amright

• Rated 4 stars

“
My introduction to Jose Saramago’s work started with this book. I certainly would read his other works; but all over a period of time. I say this because after reading Death At Intervals I felt that Saramago’s work requires a fair amount of reflection. Death At Intervals is a book that defies any categorization. It is certainly not a straight forward narrative novel though one keeps turning the pages just to find out what new insights the author comes up with on this stark fact of life death;with or without capital D.
The story is set in a town where people stop dying from the first day of the New Year. This leads to a chaotic situation involving families, the society at large, the political class, the Catholic Church and also the mafia. It is a delight to read this where absence of death forges new alliances between the state, the church and the army and of course the mafia. The book here turns wonderfully humorous though deeply philosophical as well. With such commotion ensuing, death decides to make a comeback but decides to give an advance warning to the chosen ones through a violet coloured letter. All goes well till one such letter keeps coming back unable to be delivered to the intended recipient. Death by now is completely intrigued by this as such an occurrence has never been reported in history; no one has ever defied death to live more than his or her allotted time. Death now decides to investigate and discovers that the recipient is a middle aged man who plays the cello and lives a reclusive life with his dog in a small apartment. Death now takes a form, a beautiful enigmatic woman who wants to personally deliver this death letter to the cellist so that her record remains unsullied as it has remained for eternity. She listens in on him rehearsing for his solo piece at home, at his rehearsals and then finally at the performance of the local orchestra. What follows from then on is the slow but inevitable process of two people discovering each other through music and love. Can death fall in love too? Is she a person then? Is it really possible to defy death? Music, love and death all merge into one another and Saramago creates a mesmerising atmosphere with the power of his words. It brought back a few lines from Tagore’s poetry-’when life ends, what remains is the love and the music of life-there is no death for love- it remains alive in music.’

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amright wrote this review Friday, January 13, 2012. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“This is first novel by Anuradha Roy that i read and I was mesmerised by her prose. The ambiance of small town Ranikhet, in the foothills of the Himalayas has been created with such passion and with so much of love that I still feel as though I am surrounded by those enchanting mountain ranges.The bird calls, the hues of the sunset, the dappled light as it filters through the leaves are all so fresh in my mind.
Maya, who loses her darling of a husband to a trekking accident in the high Himalayas finds a teaching job in a convent here in Ranikhet. She finds a small cottage to live on the premises of a sprawling colonial bungalow whose present occupant is the Diwan Sahib of erstwhile Surajgarh state. Diwan sahib is an extremely interesting character who draws Maya into his life and becomes a father figure to her but still keeps himself aloof in a very intriguing way.The hints about Edwina Mountbatten and Jawahar lal Nehru's love letters keep adding to the mystique around Diwan sahib who seems to belong to another, more gracious time and age. Diwan Sahib's presence acts like a silent but strong point of reference all through the novel. One keeps guessing at his life's story but never gets a peep into his past which remains an enigma till the very end.Maya's sympathies and interactions with the ordinary village folk has been portrayed with wonderful insight. More than the young girl Charu, i was absolutely taken up with her mother Ama who seems so typical of unlettered village women and still remains a source of practicality and time tested wisdom.The sub plot about Charu's romance with Kundan Singh is very hackneyed but told with amazing sensitivity and I felt so glad that it did not end tragically. Maya's own involvement with Veer seemed a bit awkward and somehow I could neither sympathise nor feel outrage at her ultimate betrayal of her love. The plot meanders at times but it does so on lovely winding pathways through the mountain side and the fluidity of Anuradha Roy's prose takes care of everything else. ”

amright wrote this review Monday, September 12, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

