Review : Kafka on the Shore by Murakami

This was something I had written quite some time back. And I had forgotten all about it till a friend of mine asked if I'd write one on the book. I had been completely blown away by the book and as with things which completely blow me away I have to exorcise it by staining a pristine sheet of white with my black ramblings :) But this time I used some self restrain and din't go into my gushing school-girl-after-boy-band-concert mode which is how I felt.. that I had just encountered a Rock Star of a book! I'd even say I managed to even sound rather objective about the book ( doesn't matter if I am or not.. all that matter is how I sound.. it's all perception after all!)

So here goes...


Just finished 'Kafka..' by Murakami.

Loved it.


Apart from the fact that he's a compelling story teller it hit spots I din't think possible by a person other than me. Places in my heart and brain which only I'm privy to. Emotions from a dark place which are so difficult for another person to comprehend that no one ever bothers to explain. The reasons for the emotion can not be put in your conventional ideas of good and bad. Or rather in light and dark. Explaining it would make it seem like a grey area to others, but is an exceptionally Dark place. And it was so comforting to know that I might not be alone in that Dark place.


True, at a lot of points the story seem to go off into tangents that seem puzzling to say the least and true, he doesn't bother tying up every little thing he's brought into the story. But it matters little because from the very beginning he's asking us to take a leap of faith, and it's the irredeemably quality of faith that some questions will always remain unanswered. 


Not entirely a story that would seem palatable to every one, but the language is flawless. Somehow, though read in English, there was this intangible Japanese flavor all through the story telling but done without alienating the foreign reader. And that's the sign of a master story teller, to draw you in with themes and tones both alien and universal at the same time.


A book which paced itself so wonderfully. Though the characters themselves seem stuck, lost or moving at an alarmingly slow pace the story line never slows down. It's a book I wanted to finish in one sitting and would have done so in a couple of hours had time permitted. Pulls you into it's world and things move simultaneously fast and slow. A bit like being on the roller coaster while high! :-) Contradictions abound in the spirit of the book, yet like contractions in a personality which co-exist with little difficultly and sometimes define the personality, it fits well and we don't feel jarred by it. 


All in all, to sum up...Loved it!


Want to write more about the book, but I don't believe in giving away the story; besides being massively difficult in verbalising the emotions, it is also one of those things which if we start to we get lost in trying to find and end up writing a hell lot.
Cant wait to get my hand on the rest of his books!

Phil!


Ps: LOVED, I mean Loved, the fact that a part of the book was set in Kochi and it was so green! YAY!

So there.. what do you think? Not a bad job, huh?! :)

Review: Anita Nair's Mistress

Anita Nair's 'Good Night and God Bless' is one of my favorites when it comes to nighttime reads, just before sleep, or one of those books you just dip into when you just have a few minutes to wait. Rather like the chocolate mint on your pillow in the nicer hotels, a nice refreshing taste before a good night's rest. But her 'The Better man' left me very disappointed. The main character put me to sleep and the rest of the cast was not very well etched. The main feeling I remember when I finished the book was relief! So I was a little sceptical about picking up something on the novel side again, but the fact that she did write 'Good Night and..' seemed good enough reason to give her another chance.

To begin with, Mistress has come a long way from The Better Man. She's paced herself well in Mistress, Anita Nair. I loved her take of the 3 different perspectives for the situations.. kinda like a emotional kaleidoscope.Same mirrors and the same bangle bits, but one turn and you have another unique pattern entirely different from the one before. And she's added just enough kathakali techniques to remind you very vaguely of Marquez's 100 years. I think she's added that right amount of magic surrealism which is what actually raises the book above the otherwise cliched storyline ( boy-girl-bad marriage-she cheats) without seeming over ambitious. 

Also loved the exploration of the 9 emotions of dance. I think those short introductions for the navarasas were her chance to indulge in her lyrical best. And for someone from Kerala,it surprises and delights you the familiar landscape being imbibed with a new emotions. Like the quiet fury of the woodpecker or the derision of the December winds.

The only thing I would complain about, though it's not a critic, is the fact that I could not place what the author wanted from the characters. Are we supposed to empathise with Radha, who in my perspective turns from estranged and misunderstood wife to an intellectual snob and pardon my french, selfish bitch; or are we supposed to resent Shyam,the cuckold husband, with his typical overbearing malayali chauvinistic trappings which turn out to be a sheild to protect the surprisingly more sensitive and fragile emotional ecosystem he had grown up and lives in? Or as in some cases,has the author given us the freedom to choose the perspective which suits us the best?! Nor are we clear about the 'Sahiv' Chris's motivations and intentions for starting the affair. And after all the build up, the relationship between the Uncle ( who btw provides the 3rd perspective of the book) and his father remain unexplored. But then again I'm not sure if that's another kathakali technique which I might have not understood.

