Three Women of Liverpool and Madame Barbara : Helen Forrester

Image Credit: Amazon

I seem to have read a lot of books this month. Not all of them have been quality reading, though. Helen Forrester (June Bhatia is her real name) appears to be a fairly prolific author. Why do authors not use their real name? I have never quite understood that though. A George Eliot yes. That was then. But why would you want to write under an assumed name these days? Hmm.

Three Women of Liverpool and Madame Barbara was part of an omnibus I picked up. I have been in a fairly serious mood of late, and as a result wanted something light to read. Funny how our minds work. And light these books certainly are. They don't unduly tax your brain, and Forrester's style is easy on the eye, flowing through effortlessly. She spins a good story, and you find yourself turning the pages faster than you think. But my praise stops here. Both the books are focused in Liverpool. No, that's not the problem! Well, Madame Barbara deviates a little with some of the action set in France. Forrester's themes revolve around the World Wars and Depression eras.  You will know what my problem is, please do read on.

Three Women of Liverpool claims to trace the life of three women as they cope with the merciless bombing of Liverpool during World War II. From the book jacket:

There is Ellen -- whose home is destroyed by bombs; Gwen, whose family absorbs all her time and energy; and Emmie, whose only fears are for the safety of her merchant seaman fiance, far away in the South Atlantic. None of them were prepared for what would follow, when the air raid siren sounded for the first time on 1 May, 1941...

Amidst a lot of war action, precious little happens really. Gwen is the only one who seems to evolve as a character. The action is always at a frenzy, but the denouement beggars belief. I hate endings where it feels like the author got bored, and just said, ah ok, I have exceeded my 45,000 word limit. Everyone, peace! Bye!

Image Credit: Amazon

Madame Barbara is a bigger book, stretching into more than 400 pages. Barbara is a grieving war widow who comes to Normandy to visit her husband's grave. There she meets the taxi driver Michel. Passion grows, and so begins our 'tale of loss and love.' There is more loss than love. Much of the novel is dedicated to Michel's financial woes. Indeed. I have many myself, and I think it's high time I set them down in a book?

Poor, poverty-stricken Michel wants to get married, but must wait for Anatole, his ailing brother to pass into his grave. Then pack off his Mom, then find a job, then go to Liverpool, then get flustered at the reception he gets, then fight with Barbara, decide to leave and find work in France  and of course he has too much pride to eke out a decent living at the bed-breakfast Barbara and her Mom run. So it goes on. Once again, the ending - well, I am glad Forrester was bored, because so was I. I had had enough of Michel's woe begone woes. Ah. Michel really irritated me. And so too did these books.

Maybe, there is a reason why the author writes under an assumed name. You just don't want your fans to track you down after you write this!

Verdict: Blah. Bleep. Bop.

Rating: 1/5

Versedays: An Essay to Miss Catherine Jay by Charles Bombaugh

Image from openlibrary

Did the Victorians use mobile phones? Obviously not. But what they did use is the language of mobile texting. Hard to believe, but poems using short forms of words are apparently not new. An exhibition that the British Library put up sometime in August 2010, also featured a poem called An Essay to Miss Catherine Jay taken from Gleanings From the Harvest-Fields of Literature, Science and Art by Charles Carroll Bombaugh. It really surprised me when I read this poem, which I had difficulty following in places due to its short forms. I myself don’t use short forms while texting, preferring to spell out most of the words except some like “you” or “very.” Well, see if you can figure this poem out in its entirety!

An Essay to Miss Catherine Jay

by

Charles Bombaugh

An S A now I mean 2 write
2 U sweet K T J,
The girl without a ||,
The belle of U T K.

I 1 der if U got that 1
I wrote 2 U B 4
I sailed in the R K D A,
And sent by L N Moore. . . .

This S A, until U I C
I pray U 2 X Q's
And do not burn in F E G
My young and wayward muse.

Now fare U well, dear K T J,
I trust that U R true--
When this U C, then you can say,
An S A I O U.

Rajmohan's Wife: Bankimchandra Chatterjee

Image Credit: penguinbooks

I just had the honor of reading the “first Indian novel in English.” But I didn’t know this when I bought the book. “Rajmohan’s Wife” by Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay is the author’s only English novel as well as he went on to write Bengali novels and poetry including India’s national song Vande Mataram. Here is the brief from the book jacket –

The beautiful and passionate Matangini, married to a villainous man and in love with her sister’s husband, represents the vitality of women who remain strong in the face of brutality and the confining expectations of middle-class society. Bankimchandra’s vivid descriptions of the routine of Bengali households provide a revealing portrait of life in the 19th century. Rajmohan’s Wife continues to be relevant for its universal themes of love and romance and resonates even today for its portrayal of strong women.

The story is quite simple. Matangini, to whom the book’s title refers to, overhears a plot by her husband Rajmohan to steal an important document from Madhav who is her brother-in-law. She loves her sister dearly and Madhav in more ways than one. So she immediately sets out in the middle of the night through the forest to her sister’s house to warn them. Though the plot is foiled, it is not without consequences.

