suspense in between.

But it is all worth reading the book.

How far do we go for our love and friends. It may take a lifetime to know the value of it. Also, does the unsuccessful love stories make the lives better. Maybe just that one unfulfilled desire keeps you going. Not waiting for anything to happen but still waiting that if it ever comes to happening you are still around to witness it.

Worth a read if you're looking for a good story.

Love! 

The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood

Just because its a big name doesn't mean it can't go bad.

This is the case here. I was never a fan (I didn't get Handmaid's Tale) and this was too flimsy to be called even a decent one.

I later read some of the reviews which talk about it being the beacon of feminism and what not but I could just see a badly connected plot. In fact, I thought that you can change the genders of all the characters and it will still sound equally stupid so don't get carried away with it being feminist.

I guess I had enough from Margaret Atwood and will not be coming back for more. But I don't know if I could lay my hands on another one and pick it up.

Love!

The Mathematics of the Breath and the Way: On Writers and Writing by Charles Bukowski

How does a writer write or what inspires a writer to write?

These questions are not answered in this book but if you are looking for a personal account of a prolific writer like Bukowski than this is going to help.

To be a good writer you need to be a writer first. Which means writing a lot even if not all of it sees the light. Also, be prepared to not making a lot of money from writing. It is not that people don't pay for the good books but the answer lies in the fact when was the last time you actually bought a book.

Second thing is don't be to harsh on yourself and better lean on to a good editor. Not all the good writers are good editors so if you're not the later (which you will know soon if you are open to listening) find one.

Lastly, there is nothing like a great thought. I believe that you start with very basic ones and one of them will eventually with become big and by that I don't mean complicated. In fact, it is going to be so simple that it wouldn't require any interpretation from the writer. Most likely everyone will connect to it on their own terms and that is the best writing.

On a lighter note I never really understood too much of a poetry but that doesn't mean that you can't. Most of the times it is going to be like if you ever tried. 

Caution - don't get carried away with the alcoholic episodes and start thinking that it is some sort of shortcut to get to good writing. It is not, no matter how many times you hear it.

Love!

The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes

 I read this for the Barnes since I read "The Sense of an Ending" earlier, and what a marvellous book it is.

It talks about the life of Dmitri Shostakovich a Russian composer who was put out in front of the world as a representative of art and culture on behalf of Stalin's Russia. It goes deep in the thoughts of the artist and how it shifts from being artistic to survivalistic.

There are different ways to look at it and the easiest is to call the people opportunistic. They can be criticised for getting moulded to the external factors and not being true to their art. This sounds moralistic but until you get down to the basic idea of staying alive. Dying for the ideas or not abandoning your ideas sound heroic but is it possible for everyone to do that?

I'm not a connoisseur of music but after reading this book I actually listened to some pieces from Shostakovich, and I couldn't find them to be following any pattern that it might have been pushed into. Maybe I need more ear training and exposure to a much larger repertoire.

Read this one. It is small but gives you some big idea on how not to judge people on their life choices. You are not in those shoes and never going to be because we come with our own shoes.

Peace!

The UnAmericans by Molly Antopol

 If you write well the readers are going to love it. I was never a fan of complications specially when it comes to telling a story.

The one here is so simple and beautiful that you can breeze through them. They are fresh, and all of them leave you with a thought.

I don't have any favourite here as all of them are equally good. Read it for the simplicity of storytelling.

Love

Amnesty by Aravind Adiga

 Why I even picked this one? The answer lies in the second chances.

He lost me on White Tiger but I was still interested in reading one more before I say no more.

So, going forward nothing from Aravind.

This one was equally haphazard and incoherent as the white tiger. Trying to push the pace and pack one day of an illegal immigrant, a murder, a lot of details in 200+ pages and it failed to register anything.

Peace

God Help the Child by Toni Morrison

 I did read the Beloved so this was an easy choice because as a writer there is no comparison for her.

However, what I didn't get was the idea of your childhood defining who you're going to be. I understand that a difficult childhood (specially in dangerous living conditions) can affect your thought process but the whole idea of missing love sounds too romanticised to be true.

This is exactly the case here and it was a difficult for me to connect here. It might not be fair to compare it with a film script but by the end of it this is what it looked like. Not like that film scripts are any less scholarly than any other format but this one failed to make the mark.

I would have skipped this one and picked something else but then I read it all and realised skipping was the better option.

If you're a fan of her writing, skip this one, and maybe pick something else from her writing.

Love