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Bhupash

Bhupash

Self-righteous, egotistical, sociopathic, opinionated, bored, Man Utd. supporting vegetarian wannabe singer-songwriter.
  • Mi, England
  • member since November 25 2007

Public Notes

 
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Displaying 1-20 of 22 notes
  • Pawbones

    Pawbones says

    Thanks for joining the Best English-Language Fiction of the Twentieth Century – the name rolls right off the tongue doesn’t it…
    Hopefully the posts will start rolling in once we get over the ‘new group’ hump and out of the busy holiday season. Again, glad you joined up and I look forward to picking at the threads with you.
    Please consider inviting your friends to join us as well. See you around the shelves.
    Pawbones

    posted 3 weeks ago. ( send a note )
  • Katrina R

    Katrina R says

    Thanks Bhupash for that rather -cryptic- comment. Did you read the worst book of the decade blog? Several of the books nominated are amongst my favourites.... There's just no accounting for taste.

    posted 3 weeks ago. ( send a note )
  • Katrina R

    Katrina R says

    I read The Cement Garden a few months back. I like your review, but I don't think it's nearly as good as Atonement or Enduring Love. You are really into musician bios. The closest I came to reading one of them was John Peel's autobio/bio Margrave of the Marshes.

    I have The Heart of the Matter to read (I seem to be reading a lot of African based books recently, for some reason). Shame TP&TG doesn't live up to the hype.

    I just finished this really funny satire: Changing Places by David Lodge. Next up is On Beauty. Maybe the less said about that one the better..... ;-)

    posted 2 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Katrina R

    Katrina R says

    Hi Bhupash, long time no hear! Yes, I loved dear Count Dracula, and especially van Helsing - quality !!! It was good to finally read the original source of the vampire tale after being exposed to only the caricatures and parodies of later years.

    It was Greene's Comedians I read a wee while ago, and it is great - you should definitely read it. It's one of those rare books that combine a really serious situation with a lot of humour, something Greene does exceptionally well. And I was aware of what Papa Doc wrote about Greene after The Comedians was published, probably it would have been more of an insult if he hadn't said anything - more a stamp of approval than anything else, if you get what I mean......I want to read a lot more of him, only three so far and the previous two were during my teenage years so I don't remember them too well.

    How's about you - been reading anything good recently?

    posted 3 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Chris Tusa

    Chris Tusa says

    Thanks so much for accepting my friend request. While I have you here, I was wondering . . . would you be interested in reviewing my new novel and posting your comments here (as well as on a few other book-related sites). I could e-mail you the novel in an e-book format if you'd like. Let me know if you're interested. Here's a link to a summary in case you're interested:

    http://christophertusa.com/

    Thanks,

    Chris

    posted 3 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jay M

    Jay M says

    Hi, Bhupash. I haven't read DROWN, but OSCAR WAO was a book that I sincerely loved. Possibly because I understood nearly every one of the "geek" references (The Tolkien, the Fantastic Four, etc. etc), or maybe because I could relate to far too much of Oscar's adolescent anquish, but the book hit me on a personal level in many ways. I found the structure of the book remarkable, in that for all the shifting in time, and the footnotes, and the unfamiliar Dominican Republic history, I felt that I was swimming easily if anxiously through all the sadness and horror and poignancy. Despite my cynical side, the book really did move me emotionally as the narrator finds some a sort of optimism at the end. It's been a difficult book for me to describe to people, much less to attempt to "review". It is, however, a book that I've recommended to many. What was your take on it?

    posted 4 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Cassandra N

    Cassandra N says

    oh, I couldn't finish it! If i read one more line about how flawless he was, I was going to hurt something.

    posted 12 months ago. ( send a note )
  • uplandpoet

    uplandpoet says

    Welcome to Better than Starbucks! Look around, make yourself at home, start a new thread or dig up an old one or just read and jump in on the more active ones.

    We are honored to be one of your first groups!

    posted 12 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Pawbones

    Pawbones says

    Howdy, see you around the shelves.

    posted 12 months ago. ( send a note )
  • Jay M

    Jay M says

    Hi Bhupash. Yes, I tend to alternate fiction and non-fiction pretty regularly in my reading, with the non-fiction seemingly random in terms of subjects that catch my attention. There's probably some sort of pattern in what I tend to pick up but I haven't taken the time to think about my non-fiction trends.

    Walt Whitman, yes, a truly powerful, larger than life figure for me. Since college, his work has had its influence on my thinking in many ways. He's one of those writers that you can encounter early in life, and don't realize until much later how much they've affected your point of view.