The book is an easy read from the beginning with ample twists and turns to keep it going. Matangini drives the plot initially with her actions but after a point she disappears and the focus is on Mathur and Madhav. I have a sneaky feeling that Madhav, the English-educated, civil and soft spoken person in a village of landlords and scheming people, is modeled after Bankimchandra himself.

Since I enjoy reading historical descriptions and the way of life of countries, particularly India, in olden times, this was quite a great find. Bankimchandra does a neat job of bringing a village in 19th century Bengal alive through his descriptions of people and landscape.

But it stops there. I found the dialogue between people very contrived at times and tedious. The writing style is more like an essay I would say, which makes it dry. The descriptions that I liked, came like a breath of fresh air, in an otherwise suffocating wordage. The sudden employment of archaic language just to convey romance makes it stilted.

“Woman, deceive me not. Canst thou? Thou little knowest how I have watched thee; how from the earliest day that thy beauty became thy curse, I have followed every footstep of thine…”

The book does show the importance of women as Matangini is the one who foils the plot. She is shown as a beautiful woman who is not scared to break rules and also throw challenges to Mathur –

“Look; I am a full-grown woman and at least your equal in brute force. Will you call in allies?”

The opposite of Matangini is her sister Hemangini who is every bit the shy, society-moulded woman who hesitates to even talk to her sister in front of her husband.

All in all, this is not a boring read and being a short book, it gets over fast. The introduction and afterword by Meenakshi Mukherjee is very interesting as well. But at the end of it I would say, it’s good that Bankim stuck to his native language after this. I am sure I would find the acclaimed Anandamath a much more delightful read.

Verdict: Read it because it's the first Indian novel in English

Rating: 3/5

No And Me : Delphine de Vigan

Image Credit: WHSmith

It's been an enervating week. A strange dissipating week that started in one of the most awful ways in my recent memory, and then dragged itself into a dull ache. You watch people behave in ways that seem almost absurd, and then you think, it IS absurd. I have no idea why being simple is so complex and why such an apparently simple thing as be-ing is fraught with myriad dangers to the self. Sigh. I cannot understand us. We are just an incomprehensible race, and I am pretty sure the animal world has a cackle about us every now and then.

And I think if I were to speak to Lou Bertignac, she will nod her precocious 13-year old head and agree with me. For you see, Lou kind of doesn't understand either. She can't understand a world that has place for the homeless. She cannot understand the apathy and the apparent ease with which we tend to think of 'us' and 'them.' Yes, strains of Pink Floyd in this review! And Lou is sadly afflicted with an IQ of 160 or so, which makes her gifted in the eyes of society, but this gift is just an impediment for normal relationships for her. Lou then befriends No, an 18-year old who lives on the streets in Paris, haunting the metro stations and foraging for everyday existence. They form a strong, if unusual bond. It's not an easy relationship. (Which relationship is ever easy, I wonder!). It's here that Delphine de Vigan excels. She creates such a sustained atmosphere in No And Me that you can almost breathe in it. Lou as your narrator is not a typical 13-year old. Not when she talks like this to you, the reader:

"All my life I've felt on the outside wherever I am, out of the picture, the conversation, at one remove, as though I was the only one able to hear the sounds or words that others can't and deaf to the words that they seem to hear. As if I'm outside the frame, on the other side of a huge, invisible window."

And I found myself nodding, ah yes Lou, I so know what you mean. Lou and No's friendship/sisterhood is fragile at best. You know it. You feel it. Lou tries to help No. In her way. She takes No home. It is a courageous step, and she thinks she can fight it. Fight this world step by step. No's scars of living on the streets are all evident. And Lou has her own burdens to bear. Vigan plots intricate family relationships with astuteness. Lou's longing for family - her naked need to be hugged, loved and comforted, and No's troubles with her own mother are beautiful etched.

There is much to be admired in this little book. It reads fast, but packs a lot in. At times, the social commentary that Vigan feels obliged to add appears to slant a bit towards artifice. I just ignored it. Despite marketed also as a Young Adult novel, I feel it will appeal more to so-called real adults (Hah, such a contemptuously ignorant term of reality if there ever was). There is an echoing undercurrent of sadness that runs through the book, but there is inspiration in abundance too. It's a coming of age tale that packs in wisdom and of that we always need more. No need to diet on wisdom, is there? And Lou is wise.

Before I met No I thought that violence meant shouting and hitting and war and blood. Now I know that there can also be violence in silence and that it's sometimes invisible to the naked eye. There's violence in the time that conceals wounds, the relentless succession of days, the impossibility of turning back the clock. Violence is what escapes us. It's silent and hidden. Violence is what remains in explicable, what stays forever opaque. 

And this beautiful chapter ends with this:

And I think there's violence in that too - in her inability to reach out to me, to make the gesture which is impossible and so forever suspended.

Read this book a while. And enjoy it a lot longer.

Verdict : A little gem that strains at the edges at times, but is always believable and touching in its portrayal of relationships and wounds they inflict.


