Life Wordsmith - Book Reviews and Poems

The Wreck: Rabindranath Tagore

2013-06-01T20:24:00.002+05:30

Image credit: vedicbooks

Bengali writers fascinate me, as I have mentioned before, and Rabindranath Tagore, is nothing less. Based on a friend’s recommendation I read his book “The Wreck” or “Naukadubi” as it is more popularly known by its Bengali eponym. Here is a summary:

The Wreck is one of Tagore’s early novels originally published in 1906. It starts off with a boat overturning due to a storm and the mistaken identity which is its result. Ramesh picks up a survivor of the tragedy thinking her to be his newly wedded wife whose face he has never seen. He brings her home and showers her with affection. When she discovers that Ramesh is not really her husband she leaves him. Interposed with exquisite descriptions of nature The Wreck is a moving story of complicated human relationships told with power and feeling.

A few glances. Unspoken feelings that are only felt. An unwilling marriage. A storm and a boat wreck. There is much action in the first 15-20 pages. Ramesh is half in love with Hemnalini, his neighbor, but both have never exchanged words or promises other than through glances and mutually felt warmth towards each other. So when Braja Mohan, Ramesh’s father, says that he has decided the girl his son should marry, Ramesh has nothing to counter it with.

“Father, I really can’t marry this girl, I’m bound by a promise to someone else.”
Braja Mohan. “You don’t say so! Has there been a regular betrothal?”
Ramesh. “No, not exactly, but…”
Braja Mohan. “Have you spoken to the girl’s people? Is it all settled?”
Ramesh. I haven’t actually spoken about it, but…”
Braja Mohan. “Oh, you haven’t? Well, as you’ve said nothing so far you may as well keep quiet a little longer.”
After a short pause Ramesh shot his last bolt. “I should be doing her a wrong if I married any other girl.”
“You would be doing a still greater wrong,” retorted Braja Mohan, “if you refused to marry the bride whom I have chosen for you.”

A lack of firmness on the part of Ramesh, hinting at vacillation, is evident right at the outset. His dithering takes more shape as the book progresses and almost becomes the force driving the core of the story. Ramesh ends up marrying the girl his father has chosen without even seeing her face. On her part, Kamala too hasn’t seen the man who she got married to either. After the boat gets wrecked he espies a girl lying unconscious dressed in bridal finery. He assumes that this is the girl he married and they live together for a while. Later, when he does find out, he hesitates to break the news to her because he knows that Kamala has grown attached to him. Thus begins Ramesh’s efforts to solve the problem in such a way that he doesn’t hurt anyone’s feelings and everything is resolved in the best manner possible. But in his quest to do so, he causes much anxiety, hurt, suspicions to rise and puzzlement.

The character studies of Ramesh, Hemnalini and Kamala are interesting. While Ramesh is a “typical Bengali male” as one of my friends put it, in that he wants to achieve the impossible task of keeping everyone happy, Hemnalini and Kamala are strong women in their own rights. Kamala comes across as childish, extremely pliant and highly reluctant to ignore authority. We do see flashes of her spirit now and then but not enough that she makes life easier for herself when she can. As for Hemnalini, she is a stronger woman, given to more opinions and following her mind. Even in her adoration of Nalinaksha or in her refusal to believe anything negative about Ramesh, we see a certain steely spirit in her.

The Wreck gives us a glimpse to the society of early 1900s India, with its beliefs and customs. Quite a few have remained unchanged. Parents deciding their children’s life partner for instance. Even today, many young Indians don’t have a say in who they will marry. Perhaps the only thing that has changed is that they at least see the person’s face!

The book can be slightly dragging in many parts and the language is excessively poetic and flowery. Perhaps it’s the translation but after a point I felt Keats had co-written the novel. It also felt like I was reading a play and the dialogues were more theatrical than natural. I have read more mature works of Tagore, written later in his life, and they were definitely different.

Nevertheless, it’s an interesting read mainly because of the contrasting characters of Ramesh and the two women. I just had one question – So who was the lady Ramesh was really married to? We only know her name is Susila and that mystery is never solved.

Verdict: Read it for the Hamlet like hero

Rating: 3/5

Never Let Me Go: Kazuo Ishiguro

2013-05-21T22:50:00.002+05:30

Image from Wikipedia

I finished another of Kazuo Ishiguro’s magical works and I had to write a review while the book was still fresh in my mind. Particularly a book such as “Never Let Me Go.” There are very few books that have left me disturbed and this is one of them. A summary:

Kazuo Ishiguro imagines the lives of a group of students growing up in a darkly skewed version of contemporary England. Narrated by Kathy, now thirty-one, Never Let Me Go hauntingly dramatizes her attempts to come to terms with her childhood at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham School, and with the fate that has always awaited her and her closest friends in the wider world. A story of love, friendship and memory, Never Let Me Go is charged throughout with a sense of the fragility of life.

Love and friendship are the two major themes that run through the book from the start. The story revolves around three students at Hailsham boarding school – Ruth, Tommy and Kathy. The book is divided into three sections, which are the stages of life – childhood, teen years and adulthood. We are introduced to the lives of the kids at Hailsham, their worries, aspirations and relationships, particularly through the evolving lives of these three characters.

However, it’s evident from page one that this is not a normal story about normal kids who are in a normal school. While I chuckled my way through The Remains of the Day, the first work of Ishiguro’s that I read, this was not the case with Never Let Me Go. A grey, bleak atmosphere hangs heavy right from the beginning and from page one I got the feeling that I was privy to the workings of a cult. I was introduced to “carers” and “donors” and “guardians.”

My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years…My donors have always tended to do much better than expected. Their recovery times have been impressive, and hardly any of them have been classified as ‘agitated’, even before fourth donation.

This is page one of the book and already I could see a lot of anomalies. The lack of a surname, the use of exclusive labels like ‘carers’ and the implication of something unpleasant with the words ‘fourth donation.’ As the book progresses I learnt about the mysterious Madame and her Gallery, the Spring Exchange, the big Sale and the Cottages. Another unsettling factor is that although the majority of the story is set in a school, there is no mention of parents, family or siblings anywhere. It’s as if these people exist in a vacuum, isolated from the outside world.

Little did I know how close to the truth (of the story) I was. Until the last few pages of the book, I thought the book was a bit off the curve, eccentric and complex in its portrayal of a world that I could not identify with and yet populated with seemingly average human beings. At times the book moves slowly, and at certain points I could not even wrap my head around things. There is an undercurrent beneath the coming of age portrayal with romance, friendship, discovery of sex et al, which you are aware of but you cannot put your finger on.

But in the end, things fall into place. That is when your jaw drops and you feel an intense sadness and all the innocence portrayed in the previous pages becomes even more heartrending. If I continue I will have to reveal the twisted conclusion. So I will stop here. All I can say is, Ishiguro is brilliant in his construction of a parallel world, holding a mirror to what the future might be, where humans play with humans without a thought, in the name of saving lives. He reveals the possibility of unending paradoxes and shines light into a dark, dystopian tomorrow, which speaks very much of today. Slow but getting there. Just like the book.

Verdict: Brilliant. Depressing. Otherworldly

Rating: 5/5

The Beauty of Humanity Movement: Camilla Gibb

2013-05-19T11:37:00.003+05:30

Image credit: Sony Store

I think currently the blog is owned by just Soul. Every weekend practically I see a post from her while I am ashamed to say if I write once a month it’s a bonus. It’s come to that. Life has intervened too much.

The Beauty of Humanity Movement by Camilla Gibb is precisely about life and interventions. Here’s a summary first –

Old Man Hung makes the best pho in Hanoi. He opens his humble, makeshift “shop” every morning where a group of faithful customers throng without fail. One day, a new customer Maggie, joins the crowd. Maggie left Vietnam with her mother for the relative safety of the US when she was just a small girl amidst war while her father stayed behind, an important member of political groups.

The Beauty of Humanity Movement is about how the diverse worlds of Maggie, Hung and Tu, the tour guide, come together to tell a story of Vietnam itself.

I saw a review of this book on another blog, which was one of the reasons that propelled me to read it. The other reason is that I wanted to read a book set in a place where I had been and continue to cherish memories of. I loved Vietnam, the pho and the coffee all of which are the wheels on which the book runs. It begins without much ado, stating a couple of simple facts –

Old Man Hung makes the best pho in the city and has done so for decades. Where he once had a shop, though, he no longer does, because the rents are exorbitant, both the hard rents and the soft – the bribes a proprietor must pay to the police in this new era of freedom.

We have a story right there. It is in this vein that the rest of the novel continues. Stating facts, providing a feel of Vietnam’s culture and history and weaving all of these with three threads of fiction. Hung brings in the historical perspective, Maggie brings in a US-Vietnamese angle while Tu is the embodiment of the country’s young generation.

The book moves in a non-linear style, interspersing Hung’s past with his present. Hung plays a non-interfering and yet significant role in Vietnam’s underground political scene during the war. Hung’s noodle shop is a beehive of activity as a blazing young man named Dao holds forth and builds strategies. Hung slowly becomes fascinated with him and later forms an untold but special bond with Dao.

Even as the war is very real and palpable during Hung’s time, in today’s Vietnam it continues to live through tourist material plied at every corner of cities like Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi. I liked this particular conversation between Tu and Maggie. Tu voices,

“Sometimes I feel it’s all about them, not really about Vietnam at all.”

