How to Become a Buddha in 5 Weeks : Giulio Cesare Giacobbe

Image Credit: Amazon

Right. The title is ludicrous. I know. Of all the How-To manuals in life, How To Become A Buddha In 5 Weeks must be one that sounds laughably ridiculous. There was a time in my life when I used to devour Self-Help books. I was shy, awkward in company, lacking intelligence and emotion and not knowing when to combine both in proper proportion. Come to think of it, I still don't know. Anyone willing to write a book on How To Combine Intelligence And Emotion in Proper Proportion?

Anyway, as I stepped into the 20s, I think I became a little better. I substituted snob for shy, and bravado for cowardice. It worked. People think I am a snob. And mistake me for being aggressively confident. When I saw Giulio Cesare Giacobbe's How To Become A Buddha In 5 Weeks, I picked it up for one reason only - I am a fan of the Buddha. Not in a religious, "I bow to thee," way, but let's just say he and I have had a beautiful friendship the past few years. Giacobbe's book tries to simplify Buddhism, and tries to present some of the Buddha's precepts and teachings in a simple, easy to understand and identify manner. I am all for simplification - I never understood why it should be so hard to reach this phenomenon called God, if so much of the world thinks God is so important. Too much of religion comes packed with guidelines, dogmas and vague rules, which is why I stay away from it. Giacobbe takes us through the Buddha's 8-fold path, and argues that it should be whittled down to 5 in the end. Two he ignores, which means that all that is left is to perform the 3 actions.

I liked Giacobbe's easy to understand style - but there are very little practical exercises. Apart from saying 'breathe' and a few choice phrases of visualization as a mantra, there is precious little that is new. I know that I will not become a Buddha in 5 weeks. You know that too. Everyone knows that. But it is possible to become a better human being in 5 weeks. Some of Giacobbe's principles may help you. Others are plain hyperbole. He ruins it completely in the end when he talks of unconditional love and compares it to a mother's love. Seriously?Perhaps he hasn't heard of the 1000s of cases where mothers have willingly tortured and abused their child. Yes, even fathers too. Where did 'unconditional love' go then? To me, that's a myth. Love. That's enough. Let's not tag a label to it and call it unconditional.

And some of his references are well, dodgy. He quotes the Dalai Lama as saying that “…the Buddha is inside you whatever you do and wherever you go.” and then says "I don’t know where and when he said it but, given the Buddha’s pot belly, he must have said it somewhere! (p. 26)". Try passing an academic paper, Mr Giacobbe with those sort of references. Having said that, there is a little wisdom in the book. As with life, take what comes with a little bit of salt. And perhaps a little spice. Sweeten it up if you must.  But don't swallow it whole.

Verdict: Just about O.K. 


Rating: 2/5

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo : Stieg Larsson

Image Credit: Harini

After a long period of grave resistance, I gave in. I fell for the hype. For the love, adulation and rave reviews The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo received. And so over the weekend that just blew its way to a discontented end, I sat with and finished Book 1 of the Millenium Series.

I was in a kind of soporific stupor yesterday - all I wanted to do was lie in my hammock and read. I didn't do my Chinese lessons, and apart from washing the car, I was as active as a sleeping cat. There was a hazy heat, and the sky was blue. It was just the right setting to finish this 500-page monster.

Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist accused and convicted of libel. While he awaits his prison sentence he is offered an unusual job by the aging patriarch of the Vanger Corporation - Henrik Vanger. His job is to find out, literally, what happened to Vanger's great-niece, Harriet, who disappeared 40 years earlier. Henrik has never really gotten over Harriet's disappearenace - was it murder or suicide or was there a murder or suicide at all? That's the task that Blomkvist undertakes, albeit reluctantly. On the other side, we have the girl with the dragon tattoo - Lisbeth Salander - a 24-year old genius computer hacker, working for a detective agency, who is unable to assimiliate herself into society, but is nevertheless a skilled researcher able to ferret out every little detail of your poor pitiful life. Right. So Salander and Blomkvist have to meet right?