Rating: 4/5

Versedays: Instants by Jorge Luis Borges

Image Credit: Birdy

Versedays comes out early today. Actually I made a mistake in putting the date. Instead of Thursday I put today's date. But it's a change. Why follow routine always? :)

Today's poem struck me with its beauty and depth of message. All of us have had regrets at some point in time. We have wished that we had done something better or pursued something long enough. When I came upon Jorge Luis Borges' poem 'Instants,' these thoughts were swirling in my head. His words spoke to me personally and instantly made me think. It's also got the theme of carpe diem running through it as Borges urges us to "live the now!" I couldn't agree more. Here is the poem, hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did.

Instants

by

Jorge Luis Borges

If I could live again my life,
In the next - I'll try,
- to make more mistakes,
I won't try to be so perfect,
I'll be more relaxed,
I'll be more full - than I am now,
In fact, I'll take fewer things seriously,
I'll be less hygenic,
I'll take more risks,
I'll take more trips,
I'll watch more sunsets,
I'll climb more mountains,
I'll swim more rivers,
I'll go to more places - I've never been,
I'll eat more ice creams and less (lime) beans,
I'll have more real problems - and less imaginary
ones,
I was one of those people who live
prudent and prolific lives -
each minute of his life,
Of course that I had moments of joy - but,
if I could go back I'll try to have only good moments,

If you don't know - thats what life is made of,
Don't lose the now!

I was one of those who never goes anywhere
without a thermometer,
without a hot-water bottle,
and without an umberella and without a parachute,

If I could live again - I will travel light,
If I could live again - I'll try to work bare feet
at the beginning of spring till
the end of autumn,
I'll ride more carts,
I'll watch more sunrises and play with more children,
If I have the life to live - but now I am 85,
- and I know that I am dying ...

PS: Borges died two years after writing this poem...

Something Good. Somewhere.

I have had the most bizarre and nerve wracking couple of days. No, this post isn't about that, but I had to post a non-book-review post. Sorry readers if you were expecting one of my usual "I don't like this book," sob stories that pass off as a review. :-). Also, this is rather India-centric, but I hope Life Wordsmith's non-Indian readers won't be too miffed.

I know that many of you borrow books from the library (lucky you!) or from neighbors or from friends. I know that some of you steal it from the kid next door or the bookstore nearby. (Hehe). I know that some of you buy books. I fall into the last category. I don't have a library here that has any books worth the trouble of walking up to it, and I always used to haunt bookstores. Amazon isn't king here in India, so I had refrained from shopping online for a long while. Then a few stores came along - Indiatimes, Rediff, Infibeam. I tried them all. And hated them all. Then Flipkart came along. Birdy found the site, and we thought, oh well, let's give this a go too. We know what will happen. The book will come in 2 or 3 WEEKS time and not 3 days as promised, if it comes at all. In between you have to make a dozen phone calls wondering which warehouse in India it is lying in. And then by the time you finish checking up they come back and say sorry we don't have the book after all. We have given you a gift coupon for the amount, so please use that so that you would be stupid enough to shop on our site again. Duh. But not Flipkart. No, I am not an affiliate of Flipkart. But I usually rave and rant about customer service all the time, and when I find something good I feel we ought to let the world know about it. Bit like telling the world what a wonderful person SoulMuser is, ain't it? :-)

Flipkart has always been impeccable in their delivery turnaround time. 3 days promised delivery is often 2 days. The book is perfectly packaged and their prices used to make me smile each time. Till this happened a few days ago. I ordered The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie priced at Rs175 with a discount of Rs26, effectively Rs149 on their site. The book arrived on time. I turned the book over and saw to my shock that the publisher's price was Rs150! So why was Flipkart claiming to give me a discount of Rs26? I felt duped. And I hate being duped. It wasn't the money. Principles et al you know. I wrote to them. And I thought, well now let's see how this goes. You know how it went? They wrote back. Within 24 hours they credited my Flipkart account with the price difference (discount promised), and apologized for the mistake. I think that was pretty awesome, hence this shout out. Good companies are rare. Good customer service rarer. Mistakes happen. All the time. It's when we own up to it and rectify it that we become better. And for that Flipkart, despite the blip remains my favorite online shopping experience. Now I only wish that a few other companies in India follow their example. Sigh.

The World According To Garp : John Irving

Image Credit: Tia's Book Musings

Every so often, I pick up a book that is generally considered a cult classic. Wow, I think, surely this book rocks! And every so often, I fail. To perceive the book's rockingness. The World According To Garp by John Irving needs no introduction. I am not even sure it needs a review. Yet, I sit here, rather lost on a hot Sunday morning and Garp, Helen, Jenny, Duncan, Roberta all floating around in the mind's home, and I think to myself, have I missed something?

