Monday, April 03, 2006
Salman Rushdie and Suketu Mehta
Finished reading Satanic Verses after being on the lookout for this book a long time. Halfway thru the book, I had this vague feeling that something was missing, that something has been snipped out. Turns out I was right. The version of the book I had read did not have a complete chapter (read a chapterwise critique of the book on the net to verify this). Anyway....
Salman Rushdies' strength is in the emotions invoked by his long-winding sentences about everyday things. I particularly enjoyed The Moor's Last Sigh and Satanic Verses because of the evocative passages about Mumbai. I've heard that Midnight's Children is even better in the Mumbai nostalgia but I'll have to read the book to comment.
Of course, Mumbai in this case is South Mumbai which I have practically nothing to do with. For me, it's just another place like Paris or Tokyo except for the faintly tangiable effect of having been there a few dozen times in my life. The roads, streets, shops mentioned in the book are real in that sense.
Another interesting Mumbai book is Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta. Simple language, lucid thoughts, and (mostly) recognizable faces. Never imagined a non-fiction book could be so incisive in its portrayal of the many faces of Mumbai. The author is an ex-South Mumbaikar who had a long spell in New York and has decided to decimate the chaos that's Mumbai for his understanding once he got back. And came up with the book in the process. Worth a read.
2 books, 2 authors, 2 very different ways of writing and yet somehow... the vast canvas of ordinariness and larger-than-life characters in Rushdie's novel are no match for the extra-ordinary, yet common-place, way of living of the real-life characters of Mehta's book.
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Salman Rushdies' strength is in the emotions invoked by his long-winding sentences about everyday things. I particularly enjoyed The Moor's Last Sigh and Satanic Verses because of the evocative passages about Mumbai. I've heard that Midnight's Children is even better in the Mumbai nostalgia but I'll have to read the book to comment.
Of course, Mumbai in this case is South Mumbai which I have practically nothing to do with. For me, it's just another place like Paris or Tokyo except for the faintly tangiable effect of having been there a few dozen times in my life. The roads, streets, shops mentioned in the book are real in that sense.
Another interesting Mumbai book is Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta. Simple language, lucid thoughts, and (mostly) recognizable faces. Never imagined a non-fiction book could be so incisive in its portrayal of the many faces of Mumbai. The author is an ex-South Mumbaikar who had a long spell in New York and has decided to decimate the chaos that's Mumbai for his understanding once he got back. And came up with the book in the process. Worth a read.
2 books, 2 authors, 2 very different ways of writing and yet somehow... the vast canvas of ordinariness and larger-than-life characters in Rushdie's novel are no match for the extra-ordinary, yet common-place, way of living of the real-life characters of Mehta's book.
Labels: Book reviews
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
The Mahabharata
"The Mahabharata" by Kamala Subramaniam
Read this wonderful book the first chance you get. It's the complete Mahabharata (as far as I know), the full 18 parvas, and in reasonably exquisite detail. Of course, for the epic in its entirety, you'd have to read the sanskrit version. My dad was telling me about the level of detail in malayalam translation of the epic. The description was about one of the variety of arrows that Arjuna was proficient in shooting at an enemy atop a charging elephant. I cannot reproduce the poetic version but the gist is: The arrow, after leaving the bow, first pierces the trunk of the elephant, enters through its left eye, exits out of its head, skewers the mahout, then the enemy rider, and finally slices through the uplifted tail of the unlucky elephant!
The book I read is quite inferior by comparison but it still has the magic of Amar Chitra Katha (after all, the ACK stories we have read are, in fact, from this book) and the delicious whiplash of philosophy. There are no clearcut heroes or villains in the Mahabharata. Everyone is guilty by association and everyone is worthy by their deeds. You learn to question even Lord Krishna's methods and at times find yourself sympathizing with Duryodhana.
I started off on this book just for the stories but I stayed back for the marvelous portrayal of human emotions and belief in value systems. One of the basic lessons of the Mahabharata, according to me, is how to change with the times. I'll be reading the book every year just to see what other meanings I can pick up from it.
Absolutely fantastic book and thoroughly recommended.
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Read this wonderful book the first chance you get. It's the complete Mahabharata (as far as I know), the full 18 parvas, and in reasonably exquisite detail. Of course, for the epic in its entirety, you'd have to read the sanskrit version. My dad was telling me about the level of detail in malayalam translation of the epic. The description was about one of the variety of arrows that Arjuna was proficient in shooting at an enemy atop a charging elephant. I cannot reproduce the poetic version but the gist is: The arrow, after leaving the bow, first pierces the trunk of the elephant, enters through its left eye, exits out of its head, skewers the mahout, then the enemy rider, and finally slices through the uplifted tail of the unlucky elephant!