    By the way, a friend of mine, who was a big Edith Wharton fan, urged me to read Ethan Frome a few weeks ago (I had already read The Age of Innocence and House of Mirth), and it was a quick read but an exceptional work. I thought your one sentence review of it here was a beautiful summation of it.

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • Katrina R

    Katrina R says

    I get your point about the huge bias of promoting one's own talent, and I think that is more pronounced in the UK compared to the US. I remember reading somewhere that only around 5% of books bought in the UK were written in a different language.

    Also, it's true that if she did choose the US location purely for political reasons then you're right, she probably was bitter about the reaction of the second novel and so maybe there was a bit of spitefulness directed towards the British literati.

    I wasn't trying to critisize or condemn your opinion in any way, I was just curious as how you came to such a conclusion. Sorry if it came across like that.

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • Katrina R

    Katrina R says

    That's a pretty strong viewpoint. I haven't read On Beauty yet, not because of any nationalistic principles, I just didn't get round to it for some reason. I read The Autograph Man soon after it was published and I enjoyed it. Obviously it can't hold anything to White Teeth but I think the negative reviews it got were unfair.

    Do you really believe a Brit Lit establishment actually exists? And just because an author sets a novel outside her country of origin, that automatically means she's turning her back on it? I can see why she did it, if she'd written a book set again in London she would have been critisized for being too narrow and limited. I suppose you could argue that she was merely trying to force her way into the US literary circles by writing On Beauty, but in my opinion that is being overly cynical.

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • Katrina R

    Katrina R says

    Hey Bhupash, great review of White Teeth. I read it ages ago, must be 5 years or so now, you've made me want to pick that one up again too, and this is coming from a person who never re-reads. :-)

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • Howard Roark

    Howard Roark says

    Dear B

    Seem like ur Rushdie's fan. Do u reccomend Grimus? The reviews r not encouraging

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • Katrina R

    Katrina R says

    Ahh, I see, it's clear to me now. I think also there could be reference to Lady Chatterley's Lover, with the inter-class relationship. I read Atonement ages ago, and only because my mum lent me a copy so I knew nothing about it beforehand. She thought it was "boring, strange and hard to get into" and an ex-boyfriend of mine refused to read it because his mum told him it was "a girls book." What can you do, eh?

    i think I'll have to re-read it, after having first had a go at some of the "intertexts." It's definitely one of those novels that you get more out of the more effort you put in.

    Thank you! :-)

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • Katrina R

    Katrina R says

    Yeah, I felt let down by the ending also, it was way too abrupt. And I also don't think McAvoy was the right choice for Robbie (as much as it pains me to criticise a compatriot) and I haven't liked "Keira Nighty" (hee hee) in anything. But I agree the effect with the typewriter was really well done.

    Do you mind me asking what you mean by intertext? It's not a term I've ever come across before.

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • Katrina R

    Katrina R says

    I thought that the novel focused much more on the relationship between Joe and Clarissa and what the Jed character does to the trust in their relationship. So it was more about how love can overcome anything (even obsessed gun-toting nutters). But maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic. Also, the film made more of the interaction between Joe and Jed, which possibly could mean that there was a basis for Jed's obsession, i.e. the ending, which was just so totally different.

    But you're right, movies should be considered in their own right, I just find it really difficult to separate a movie from the book it's based and I'm constantly thinking of all the differences between the two, which is obviously going to detract from the enjoyment of the movie.

    Apologies for picking up only on this tiny issue, I really liked your reivews of all the other books that I've read on your shelf (with the possible exception of God of Small Things - which I thought thoroughly deserved the hype).

    What did you think of the movie version of Atonement? I thought it was so so, while it stayed more faithfully to the plot of the book, I couldn't help thinking there was something missing in it. Maybe in future I should just avoid movie versions of books I've read - it appears they can never win!!

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • Katrina R

    Katrina R says

    Hey, I read your review of Enduring Love and I was shocked to read that you thought the film was better than the book. I loved the book but thought the movie version just missed the whole point of the story completely and I hated it. Well, apart from the fact that Daniel Craig was in it, that was about its only redeeming feature. But they changed so much (needlessly IMHO), including Clarissa's name -why?

    Sorry if this comes across as offensive - each to their own and that.

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
  • BOULEVARD

    BOULEVARD says

    Dear B,
    Thank you very much for joining our group.
    I request you to join our discussion posts and
    share your knowledge with us.
    Your opinions ,suggestions and even
    criticism to improve the group would be highly appreciated.

    posted 1 year ago. ( send a note )
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Displaying 1-20 of 22 notes


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