After reading The World According To Garp, that's precisely the feeling I am left with. A sense of loss. A loss of understanding perhaps? A loss of memories? A sense of the loss of time? How often I have wished to belong to that cult readers sect, and exclaim with wonderful abandon while daintily sipping cocktails : Oh! I know! Isn't Garp amaaaazing? His terminal view of the world is suuuuuuch a reflection on the world we live in. And then again, I know that I would never make it to that cocktail set, sure to be daintily kicked out held guilty for sarcastic abandon. But back to Garp. Who is Garp? Novelist, father, husband, lover and son. Who is Jenny Garp? Nurse. Mother. So-called feminist. Writer. Who is Helen? Professor. Wife. Lover. Mother. Daughter. Who is Roberta? Man. Football player. Woman. Friend. Even as I write these labels, I wonder at the human species' remarkable ability to stick labels. We are walking human malls, urging everyone to take a look at our price tag. "Hey, I - the lover - am on sale today! Going fast!" Or how about this? "Fresh young mother. Tender and nurturing. Limited stocks available." Jenny Garp, a woman who decides that she wants to be a mother without the unnecessary tag-along of husband, says early on:

"In this dirty minded world, you are either someone's wife or someone's whore. And if you're not either people think there is something wrong with you....but there is nothing wrong with me"

Irving's themes of sexuality, adultery, love, violence, death and writing are well known though I haven't read any of his other novels. In the afterword to Garp, Irving writes that while the book is also about writing - the novelist's difficulty in consuming imagination over memory, it is also a book about fears. A father's fears. The Under Toad - a vague ominous note of anxiety runs throughout Garp. And really, Garp himself although he is described later as a 'man of energy' is a man gripped by anxiety. Indeed, isn't this the Age of Anxiety? Humans devoured with fear, afraid to act, (Garp for all this faults is not a man of inaction), afraid to love, afraid to befriend, afraid to seek a limitless vision. Does Garp have a vision? I am not sure. He is moody, irascible - he is vulnerable and achingly possessive and anxious about those he loves. Those he likes are very few though. Ding dong, a bell is ringing in my head! Who does this sound like? Someone who blogs under the name of Soul Muser. Hmm...;-)

Some of the scenes in Garp are supposed to be bizarre. I wouldn't qualify ANY of them as bizarre. No. Not even the car accident. Humans behave in such ways that to call it bizarre would just a gentle burnishing of the truth. And the truth is we are bizarre. There were some wonderful lines in the book, one of which I think reflects perfectly well on the kind of friendships people feel obliged to maintain:

...and they all settled into being the kind of friends many old friends become : that is, they were friends when they heard from each other - or when occasionally, they got together. And when they were not in touch, they did not think of each other. 

And I think Garp's curse here is so often my own:

It was Garp's curse to be unable to conceal his feelings from people, even from strangers; if he thought contemptuous thoughts about you, somehow you knew.

And I think no book lover would disagree with this gem from Garp:

To Garp, [TV's] glow looks like cancer, insidious and numbing, putting the world to sleep. Maybe television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer’s irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn’t reading.

This is the last one from me, I promise!

They were involved in that awkward procedure of getting to unknow each other.

As you can see underneath the tragi-comic tone, there is a great deal of wisdom in Garp. I did not LOVE any of the characters, but I enjoyed reading about them in a clinical, detached way that perhaps Garp himself would have approved of. For really, we are all 'terminal cases.'

Verdict: A cult classic that deserves to be read. Whether it deserves to be loved is another matter. 


Rating: 3.5/5

Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan and American Born Chinese by Gene Yang

Image Credits: Exit Wounds cover from comicsalliance. ABC cover from nassaulibrary



This week I read two graphic novels thanks to Vishy who kindly lent them to me. I finished both of them in a day’s time and thought I would write one review for both. The books in question are Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan and American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. I found both extremely well-written and illustrated (in color!).

Here is the brief of Exit Wounds from the book jacket –

In modern day Tel Aviv, a young man, Koby Franco, receives an urgent phone call from a female soldier named Numi. Learning that his estranged father may have been a victim of a suicide bombing in Hadera, Koby reluctantly joins Numi in searching for clues. As Koby tries to unravel the mystery of his missing father, he finds himself not only piecing together the last few months of his father’s life, but his entire identity.

I was captivated from the first page of Exit Wounds. Beginning with the aforesaid phone call, Koby goes on a search and in the process he discovers that though he had thought he disliked his father, there was still a soft corner for him somewhere. Koby had always hated the fact that his father never did the right thing.

Koby: It’s the day of my birthday. He takes out a box, tells me to close my eyes. My mother was watching too, all excited.

Numi: So? What did he get you?

Koby: A Maccabi Tel-Aviv soccer outfit. With the whole team’s signatures on the Jersey.

Numi: That’s wonderful!

Koby: Right. Only I’m a Ha’ Poel fan.

Numi: Oh, no! But it’s funny, isn’t it?

Koby: Only a girl could say that. It sure wasn’t funny to me. I was so disappointed I cried… It was so typical. He hardly knew me. He wasn’t thinking about me, only about himself.

In Koby we see a highly irascible and detached person initially, but scenes like these give a clue to why he might have become like that. He is in fact highly reluctant to even look for his father. When Numi says that he hadn’t contacted her in a long time since the bombing, Koby remains skeptical saying he might have just disappeared.

I loved the color illustrations a lot as it made the scenes come alive powerfully. Instead of visualizing Koby and Numi driving on a highway, we actually see it. That is not to say that the visuals overpower the writing. The words are equally or more riveting. I particularly enjoyed the small undercurrent of humor that runs through the book and finally becomes the strongest feeling in the end, though in an unfortunate way. I would highly recommend reading this book even if you are not much of a graphic novel fan.