And he continues to think,

Has Tu been naïve in thinking his job has something to do with introducing people to Vietnam? But then, come to think of it, how can they possibly see anything beyond stereotypes when the tourism industry gives them war tours and movie tours and romance of Indochina tours…”

Tu feels quite unsettled. “Don’t you think they want to see the real Vietnam?” he asks.
“But what’s the real Vietnam, Tu? This is a country that erases its own history. Anything that goes against the Party. Your grandfather. My father. Millions of people. And if people aren’t being censored? They’re busy hiding anyway. Desperately trying to save face.

Vietnamese coffee

I experienced war tourism firsthand when I visited Vietnam. Indeed, everywhere there were tourist agencies promising to take us to see tunnels, tanks, bullet holes and every possible remnant of war. In souvenir shops you can even buy pieces of barbed wire, fragments of shell and what not. You could own a piece of the “real” history of Vietnam if you wanted to. War and reality were truly commercialized and I still don’t have the answer to “what’s the real Vietnam.” The friendly people and the wonderful pho and coffee that still linger in my memory lie at the core of the place, and perhaps that’s part of the real Vietnam. One of them at least.

Reading the book was a trip back to this country for me. I had really enjoyed my travel then and I enjoyed it now as well. Although the book held a little more meaning for me because I have actually visited some of the places in the book, it will be an interesting read for anyone. I suggest you sample some of Hung’s pho and read the book.

Verdict: a slightly meandering and languid read but interesting nevertheless

Rating: 3/5

The Elegance Of The Hedgehog : Muriel Barbery

2013-04-14T11:35:00.000+05:30

Image Credit : Crackabook

Every now and then you pick up a book simply because you have heard of it so much and so often. I found some delightful books recently in my favorite bookstore. Well, it's not going to be such a favorite any more because books with its low profit margins are making way for the more elegant things of life like video games and instant macaroni shelves. But yet...there are certain gems that I can find every now and then. Bit like how there is an 'always within the never.'

The Elegance Of The Hedgehog is not a book that skims lightly on the surface. It's one of the 'deepest' books I have read, to use a word that might make Paloma, the 12-year-old dual narrator of our novel cringe. To be fair, I understood Paloma's journal entries. It is Renée's writing that had my little head spin. I come from a literature background - art is not unusual for me, but it is not a passion that moves me. I cannot recognize a Picasso from a Van Gogh or a Mozart from a Beethoven. So the references to much of the art and literary allusions in this novel was not something I could easily ascribe to. But Anna Karenina I am familiar with. And that is one of Renée's favorite novels - and dare I say, my dear concierge, one of my mine too? But you perhaps, have understood Tolstoy's artistry better - the mastery over his art in ways that I can never comprehend. I do not have a cat named Leo. The last pet I had came named Bambi. And the other pets I know of respond/responded to names like Pluto or Bablu. Pluto at least has a planet named after him, or is it the other way round? Regrettably, I spend much of my lowly life mused in the contemplation of my ceiling - its white smooth surface inspires in me the mortal dread of living. I spend my days in languid grace, infused with the spirit of ennui. Mozart may be a tune on my cellphone, and photography is as much of still-life I would obtain.

But I am like Paloma. I wonder at the meaning of life and have always wished to surrender my pitiful self to Death's beautifully dark calling. She wants to commit suicide - sleeping pills and setting fire to her apartment - the same one where she contemplates the dead and decayed French society that she is so contemptuous of. I do not wish to commit suicide. I just inquire after life's self-destructive mechanisms. I despise the parties and pubs and today's fluffy generation - well, not all of them - but the ones that come with talk of the latest episode in yesterday's soap opera, and glorify incessantly the wonders of Fifty Shades of Grey over Bared To You. Yet, I am not Renée. I possess not her class, nor her understanding of philosophy. I think of myself not as standing at the edges of a shore, contemplating a glorious sunset, but rather on the edge of a gutter, breathing in the stinking putrid air and knowing that this is as good as it gets. Sometimes, one step too close to the gutter and you slip...

There is not a story I can recommend in this book. There are however, beautiful passages. Beautiful lines. And kind of like Keats you realize that somewhere that this is where something is forever...our illusion of it at least. That's why this book makes beauty attainable.

My favorite line:

“If you have but one friend, make sure you choose her well.”

Verdict : A book of quotes that will make you sound 'awesome' at the next dinner party. Beautiful, nevertheless. Incomprehensible to lesser minds like mine nevertheless.

Rating: 3.5/5

Winter Of The World : Ken Follett

2013-03-31T09:08:00.001+05:30

Image Credit: Ken Follet

Gosh! I started this book sometime back in November last year, I think. So much water has flown under the murky bed of life I stand on! It seems like every day is an age. I am discovering faster the genius of aging - just surround yourself with the vignette stars of craziness, and then spend the rest of your day counting your gray hair. My hairstylist, bless him, has artfully camouflaged both my gray hair and my baldness in a superb feat of defeating time. But as I try to review this book, I know that Time is probably one friend that Ken Follett has always, ready to stand by his side, and support him through all the thick and thins and all that mush.

I had finished the first of this trilogy, The Fall of Giants, which was a New Year gift by good ol' blogger friend, Vishy. That was my first initiation into Ken Follett, and I had liked it. Small wonder then that I decided to try Book 2 as well. Winter Of The World is one tedious long saga. I don't know why writers think that it's so smart to write long books. Some of my all-time favorite books have been those that have compressed words onto to a little ant's back. And therein hangs a tale. My ex-boss used to tell me that anyone can write long essays, it's when you have to be concise, crisp and short that it becomes difficult. I thought that was true. To ramble like I am doing in this review doesn't take genius. Or extraordinary skill even though those are two virtues that got thrown out when I was born by an uncaring nurse and I have been trying to find it ever since. Here's what Amazon describes the book as:

Winter of the World picks up right where the first book left off, as its five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, Welsh—enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs.

Carla von Ulrich, born of German and English parents, finds her life engulfed by the Nazi tide until she commits a deed of great courage and heartbreak. . . . American brothers Woody and Chuck Dewar, each with a secret, take separate paths to momentous events, one in Washington, the other in the bloody jungles of the Pacific. . . . English student Lloyd Williams discovers in the crucible of the Spanish Civil War that he must fight Communism just as hard as Fascism. . . . Daisy Peshkov, a driven American social climber, cares only for popularity and the fast set, until the war transforms her life, not just once but twice, while her cousin Volodya carves out a position in Soviet intelligence that will affect not only this war—but the war to come.

Ambitious, eh? Overly so. The Third Reich alone has inspired many books, The Spanish Civil War many others, and World War II? Right, I lost count. To combine all this into one book is an effort. And it shows. Too often, I missed the Ken Follett as the storyteller because he is writing gibberish sometimes without really bothering to 'write.' Many passages seemed to be written at different periods of time, and one smart editor must have had that laborious job of copying and pasting it all together. Having said that, the story moves along at a fast clip. You REALLY want to know what happens to all these characters. My favorite is Daisy - ah, social climber extraordinaire! To also be honest, I skipped a few pages here and there. The long political dramas bored me immeasurably. Conservative or Liberal? Who cares? I mean, really! Not making any difference to my small, mean, miserable life, certainly! And the number of characters! I am at a loss many times to remember my own name! Imagine grappling with 100s of them in a book!

Anyway, the only thing to take away from this rather bizarre review of mine is that Winter Of The World may appeal to you, if you have patience. I don't. It's readable. But that's about it.

Verdict: Readable. But that's about it.

Rating: 2.5/5

The Fault In Our Stars : John Green

2013-03-29T18:27:00.001+05:30

Image Credit: Wikipedia

I think that John Green doesn't sound like what an author should sound like. The name sounds absurdly commonplace, especially when you compare the writing that comes from this person called John Green. The Fault In Our Stars was undoubtedly one of THE books last year. The kind of book that people would love to talk about in parties. The kind of book that was thrust on you with the recommendation that 'you would love it.' As if anyone ever knows what anyone else loves. I mean, seriously?

But fear not, dear reader, I am not raving or ranting in this post. I read the last few pages of The Fault In Our Stars in a hospital where my Dad was having laser surgery for his cataract. As surgeries go, this was routine. Commonplace. Yet, the setting was a bit bizarre when I am reading a book that has cancer patients as its main characters. I wince a little as I write this, because really The Fault In Our Stars is not about this or that. It's a book that seems to arrive at the right time and filled with the lines that you want to hear. Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters meet at a Support Group meeting for those suffering from cancer. Not to disrespect anyone, but there was a point in which this book resonated with me - it made those suffer from cancer human. All too often, I read of cancer as this noble battle that heroic warriors have to win. They must win. There is no giving in. There is nothing but 'rage, rage, rage against the dying of the light.' And above all, they must show extraordinary stoicism, endurance and smile and show us the beautiful inspiration called life till they draw their last, painful breath. This book throws none of that at me, and for that I am grateful. Infinitely grateful.