And so just how they unravel the mystery of Harriet is the rest of the story. I don't usually read murder mysteries - I end up being silly scared and then don't sleep the rest of the night, which is what happened last night. :-( Larrsson also packs enough gore, violence, rape, sex and madness in this book and that can make your night even more of an ode to sleeplessness if you are so intellectualy vulnerable as I am. I also don't read murder mysteries because it is too easy to find out 'whodunit.' And it was the case here too. The pace of the book is also rather, how to say, tepid and languid before one final climactic scene where the action begins and ends in two pages. And then the last 50 pages after that is devoted, inexplicably to Blomkvist's revenge on WhatHisName Company which had successfully sued him for libel. The New York Times too found this last bit puzzling, and I can't agree more. I mean...no one really cares by then. What's the point? We know what happened to Harriet, now can we shut the book, please? After all the gore and violence, we have such a boring finale and I quote from the Times' excellent review:

Without any warning, “Girl” metamorphoses into a boring account of Blomkvist’s effort to take down the executive who originally won the libel lawsuit mentioned at the start of the novel. The story of his revenge is boring and implausible, relying heavily on lazy e-mail exchanges between characters.

Indeed. I agree. Don't read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo for deep insights into any character for there aren't any. Blomkvist is a 40-year old who leads every man's dream life - he sleeps around with any woman who comes across, all the women MUST fall in love with him for charms that I couldn't find hard as I searched, and displays no emotion or intimacy with any of them. Lisbeth Salander is at least not boring - even though one can see that Larsson aims to make her into a super heroine, which she no doubt is in the next two books.

In the end, I was not enthralled by this book. It was OK. Nothing great. I CAN understand the hype - how many readers are there in the world who don't love sex, violence, incest and some weird Biblical fetishes? Ok, I know there are lots who don't - but this kind of stuff sells, you know. It's there in our movies all the time. A glorified Hollywood script. That's what The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is.

Verdict: Wouldn't wildly recommend it, but it is fairly readable, and if you are the sort who loves this genre, then maybe the book is for you.

Rating: 2.75/5

PS: What is it with the product plugs? I mean, how much did Apple pay? The I-book or something is there on every other page, and the sentences as a result are plain ridiculous. Mikael switched on his I-book. Mikaell scanned the photos to his I-book. Salander wants to buy an Apple Mac. Duh. I hate it when they shove things down our throats. If I want to buy your product, I will. I just don't want to see it in my book!

First Love : Ivan Turgenev

Image Credit: Mooks and Gripes

Ivan Turgenev was a chance find at my favorite second-hand bookstore. Now, I normally don't buy second-hand books (I have some weird theory about it), but First Love looked to be new, and I didn't ask the guy at the shop if it was used. What you don't know doesn't hurt you.

And what a beautiful book! From the first page, First Love has you in its thrall. At once riveting, and emotional, there is scarce a dull moment. And the emotions that Turgenev invests the book with! Vladimir Petrovich as the narrator who talks of his very first love - the first blush of passion at 16 - with  Zinaida, the daughter of Princess Zasyekin. The old Princess is struggling for money, and Petrovich quickly begins an intriguing obsession over Zinaida. It is Zinaida's character that interests one the most - at once beautiful and charming, she is also flirtatious and ruthless. She flirts with as many as five men at the same time, and keeps them guessing all the time. Not that the men seem to mind. They just seem overawed to be in her presence all the time. Thrown into this tempestuous setting is poor Petrovich. Unable to understand the first torments of  love, he immediately evokes sympathy, and dare we say, empathy? Every tense fiber of Petrovich's emotion is beautifully written.

Turgenev is a master in capturing human frailties. At no point of time did I feel the setting unnatural or the emotions improbable. The book reads almost like a thriller, and I found myself waiting to turn the page...waiting to see the end. There is a strain of melancholy throughout the book, which may perhaps be one reason why I love the book so much as I am such a sucker for melancholy! It's the ending though which is achingly beautiful, which can bring a lump to the most hardened of throats. Some of the most powerful passages I have ever read in literature is packed into the last two or three pages:


Oh! Sample this will you?

What has come of it all – of all that I had hoped for?  And now when the shades of evening are beginning to close in upon my life, what have I left that is fresher, dearer to me, than the memories of that brief storm that came and went so swiftly one morning in the spring?

"I cannot even begin to convey the feelings with which I left her. I never wish to experience them again, but I should count it a misfortune never to have had them at all." 

This has to be one of the most romantic and beautiful books I have ever read. Trust me, for me to like a 'romantic' book, it has to be something. I now know I am going to go to that bookshop again and buy another of Turgenev's classics!

Verdict: Outstanding.

Rating: 6/5