The second book, American Born Chinese, has an interesting format that combines three stories. The first story is based on the story of the Monkey King – the Journey to the West. Indeed, the second story is about Jin who makes his journey to the west, albeit symbolically because he is born in San Francisco. But to his classmates and even his teachers he is an alien with unpronounceable names and culture.

Teacher: Class, I’d like us all to give a warm Mayflower Elementary welcome to your new friend and classmate Jing Jang!

Jin: Jin Wang.

Teacher: Jing Wang! He and his family recently moved to our neighborhood all the way from China!

Jin: San Francisco.

Teacher: San Francisco!

A boy puts his hand up.

Teacher: Yes, Timmy.

Timmy: My momma says Chinese people eat dogs.

Teacher: Now be nice Tommy! I’m sure Jin doesn’t do that! In fact, Jin’s family probably stopped that sort of thing as soon as they came to the United States!


I can tell you this kind of misconception is very much rampant today from personal experience. This was one of the first questions that I got asked by a lot of people when I returned from China. “So food must have been difficult for you! I have heard that they eat anything including dogs, cats and cockroaches!” Southern China is, let me say, highly experimental in their food habits. But it’s not so everywhere. The sad fact is, people only know about these quirks of China, rather than the other really beautiful aspects that the country has to offer.

Anyway, coming back to the book, the illustrations again add to the superb writing. Stereotypes and misconceptions are sarcastically brought out through the character of Chin-Kee, Danny’s cousin. His name itself, Chin-Kee, I think is a play on “Chinky” a derogatory (I feel) short form for “Chinese.” The brilliance of the book is in taking the two stories of the Monkey King and Jin in parallel chapters and then having them meet in the end through the third story. Initially, I had no clue as to why these two were being told separately. I couldn’t see the connection. But towards the end they met beautifully.

I hope to read more insightful and meaningful novels such as these. They made my day.

Verdict: Don't miss these books!

Rating: 5/5 for both

The Partisan's Daughter : Louis de Bernières

Image Credit: The Age

I agonized so much over buying this book. The bookstore was unusually crowded that New Year's day. Having sorted out a whole pile of books, I was torn between The Partisan's Daughter and another enticing book that promised to be a 'road' story. I can't for the life of me recollect the other book. All I remember were the first two pages - a girl who loved playing around with wigs, hides in the trunk of a car, and soon finds herself on a ship. I wish I can find out the title of this book now. You know how it is when something sits at the back of your mind, and keeps twirling round and round in eccentric circles designed to elicit the last drop of sanity from you? It's the same here. If anyone knows the title or the book from my weak description here, please let me know. 

But back to the book I eventually bought - The Partisan's Daughter. I had read Louis de Bernieres' Notwithstanding last month. Which was last year. Time is such a quiet thief. You sit here thinking you have all of life ahead of you, and then you find that you are another year older, another memory has disappeared, another person has moved out of your life, another phase has come to an end, and another book has turned its page over. It's sad yet beautiful at the same time. Life comes tinged with a touch of sadness by Time - but without it, it would lose a little more of its fragile beauty, I feel. Ah, I don't think I will ever begin this review at this rate. The Partisan's Daughter was fun in parts, touching in a few, but mostly boring. An old man reminiscences about a romantic interlude he had with a former prostitute, Roza, when he was in the 40s. The reason I picked this book was that Birdy found Chris' opening description of his wife as a Great White Loaf hilarious. "My wife was alive back then, but the trouble is that sooner or later, at best, your wife turns into your sister." We laughed over this line too. And that decided it for me. The book has a number of narrators - Chris, the old man, then Chris in his 40s, Roza, and that adds to a bit of reader confusion, especially since yours truly's reading IQ must be something like 20.

Roza uses stories as a framework of her life - Bernieres carefully builds up an atmosphere of sustained romance between Chris and Roza,who meets her in a chance encounter, and desperately wants to sleep with Roza instead of the Great White Loaf at home. The Great White Loaf doesn't want to sleep with him, and so the picture of a sad, uninteresting and rather boring Chris emerges. Should we call him the Thin White Crust then? There is nothing extraordinary about Chris in the flotsam of life. But Roza is. Roza's stories recall a colorful life back in what was then Yugoslavia - her relationships, both men and women, and her eventual flight by boat to London where she works as a hostess in a club for sometime. There is an aching melancholy to Roza - she spins these stories everyday to an enraptured Chris, who listens while somehow at the same time wanting to do nothing more than take her to bed. Is he in love with her, as he claims, or was it just lust? But are Roza's stories real? You are never told - and Bernieres teases us throughout with that tantalizing bit of knowledge he withholds from us.

Remember the novel is set in London in the 1970s, in the Winter of Discontent. Roza and Chris are two such individuals in the Winter of Life's Discontent. Both ache to reach out to each other, but just like we do all the time in our own lives, we fear the touch that may heal can also destroy us. The premise I don't fault - the execution I do. Meandering at times, the book builds up a little to the end, and since I was born with an affliction of the tear ducts that causes me silly to tear up at any sentiment, I had tears in the end. But it doesn't excuse the book. No. There was nothing to recommend in The Partisan's Daughter. And despite one or two lines that made me chuckle, and others which made me feel, ah yes, I know, the book was never complete and its characters appeared more condescending in their stories than reaching out to the reader. There are a few odd lines that touched me though.

