Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

"[H]ere is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers....[Adichie] is fearless..." Chinua Achebe.

"With searching insight, compassion and an unexpected yet utterly appropriate touch of wit, Adichie has created an extraordinary book, a worthy addition to the world's great tradition of large-visioned, powerfully realistic novels." Los Angeles Times.

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Some novels just tear the insides of our mind, and ask us to rethink the smugness of our lives, and that numbing placidity with which we think we control our life. Chimamanda's first book, that brilliant Purple Hibiscus, made me yearn enough to reach out to a bookshop, and place an order for Half of a Yellow Sun. So on a cloudy day, I began the book over the weekend. In around 24 hours, I had finished it. I stayed up late till 2AM reading, and getting up again at 7AM to continue through the day...and like Margaret Foster says, I read the last 50 pages in a rush, 'because I couldn't bear to let it go.'

Mesmerizing. Here indeed is a rare talent - the writer who has the ability to convey history as a painful memory that resides deep within the horrors of war. Chimamanda Adichie did not live through the horrors of the Biafran War. But such is the thriving power of Adichie's writing, that I didn't feel the remoteness of her self from the war - Chimamanda seemed just as much a product of Biafra as Nigeria's conscience is enslaved by Biafra. Half of a Yellow Sun centers around the twin sisters, Olanna, and Kainene, and the men in their lives - the intellectual Odenigbo who Olanna later marries in the novel, and the Englishman Richard, who is held in thrall by Kainene. Not to be left out is the powerful, moving character of Odenigbo's houseboy, Ugwu.

The New York Times seemed to be critical of what it termed as 'slack prose,' but then, I, really, for the life of me, cannot understand or agree with it. Eloquent, alluring, and compelling, Half of a Yellow Sun should be made compulsory reading - for all of us who shrug life, and for those of us who embrace it too closely as but the prologue to death. I simply cannot recommend this book enough. If reading is transcending, then Half of a Yellow Sun is transcendental meditation. But then again, don't take my word for it. ;-)

Verdict: Impressive.

Rating: 4.5/5

Sharmila's Book

Ugh. After reading Bharti Kirchner's illuminating book, Sharmila's Book, I was left with the strange sensation of having swallowed an insect that flapped its wings in my brain, rap rap rap, tap tap tap, and I was left screaming with a dire brain disorder. Ugh. Rare this year that I have come across as bad a book as Sharmila's Book.

I am not usually this scathing. I am a lazy writer myself, who understands the pain of writing - but after reading this book, I understood the pain of reading too. The pain of reading something that should never have graced a respected publisher's desk. For the record, Sharmila's Book, imaginatively named as it is, (all sarcasm included in this post), recites the drama, heartbreak, and musings of Sharmila, an Indian American, who abruptly decides that she would enter an arranged marriage with Raj, a widower. Ah, I can't narrate this plot even. I get that same insect fluttering disorder when I do. So forgive me readers, Amazon succinctly sums it up here.

Luckily, I picked up the book at a throwaway price of around $1, while its original price was $15. I understand now why it was marked so low. Those booksellers were surely throwing it away. Bharti Kirchner might be good at cooking, and writing cook books but Sharmila's Book is like a bad recipe that has gone horribly wrong. The characters were half-baked, the plot a mashed potpourri that would confound anyone with tiring metaphors pretending to be the salad that graced the plot. In the end, a burnt, mangled, congealed mess is what Sharmila's Book turns out to be. Avoid. Please.

Verdict: Ugh.

Rating: 0/5

Pomegranate Soup

Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran is an infectious, witty, humane story of magic realism. Set in a quaint Irish village called Ballinacroagh, it revolves around three sisters who have escaped the revolution in Iran - Bahar, Layla, and Marjan. Haunted by a violent past, the three foreigners treat Ballinacroagh as the refuge they long for in their life - with a restaurant called Babylon cafe that serves exotic Persian food.

There is nothing thought-provoking about Pomegranate Soup. The writing is fluid, and moves the narrative without taxing your brain. The characters are all clear set - the good, the bad, and the ugly are told to you almost from the beginning. You know the ending of the book even as you begin reading the book. Yet, I liked Pomegranate Soup. It left a pleasant taste on a Sunday evening - the feeling of having spent a few hours lost in another world, yet not feeling like you have lost those hours. It is a delectable journey into Persian cooking, Irish living, and small-town sentiments and traditions.