2 of 2 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 4 stars

“Amitav Ghosh's The River Of Smoke is the second part of the Ibis Trilogy, the first being The Sea Of Poppies. The first one was about forced cultivation of poppy in India under the East India Company and how it ruined families and led to the farmers becoming indentured labourers and the migration of these to Mauritius to work in the sugar cane fields there. Ibis is a remodeled slave ship that carries them and some others to these islands.The book ends with some of the shipmates escaping on a night when Ibis is hit by a wild tempest.
The River Of Smoke is set mainly in Canton where many of the characters from the Poppies land up. The main protagonist in this book is Behram Mody , a businessman from Bombay and trader in opium. The description of Canton (GUangzhou) of those days is so vivid that one feels one is seeing a documentary film rather than reading a book. The use of the pidgin language which is a mix of Cantonese, English, Hindi is just marvellous. The opium trade is illegal by decree of the Emperor but continues unabated with the connivance of corrupt Chinese officials. The bonhomie between the Chinese businessmen and the Europeans is a perfect example of how greed for money can unite such vastly disparate people. The merry state of affairs continues till the Emperor sends in a new Governor, Lin Tse to the province to put an end to the smuggling of opium which was laying waste a whole generation of the Chinese people. The exchanges between the Governor's representatives and the members of the foreign business community is an example of how the idea of Free Trade is used by the Britishers to subjugate a people without actually conquering their nation. These exchanges, for me,forms the core of this book. It brings forth the greed, arrogance,ignorance and the supercilliousness of the British and also American merchants. The value of the opium trade was absolutely mind boggling and it was the major source of revenue for the British Empire as it ruled most of the world at the time.
The characters that frequent fanqui town (foreigner's enclave) are all interesting in their own way. I could somehow not empathise with the main protagonist Seth Behram Mody as he too was engaged in a trade that was morally wrong. This, along with the absence of any female characters made this novel a bit heartless, shall I say ? The correspondence between Paulette and Robin seemed to have been devised just to make the reader aware of certain aspects of Canton life. It lacked warmth, no matter how many unheard of terms of address were used for Paulette.All the Botanical names of plants and the story of their discovery were unrelated to the main story and according to me superfluous.Behram Mody's mistress is killed even before the story actually begins and as he becomes addicted to the 'smoke' her memories keep coming alive for him and ultimately lead to his tragic end. Still, somehow his personal sorrow seems dwarfed by the approaching clouds of the first war of opium between the two warring empires. As Amitav Ghosh's other books, this too is extremely high on facts and based on extensive research. Personally, I preferred Poppies as it appealed more to my heart than to my head.”

amright wrote this review Thursday, July 21, 2011. ( reply | view 1 replies | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“This book by Steinbeck which I finished reading a day back is a gem.I would call this a short novel as compared to East of Eden, Grapes of Wrath or Winter of Our Discontent. But in these 196 pages the author has created a world which is as enduring as any I have ever read. Set in the Monterey bay among the canneries which thrived in the canning of sardines that the sea supplied in plenty. This is a book which does not have a story to tell but holds you spell bound with the antics of a motley group led by the master tactician Mack who live their lives by being themselves with not a care or a woman in the world.The frog hunting trip they undertake to supply frogs to Doc,a marine biologist who is the most respected and loved man in the whole of the locality is nothing less than a thriller. And to think that they would sell the frogs to Doc just to collect money to throw him a party! What happens at that party is of course another story. The characters of Mack, super smart smooth talking bum of a man and that of Lee Chong, the ubiquitous Chinese grocer whose shop is sort of focal point of the story are supremely endearing.A deep thread of humanity runs through this novel through the Bear Flag restaurant, its madam Dora and involves all the occupants of the Palace Flophouse.Doc with his eternal sympathies for the down and out and his love of music and scientific experiments provides us with an alternate life style that only a few can dare to live but many might aspire to.The climax of the story is the second party given for Doc by the inhabitants of Cannery Row and the way it builds up is just so full of anticipation that one feels one might find the Western Biological just around the corner and be a part of this wonderful celebration of life.
The masterpiece is of course the poem recited by Doc which is sublime and brings the book to an absolutely lyrical conclusion.
On a more personal note, I am visiting San Francisco now and have been to the Steinbeck Centre in Salinas where the exhibits on cannery Row were amazingly true to the spirit of the story. I am now waiting to visit Monterey and find the cypress tree under which Mack and his party found solace before they made Palace Flophouse their own.It should be fun.
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amright wrote this review Thursday, May 12, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 4 stars