"...but now I know that everyone's escaping from themselves. Everybody's on the run, and then one day, you've stopped running, and that's when you are dead, and nobody ever gets to be where they wanted. "

I often wonder how people end up doing what they do. How do you become a sweet-shop proprietor, or a tax inspector? Well, the first thing is that you put your dreams on hold. And the second thing is that you unintentionally give up your dreams entirely, and you while away your life until death comes to collect you, and then you get that last opportunity to look back and see nothing but emptiness behind you. 

One or two lines do not a book make, however. This review by the Telegraph sums it best:

The Partisan's Daughter is a retrospective lament for all that could have been, had one moment in the past turned out differently. Yet it lacks the former's subtlety in scrutinizing the fragility and complexity of love and desire.

Verdict : Confusing read. 


Rating: 2/5

Versedays: Poem No 658 by Ono no Komachi

A 16th century painting of Komachi

Image Credit - Wikipedia

Have you heard of a type of poetry named “waka”? Well, I didn’t know until today that waka or tanka is a sort of Japanese haiku. It’s limited to five lines and was popularized during the 8th century in Japan. A classical form of Japanese verse, waka had many exponents.

One of them is Ono no Komachi, all the more renowned because she was a female poetess. She was legendary, known for her dazzling beauty and erotic verses. Komachi was more legend than a living person, known for her dazzling beauty, for her haughty demeanor, for breaking many men’s hearts and finally growing old with nobody by her side. Even today, every year, Ogachi in Akita prefecture in Japan celebrates the Komachi festival attended by fans from all over. After reading so much, I thought I must post a poem by this famous woman. I perused through many of her poems, but this one stood out for me. Poem No. 658 appears in the Kokin Wakashu, an anthology of poems from the 12th century.

Though I go to you
ceaselessly along dream paths,
the sum of those trysts
is less than a single glimpse
granted in the waking world.

Fall of Giants : Ken Follett

Image Credit: Yamabiko

There haven't been any reviews from me lately because I was busy. Really busy reading Ken Follett's massive 985 page magnum opus, Fall of Giants. Ambitious in its scope, and vast in its scale, Fall of Giants was my very first Follett.

There have been 100s of books about the World Wars. Birdy here has a fascination with them. I don't have a keen interest in books set in that period, but I have always looked forward to reading about this tumultuous and insane period in mankind's history. Interweaving a number of characters from varied backgrounds, Follett has created an engrossing account. We follow five families, including the lives of Billy, lowly coal miner in Wales, his sister Emily, the Earl Fitzherbert, his sister Maud and the Earls' friends, including Walter. How the war intervenes and changes their life forever forms the basis of Fall of Giants.

There has been criticism on the Net about the historical inaccuracies in this book. Fair to say that Follett's is a work of fiction. So perhaps, we can cut the writer a bit of slack there. His characters are also largely typecast - we all know the Earl is going to act like an idiot, and that fantastic coincidences are always around the corner to ensure that the characters meet. Somehow. Even across German and Allied trenches. There is no character development - once formed, they all remain much the same, acting in pretty much the same fashion, and that's where the novel becomes less of a novel, and more of a narrative. As a story, Follett is a very readable writer. I found it easy to turn the pages (you won't believe how difficult a task that is considering the books I am reading now!), and the pace of action was fairly rapid, except for long periods in the second half of the novel when Follett ventures deep into politics and trench warfare without really seeming to show much of a grasp for either.

Some themes never become fleshed out completely - the War, politics, feminism, rich/poor divide, class conflicts, labor conflicts, forbidden love - when you tackle so much, it is obvious that some become orphaned. Is that a failing of the novel? Not so. It is distracting when Follett flips from one to another, but given the scope of the book, you can excuse it. What marks my first grumble of the year is the ending. Once again, everything comes together too hastily, and too much of 'happily ever after' sappiness that mars it. I hope that is not considered a spoiler - forgive me if it is so.

Overall, Fall of Giants was a fast read. Gripping in parts, flagging many times, and predictable. Incidentally, it received quite a beating on Amazon by irate readers who, I think quite justifiably, denounced the $19.99 price tag for the Kindle ebook version. Which makes me thank the person who generously gifted this author-signed copy even more.

Verdict: Requires patience, and I am not sure if there is reward for your patience, but you can proudly tell folks at the next party that you finished a 900-page marathon!


Rating : 2.75/5

Keep the Change: Nirupama Subramanian

Image Credit: Harper Collins

My first book of the year, which I finished, reading in a day, turned out to be something of the “chick lit” variety. I usually give a wide berth to this classification since I cannot identify with the angst of a broken toenail or the exasperation of not having enough shoes. But “Keep the Change” by Nirupama Subramanian has managed to weave in a lot more than that in her book.