Critics have pointed out the novel's astounding similarity to Chocolat. I haven't read that book, although I did see the movie but I can imagine how it might be similar. In both, the foreigners are treated with suspicion by the locals in a small town, and the magic of food, heady aromas and kindness of common people contrives to create an entirely pleasant effect. I cannot justify the criticism completely having not read Chocolat, but aye, let me be shameless here - if it was copied, I enjoyed the copy. :-).

Oh well, Pomegranate Soup was not a literary triumph, but it was fun to read. Utterly delicious.

Verdict: Mouthwatering.

Rating: 3.5/5

Giving Up the Ghosts

I hadn't read a book about physical pain and suffering in a long time. And there's lots of it in Hilary Mantel's memoir "Giving up the Ghosts." Beginning with her childhood memories of her house in Norfolk it is easy to recognize a precocious child with a keen sense of observation. She traces the stages of her life until adulthood and finally her discovery that she is a victim of endometriosis.

Mantel writes the language of childhood in the first half of the book. She writes with simplicity and we get the feeling that its almost like a diary - a recording of what she observes as is, like a raw image sans embellishments. From the beginning the humor is unmistakeably present, enveloping a cynical view of life, which only gets stronger as she grows older. Through wry utterances she sometimes comes up with a scornful look at society and its standards of the time, laced with a frustration at not being understood on numerous occasions. But its the penultimate chapter, "Show Your Workings" that delivers a brilliant performance in writing and sketching a life of pain, physical and mental. The humor is consistent albeit through clenched teeth only serving to heighten the sadness. At one point, towards the end, just when we feel she is close to drowning in self-pity she denies it -

"Am not writing to solicit any special sympathy ... Am writing in order to take charge of the story of my childhood and my childlessness."

Even through blurred vision caused by sheer pain she writes with an endearing alacrity. Her transformation in her ideas, her person and thoughts comes across sharply and sets you thinking about a few home truths she realises.

Verdict: Slightly sags till the middle of the book and then picking up furiously. Great read to understand one woman's will and determination to get past her past and just live.

Rating: 3.5/5

Hemingway's Chair

"The book's strengths...are precisely the ones you don't expect: its dry, deftly understated wit; its careful plot and character construction; its hearty, well-formed sentences; its clever, on-the-money dialogue." Bruce Weber, The New York Times Book Review.

"Is there anything that Michael Palin can't do? Now, with Hemingway's Chair, he's produced an engaging and accomplished first novel. It makes you wonder when we'll be hearing the premiere of Palin's First Symphony....His book is well paced, his prose carefully hewn, his characters fully developed and convincingly human. And his comic timing is impeccable." The Washington Post.

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Hemingway's Chair was the New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1998. Ten years hence, I saw the book at a knocked-down price, and considering that I am a fan of New York Times' recommendations, the book moved through the sale, and on to my bedside table faster than Hemingway could write.

Funny, yes, it is, I agree with the above reviews. Hilarious at times, the book has a dry British humor, a play on words, and oddly lovable characters. All except one. The hero of the book, the main character, Martin Sproale. Engaging at first, there is something about the ordinary in him, and I don't mean to criticize that. He is meant to be Everyman. With his own strange quirk - his love and adoration for Hemingway. Martin is devoted to his post office, but is just as susceptible to the odd greediness as any of us. His life begins to unravel when young, unscrupulous Nick Marshall is appointed Manager denying Martin what was rightfully his. Nick is all for modernizing the post office, and that means an end to tradition as we know. Righto. The story was interesting till now, and would have continued to be so if it had stuck to its plot.

But no. Suddenly, there is a bizarre sub-element -Nick, surprise surprise, is two-timing the post office, and in some complicated way is out to implement a networking system that will revolutionize the world. In the middle we have Ruth, an American novelist who is writing a book on Hemingway's women, flashing the proverbial apple to poor Martin in the form of Hemingway's chair up for sale. It costs a 1000 quid, and Martin has not the money. So what does he do? Well, he falls in with Nick. The old post office goes. The new one comes up. Martin takes up the cause of getting back the post office, and loses his girlfriend to Nick, gains another one in Ruth, loses his mental balance completely, and somehow apparently obtains his revenge...or does he?