“I did finish reading The Seige Of Krishnapur a week ago. It is a good historical novel.As an Indian my sympathies were always with the sepoys who mutinied against the Company rule in 1857 and were defeated only because they lacked a strong leader to guide them during this uprising. I am also conscious of the severe retribution that the whole of India was subjected to in the aftermath of this failed revolt. However, this novel presented the other side of the story and I could not help but feel the anguish of the British citizens who were barricaded inside the Residency and went through extreme hardship just to survive the seige.
The novel begins by bringing out the very laid back attitude of the British officers posted in India in those days and their almost feudal lifestyle. The character of the Collector has been built with such care and love that you empathies with him in spite of his very strange ideas about civilisation and about the intellectual capacities of women.The story also has many absolutely hilarious takes on the whole clash of cultures as perceived by the characters in the book. The magistrate with his cynicism is another character that would stay with me. The only criticism I have is about all too detailed descriptions about canons, muskets, charges etc. as the besieged were trying to defend themselves.May be it was necessary to build up the climax which actually never happened.Another jarring aspect was the clash between the two doctors regarding the treatment and also the cause of diarrhea which became a scourge as the conditions in the Residency deteriorated. I can understand the scientific debate going on at the time about this topic but it was presented in too melodramatic a way.
Finally, the book left me feeling sympathetic towards the ordinary British citizens caught in this terrible situation and the ingenuity that some of them showed. At the same time I could not but help feel sad at the failure of our First War of Independence.”

amright wrote this review Monday, April 25, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 3 stars

“This book deals with one of the most controversial and traumatic episodes in recent history of India.It starts with the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi and the anti Sikh riots that rocked Delhi in its aftermath. Mark Tully and Sathish Jacob being veteran journalists with the BBC have given a perspective of these disturbing events as objectively and dispassionately as possible. Both these events still ignite passionate debates in the country where people see these as just revenge for what Mrs Gandhi did to the Golden Temple and the gruesome riots as just revenge for her killing by her Sikh bodyguards.In fact neither of these can be called 'just' in any sense as both are acts of violence.
The book goes back to the politics of the Punjab in those years and analyses the reasons for the breakdown of negotiations between the Congress and the Akalis and how this led to the predominance of Bhindranwale who was a very small player in this whole scenario initially.The powerful PM has been shown to be surrounded by sycophants and comes across as a person who was no longer the decisive leader that she had proved to be in the seventies. I personally feel that the death of her son Sanjay whom she was grooming as her successor had shattered her to a large extent. She also plays a very damaging divide and rule policy in encouraging this religious zealot just to break the Akali unity against the Congress. The book gives many details of these political machinations in the days leading up to Operation Blue Star when the Indian army had to enter the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, the Golden Temple to rid it of the terrorists who were using it as a sanctuary and terrorising the whole of Punjab and also other northern states.
These facts are known to all but this book has given some insights which are hardly known by people at large. Maj.Gen. Shahbeg Singh who was a decorated officer of the army but was dismissed a day before retirement on flimsy charges became an ardent follower of Bhindranwale and was one of the main architects of fortifying the temple against a possible attack by the army. Tully goes on to describe the operation in great detail and has quoted persons on both sides to come to a more or less balanced view about how events unfolded during that operation. These events took place much before the time of 24 hour news channels and live reporting and hence many of the details were not available to the public.It was definitely a black day in the history of India when the army had to be used against its own people, even if these were misguided zealots.The question the book tries to answer is whether this bloodshed could have been avoided by some astuteness on the part of Mrs. Gandhi and her trusted advisors.
It just felt sad to read about these turbulent events as it led to so much of violence and bloodletting in the country. I would recommend the book for its very balanced and non partisan view points. ”

amright wrote this review Friday, April 1, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

• Rated 5 stars

“Catcher In The Rye, the cult classic of teenage angst that I should have read as a teenager somehow had eluded me and I read it now. Obviously its appeal is universal though it would have been more so had I read it at the right age. Holden Caulfield's struggle with the hierarchic boarding school system in the US of those days is brought out in its vivid detail.All the observations are from the point of view of this fifteen year old extremely sensitive,intelligent and sensible boy and hence sound absolutely realistic.The only problem I faced was when he loiters about in NYC and just drifts about from one meaningless encounter to another. The book seemed to drag on for me, but as I said its because I found it hard to identify with the situation. The most brilliant part is Holden's interaction with his kid sister Phoebe towards the end of the story. Its the most delightful account I have ever read of a brother-sister bonding though she is just a child. Through this interaction we are privy to Holden's thoughts and ideas and how those find resonance in a child who is so young but still seems to understand his point of view more than any of the adults or peers Holden encounters. What a delightful little character this Phoebe is! As my rating says I really loved this book and the story would stay with me for ever.”

amright wrote this review Friday, March 4, 2011. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 4 stars