To put the story of the novel in one line, it’s about a traditional girl from Chennai in South India going to the big, bad world of Mumbai to establish her independence. Damayanthi has nothing going right for her including her old fashioned name. She is 26 and unmarried. In India, that is a condition that brings more shock to people than knowing someone is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Damayanthi has been brought up with traditional values, which assumes that she would be “happily married” soon. But she nurses an independent streak that yearns to get away from this high societal pressure and the perfect opportunity comes when she is offered a job in a big bank in Mumbai. Damayanthi jumps for it and finds herself alone for the first time, which is both a great delight as well as cause for sadness.

Written in colloquial prose that sums up everyday conversations, Keep the Change is a light read that keeps you chuckling throughout. Indeed, that is the highlight of the book. Right from the first page the entire book is sprinkled with witty humor, which is quite entertaining. The story is in the form of diary entries, sans the dates or locations, to an imaginary friend named Victoria. We come to know the exact identity of this friend in the end, which again made me smile. Damayanthi also speaks in two voices. Little Voice or LV expresses her inner thoughts, exactly as she feels them, which is the more hilarious of the two. The other is what actually comes out, the modified, polite, false version. Here Damayanthi has accompanied her mother to a wedding where they meet a relative, Gomati Maami (maami means aunt in Tamil). Her mother instantly begins to connect, hoping for a proposal with the relative’s son –

GM – ‘So this is your daughter’

Little Voice (LV): ‘No, I’m actually her son. I love cross-dressing for special occasions like this.’
Me: Polite smile.

Amma: Yes, this is Damayanthi, my only daughter.’ Eager smile.

GM: ‘So what do you do?’

Amma: ‘She has completed her chartered accountancy exams with all India rank. Now she is working with the firm of S.S. Vishwanatha Iyer, very old, famous accounting company in Chennai.’

LV: ‘I actually scour all the pornography sites on the internet and fantasize about making love to tall, handsome men in public places.’

Me: Polite smile.
…
Amma: ‘In her free time, Damayanthi helps me with the cooking. She makes very good onion sambhar and potato.’

LV: ‘Don’t believe her. I once burnt water and still don’t know how to make filter coffee.’

Me: Polite smile.

GM: ‘That’s very good. What are your other interests?’

LV: I like to go bar hopping with my friends. We drink toddy in the illegal arrack huts on Mahabalipuram Road and dance naked on the beach on full moon nights.’

Me: ‘I read.’

Amma: She has learnt Bharatnatyam for five years and has given Arangetram also, under the famous Kalavati Ramachandran.’

LV: ‘I’m actually an exotic dancer and do some amazing mudras with a greased pole.’

As you can see, the humor is liberal though international readers will find it difficult to grasp the book due to the use of local language. Damayanthi’s verbal sparring with her mother is at once funny and symbolic of the way an entire society thinks. I could identify with so much of it, since it’s a common enough situation among my friends and even at my own home. Damayanthi’s parents are worried when they hear she has to go to Mumbai for her job and they give her endless advice on what to eat, how to cook, to be safe etc.

“Amma, Appa, I am going to Mumbai, not Bosnia! So many girls go abroad alone these days. Why are you making such a big fuss?

“If you were married, I would have said, “Go anywhere” and given my blessings,” Amma sniffed. “Now you have to be even more careful. So far, we carefully safeguarded your reputation, brought you up with good traditional values.”

“Now my value will fall in the marriage market. Everyone will say, “That Damayanthi, she lives alone in Mumbai! Sinful, wicked woman!” I will never get married.’

“This is all a joke to you. Just wait till you have a daughter!”

I cannot identify more with that last repartee!

I liked the way Subramanian balances Damayanthi’s new found independence, keeping a level head. She does not let Damayanthi lose her self control in her new environment so that we suddenly find her partying late into the night. But Damayanthi changes in small ways – she begins to wear a bit of makeup, something that she had shunned before, she is eager to date and gets a new hairdo all the while thinking what her parents would say if they saw her. We also get a glimpse of the other side of independence – loneliness. Damayanthi drowns her sorrows in a tub of chocolate icecream on many evenings, when she misses her parents and there is nowhere for her to go.

There were a few portions that would have done better with more shortening and that’s where the pace slows down. Many of the situations and characters are predictable and formulaic. The corporate world is shown as a big mass of scheming people save for Damayanthi’s sole friend Jimmy, though CG redeems himself quite a bit towards the end. What makes the book different is Subramanian’s take of it. Clichéd yes, but it’s a great feel-good book that allows you to let go of your mind for a few hours and curl up with a warm cup of coffee.

Verdict: Fast and enjoyable read

Rating: 3/5

2010: A Wrap Up

Last year for the first time I kept a list of all the books that I read. Until then, my reading had been untracked and I would sometimes forget what I had read. I read 70 books in 2010 and I thought I would pick out the ones that made me laugh, the ones that I disliked and the ones that kept me on the edge of my seat. I also thought it would be good to revisit the books of the year and refresh my memory of them.

I believe in ending on a sweet note, so let me list out the not-so-good books first.