The language is superb, but the plot is a bit too thin. I could not understand why not one, but two women would fall in love with Martin, who is not I assure, you, likely to capture your imagination. I mean, he walks around talking of "Papa" (Hemingway), collects Papa's knick knacks, and lives more in Papa's world than this own and I am not sure that is fact enough to love him. In the end, I was a tad disappointed. For a novel that started so well, it unfortunately didn't quite have Hemingway's own characteristic punch in the end.

Verdict: Disappointing.

Rating: 2.4/5

Autobiography Of A Yogi

I have been shaken and stirred by this particular book that I just finished reading yesterday. But then the Autobiography of a Yogi is meant to do that. Hailed as a classic of modern times Autobiography of a Yogi is the story of Paramahansa Yogananda, who traces his life from his childhood until the death of his guru. Yogananda, whose real name is Mukunda Lal Ghosh, recounts how he was surrounded by spiritual experiences even as a child with his parents being disciples of the great Lahiri Mahasaya who was responsible for awakening Kriya Yoga in India. Yogananda became a disciple of Sri Yukteswar to whom he was immensely attached. The book ends with a briefing of the years between 1940-51 when Yogananda returns to America and spends his time teaching in his various centers.

The book is exceptional and in the beginning I feared myself bordering on sarcastic disbelief. But Yogananda patiently explains how, for example, some saints are able to materialize food from thin air. I still haven't been able to understand how one saint fixes a severed arm back and causes the blood to cease but then there was a little too much science at certain points, which flew over my head. But this book is a perfect amalgam of science and spirituality, one that would provide fodder for thought for the rational and irrational. We realize the extent to which we use our minds and bodies, which is near to none, and the power that we possess, which we never are even aware of. Written in very simple language, although entering dramatic realms at times, Autobiography of a Yogi reveals some of the most complex truths that our bodies, minds and the universe have to offer.

Sometimes I got the feeling that Yogananda's reverence towards his guru blinded him to a few others in his life. He turns to his father, for example, only when he needs finances and otherwise there is no mention of him. He writes long of the gifts he brought from his travels abroad for his guru Yukteswar but does not mention any for his father. I could be wrong in perceiving the bent of his affections, maybe its just that he has not mentioned it in a book, which is primarily focusing on something else. There's a lot one can learn from Yogananda's autobiography. My favorite is one that the saint Sri Sadashiva says, "Do not do what you want, then you will do what you like." So pithy and simple, yet one of the most profound thoughts that can be assimilated into everyday living.

Verdict: Change your way of thinking and be astounded. Simply amazing.

Rating: 4.2/5

PS: Many thanks to the Self-Realization Fellowship for correcting a link here in this post.

Manju Kapur: The Immigrant

My reading shelf was woefully bereft of Indian authors for a while. Now though, this anomaly is slowly being set right, and Manju Kapur's The Immigrant was one of the few Indian-authored books I have bought this year. I was not unfamiliar with Manju Kapur's work having read A Married Woman a while back (and forgotten to review the same). The Immigrant is quite the hit here in India - at least going by its prominence in bookshops. Of late, there has been a surge of books that claim to strike at the heart of the Indian immigrant experience - Jhumpa Lahiri did it beautifully in her collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth.

The Immigrant is just what it says it is - the experiences of two Indians living in the U.S. Their marriage. The unraveling of that marriage. The secrets that taunt their relationship. And the embracing of the unfamiliar West with the uncomfortable jostling for space from the East. Nina is a 30-year old English lecturer. Ananda or Andy in the U.S., is a dentist trying to ride high on the American dream. The twain collide through the Indian system of arranged marriage. Soon, they drift apart. Nina, from initial dependency on her husband for the minutest tasks, grows to attending college, taking a course as a librarian, and graduating to an affair. Andy, of course, already has his own affair. My judgment is not on the affairs - they are commonplace enough even in Indian families these days. Instead, both the lives here are arid, cold, and void. They seek neither to understand nor love - and desolate, lonely and isolate, both Nina and Ananda evoke sympathy in the reader.

Manju Kapur, is a teacher at Miranda College in Delhi - and is known for her portrayal of ordinary lives. The mundane middle class. The shallow, the worthless lives that bear no scrutiny in the misery of the world. Her characters therefore resonate. Although I can't say I found The Immigrant a cult classic, yet days after I read it, I still remember Nina's anguished feelings. In that perhaps, the writer has accomplished her task - to capture the reader. "Mesmerizing saga," as the dust jacket claims it is most certainly not.