But in Nair's defence, the lack of clarity is not because of her language or writing( which is crisp yet 

Anita Nair : A lovely voice from God's own Country!

retains a certain flow and grace) but is because the characters themselves are for the most parts confused souls and is never really sure of their feelings and to end their confusion picks up the most dominant emotions and decide, 'this is it, this is what I feel', which I feel is how predominantly how the world works unconsciously, whether it admits it or not! That confusion and corresponding joy or panic of the decision is what made the otherwise bland characters seem so alive to me.

All in all, it was a book I enjoyed a lot. To take something that is so familiar (and we all know what feeling that usually breeds)and imbibe new emotions and colors and life is a unique talent. She also reminds you that there might be no such things as true feelings only differing perspectives. I think it's well worth a read to enjoy that realisation.

Review :Em and The Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto

Some books, characters speak to you immediately. For me it happened the moment [semi-spoiler alert] Em explained the idea of calling someone 'Angel Ears' because their ears look liked crispy bacon ie page 2. Equating food, love, feel, texture.. the idea left me a little breathless when I read it because it was so close to how I feel things sometimes.
The fact is when I think of Em, I find it hard to think of her as a character instead of a person, even after I closed the book. That speaks volumes of the talent that is Jerry Pinto.

It's sensitive take on a raw personality and a controversial subject; but the controversial subject for me [spoiler alert]was not the madness, but the mother-child relationship. Reading this book was like seeing it under a microscope; a magnification of the faults and longings that form this unique bond. Which means while it looks out of proportion with reality in some aspects, the larger than life perspective also makes it clearer and easier to understand.. and to some extend,to accept. The voice of the narrator is brutally honest and yet, it's the brutal part which highlights the ironical humor that life has.

Wonderfully etched characters, like those made with sharp ,bold and minimal strokes without making them caricatures in spite of the larger than life feel of the central character, Em. With a character like Em it's easy to overpower the other characters into nothingness or into a side role but Pinto's made sure that each person has his or her place. The only person who might have been side lined was Susan, Em's daughter. I was left craving for a little more information on her, on her relationship with the narrator, a bit more on the sibling bond. But then again it might just be me coz like the narrator I thrive on details.

Jerry Pinto

For all the drama and seriousness it speaks of, it's a surprisingly fast read. Maybe because Pinto doesn't try to overpower you with sentimentality( which would have made it tedious and cliched) or over explain or justify character faults. He knows they are flawed, but he loves them anyways and you realise you do too.

A surprisingly fresh voice in the new genre of Indian Authors in English and I can't wait to read more of his work :)

The bus

The bus' speeding ahead like a steady wave, on the straight road with it's gentle troughs and crests. Dark frames with the occasional and fractional yet blinding brightness cast by the street lights and the porch lamps,or even the headlights, hurtling by; tiny glimpses of clarity and color among the varying shades of dark grey. Yet time is only inching forward... 11 O'clock.. Sigh.. Still wide awake. I'm not the only restless soul but in the dark of the bus we all seem lost,isolated in our own catacomb of a seat.

The frequency of the little towns seem to be increasing. Which means more sepia colored streets under hooded incandescent lamps with dark backgrounds in your window's movie frames,the muddy brown reds of passing gulmohar blooms and Vodafone hoardings. In the meantime your eyes adjust to the moonlight and you pick out details, the lighter and square shades of grey houses first. Then in surprising detail, everything else. Fields, trees, sleepy vehicles, telephone poles, hay stacks, bushes, the narrow paths separating the fields, shadows of the trees; the mountain no longer a silhouette but slopes scattered with boulders and some tenacious shrubs. Somehow more like filtered daylight devoid of color rather than the expected black and white movie.

And yet, it's only inching away. 12 minutes still to 12. Though the occasional yawn visits me, sleep still eludes me. How is it that sandman blew his dream dust over everyone but me? At this point even the street lamps seems to have gone to sleep.No one to help me keep vigil over the forts and temples passing by.

The bus has moved on to the highway and now it's true and straight like an arrow. The monotonous movement seems to be inducing more and more yawns. The screen seems a tad too bright now. Time to close this note and see if I can catch up with the sandman :)

Good night my dear.