I never took a fancy to any of these titles. So much that I didn’t even bother writing a review for Beijing Doll and Midnight’s Children. Looking at it this way in a list, I can see that I haven’t ended up liking a few classics. Apart from Rushdie, French, Spark and Monica Ali (Brick Lane), have all touched a chord with millions around the world. But they only disappointed and in some cases made me lose my patience a bit.

Book that I liked the least – Midnight’s Children

Book that I thought was overhyped – Brick Lane and The Other Hand

Book that disappointed most after high expectations – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Book that surprisingly fell flat - Chowringhee


Next is a list of those books that fall in the middle range.



These books were the ones that I enjoyed reading and yet I wouldn’t call them as exhilarating, nailbiting reads. They were good. They had a story to tell and they were written well. They did not make me restless with their slow pace or frustrated with rambling plots. If you ask me whether you should read them, yes. Again, The Fountainhead and Stone Diaries are both highly hailed classics that failed to entirely grip me. Yet, as I said, they weren’t so bad either.

And now, for the stars. The books that, I would shout out from the rooftops for all of you to read.




I know that’s rather a long list. But I did read some fantastic books last year and I am happy for that. I read my first graphic novel, a wonderful out-of-print classic and a travel book with a difference. All of these books stand out for the same reasons – they were all engaging and lively. They had various perspectives to offer and their plots were beautifully wrought. They moved me, made me laugh, made me think and even shed a tear. And some of them lingered in my mind long after. I will end this post with some special mentions including the winner of Birdy’s Most Notable Book of the Year 2010.

While I was absolutely gripped by I Am Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti, Go Ask Alice and Into Thin Air I couldn’t stop laughing with A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle. I adored Are You There God? It's Me Margaret and Bonjour Tristesse for their amazing portrayal of teen voices. I went on a magical journey with One Last Look, while The Remains of the Day, Go Ask Alice, Persepolis and Haweswater lingered in my thoughts for a long time. Each book in this list has its own merits, which captivated me and these are only a few that I thought I must specially mention.

And now for Birdy’s Most Notable Book of the Year 2010. It was a difficult choice since I read so many lovely books. But I had to choose and there is a tie between Go Ask Alice and Persepolis. Go Ask Alice left me shaken with its brutal honesty and portrayal of the life of a teen drug addict. I chose it for its sheer power to absorb you into itself. Though it’s not suitable for all moods, it's a dark, dark book, once you pick it up you will not keep it down. An absolutely riveting read.

The same goes for Persepolis but it’s riveting in a different way. It’s not easy to portray an entire era, the changes at the end of it and how those changes affect an entire people through illustrations. The best part is that reality is not all sadness, it’s also conveyed with much humor. Fantastic evocation of a range of emotions and amazing portrayal of a society in total makes this book my top choice.

So all in all I had a pretty good year for reading and I look forward to another book filled year!

The Grand Babylon Hotel: Arnold Bennett

Image Credit: fishcotec on flickr

Ah, the New Year dawned brightly, filled with sunshine! Very poetic, I know, but that’s what I woke up to :) I finished my last book of the year yesterday and that rounds up the list to a grand total of 70! I had expected to read about 100, I guess that was too tall an order. I will do a separate post on the books that I liked, which ones emerged my favorites and the ones that I was glad to have just finished.

For now, let me come to the review of The Grand Babylon Hotel by Arnold Bennett. Thanks to Vishy, who kindly lent me the book, I got to read this out-of-print classic written in 1902. The novel revolves around the events that unravel due to one incident. Theodore Racksole, an American millionaire and his daughter Nella whom he is very fond of, dine at the posh upscale Grand Babylon Hotel in London. When Nella demands a dish out of the menu and the waiter refuses to produce it, Racksole decides to buy the entire hotel on a whim. This leads to a series of incidents, like concentric circles, leading to secrets and a big mystery. Needless to say everything ends on a happy note with the mystery being solved.

Though quite a predictable book with regard to the ending, Bennett’s writing keeps you engrossed. The power of his writing is tested more so by the fact that the reader is not kept in the dark about the people involved in events that evolve. We know all along that it is Jules the waiter who is not to be trusted, that Miss Spencer is a vague suspicious sort and that Racksole and Nella will ultimately untie the knots. Unlike other mystery novels, the quest is not as much to find the perpetrators of the events but more so to find the hows and the whys of it.

Having said that, it doesn’t mean that there are no elements of surprise. Nearly every chapter ends on a note of suspense. It’s as if the author is slowly teasing out the story and in the process keeps you hooked.

Another feature I liked was that Bennett gives a lot of strength to Nella. A lot of the plot unfolds because of her adventurous spirit, which sends her on her own bold investigations. Not for her to sit in a chair with smelling salts, recovering out of a faint with people fanning her. Instead, she goes unescorted on a ship, lands on a seedy port in the middle of the night in the process of stalking her quarry and makes split second decisions, though dangerous, to satisfy her curiosity.

I enjoyed Bennett’s novel. At a slim 150 pages this is a quick read. Of course, the pace of the plot helps too. This is a classic mystery, which is also fleshed out with side dishes of romance, humor and adventure.

Thanks again Vishy!

Verdict: Classic read

Rating: 4/5