Verdict: Readable.

Rating: 2.5/5

Purple Hibiscus

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie achieved greater fame with One Half Of A Yellow Sun. But it was her intense, stark and moving debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, that I picked up first. Purple Hibiscus is set in the African continent, a land in which my interest grows with each passing day. In Enugu, Nigeria, at the beginning of the civil war, we find Jaja and Kambili under the tyrannical rule of their Christian father. The book pulled me in immediately, its atmosphere of fear creating suspense with every tale - I found myself turning the pages with bated breath each time Jaja or Kambili commit even the most minor transgression in their father Eugene's list of 'do not sin' rules. Eugene is a fanatic - bound by strict rules of Christianity - one who does not hesitate to beat his wife into a miscarriage, one who dunks Kambili's feet in boiling hot water. I found that it was easy to hate him. Yet perhaps, that is not Chimamanda's intention. Eugene was, maybe, not a bad man - indeed his entire village looked up to him for his generosity.

Bound to their father, everything changes when they visit their Aunt Ifeoma with her three children. Both Jaja and Kambili are forced to realign their bitterly-held beliefs about the world, so harshly instilled by Eugene. In the background too, we are made aware of the rapidly changing Nigerian world. The military coup, the atmosphere of silence and fear that descends on a country - is in parallel with Eugene as the feared dictator in his own house. As the Purple Hibiscus blooms, (it is a powerful symbol in the novel - introduced as a flower that Jaja grows to love), the lives of both Jaja, Kambili, Mama, and Aunt Ifeoma are transformed through death, and liberation.

Local flavor is rich throughout the novel - it helps to convey Chimamanda's own, unique African voice. And even rarer, a female voice - a perspective that is often missing in the canon of African literature. Purple Hibiscus was shortlisted for Britain's prestigious Orange Prize in 2004, and won the Best First Book award in the 2005 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Chimamanda is apparently lovingly called agadi nywanyi, by her sister, which means old in Igbo, as the Washington Post reveals in this profile. At 30 though, she is not old but possesses what the Post calls a certain centredness. In Purple Hibiscus, I found that same centredness. Translated again, it becomes wisdom.

Verdict: Mesmerizing.

Rating: 5/5

Ines Of My Soul

I confess that Ines Of My Soul was the first book of renowned, best-selling author Isabel Allende that I have ever read. I had shunned her books, dismissing it as mere teen pop fiction, an observation not taken too kindly by Mocha, one of the writers on this blog, and needless to say, an ardent fan of Allende. Yet, when I found Ines Of My Soul up for sale, in a special large print edition, I thought, oh well, let me give this a try.

Yaaawn. That just about sums up my response to the novel. Was it the large print that made me feel like I was reading a children's book? Or was it just the simplistic narrative that read more like a history monologue? I am not sure at this time, but the book dragged. Let me be fair - for lovers of historical fiction, the book would be gripping. Maybe, if you are the sort to be easily sated. But for me, it has to be more than mere love - it has to be passion that drives a book. Ines Of My Soul narrates the story of Ines Suarez, who along with Pedro Valdivia, conquer Chile. Brutally. And mercilessly. The conquest of the Christians over the pagan Mapuche. Isabel Allende cautions at the beginning of the novel that “this novel is a work of intuition, but any similarity to events and persons relating to the conquest of Chile is not coincidental." So, all the characters peopled in the book did exist, but as the New York Times says, this poses a problem: it seems that the plot of the novel moves around history, a desperate attempt to fill what has been and what was with the immediacy of what is.

The result? The novel fails. Miserably. I felt I was reading history - and while that is not a bad thing, I would rather read it in a more, yawn, interesting way. Sorry Allende, this book was just not for me.

Verdict: Yawn. Yawn. Yawn. Goodnight...

Rating: 2/5

The Time of the Uprooted

After Elie Wiesel's Night astounded me with its depth and poignancy, I decided to read some of his other books. Soon enough I chanced upon "The Time of the Uprooted" and immediately picked it up. But as I began reading, surprisingly one of the first feelings I got was - its a bit boring. Then I chastised myself thinking how can I think that one of THE Elie Wiesel's books is boring. But then the beginning is. Then it picks up. Then it becomes unputdownable.