The book I read is quite inferior by comparison but it still has the magic of Amar Chitra Katha (after all, the ACK stories we have read are, in fact, from this book) and the delicious whiplash of philosophy. There are no clearcut heroes or villains in the Mahabharata. Everyone is guilty by association and everyone is worthy by their deeds. You learn to question even Lord Krishna's methods and at times find yourself sympathizing with Duryodhana.
I started off on this book just for the stories but I stayed back for the marvelous portrayal of human emotions and belief in value systems. One of the basic lessons of the Mahabharata, according to me, is how to change with the times. I'll be reading the book every year just to see what other meanings I can pick up from it.
Absolutely fantastic book and thoroughly recommended.
Labels: Book reviews
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Da Vinci Code: Utter Tripe triple sundae
Brij, getting a book endorsed by you was always the mark of a true masterpiece. Remember Ice Station Zebra? Remember H2G2? Remember Zen and the Art..?
Then how could you do this to me?
WARNING...SPOILER ALERT...
I borrowed DVC and finished it over the weekend. How do you say "trash" in Francois? First up, the clues left a lot to be desired.
Mirrored words? Kindergarten stuff! In fact there was a mystery book for primary students in my school library which had this very concept of mirrored words. (and also a brooch which contained the words MAY written in circular fashion which was being argued over by 2 eldery sisters (AMY and Marge) as belonging to one of them.) Basic premise: See the picture and solve the puzzle.
And the clues for APPLE were so obvious after it was revealed that Issac Newton was the knight that I was painfully waiting for the penny to "drop". The "gravity" of the situation was not evident to anyone else. oh well, bad puns apart, what the f*** was the deal with Teabing? Especially the part in which the Teacher walks to the back seat of the stretch limo after "polishing off" Remy presumably to finish Teabing and later it is revealed that Teabing had gone to the back seat to 'keep things in order'. Huh!?!?! JUVENILE!!!!
I had expected a good book and got Hardy Boys (Chapter 20? ok, ok..I am the Villain) teamed up with Three Investigators (JJ, take a bow and then scoot). I cringed at the silly attempts to include more information which was otherwise totally irrelevant to the story (Lion King DVD, Disney's Little Mermaid).
Consolation factor? For a book claiming to be aimed at the "intellectual", none whatsoever!.
Read it at your own risk.
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Then how could you do this to me?
WARNING...SPOILER ALERT...
I borrowed DVC and finished it over the weekend. How do you say "trash" in Francois? First up, the clues left a lot to be desired.
Mirrored words? Kindergarten stuff! In fact there was a mystery book for primary students in my school library which had this very concept of mirrored words. (and also a brooch which contained the words MAY written in circular fashion which was being argued over by 2 eldery sisters (AMY and Marge) as belonging to one of them.) Basic premise: See the picture and solve the puzzle.
And the clues for APPLE were so obvious after it was revealed that Issac Newton was the knight that I was painfully waiting for the penny to "drop". The "gravity" of the situation was not evident to anyone else. oh well, bad puns apart, what the f*** was the deal with Teabing? Especially the part in which the Teacher walks to the back seat of the stretch limo after "polishing off" Remy presumably to finish Teabing and later it is revealed that Teabing had gone to the back seat to 'keep things in order'. Huh!?!?! JUVENILE!!!!
I had expected a good book and got Hardy Boys (Chapter 20? ok, ok..I am the Villain) teamed up with Three Investigators (JJ, take a bow and then scoot). I cringed at the silly attempts to include more information which was otherwise totally irrelevant to the story (Lion King DVD, Disney's Little Mermaid).
Consolation factor? For a book claiming to be aimed at the "intellectual", none whatsoever!.
Read it at your own risk.
Labels: Book reviews
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Books into Movies
LOTR:ROTK wins 11/11 Oscars!
Billy Crystal said it best: "Now it's official, all of New Zealand has been thanked!"
On a very general principle, I do not like books being made into movies. It totally undermines the intention of the author to convey the story at his pace, the commitment needed of the reader to complete the book (and quite often lament the fact that the book is over) and most importantly, the imagination that the reader has to employ to give the story colour,sound and well...life. Down the ages, story telling was always an art form that needed the narrator to create his world of ideas and convey it in simple terms (read language) to the listener/reader who constructs his own world out of those ideas. That is magic.
I am sure that my imagination of say...Alice in Wonderland is quite different from anyone else's perception of that world. It's more personal. To stress the point, my imagination of the moment when the Lord of the Nazgul was slain in the fields of Pelenor outside Minas Tirith included a lush green field, a backdrop of tall trees, Lady Erwen crouched low over Theoden and Merry running in ankle deep grass to stab the Lord of the Nazgul. Well, understandable since I was reading it early in the morning on the bus from Bombay to Bangalore in mid-June about 3 yrs ago. Lush green fields all around. Aha!