Hazel Grace is living on borrowed time. Supposed to have died of Stage IV thyroid cancer at the age of 13, we find her now at 16. Her lungs don't work the way they ought to. And Augustus is this 'gorgeous' boy who is in remission, albeit fitted with a prosthetic leg. You don't have to guess the rest - yes, Hazel and Augustus fall in love. But this isn't a Mills&Boon fairy tale. Both Hazel and Augustus are wise beyond their years. Or perhaps, I don't know - maybe wisdom has nothing to do with age. A hole in your heart can make you wise at 13 or 30. And we adults seem to lead such messed up lives that I wonder if we learn anything at all as we age. Or rather we just age. We don't grow. Throw in a quest for a reclusive author who has written a defining book - one that Hazel loves, and the inevitable sorrow that cancer brings with it, and there is a book that moves fast, that reads well, and just sits in your mind long after you finish it.

There is much mush, but it is controlled. And beautifully written except for the last few pages that deteriorate a bit too much. Yet, it doesn't fault the rest of the book. My one grouse is that the characters really don't seem too believable - they speak much too poetically for that. See this:

“I'm in love with you," he said quietly.

"Augustus," I said.

"I am," he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.”

A kid who is not yet 19 saying that? Ahem. The boys I met at that age really had other four-letter words in their mind. Love was not one of them.

But these are minor quibbles. I enjoyed The Fault In Our Stars. Sometimes, I think the faults in my own 'star' are way too many - I think of the chains that I bind others with, and for a moment, I wish that my thoughts were just mere constellations, that my words are just words floating away on that blue sky that Hazel loves so much, that all I can say has already been said, and that the ones I love have already been loved, and told that they are loved. But yet...much remains. None of it has been said or done...and if a book can make me feel that, then it has done its job, ain't it?

Favorite quote:

“You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.”

Verdict: Deserves its rating as one of the best books of last year.

Rating: 5/5

Escape From Camp 14 by Blaine Harden

2013-03-23T23:24:00.000+05:30

Image Credit : Guardian

I have just finished watching a movie called War Witch. This was nominated for the Oscars in the category of 'Best Foreign Language Film,' and well, it didn't win. It should have. Really, it was brilliant. Stark and yet somehow managing to bring a sense of happiness where none exists. The soporific insomniac's delight called Amour won instead. Neither of these two movies have anything to do with the book I am about to review. But in a way they do. North Korea is technically a state at war. And the more I read about this country, the more I am shocked that the world continues to allow the brutality of its government to continue. And amour is certainly not something that Shin Dong-hyuk knew in his formative years in a labor camp in North Korea.

Escape From Camp 14 by Blaine Harden sells Shin as the 'only person born in a North Korean gulag to ever escape.' The key word there is 'born.' Others have escaped from North Korean labor camps, but it appears that Shin is the only person to have been born there. Twenty-six years ago, Shin was born inside Camp 14, one of five sprawling political prisons in the mountains of North Korea. The country has denied the existence of these labor camps for years, but Google Maps and satellite technology have proven to the world what Kim Jong Eun, the current leader, denies. This is where Shin was born. "His first memory is an execution." That is how the book begins. And then ten years later, he returns. To watch the execution of his mother and brother. And frighteningly, Shin feels anger - how could his mother and brother have thought of escaping?

In one particularly poignant sentence that stuck in my head, Harden writes that Escape from Camp 14 cannot be compared to the more famous Elie Wiesel memoir, Night. There, Wiesel writes of the torment of learning his entire family had perished in Nazi death camps. Wiesel was left 'alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy.' For Shin, it was different.

"Love and mercy and family were words without meaning. God did not disappear or die. Shin had never heard of him."

Somehow, despite all the details of the horrors of a stricken life that Shin had to endure, that one line is what resonated. To lose hope is one thing. To not know that hope exists. Well, that is where you realize the darkness that comes swirling in. Even before you knew there was light. What was life at the camp like? You drop a sewing machine? Chop your finger off. That's what happened to Shin. Your mother and brother were planning to escape? You get punished, of course. And the punishment for a teenager? Hang Shin over a coal fire and cast him into an underground prison. For a country that faces chronic food shortages, it was telling that the one motivating factor for Shin to consider escape was food. And indoctrinated into what his 'teachers' taught him, Shin only had one thing on his mind - survival. If that meant, snitching on your mother, so be it. Love was not an emotion that Shin was taught. Indeed, through the rest of the book, you sometimes wish that Shin would find it within himself to love. But there is always an enduring wish to survive.

"He had no hope to lose, no past to mourn, no pride to defend. He did not find it degrading to lick soup off the floor. He was not ashamed to beg a guard for forgiveness. It didn’t trouble his conscience to betray a friend for food. These were merely survival skills, not motives for suicide.”

His eventual escape seems almost unreal. Harden writes that there is no way of verifying what Shin tells him. And indeed, he is open in admitting that he has problems trusting Shin. But painstaking reports from human rights agencies have shown that Shin's story is true, as far as it can be verified. Having read the Aquariums of Pyonggang, I wasn't too shocked in reading about what happens in these labor camps. Perhaps, that is where the world also has to look into. Somehow, it seems that we don't care. Not enough. We have turned our lives into an immune wall that accepts evil as normal.

This is an important book. It isn't a book to cherish over a cup of coffee. But it must be read. It doesn't offer any easy answers at the end. I was left wondering about Shin, knowing that perhaps there isn't an easy life ever. I hope he finds happiness. And feels love.

Verdict: Important to read to understand the world we live in.

Rating: 4/5

The Spare Room : Helen Garner

2013-02-26T12:59:00.000+05:30

Image Credit: hkhorami.blogspot.com

This must be one of the most painful books I have ever read through. The Spare Room by Helen Garner is relentless - it spares no one in its stark depiction of one person's last rage against the dying of the light. Yet, I wasn't pained by that - I was pained because of the sheer bizarreness of the book.

Helen (the lead character in the novel, not the author), is the narrator, telling us through the course of three weeks the relentless torture she goes through when her friend of 15 years arrives in Melbourne, dying of cancer, and refusing to believe so, instead preferring to take alternative treatment at the Theodore Institute. Helen's recital is an endless monologue of all that she does for Nicola, the sacrifices she makes, and I couldn't understand the love she had for Nicola - it seemed frustration, irritation and anger. Especially anger that Nicola refuses to accept her impending death, putting her trust in shady Vitamin C treatments that leave her physically wrecked and mentally drained. It's not just Nicola, caring for her drains Helen as well. It disrupts her life, and turns it askew.

Does that make Helen a martyr? That's what she wants us to believe. She knows that the Vitamin C treatment is nonsense. She wants Nicola out of her house in three weeks so that she can holiday in Vienna. Just how does Garner expect us to like the narrator? It is almost as if it's designed to elicit sympathy for Nicola from the reader. We never really hear what Nicola must be going through nor is there a detailed review of the friendship that brings these two people together. Instead, we are told that Nicola is selfish, she is inconsiderate, and there is no doubt she is annoying - but well, what do you do say for someone who is dying? "Die faster?" Because that's what Helen seems to want. I wasn't sure if I could call this friendship - but perhaps it is. Like any other relationship, friendship hides its scars well. We pile the straws on friendship's broad back, and then watch it all collapse one day in surprise. I admire that Garner makes no sweet romantic notions of friendship - there is pain, there is anger, revulsion, heartbreak, annoyance, and times when you feel that Helen just wants Nicola out of her life.

This wasn't an easy novel to read. I wasn't too sure what I would say I liked here. I don't think I liked anything about it, except that it did offer a different perspective on the pains of friendship.

Verdict : I wouldn't recommend this even though nearly everyone online seem to have positive reviews. Maybe it's just me.

Rating: 1/5

The Perks of Being a Wallflower : Stephen Chbosky

2013-02-24T11:34:00.001+05:30

Image Credit : Feedmebooksnow.blogspot

Never ever try to review a book a full month after you have read it. Even if it is a book that you really liked. Time and its companion, memory, wait for no review - it's there in the lens of your eye, the corners of your mind, the story that you liked, and then like an artist swiftly erasing the colors of his canvas, it's gone. I haven't blogged much recently. I have barely read - I am struggling through three books right now at the same time, and I am getting stuck in even learning my beloved Chinese. Sometimes, you find that life and people intervene in ways and means that you struggle to control or even comprehend, and the resulting casualty are all the things that you love. It has left me thinking - I have always believed that we lead a life of our choice - yet, we chain our choices, and smother it with our expectations of a future dream. So right now, I think am I leading a life of my choice or have I abandoned these choices? I fear it's the latter...

These are kind of the thoughts that may come to you as well when you read Stephen Chbosky's marvelous The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Especially lines like these that resonate with what I have written above:

“So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”

Right now, the book is selling again after being made into a movie starring Emma Watson. I haven't seen the movie, but I read the book on Kindle. And a funny and heartwarming book it was too. Charlie is a unique voice. And the structure of the novel based as it is on Charlie writing letters to an anonymous friend may put some people off, but it doesn't detract from hearing the voice inside Charlie. In his freshman year at school, the novel begins with Charlie telling us of the suicide of his best friend, Michael. Original in thought, Charlie's voice is unfiltered, a beautiful compass on life as he knows it. We never really know if there is something 'wrong' with Charlie - throughout the novel only hints are dropped that indicate that he may be mentally unwell. But it doesn't matter. Befriending Sam and Patrick is the best thing that happens in young Charlie's life - I will remember for a long time that scene when they go driving in the tunnel:

"Anyway, Patrick started driving really fast, and just before we got to the tunnel, Sam stood up, and the wind turned her dress into ocean waves. When we hit the tunnel, all the sound got scooped up into a vacuum, and it was replaced by a song on the tape player. A beautiful song called "Landslide." When we got out of the tunnel, Sam screamed this really fun scream, and there it was. Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. Sam sat down and started laughing. Patrick started laughing. I started laughing. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite."