The book is about Gamaliel Friedman who earns his living as a ghostwriter in the U.S. Put very crudely, the book chronicles his experiences during WWII as a child, his escape and life in Vienna, Paris and New York and his search for his guardian, Ilonka, to whom he is very attached. But Gamaliel is so much more than that. He is a refugee, a widower, a father whose daughters hate him for no apparent reason, a vulnerable and lonely man and a good friend to three other refugees like him.

Wiesel's ability to drop profound truths in a casual manner through mundane conversation should not go unnoticed.


"I'm opposed to hating," said Gad, "Anyone who gives in to hate can no longer function; he becomes stupid and vulnerable... Hatred can be dangerous when we let it control us."


When said in quotidien conversation, truths become extraordinary and powerful. The entire novel is weighed down by the pain of being "stateless" and tells the fragmented stories of Gamaliel and his friends. The back and forth movement of the narration is a bit jarring and each characters' story is told in bits and pieces woven throughout the book mirroring their own lives. Sentences that reflect the acute pain and disillusionment with life are rife -


"In reality its not my body that is sick; I(italics) am... I disgust myself... I want myself dead... But Death wants no part of me."


Loneliness gnaws constantly. Gamaliel seeks companionship and finally when he thinks he has found love with Eve he loses it.


"Love isn't everything. You should know that... There is something above love and beyond it... The secret that gives us humans the ability to transcend ourselves in good as well as in evil."


And this is the secret that Gamaliel unravels in the end, in an epiphanic moment not unlike the one Gabriel experiences in Joyce's short story "The Dead." With this slightly uplifting moment the book ends.

But Time... is certainly not a book to read if you are looking for something uplifting. It can weigh on your mind like deadweight and cause the rusty chains of simple thought to be put in motion. It rises from this level to explore some of Wiesel's favorite themes, of exile and identity, suffering and relationships among many others.

Verdict - Rediscover different levels of thought through this enlightening book

Rating - 4/5

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Mohsin Hamid has written a brilliant book. Gripping, taut with suspense, and spooky with its sense of impending foreboding, I was enthralled with the work of an author who writes at the peak of his art. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, I picked up at a book sale at a bargain. I dilly-dallied before buying it - is it readable I wondered, in the awful "let me try and see if the book is readable in a glance" way that we book lovers develop over a period of time. Ultimately, the book stayed. The Reluctant Fundamentalist was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and it deserves to be in that class, although perhaps may not be in the actual class of winners.

Told entirely in the first person, the novel begins with our hero, Changez, reminiscing about his life in America to a person we are led to assume is an American, fearful and mistrusting about the world around him in Lahore, Pakistan. As Hamid himself says, "The novel is just a conversation between two men, one of whom we never hear," and yet, offers varying tones of suspense that make it a thriller almost. Changez talks about his move to America as a student, his acceptance into the elite Underwood Samson company, moving around at the top business circles, falling tragically in love with Erica, an Upper East side, New York woman. Ultimately, as the September 11 attacks thrust America into the forefront of the griminess and misery that is hatred and suspicion of each other, Changez is forced to confront his own identity with the U.S., his loyalty with Pakistan, and the disappearance of Erica. At the heart of this novel, seamlessly integrating with the inherent tension of the conflict between East and West is also the doomed love story between Changez and Erica. In doing so, Mohsin Hamid humanizes terror, and places it on a personal perspective. What is the definition of terrorism he questions. In a sentence that particularly struck me, Hamid talks about the American bombing of Afganistan, and the invasion of Iraq.

"A common strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie's concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism, which was defined to refer only to the organized and politically motivated killing of civilians by killers not wearing the uniforms of soldiers. "

There are no ready conclusions at the end of the novel. When Hamid was questioned about his anti-American stance in the novel, he explained that The Reluctant Fundamentalist was as much an American novel as any other that emerged from the heart of New York. "The book doesn’t try to say America is bad, it’s how someone can be disillusioned with America," he says.

The abrupt ending of the book didn't bother me. In a way I expected it. There was of much of a build up of suspense towards the end that I knew that the author could not masterfully bring it to a climax without ruining the tenets of the novel. It has its flaws, as the Guardian observes, but I am happy to ignore them. The Reluctant Fundamentalist offered me complete immersion from the outside world, offering me layers of meaning to reality and unreality - and that to my fickle mind, rates high.

Verdict: Taut. Suspenseful. Worth the Booker nomination.

Rating: 4/5