“The Finkler Question is the Jewish question; not in the conventional sense but in a very strange way. It is about how the Jews see themselves and what it means to be Jewish in London of 2010. This Booker winner is a novel which is many layered. Its narrative is subtle at places and then all of a sudden it becomes totally in your face. It’s this variety that kept me turning the pages. It is about Jews and how they perceive themselves, their religion, Israel, their customs and the whole idea of ‘jewishness’. Palestine and Gaza just simmer in the background all the while as Julian Treslove goes on about his obsession about being Jewish and his fascination for his Juno,Hephzibah in real life. The three men whose friendship goes back decades are so disparate in everything but still there is this remarkable thread that holds them all together till Libor, the most sensible of them all does the unthinkable. I just loved the way the book ends.
This is my first novel of Howard Jacobson and I realise that I should have read him earlier. He, certainly is a great writer, not because of the Booker but because he is a powerful story teller who has a mastery over his craft. Somehow, I got drawn into a subject that has basically nothing to do with me or my surroundings but the author simply surrounded you with basic human feelings and also failings. I would recommend this to all who can identify with “It was not purposeful thinking, it was just thinking. Thinking meaning existing in his head.”

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amright wrote this review Friday, December 17, 2010. ( reply | view 1 replies | permalink )

• Rated 4 stars

“M Subbulakshmi, reverently called MS has been an icon of Indian classical music.This book is her story though not exactly a biography.It does give us insights into her early life in the temple town of Madurai and tells the amazing story of this daughter of a lady who came from the devdasi tradition and how she overcame the rigid social barriers of that time to assimilate into the Bharminized upper echelons of Madras cultural scene and made it her own playing field so to say.All this she did just on the strength of her immense talent as a musician and an extraordinary personality.The book is also about the man who shaped MS's life(and controlled even her music),her husband Sadasivam.This maverick man who was a firebrand activist in his youth and later became the trusted lieutanant of Dr. Rajagopalachari,a stalwart of the Congress party is credited with polishing the' jewel' that he found in MS and presenting her to the world as an accomplished musician.I certainly had the feeling that the writer was more impressed by Safasivam and his achievements though reluctant to acknowledge them as such. The author dissapoints in not providing any insights into the musical journey of Subbulakshmi; he gets more into all the sociocultural and political antecedents of the time. My favourite chapter is the last one where one gets to know a bit about the real woman who was deeply in love with a man whom she never married but whose music and personality had left a mark on her.What an amazing journey her life had been and I feel so lucky that I heard her from very close quarters when she once performed in my city.Her music was certainly very different than others as she raised it to transcendental realm; a rare genius. ”

amright wrote this review Sunday, October 31, 2010. ( reply | permalink )

1 of 1 members found this review helpful.

• Rated 4 stars

“This book took me to an era that has been lost for ever not only in India but all over the world.Kaifi Azmi was a card carrying member of the Communist party of India till the very end of his life.The life led by such idealists was an exercise in futility according to conventional social parameters but in the years leading up to the second world war thousands of creative people gave their entire lives up for the cause they believed in.Shaukat Azmi lovingly portrays her life with this immensely talented poet and details their struggles of running a household(with proper tea service!) and giving a good upbringing to their children when all the money at their disposal was a party whole timer's wages. While going through the description of life in a commune and of the support and love shown to this couple by other members of the Party one can not escape a sense of longing for the simple but meaningful life that all these people decided to lead based on their conviction about Marxism and a just society.The best part about Shaukat Kaifi's writing is the sense of adventure and fun that comes through except at the time when she talks of the difficulties faced by her in treating her first born and the eventual loss.The book is full of anecdotes about other stalwarts of that era like Sardar Jafri,Sahir Ludhianvi,Faiz and the magnanimous Prithviraj Kapoor. I have a bit of reservation about detailing all the achievements of her famous daughter Shabana though I understand it from a mother's point of view.The only sore point was reading Kaifi's poems translated in English.Would have been better had they included the Hindustani version too.
The book truly brought back an era that is lost and gone in a very personal and poignant way.For me, it brought back fond memories of some such men and women who were associated with the Marxist movement in those days and were every bit as lovable and compassionate as depicted in this book.This book brings alive an era which hardly merits any mention in our history books or in our collective memory as a nation except for people associated with the leftist ideology.In that sense, Shaukat Azmi has done a great service to the cause for which her husband lived.And yes, it is an incredible love story too.
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amright wrote this review Friday, October 1, 2010. ( reply | permalink )