That scene reminded me a bit of Kerouac's On The Road. And this quote especially: “the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” Charlie goes through all the teenage angst and all the experimentation - drugs, sex, booze. We learn that he was closest to his Aunt Helen, who died in an accident. And Charlie realizes that he loves Sam, that he cherishes his friendships, and understands his family as well. I seem to be filling up this review with quotes, but I have to, because really that is just how beautiful a book this is. And somehow, everything that he says makes sense. Really. Doesn't it?

“It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things.”

And that's how Charlie does - he doesn't just pick random gifts. He makes gifts. Thoughtful ones. I guess at the end of the book somehow, you wish that Charlie was your friend as well. He really would have been. That's also kind of how you feel when you keep aside the book - like you have just lost a good friend. I end this review with a quote that I think I ought to wear and walk around with. It's what I do all the time - but somehow that seems weird in this world where we mask everything and live a life of pretense. This is just what gets me into trouble, and like Charlie, I just don't know how to be otherwise...

If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too. I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me. And if they do something I don't like, I'll tell them.

Verdict : Do you need one? Really. Just read it, please.

Rating: 6/5

The Buddha in the Attic : Julie Otsuka

2013-02-10T13:27:00.001+05:30

Image Credit : Goodreads

The Buddha in the Attic was on my wishlist for sometime. Except that it was almost $10. So I dithered and delayed buying it. And then there is the wonderful Landmark sale - and I found I could buy this book for less than $2. This is also the year I am trying to read more of Japanese fiction. Or at least, that's what I hope to. And like many of my hopes - they are destined to remain just that. A mere hope, a whim on a withering horizon.

Julie Otsuka is more famous for the When the Emperor was Divine. But there is a rare poetry in The Buddha in the Attic. It's narrative style is one of the most unique that I have ever come across. I don't think I have ever read a novel that is narrated by a 'we.' The 'we' here are the voices of hundreds of Japanese women who came over to the U.S. during the Second World War as picture brides. Beginning with their passage on the ship, Otsuka casts a haunting spell with the use of the first person plural. These were voices that seemed to me to be speaking from beyond the grave. The husbands who they had never met, turned out to be nothing like the photographs they were shown in distant villages in Japan. Indeed, the rabble that meets them as they step off is beautifully described:

"the crowd of men in knit caps and shabby black coats waiting for us down below on the dock… the photographs we had been sent were 20 years old."

And some cities as well. Life in America was not the luxurious escape from farming in Japan. No. They arrived in the U.S., and found that to break their backs working was not an option, but the rule. Some of the Japanese women work in the fields, and some as maids. 'Better than the Chinese,' their mistresses would whisper. Some would have affairs with the white men, and give birth to their babies. Still others would grow to love their husbands. Some would leave America for the shame that awaited them in Japan. And yet most would wait for the final denouement to their lives - the time when the Japanese are ordered to leave their J-Town.

At the end of the novel, I remember pausing to think of the sense of loss that these stories leave you with. There is something heartbreaking about small lives. I have never been fascinated by the heroes and heroines - they are meant to be so. But it's the extraordinariness in ordinary lives that move me. The lives that bear the little smudges and grimaces of life's wrinkles so well - those are the stories worth listening to. And that's what makes these stories - all these Japanese women's stories a treasure.

Verdict : A little treasure. I just said that, I think.

Rating: 3/5

Taming the Beast by Emily Maguire

2013-02-09T22:33:00.002+05:30

Image Credit : AThingofBeauty

After a bit of a hiatus, a hiatus that I am not fully able to explain to myself - I am back here. Doing what I don't do very well, which is to write book reviews. And especially to write a review of a book that I am not sure I understand well either. It's the first day of the Chinese New Year, and one of my friends in China with whose family I once spent the New Year, sends me voice messages capturing the fireworks celebration. Here I was, the wind rustling outside on a rather windy February, and I could hear fireworks far away in this little town called Xuchang. It felt wonderful, in a way that can bring tears to your eyes because you miss a place so much, and you wonder why because a place is just a place, and home is after all home, but somehow these things get mixed up and you are drawn into a vacuum that doesn't end...

Taming the Beast by Emily Maguire was a strange book. I had heard so much of this 'mommy porn' phenomenon without really feeling the need to succumb to it. What attracted me to this was not that I feel it belongs to the same category, but because the story had shades of Lolita. I was right to a certain extent, but wrong greatly. Taming the Beast is a provocative first novel - 14-year-old Sarah falls into an obsessive relationship with her then English teacher, Mr. Daniel Carr, a married father of two. He is 38. It isn't an ordinary romance. No. Shades of BDSM abound here. Brutality. Violence. Abuse. And beneath it all, the wretched remains of what can be called love. Stung by Mr. Carr leaving her to reclaim his own sanity, Sarah embarks on a series of affairs. By her own admission, the men she has had sex with reach into the hundreds. I couldn't understand what made Sarah that special to all the men. She is not painted as a particularly beautiful woman, but perhaps, this novel is not about the beauty, but it's about the sex. And what you can do with it that makes a man turn to a woman - and Sarah refuses nothing. The one constant in her life is her best friend Jamie. Their friendship offers a strange backdrop of sanity even though they sleep together, and Jamie's adoration of Sarah is complete - indeed, she credits him with keeping her alive.

At this point, I stop a while. Gather my thoughts. Turn to read other reviews on the Net. Find out that my friend, Vishy, had read this book a while ago as well. And reviewed it way better than I did. I wish I can snatch a few lines from his review. I turn the pages of Taming the Beast over hoping that it would give me some inspiration. I stumble upon what I think is the most beautiful passage in the book, and find that it's the same that Vishy has quoted as well:

...life is a constant withering of possibilities. Some are stolen with the lives of people you love. Others are let go, with regret and reluctance and deep, deep sorrow. But there is compensation for lives unlived in the intoxicating joy of knowing that the life you have – right here, right now – is the one you have chosen. There is power in that, and hope.

It seems an odd choice. That quote doesn't quite fit in with the theme of sexual abuse that dominates the novel. But Taming the Beast doesn't fit so tamely into that. This is a novel that can make others cringe - the prudish revolt and others repulsed. Yet, there is a certain sadness, a melancholic search for that beast within us that can only be tamed by finding that other beast. It's that madness that drive Sarah to Daniel Carr again and again. Beaten and bruised, she is not to be pitied. It's her choice. She is a slave to him out of choice. Her countless men are all her choices, except once. And perhaps, that's where I need to suspend judgement and read the book for what it throws at your. Shock, pity and awe. I cannot write like Emily. I cannot even think like Emily has! Yet, there is a common chord - a primeval base that lies at this book.

Verdict : Wouldn't ever want to compare it to Fifty Shades of Grey - this was an interesting choice for me, one that tested me in what I would read. And it turned out not so bad after all.

Rating: 3/5

The Road Home: Rose Tremain

2013-02-03T13:08:00.003+05:30

Image Credit: Wiki

Rose Tremain’s The Road Home is a book I bought after much hesitation. I thought the print was a tad too small and the story might not interest me that much. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The print indeed is a bit small but the story was interesting enough for me not to get bored. Here is a summary –

Lev is on his way from Eastern Europe to Britain, seeking work. Behind him loom the figures of his dead wife, his beloved young daughter and his outrageous friend Rudi who – dreaming of the wealthy West – lives largely for his battered Chevrolet. Ahead of Lev lies the deep strangeness of the British: their hostile streets, their clannish pubs, their obsession with celebrity. London holds out the alluring possibility of friendship, sex, money and a new career and, if Lev is lucky a new sense of belonging.

Lev lands in freezing England with just memories of his hometown and with just enough money to last him a couple of weeks. The initial pages are tinged with an air of worry and hope as Lev wanders around the streets with no food, no home and no friends. One of the most painfully realistic scenes in the opening pages is the one where Lev sneaks into the premises of a house and sleeps in the garden. But before that he stops a while and a thought runs through his mind –

Next to the yellow door was a bell, with two names above: Kowalski and Shepard. Lev stood for a moment, looking at these names and at the yellow door and then at the garden… He imagined them returning from their well-paid jobs, watering their plants, feeding the cat, ordering kebabs from Ahmed, buying wine or vodka, sitting close together at their table, eating and laughing and smoking, then going hand in hand into their bedroom as the night came down. And he thought: My life will never be like theirs. Never.

Poignant scenes like these are rife through the book as Tremain touches upon various aspects of immigrant life. Loneliness that is the constant friend of a new immigrant is also what plagues Lev at the outset. With reluctance he contacts Lydia, a woman he met on the bus on the way from his hometown. Lydia on her part is happy to meet Lev and thus begins a relationship which is a bit of a rollercoaster. Lydia comes onto him initially but Lev, bound by memories of his dead wife Marina, resists her. But they become friends who turn to each other for help for lack of anyone else.

Later, Lev lands a job in a restaurant, which gives him financial stability for sometime. He falls in love with Sophie who also works at the restaurant and for a while life looks good. But of course, an immigrant’s life is never smooth.