More IOU notes!

Yes yes.. It's been a while and April-May was beyond busy. And yes, I know there's one pending from the last IOU as well. It's a tricky one. So for the time being I'm just gonna let it pend.. and that's not even coz I was/am lazy!

So what should we be expecting for the next few posts?

• Notes from my Note in Havelock
• Evolution of creativity ( and what it might mean now)
• Best things in life are free.. least Email is!
• Present laughter, a review

Well, I think that's about it for now.

Signing off, 

Me and my lazy Muse! :D

Madhav Mathur's The Diary of an Unreasonable Man Review

Well, that's two down and two more to go.. From the IOU note!

Moving on!

Sometimes you relate so much to a book or character that you lose your objectivity. You can't help but think it's a fantastic book. I mean, after all, the main character is so much like you and you are fabulous, right?! What's not to love?! The problem is that I've never been able to figure out if this loss of objectivity is a comment on the quality of the literature ( after all, great works of art are the ones in which you lose yourself, least for a while, right?) or just an emotional blind-spot born out of some ego massaging.

Either ways, I really liked 'The Diary of an Unreasonable Man'. After all it begins with my favorite quote of all time :

And it goes on to echo the sort of quarter life crisis we, ie pretty

Maybe not this bad :-/
Courtesy: cowbirdsinlove.com

much everyone in and around 25, at one point or the other have faced. For those lucky brats who escaped unscathed or not yet there, your standard quarter life crisis mostly consists of asking yourself :

1. What the hell am I doing with my life?
2. Is the pursuit of money really the pursuit of happiness?
3. Will I forever be a worker drone, an almost invisible and almost dispensable cog in the vast machinery of corporate-whatever-field-I'm-working-in?
4. Is there nothing/anything I can do to change the corruption/pollution/commercialization/pick-your-favorite-socio-political-peeve around me?
5. Will I ever break out of my comfort zone long enough to make any real difference to the world at large?
6. Some variant of all/any of the above questions which will make you lose sleep for an hour or two  of soul searching which then you'll give up on for the lack of definite answers and sleep. Least till the next bout of conscience attack.

So that's your basic dissection of your standard quarter life crisis. Anyways, where were we? Ah yes, the unreasonable man. We all have our moments. Like the time we sit and argue with the auto driver for that 4/3/2 or even one rupee change not because we can't afford to lose it but merely because we just got sick and tired of the bloody unfairness of the whole thing; Just because we don't want to cave in and be reasonable. But at the end of the day we continue being the almost invisible cog because the whole thing seems too daunting to take on our own. So Pranav, the protagonist, is so us with his slow and steady ad exec job and his frustration at the larger picture. 

One reason I liked the book was because it surprised me with the finesse with which Mathur handled the language. Call me a snob if you want, but most Indian writers who get published these days are very very shoddy with their English. But Mathur's got a knack of spouting cliches without sounding cliched; most likely because of the wry tone Pranav uses to acknowledge them. And his handling of English was far from amateur. Overall B+ in this area. ( Note : I'm a very harsh grader in general )

Another thing I liked was the tempo of the book. Just when you wonder how long is this existential crisis of our hero going to last ( I mean, we don't need to read this book to remind us how it goes, right?!) it picks up and gets going. And just when we start to wonder how long can anyone play the vigilante without getting into trouble, the story takes a twist. Another thing I appreciated was the consistency of the character, least the main character. Which is a pretty tricky thing to do given the rather fickle nature of the character. This is pretty much a one man show, Pranav's, with the other characters having little influence. But then again, the book is mostly from his viewpoint so I find it quite reasonable, the overwhelming 'I' perspective. 

Now the part that makes me lose objectivity. You know the dream where overnight you become a sensation because finally, and I mean finally, people recognise your genius and you go about setting the world right? To say this sums up the plot of the book would be doing it some injustice, but this is pretty much the allure of the book. But in Mathur's defense, he's done a pretty neat job of it. Unlike our daydream, his hero plans his execution meticulously and get himself into a pretty nifty mess in the process because changing the world also means creating a few enemies who liked it the way it was. And usually these are the big cogs in the machine! (Whether he gets out of the mess or not is for you to read and find out!)