I saw the movie on a bad print VCD about 2 months ago and I was totally floored. This particular scene was on a parched ground(a war was being fought there, how can it ever be lush?), the Lord of the Nazgul was smaller than my version and it was mid-day. Also, the castle coud be seen in the backdrop. In my imagination, I was on a hillock, the castle was behind me and I distinctly remember not wanting to go nearer because the Lord of the Nazgul scared me. In the movie, we have a face-shot as if I was sitting across a coffee-table with him.
A movie can never match the brilliance acheivable by a book because its the reader who can take it to heights never possible by cinema.
Another thought on the same issue: Reading/Listening to stories allows the imagination to soar and helps you recreate the world in your imagination. Both the author/narrator and the reader/listener improve their imaginative prowess.
Movies, however, make you accept the world shown to you. In such a scenario, only the movie maker's imagination grows. Comments on this welcome :)
Alternatively, the Dude Legolas surfing on the "elephant" was pure joy to watch. All said and done, the trilogy was amazing and truly deserved all the accolades.
Meanwhile check out this link to see how 'different' it could have all have been...shudder...
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Billy Crystal said it best: "Now it's official, all of New Zealand has been thanked!"
On a very general principle, I do not like books being made into movies. It totally undermines the intention of the author to convey the story at his pace, the commitment needed of the reader to complete the book (and quite often lament the fact that the book is over) and most importantly, the imagination that the reader has to employ to give the story colour,sound and well...life. Down the ages, story telling was always an art form that needed the narrator to create his world of ideas and convey it in simple terms (read language) to the listener/reader who constructs his own world out of those ideas. That is magic.
I am sure that my imagination of say...Alice in Wonderland is quite different from anyone else's perception of that world. It's more personal. To stress the point, my imagination of the moment when the Lord of the Nazgul was slain in the fields of Pelenor outside Minas Tirith included a lush green field, a backdrop of tall trees, Lady Erwen crouched low over Theoden and Merry running in ankle deep grass to stab the Lord of the Nazgul. Well, understandable since I was reading it early in the morning on the bus from Bombay to Bangalore in mid-June about 3 yrs ago. Lush green fields all around. Aha!
I saw the movie on a bad print VCD about 2 months ago and I was totally floored. This particular scene was on a parched ground(a war was being fought there, how can it ever be lush?), the Lord of the Nazgul was smaller than my version and it was mid-day. Also, the castle coud be seen in the backdrop. In my imagination, I was on a hillock, the castle was behind me and I distinctly remember not wanting to go nearer because the Lord of the Nazgul scared me. In the movie, we have a face-shot as if I was sitting across a coffee-table with him.
A movie can never match the brilliance acheivable by a book because its the reader who can take it to heights never possible by cinema.
Another thought on the same issue: Reading/Listening to stories allows the imagination to soar and helps you recreate the world in your imagination. Both the author/narrator and the reader/listener improve their imaginative prowess.
Movies, however, make you accept the world shown to you. In such a scenario, only the movie maker's imagination grows. Comments on this welcome :)
Alternatively, the Dude Legolas surfing on the "elephant" was pure joy to watch. All said and done, the trilogy was amazing and truly deserved all the accolades.
Meanwhile check out this link to see how 'different' it could have all have been...shudder...
Labels: Book reviews
Thursday, February 05, 2004
Terry Pratchett books.
Oops...where does time fly? Already its been 3 days since I added anything. Its going to be a while longer till I add anything meaningful.
For those with a literary inclination, check out http://ice.prohosting.com/cybersoc/pratchett.html.
Here you can download and read all of Terry Pratchett's books. I have dnlded/printed most of them and am into the 3rd such book already. Funny thing is, AFTER reading the book, I want to buy them so that I could have them in a more permanent medium. This is exactly how file-sharing(read Kaazaa/Napster) should work. Ya, I know everyone has their pet theories but fact is, if I like it, I'll buy it so that I can POSSESS it. Period.
And for those who have not yet sampled Terry Pratchett, think of it as Douglas Adams beyond those 5 books. And for those who have not sampled Douglas Adams, my heart weeps for you.
Will get back to the mobile saga soon. FYI, newer chapters are being added to it even as we speak....
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For those with a literary inclination, check out http://ice.prohosting.com/cybersoc/pratchett.html.
Here you can download and read all of Terry Pratchett's books. I have dnlded/printed most of them and am into the 3rd such book already. Funny thing is, AFTER reading the book, I want to buy them so that I could have them in a more permanent medium. This is exactly how file-sharing(read Kaazaa/Napster) should work. Ya, I know everyone has their pet theories but fact is, if I like it, I'll buy it so that I can POSSESS it. Period.
And for those who have not yet sampled Terry Pratchett, think of it as Douglas Adams beyond those 5 books. And for those who have not sampled Douglas Adams, my heart weeps for you.
Will get back to the mobile saga soon. FYI, newer chapters are being added to it even as we speak....
Labels: Book reviews