In this way, Tremain traces Lev’s life, his struggles and joys as he tries to accept England and vice versa. In the middle, we get to know Lev’s life before he comes to England to make money. We learn about Marina, his closest friend Rudi and his mother and young daughter Maya. Tremain’s writing is brilliantly evocative, quite often bringing unsaid thoughts to life.

Waiting for his night bus, Lev sat hunched inside his anorak, with his hands deep in his pockets and the hood pulled over his forehead, and saw that, in this attitude, he was regarded by other people with terror.
How often have we shifted away, however slightly, from a man sitting hunched in an oversized hooded jacket. How often have we thrown fearful glances at someone like this walking on the road. I know I have. And when I read this I felt a tinge of guilt for immediately branding someone as a potential mugger because of his dressing.

Tremain’s uncanny ability to portray the struggles of an immigrant’s life is shown through the book. While I really appreciate that, what I didn’t was the fact that sometimes Lev’s life seems to have too many disappointments. At the same time, the ending seems too perfect and gift wrapped. After a couple of 100 pages of overly realistic disappointments and bleakness, it’s as if Tremain had enough and she decided to just end it all.

Despite this, The Road Home is definitely an engaging read. Funny and poignant at times, it keeps you interested till the end. Character sketches are quite well rounded. Lev’s personality is quite rough edged, as perhaps a peasant might be. He has sudden bursts of temper and emotion, but on the whole is quite a stoic character who maintains a calm front and an unflinching face. His friend Rudi on the other hand is boisterous, loud, expressive and on the wackier side. While Lydia seems slightly depressed and helpful, Sophie comes across as a confident and spirited woman.

I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a fast paced novel, but it’s the happenings in Lev’s life that makes you want to know what will happen next.

Verdict: A good read about immigrant life

Rating: 3.7/5

The Shadow of a Smile: Kachi Ozumba

2013-02-02T21:12:00.001+05:30

Image Credit: kachiozumba

I read Kachi Ozumba’s The Shadow of a Smile while lounging around the beach during my New Year vacation. While it’s not exactly a beach read, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this snapshot of modern day Nigeria and the problems that plague the place. However, this is going to be a short review since I don't have the book with me anymore, so I won't have passages to quote. A summary first –

Zuba is a bright young student with aspirations of becoming a famous scientist. But his life changes when he is imprisoned for a crime he has not committed. What’s worse, he is stuck in a country rife with corruption.

Sounds very simplistic right? Although Ozumba takes us through Nigerian society, prisons, courtrooms and politics he tells a compelling story in a tight frame that focuses just on one incident, which becomes the means to bring out multifarious issues within the Nigerian society. Corruption which includes rampant bribery and red tape is of course at the forefront. Zuba, being a peaceful and non-violent person who even has a portrait of Gandhi in his room, tries to stay on the right path but his life in prison threatens to turn sour every time he avers and he is forced to pay.

Just like all prisons, being incarcerated in Nigeria is not exactly a pleasant proposition. Ozumba beautifully captures the different emotions that Zuba goes through – anger, puzzlement, helplessness and most of all the squeamishness of being in prison full of insects and dirt and unwashed human beings.

Ozumba’s novel in fact, reminds me of my own country India. Here, corruption is so intrinsic that it has become the soul of the nation. It has slowed progress and I feel we are going to be stuck in such a rut for a long time to come. That’s the feeling I got with Nigeria as well. Zuba finally has to do something daringly different to evade the authorities if he has to get out.

This is the part, which did not impress me. Towards the end, Ozumba seemed to be in a hurry to wrap up his story. Things get dissipated all too quickly and after all the build up and the problems that Zuba faces, it seemed a bit too easy.

However, the novel is definitely a very interesting read. Interwoven with such major themes are threads of family life and relationships. Zuba’s rough relationship with his father and the friendship between Zuba and Ike prominently bring up the background of this novel. Written with a wry sense of humor and some vividly descriptive passages that bring the scene alive, The Shadow of a Smile remains engaging till the end.

Verdict: Engaging read

Rating: 3.5/5

In the Sea There Are Crocodiles : Fabio Geda

2013-01-12T14:30:00.001+05:30

Image Credit : Fluttering Butterflies

This isn't the first book I have read this year. Erm no. I read this I think maybe 3 months ago, but somehow it was pushed back in the review pile, and spilled over into this year. This year has been a bit whirlwind even by my standards. It's nice therefore that I have this day where I can just laze around to read, and well, try and concentrate on my Chinese, which is really going nowhere in the absence of my teacher. :-(.

But back to the book. In The Sea There Are Crocodiles : Based on the True Story of Enaiatollah Akbari by Fabio Geda was a real gem.

Book Blurb:

What would you do if, when you were ten, you were left to fend for yourself, and, in order to survive, you had to undertake a harrowing journey all the way from Afghanistan to Italy?

In early 2002, Enaiatollah Akbari’s village fell prey to the Taliban. His mother, fearing for his life, led him across the border. So began Enaiat’s remarkable and often publishing five-year ordeal—trekking across bitterly cold mountains, riding the suffocating false bottom of a truck, steering an inflatable raft in violent waters—through Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, and Greece, before he eventually sought political asylum in Italy, all before he turned fifteen years old.

Here Fabio Geda delivers the moving true story of Enaiat’s extraordinary will to survive and of the accidental brotherhood he found with the boys he met along the way. In the Sea There Are Crocodiles brilliantly captures Enaiat’s engaging voice and humor, in what is a truly epic story of hope and survival, for readers of all ages.

Enait's is one of the most engaging voices I have read in literature. Bear in mind that this is a fictionalized account of a true story. Do not steal, cheat, take drugs or use weapons, his Mom makes him promise. And then when Enait wakes up the next day, she is gone. Just like that begins his remarkable adventure. All the way to Iran, Turkey, Greece before settling down in Italy. And why does he choose to settle in Italy after all his travels? "You recognise it because you don't feel like leaving." And I thought to myself. That's true. I truly felt like that when I left Chengdu last year. Through all the wheels on my feet, that was the one place that where the wheels came undone. It was really a recognition that deep down this is where you want to be. The place you don't feel like leaving.

In The Sea There Are Crocodiles is not about woe. It's not uplifting either. It is not inspiring. It's not despairing. It's not any of those because I hate all those cliches. Enait's journey is a journey of life - his struggles and his five-year ordeal across continents a lesson to learn. I was reading in the Perks Of Being A Wallpaper (review is up next!) as to how to a book makes sense only when it elevates you. Do you emerge change from reading it? Has it enhanced your experience of life even a little? Or even diminished it? There is something doggedly determined about Enait's journey. And that is where the reading experience changed for me. I am known to stop - and not pursue. Perhaps, I would have found a life that I could have endured if I had been in Enait's place instead of the beautiful life he eventually found in Italy. That's where books make a difference. It's a sensory experience. Really. Reading is. It's the ninth sense.

Rating: A brilliant story and a little gem that must be read.

Verdict: 4/5

A Mysterious Death at Sainik Farms: Rukmani Anandani

2013-01-10T21:06:00.002+05:30

Image Credit: Rupa Publications

Currently, I feel re-energized. Revitalised. Like I want to read all and everything I can get my hands on. It is in this frenzy that I finished reading A Mysterious Death at Sainik Farms by Rukmani Anandani, which she kindly sent us for reviewing.

Here is a summary from the book jacket:

When Ugrasen, the domineering patriarch of a family, drops dead at No.22 Saink Farms, everybody in the household is horrified and confused. While his three sons and wife reel under the shock, his niece Anjali knows something is amiss… Knocking on private investigator Ganapati Iyer’s door is her first smart move… It’s now up to the inimitable Ganapati and his North Indian namesake, Vinayak, to get to the bottom of the bizarrely perpetrated murder.

Now those who know me even a little, know very well my fondness for mysteries and that am an ardent devotee of Sherlock Holmes. Obviously, I jumped at the chance to review a murder mystery. The book began promisingly with Ugrasen’s sudden death and soon after the appearance of Ganapati and his Watson. Ganapati’s intense personality actually made the story interesting.

However, Ganapati alone cannot a mystery make. After the initial flurry of activity, the plot sags and a steady pace sets in. I didn’t find myself at the edge of the seat or thinking of the story in the middle of a meeting at work (which happens quite often to me!). In fact, I wasn’t that intrigued because a few chapters into the book I had already guessed who the killer might be.

What particularly added to salt to the wound left by an average plot is the clichés. Right from Ganapati’s South Indian-ness to the manner in which the case was solved, till the end, I felt a constant sense of déjà vu. I had seen and heard and read a lot of these constructions already. For example, Ganapati eats idli-sambar, drinks only filter coffee and wears a ‘veshti,’ which is a dhoti. He is intellectual, thoughtful and dark. All that is missing is a stripe on his forehead. Vinayak is more jovial, drinks rum and looks “fair and Punjabi.” With regard to the case, the interviewing of people and lifting of fingerprints and the one necessary police officer all seemed to further a tired and beat storyline.

The establishment of characters, so important to a crime story, lacked depth but was good in parts. Ganapati is an interesting person though the spouting of lines from the Kural was sometimes out of place and too contrived. Vinayak was very much a Watson, in the sidelines but offering insightful comments once in a while. Actually, my favourite person in the whole book was the cantankerous Dullichand Chacha. He had a refreshingly different personality, very human compared to the others in the book, with his fondness for sweets despite his diabetes and his irritable nature.