But end of the day, it's biggest strength or weakness, according to me, would lie in the fact how often you have dreamt about being the hero. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the feel-good factor I get after a chick flick when the girl finally says yes to the right guy ( As much as I deny it, there are times even I need my dose of sentimentality :-P ). Does that make it a bad book?! Well, I still say no, just the way some chick flicks can be good cinema( No, we are not going to argue on which ones they might be! I'm sure all of us have our guilty romantic movies we are addicted to). More over, the fact that it made me sit up and look at all the bill boards and life around me in general with a little more focus I think makes it worth a read.

Well, that's my take on it. Let me know if you think I was being unreasonable about it! :-P

The cynical sister says... :)

I'm a very cynical person.

I saw 'The Help'.

Ohwait... I forgot the connect. No, this is not about how I dint like the movie. In stead it is about why I liked the movie, in spite of it being a slightly Disney-fied version ( btw, is this a very Indian thing to do, or does everyone do this... making a new word by '-fying' it ?!) of the black emancipation. To explain why, I need to give a little bit background about myself.

Like I said already, I'm a very cynical person. Not the kind of schizo person who thinks everyone is bad and out to get you. Nope, I'm a more difficult to argue with sort of cynic- the kind that believes that people really want to be good, but ultimately they'll do only what is convenient for them. Period. There are obviously exceptions but at large it's a pretty good rule to hold 99.999% of the population. This might not make me a very nice person, but it sure allows me to be more tolerant and have lower expectations of people in general and that makes me a nicer person than I might have been.

Is anything Impossibile for these brats?!
Courtesy: goldenagemag.com

But there are two situations where this cynicism doesn't apply. 

One, with children. These fresh souls run largely on instinct and the sheer amount of energy, imagination and curiosity they have leaves little which appears to be inconvenient. Rather the thought process doesn't process convenience or inconvenience, just the way they don't always process good and bad. Which means these little angels and monsters almost always do things directly from the heart till they are told otherwise. And it's downright criminal to be cynical in the face of such brutal, life affirming openness and honesty. Every time I talk to a child, I'm renewed with hope that humanity is not entirely a lost cause.

The other, is when I see a sisterhood. It's a rare thing. And it's hard to explain the magic around one. It's not like an all accepting bond like a brotherhood. Nope, we fight, we bitch about each other, we even refuse to stand by each other occasionally. But we never cut each other away. Not even when someone wants to. In spite of all the dissension, there's a collective wisdom that holds the women together.

Viola Davis, Jessica Chastain, Octavia Spencer, Emma Stone and Bryce Dallas Howard : The Help cast

Part of the magic might be in the fact that a lot of times, the bond is formed without having a lot of common characteristics. There's no ulterior motive. This is pretty much the only other space, especially in adulthood, that I've seen where people think less of how it might be convenient or not and more about what the other person needs! And there's pretty much only one rule or code - Loyalty. But it's not your conventional definition ( we are women, ergo there can be nothing conventional about the way things are done.. esp the way men have defined it! :-P) but I wont even try to define it. One, because it's complicated even as a woman to understand it. Two, hehe.. Why give away the secret to men?! :D

Another curious thing is the fact almost always, the sisterhood is made of people who are not even remotely related. And I felt 'The Help' was a beautiful example of that kind of sisterhood.

[Spoiler Alert!!] One of my most favorite scenes in the movie is when Hilly Holbrooke tells Skeeter that she should not cut herself short just because her mama(Skeeter's) thinks she's not good enough to meet nice guys. For the most parts, Hilly's a self serving, arrogant woman who insists that she can never be wrong.  But you always bring out the best when you are rooting for a fellow sister! :)

Another favorite scene is the when Celia Foote cooks an entire dinner all by herself for Minny which gives Minny the strength to finally confront her abusive husband. There's pretty much nothing which can stop you when you have your sisters backing you.

Another scene which hit a chord is when Constantine talks to Skeeter under the tree; along similar lines,when Aibileen tells Elizabeth's kid in the morning to repeat after her,"I is kind, I is smart..." They are the Yin to your Yang, your sisters and that's what keeps you in balance.

Touchwood, because I've always been blessed with that rare kind of sisterhood all my life so far. I've always had women, some whom I am still in touch with, some I'm not ( and the blame's almost always mine!), who argued with me, comforted me, scolded me, complimented me and no matter what reminded me how lucky I am to be me! And that's why I like 'The Help'. Because it made a very cynical person sit up and reminded her that there are somethings in life which are unabashedly beautiful and one ought to be grateful for it! :)

MUUUAHH!! to all my sisters, past, present and future! :D