Despite these setbacks, A Mysterious Death is readable. I appreciated the author’s vocabulary and writing in many instances. I saw parts where this melded perfectly with the situation and the story, creating moments filled with the promise of more sophistication. Without doubt, I admire the fact that the author has thought of and written an entire novel. That in itself is a huge step. I only wish the plot and story too had taken the step with the author.

Verdict: Readable and interesting in parts

Rating: 2/5

Note to the author: Many thanks for sending us this book for review!

Gone Girl: Gillian Flynn

2013-01-03T23:19:00.002+05:30

Image Credit : EW

It's the start of what I hope will be a busy reading year! Last year I think, was exceptional in the book-reading world. We had the 'mommy porn' phenomenon and we had best-sellers, like Gone Girl that dig a little space in that deep wall of human psychosis. A thriller? Yes. A who-dun-it? Not so. But readable? Very.

I should add here that Gone Girl was the first book I have read on the Kindle. No, I didn't succumb and buy one. Birdy here on LWS was kind enough to download it for me on her e-reading device, and I unscrupulously used it to read this book while holidaying in Jordan. And? I enjoyed the Kindle experience. Initially, I was a bit distracted with the page flickers, but I did become used to it. I loved the ease of searching a word up on the in-built dictionary, and I liked highlighting passages. That's one thing that I forget in books. The print ones, that is. Would I buy it? No. Not yet. If only they can make the Kindle a page-turning experience! Then I would.

Gone Girl is also the most-reviewed book of last year. I thought of that while writing this review. Just what can I add to Gone Girl that hasn't been said already? The past year or so - and indeed, even before that, I have been witness to some fascinating human machinations. At work. At play. As a person, I hate lies. Hate being lied to. Snip, snip, snip, and there lies a relationship that I cut because the other person didn't play true. So imagine a book where the two lead characters lie to you. Lie to themselves. Lie to others. Snip, snip, snip. The coils of the human mind. I didn't like Nick Dunne. Or Amy Dunne. They were by far the most unlikable characters I have come across. But there is a little Nick and a little Amy in all of us. In the people you know. I know. That's frightening. And strangely reassuring.

Nick and Amy Dunne's marriage is a sham. Or a wonderful compromise. Depending on which side of the ocean you are standing on. When Amy disappears on their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick is thrown into a maelstrom of chaos. Of human engineered chaos. And deceptive lies. And sociopathic tussles. Last year, I have seen much the same. Not sociopaths, but all the warpedness of the human mind. Do I really believe what the person next to me is saying? Is your life what you claim it is? Hey! I remember that you didn't pass me the ketchup in that restaurant last year...I still feel so hurt about that. And hence, I won't be talking to you for the rest of the year. Well. I think we are all Gone Girls and Gone Boys sometimes. This novel is the same. Like some toxic relationships that you can't get out of. Can't get inside. That kills you while giving you life.

Gone Girl is dark, deceptively packaged as a thriller, and masquerading as a marriage tale. The ending was like how I saw the year end in Jordan. Standing on a rock under an almost full-moon, the stars shimmering, and Bedouins lighting fireworks. It seemed a bit strange. It's close to freezing, and having been lured to the rock by a Bedouin who thought that he might as well throw in a proposal of marriage in there, I am standing in bare feet. Frozen toes. Lighted skies. And all too soon it ends. And you think what was that? Did that make any sense? That's how the ending felt. Of the book, and this year for me. I look back and I think, none of this makes any sense. Apt.

Verdict : You really should read it, shouldn't you?

Rating: 3.5/5

Requiems and Nightmares: Selected Short Fiction of Guido Gozzano

2013-01-03T18:14:00.003+05:30

Image Credit: Bibliopolis

It’s that time of the year already. The time for, “a gathering-up of my mind to a concentration of all the images that have been diffused over the past twelvemonth,” as Lamb said. Indeed. One of the many images and feelings that crowd my mind is the fact that our blog has seen readership and requests from publishers/authors for reviews double in the past few months. When we began this blog, a few years ago, it was just to remind ourselves of the books we read and what we felt about them. A huge thank you to all of you this New Year and hope to see the blog continue its wonderful run through the rest of this year as well!

How better to begin 2013 than with the review of a book from the aforesaid authors/publishers. I finished reading Requiems and Nightmares: Selected Short Fiction of Guido Gozzano which was kindly sent in to us for review by translators Brendan and Anna Connell. Here is a brief introduction to the book:

Translated from Italian by Brendan and Anna Connell, Requiems and Nightmares is a collection of short stories from Guido Gozzano who is more known for his poetry than his fiction. Gozzano was born in 1883 in Turin the son of a successful engineer. Although he began studying law, Gozzano’s heart lay in literature, which eventually became his calling as he turned to writing poetry and fiction. As with many brilliant writers, Gozzano died at the early age of 32.

Though mainly recognized for his poetry, this collection of selected works is proof of Gozzano’s talent for prose and love for writing fiction.
After reading this delightful little book, I can vouch for that. Gozzano’s stories are laced with an atmosphere of the tricky, exotic and magical. I saw flecks of O Henry, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe as each story dealt with something dark, surreal and strange and ended with a twist. While the very first story, “The Real Face,” talks about the artist Nino Prandi who has a penchant for recognizing animals in the faces of humans, “The Altar of the Past” summons up a Northanger Abbey-ish feel with its hidden room in a big house with a mystery behind the locked door and a secretive Count. Then there are the downright eerie ones like “The Soul of the Instrument” where a girl sells her family to the devil and “A Romantic Story” where a bride disappears soon after her wedding, both of which did not fail to send a chill up my spine. These are two of my favorites from the book though, because of the very realistic sinister feel.

There are others that are more lighthearted like “The Advantages of Zarathustra” in which a young man writes verses for an old lady to his friend’s consternation. But we are given the reason in the twist in the end and I must say it did bring a smile upon my face.

Written mostly in the first person in an evocative and poetic hand, Gozzano’s compilation is a goodie bag of tricks and treats, of quiet observations of life during a certain period in Turin, of overactive imaginations and strong personas. Sprinkled with wry wit and magical realism, the stories evoke a range of reactions from horror to laughter, which in itself is an achievement. Of course, Gozzano’s writing could not have been brought alive as much if the translation wasn’t exemplary. The smoothness of language, with the right mix of Italian words thrown in without being obtrusive to the flow of thought, is courtesy the efforts of Brendan and Anna Connell.

I will wrap up this review with a quote from “Alcina,” which I particularly liked and might be a fitting thought for the New Year as well.

“You know the art of being happy.”

“It’s easy. You only have to forget yourself in the happiness of others.”

Verdict: A delightful entertainer

Rating: 4/5

The Best of Everything : Rona Jaffe

2012-12-20T20:16:00.000+05:30

Image Credit : Amazon

It's the end of the year. The time when we start making our "Top 10" or "Top 100" lists. The time when we start compiling the favorites, the moments that made the year. It seems just the right time to write a review of a book I read almost three months ago, but which made its way straight into my most-loved books of all time. The Best Of Everything by Rona Jaffe is a classic. And rightly so. A very readable classic.

I was surprised that I hadn't heard of this before. But then American literature is not something I am very familiar with, especially modern classics. It's a bit of Sex and the City, reviews say. I don't know since I haven't seen the movie or the series. What I do know is that The Best Of Everything follows four women as they search New York for love. Caroline, April, Gregg and Barbara. There's the Ivy League graduate, Caroline who joins as a junior typist in a publishing firm. Is she the harbinger of the career woman to come? Remember that this novel was set in 1953 New York. Office politics was never as well played out as in this book as Caroline fights her way to becoming an editor.

There is April, hopelessly in love with the wrong man, believing true what the whole world knows to be false. Her friendship with Caroline is beautifully wrought, and her emotional state as she goes through the hard crashes of love make for an intense reading experience. Gregg is the woman who remained to me a mystery. As Caroline's roommate, she falls in love with a notorious playwright, and it's her tragic story that formed the inner desperation of love that defines this book. Barbara, to me was the weakest character in the book - she was not really here, not really there - and Rona Jaffe's rich characterization came a little undone in Barbara.

There was much to enjoy. And especially since this is such a page-turner. At no time was there a lacunae in the story. I remember just being gripped by the story. I was in Goa with two wonderful friends when I was reading this, and I would take every break I could to just continue reading this. I would look forward to my friends taking a shower so that I could have a peek into this fascinating story! ;-). Perhaps, I was disappointed with the ending. And I was more than irritated at the emphasis that all the women need a man to complete them, without which their lives would be just miserable. But I think I was more disappointed that it was the end of the book than the actual ending! The Best Of Everything may have its flaws, but as a portrayal of New York society of the times, it is unmatched.

Verdict : Highly recommended.

Rating : 5/5

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: Maya Angelou

2012-12-20T01:00:00.000+05:30

Image Credit: Amazon

My reviews have become scarce on this site and I know I have only myself go blame. And maybe throw in a weird book or two. Well at least I think I made a good choice with Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." It's hailed as a classic and I thought it's high time I read it since it has been sitting on my shelf for so long. Here's a summary for those already not familiar with the book-

Sent by their mother to live with their devout self sufficient grandmother in a small Southern town, Maya and her brother, Bailey, endure he ache of abandonment and the prejudice of the local "powhitetrash." Later, when Maya goes to stay with her mother she is attacked by a man much older than her and she has to live with the consequences for a long time to come.

Poetic and powerful, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a modern American classic that will touch hearts and change minds for as long as people read.

When I picked it up I thought that because it's a classic it might be a bit difficult to read but of course that's an unfounded notion that many of us have. I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and without having to expend much cerebral energy.

The focus of the story is not the attack on Maya as it's made out to be in the book brief. In fact, it has various focal points interwoven all through. Childhood in a very Southern place in the US, growing up black, a middle class upbringing, a broken marriage and coming of age. A large part of the book is dedicated to portraying relationships and the changes that are wrought in them. We learn early that,

“Our parents had decided to put an end to their calamitous marriage, and Father shipped us home to his mother.”

Thus, Maya’s world becomes her grandmother, her brother, her uncle and of course the Store, the little shop where she spent much of her time. She grows up in Stamps, Arkansas, a small town filled with cotton-pickers until a few years later when her father comes to take her and Bailey with him to St Louis where their mother lived.

It’s here that Maya’s world is shattered as she is taken advantage of by her mother’s boyfriend. Maya goes into shock, as expected of an eight year old, and it’s some time before she is able to regain some normalcy. And as the book progresses we see how her relationship with Bailey changes and how he himself comes into his own all through an evolving Maya’s perspective.

Segregation and racism is no doubt a big part of the novel. Apart from harassment from the ‘powhitetrash’ Maya’s family has to undergo humiliation from the average Whites. There is one extremely powerful passage in the book that highlights the yawning gap that existed in the society. When Maya complains to Momma of a very bad toothache, the latter takes her to Dentist Lincoln who is a white man. When Maya looks doubtful Momma says that she had helped him with money when he needed it and he owes her a favour. But the dentist refuses to treat her and Momma is close to pleading with him,

Momma said, “I wouldn’t press on you like this for myself but I can’t take No. Not for my grandbaby. When you come to borrow my money you didn’t have to beg. You asked me, and I lent it. Now, it wasn’t my policy. I ain’t no moneylender, but you stood to lose this building and I tried to help you out.”

“It’s been paid, and raising your voice won’t make me change my mind. My policy…” He let go of the door and stepped nearer Momma. The three of us were crowded on the small landing. “Annie, my policy is I’d rather stick my hand in a dog’s mouth than in a nigger’s.”

To me this was such a shocking statement. Shocking that people would actually think in this way. That there was once a time when such notions were harboured and believed very firmly. I was reminded of the toilet episode from The Help. But I absolutely loved what Annie, that is Momma, did next. I don’t want to describe that here but she definitely was one strong woman and Maya was “so proud of being her granddaughter and sure that some of her magic much have come down to me.”

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, perhaps disappointed me a bit in the end, but otherwise is a riveting and insightful read. Quite descriptive, poignant in parts and emotionally wired, Angelou does a wonderful job of bringing out the Black culture and beliefs. At the same time, she shows us the middle class sentiment in many instances, which a lot of us can identify with simply because it consists of possessing a sound value system. Through this, Angelou sends a very basic yet strong statement – black or white or otherwise, it’s the values that count at the end of the day and not colour or religion or any other external factor. Thus goes the song of the caged bird, which will sing no matter what.

Verdict: Definitely a classic and a must read

Rating: 4/5

Tell the Wolves I'm Home : Carol Rifka Brunt

2012-12-02T22:05:00.001+05:30

Image Credit : Pan Macmillan

I picked up Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt after reading the rave reviews online, and on Amazon. I usually end up watching movies that no one has ever heard of, and that certainly means I can have great conversations at parties, right? ;-O And the same goes for books. I pick up books that are well, eclectic. This year though, I am trying to change. I still watch movies that no one has heard of though. But I am trying to read books that are readable. No more of that dull, depressing stuff. Well, think again. Tell the Wolves I'm Home is about dealing with grief. Erm. See. I tried.

Let's bear in mind that there is something incredibly complex about this book. And it's not just the 14-year old narrator who seems to speak beyond her years. Dealing with AIDS. Teenage love. Sibling relationships. Parental issues. There is much here. But there is an understated elegance to Carol Rifka. There were moments that she fairly took my breath away with the clarity of her writing. First things first though:

1987. There’s only one person who has ever truly understood fourteen-year-old June Elbus, and that’s her uncle, the renowned painter Finn Weiss. Shy at school and distant from her older sister, June can only be herself in Finn’s company; he is her godfather, confidant, and best friend. So when he dies, far too young, of a mysterious illness her mother can barely speak about, June’s world is turned upside down. But Finn’s death brings a surprise acquaintance into June’s life—someone who will help her to heal, and to question what she thinks she knows about Finn, her family, and even her own heart.

At Finn’s funeral, June notices a strange man lingering just beyond the crowd. A few days later, she receives a package in the mail. Inside is a beautiful teapot she recognizes from Finn’s apartment, and a note from Toby, the stranger, asking for an opportunity to meet. As the two begin to spend time together, June realizes she’s not the only one who misses Finn, and if she can bring herself to trust this unexpected friend, he just might be the one she needs the most.

As a narrator, I can't fault June. But she can't be 14-years old. No. To me, it's an older, more mature voice. There is much wisdom in what she speaks. Yet, I found the languid pace of the novel a bit too tepid for my taste. I just WISH that it could have moved a little faster. I wanted to know more about Finn, but I didn't. I wanted to know more about his 'lover' Toby, but I didn't. And I wanted to know more about Greta, June's sister, but I didn't. There were little fragments, beautiful fragments nevertheless, but incomplete. But perhaps that's how people are and life is. It's just me who wants to know everything.

Much of the book resonates with grief. Finn is a character who dominates in his absence. Yet, also beautiful was the slow and poignant friendship between June and Toby. But of more interest to me was the layered and textured relationship between June and Greta. That was the fiery one - the one that coiled itself within the walls of familial relationships. And June and Toby's was the hidden embers - the curled wisps of a fated relationship. You might wonder after all this - what happens? Well, nothing I can say that is dramatic. We have death. A painting. Relationships. And issues. Many of these issues don't resolve themselves in the end. But then again, I don't think we need those gift-wrapped solutions.

Favorite quotes. (I thought I had more but I can't find them anymore in the book. Reminds me to read books with little stick-on notes or something. Otherwise how else do we find passages we like?)

"That's the secret. If you always make sure you're exactly the person you hoped to be, if you always make sure you know only the very best people, then you won't care if you die tomorrow."

This quote below, I so agree with.

Why couldn't people live together, spend their whole lives together, just because they liked each other's company? Just because they liked each other more than they liked anyone else in the whole world? If you found a person like that you wouldn't have to have sex. You could just hold them, couldn't you? You could sit close to them, nestle into them so you could hear the machine of them churning away. You could press your ear against that person's back, listening to the rhythm of them, knowing that you were both made of the same exact stuff. You could do things like that.

Verdict : Read this book as it's rated one of the best this year. For a debut, it's striking. If only the pace was a little bit faster.

Rating : 3/5

Restaurant of Love Regained : Ito Ogawa

2012-11-25T15:45:00.000+05:30

Image Credit : Umami Mart

It's been a rather lazy Sunday afternoon for me. And that's how Sunday afternoons should be :-). I am reading two books concurrently - neither of which I think will end any time soon. So I thought it's time to go check the books for which I haven't written any reviews yet, and the Restaurant of Love Regained by Ito Ogawa is what came up.

I think probably I thought more of this book to review because I was in a Japanese restaurant yesterday, where I have discovered a new love for wasabi, and sushi (well, if there is such a thing that can be called vegetarian sushi, that is). Ito Ogawa's Restaurant of Love Regained is simplistic in its approach - it's an ode to food. And who doesn't like to eat good food? Those who don't know me well enough think that I am a diet fetishist who watches the calories in a deep-fried tempura with the eyes of a hawk, and weighs every decision on the basis of 'to eat or not to eat.' Ha, I say. I was attracted to this book because it promised good food. Well, vicarious pleasures are always welcome.

Returning home from work, Rinko is shocked to find that her flat is totally empty. Gone are her TV set, fridge and furniture, gone are all her kitchen tools, including the old Meiji mortar she has inherited from her grandmother and the Le Creuset casserole she has bought with her first salary. Gone, above all, is her Indian boyfriend, the maître d’ of the restaurant next door to the one she works in. She has no choice but to go back to her native village and her mother, on which she turned her back ten years ago as a fifteen-year-old girl.

There she decides to open a very special restaurant, one that serves food for only one couple every day, according to their personal tastes and wishes. A concubine rediscovers her love for life, a girl is able to conquer the heart of her lover, a surly man is transformed into a lovable gentleman – all this happens at the The Snail, the magic restaurant whose delicate food can heal any heartache and help its customers find love again

The Independent describes this as a 'foodie fable' and I must agree. Rinko is a young woman who returns to her hometown after many years when she comes back to her apartment and finds it stripped clean by her boyfriend. She finds that that shock leaves her unable to speak, and that becomes convenient considering her uneasy relationship with her mother, who is has not kept in touch with for ten years. Her mother gives Rinko space in her house, provided she takes care of Hermes, a sow that her mother dotes on. Rinko decides that she would want to open a little restaurant with just one table. Food, she feels, is the way to solving all problems. And she prepares the kind of food based on the kind of customers who come. So, there is a different menu for a young couple who are reluctant to take the final step, another for a widow, and another for a old man. I had no problems with the novel till this point, even though I found the dialogue strangely stilted. But it's the latter half of the book that left me shocked. Puzzled. And simply shaking my head in disbelief.

A death or two and then all is changed. Rinko discovers her voice (of course, I am not giving you the spoiler, but what else do you expect?) and things settle into some hazy ending. I was disappointed. This book could have been better, but like mushrooms gone bad, it wasn't all too palatable in the end.

Verdict : What a letdown

Rating : 2.5/5

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time : Mark Haddon

2012-11-18T08:20:00.000+05:30

Image Credit : Adam's Bibliomania

Never judge a book by its cover or so they say. Never judge a book by what's written on the jacket, or so I say. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon was gifted to me by Bibliojunkie last year. For some reason I cannot fathom I didn't read it till now. Or rather, I thought it was a 'mystery novel'. I can't be blamed when the blurb made me think that this is all about Christopher trying to find out who murdered the neighbor's dog, Wellington, and the terrifying consequences it leads him to. Right, I thought.

But I am in the middle of reading Ken Follett's massive Winter of the World, and since that might take the rest of the year to finish, I like taking a break from it every now and then to pick up other books. I picked this one up, and I was hooked. It wasn't a murder mystery. In fact, I don't even know how it can be called a mystery. Instead, it was one of the most captivating and creative novels I have read in years. It had me immersed, it had me smiling and it made me go 'awwww' more than once.

Christopher Boone is 15. He knows "all the countries of the world and their capital cities and every prime number up to 7,507". He has Asperger's syndrome, lives with his father and Toby, his pet rat in Swindon, his mother is dead, and his teacher Siobhan tells him to write a book. Enter what I think is one of the most original literary voices. Christopher's writing is laced with ironic humor even though he insists he doesn't understand a joke. He hates being touched, a Good Day for him is seeing 4 red cars in a row, and a Bad Day is seeing 4 yellow cars in a row. You might think that he is indifferent, or unemotional - but no. There is a lot inside Christopher's head that speaks movingly.The story opens with Christopher finding the neighbor's dog dead on the lawn, with a pitchfork in its stomach. It's a gruesome beginning. And Christopher is determined to turn detective and find out who-did-it. But that's not what the reader will care about. Through that, you discover a mess of family relations - about adults like Christopher's parents who seem to excel in completely messing up their lives. The true estrangement between his parents is what forms the crux of the book. Christopher may have 'strange' reactions to events - he hates crowded places, but I could only think that he had far more emotional sense than the others so-called adults in the book.

One of my favorite quotes: (indeed the book's chapters are all numbered prime number wise)

"Prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them."

Verdict : There is nothing I can add to this book that hasn't been said already. A classic.

Rating : 5/5

Left to Tell : Immaculée Ilibagiza

2012-11-15T20:29:00.000+05:30

Image Credit : Murray Library

I don't think I have read too many memoirs of late. I used to read at least 20 memoirs or so a year during one particularly fertile reading phase. Yet, a personal account of the Rwandan holocaust was hard not to.

Immaculée Ilibagiza's Left To Tell is a harrowing account. I cannot imagine the depth of horror that she must have experienced. To imagine the human mind as capable of such atrocities. Yet, the past that she recounts is no doubt true. Her story is one of courage. Immense courage. And her story is also of faith.

As a little girl in a village in Rwanda, Immaculée was just like anyone else. She knew little of the distinction of a Hutu and Tsutsi. Her life is torn asunder when Rwanda in 1994 plunges into genocide after the death of the then Rwandan President. Separated from her family, and her brother, who she describes as her soulmate, she spends 91 days hidden inside the bathroom of the Pastor who agrees to hide her and seven other women in his house. It's a terrifying ordeal. What sustains her through this ordeal is her faith - unswerving faith. It's this part of the autobiography that may be a bit too thick for non-religious readers. Yet, it's important to understand that considering all that Immaculée lost, faith was something that she didn't lose.

Sometimes, it's hardest to love those who hate us. And hardest to find faith in a God who seems to have turned this world into an unforgiving battle of hate. But that's what Immaculée finds solace in. I was gripped by her account. And yet humbled by her survival. There is great courage to live through what she has, but greater still to forgive those who hunted for relentlessly. I remember there were chapters in the book that I were so descriptive - Hutu Interahamwe soldiers swarmed her village, carrying machetes and ready to slash to death anyone they suspect of being a Tsutsi or even a Hutu who is a sympathizer. It was madness of the sort that the world had not seen since perhaps the Jewish holocaust.

I have one query though of Immaculée. She owed her life to the Pastor. Yet, I find that in the end, when she embarks on her journey of forgiveness, curiously there is no mention of the Pastor. It's clear that she doesn't like him because he turned her brothers away and didn't give them shelter. Yet, he showed kindness in strange ways. But I never saw in the book Immaculée reaching out to him, and thanking him. I couldn't make out what happened in the end, and this is a strange lapse in what is generally an inspiring story.

Verdict : An unforgettable account of a grim and shameful period in the world's history

Rating : 4/5

Me Before You : Jojo Moyes

2012-11-14T19:18:00.004+05:30

Image Credit : Tumblr

I don't read romance novels. I have stayed a safe distance from the wonderful sounding new genre called 'mommy porn' that the New York Times came up with. So, it might come as a bit of surprise that I read this artfully delicious romantic read : Me Before You by Jojo Moyes.

And I confess I was surprised that I liked it so much. It wasn't remotely silly. There was wonderful wit, sarcasm, a slow and warm friendship (more than starry-eyed 'love') and the elimination of cliches that abound in romantic novels. In fact, I hesitate to call Me Before You a romantic novel. This was a book that was brimming with life and its immense scope, even as it dealt with the right to die.

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

You know the inevitable - despite all odds, Lou and Will are attracted to each other. But I admire Jojo Moyes for not sticking to a formulaic path. Will Traynor probably speaks the way I do half the time - brittle with sarcasm. And yet he has something that I don't use that much - gentleness that isn't obvious, and a fight that I admire. His fight is not formulaic either. Tied to a wheelchair as quadriplegic and dependent on others for everything, Will doesn't want to live. To me that's a fight, strange as it sounds. To understand that it's better to die than lead life the way you have envisaged it. I think I would do the same.

There is no patronizing of Will's condition here - Lou, as his caretaker tries her best to show him that life can be enjoyed - but it's not the same enjoyment for Will as before. Moyes is relentless in describing Will's resolution to die - you hate him for what he wants to do, but can't help but admire his courage in doing so. This ain't no ordinary love story. In the process, you see Will pass on a little bit of his life's learning to Lou - travel, he urges. Listen to music. Read. All of which I love to do. Yes, I am a fan of Will, even as I feel he was a bit too cold-hearted. But that's something I can easily identify with. One of my favorite lines, both Will's:

“Some mistakes... Just have greater consequences than others. But you don't have to let the result of one mistake be the thing that defines you. You, Clark, have the choice not to let that happen.”

“I see all this talent, all this...this energy and brightness and...potential. Yes. Potential. And I cannot for the life of me see how you can be content to live this tiny life. This life that will take place almost entirely within a five mile radius and contain nobody who will ever surprise you or push you or show you things that will leave your head spinning and unable to sleep at night.”

I don't recommend books easily. But this one I do. This is a poignant read. One of the best of this year.

Verdict : A warm little surprise package that is so compulsively readable.

Rating : 5/5 (Especially for the non cliched-ending)

Africa Junction : Ginny Baily

2012-11-14T18:46:00.001+05:30

Image Credit: Exeter

I used to write reviews of books as soon as I used to read them. But perhaps it's the end of the year and the sluggishness of watching Time move past sets in, and then the reviews-to-be-written becomes another to-do-task in your smartphone or a mind if so I possess one. So, it's a bit late that I am writing this one. And if it's the sort of book that moves out of your consciousness as soon as you keep it down, then you are in trouble, and that's where I am at - in trouble.

Africa Junction by Ginny Baily was one of those books that I picked up almost blindly, because I love reading anything about Africa. I have had this fascination for this continent - so vast, so roiled in conflict, so different, and yet so same in its humaneness. Here's the book blurb from Amazon:

Adele is in a mess. On her own with her young son, struggling to cope with her job as a teacher, and stuck in a disastrous - and dangerous - affair, her life is unravelling. The sharp contrasts and certainties she experienced during the years she spent as a child in far-off Senegal have faded to a distant blur. Then, one night, when she looks in the bathroom mirror, she sees the face of Ellena, a girl she knew in those carefree days, staring back at her from the glass.

As the daughter of a nightwatchman in exile from the brutal conflict in Liberia, Ellena's childhood was far from the idyll of Adele's memories. Her mysterious appearance sets in motion a chain of events that takes Adele back to Africa, in the hope that she can make amends for a heartless act that broke the girls' friendship and damaged Ellena's family irrevocably.

Africa Junction artfully interweaves the stories of dramatically different lives and experiences - a Senegalese boy setting sail for Europe, a Welsh teenager running from Timbuktu, a young girl escaping from a life of slave labour in Mali - but at its heart is Adele and her quest.

From the rain-drenched streets of Britain to the sun-baked reds and yellows of Senegal and the violence of Liberia's civil war, Africa Junction follows one woman's attempt to draw the threads of her life together. Out of the quagmire of violence and hardship there emerges a tentative vision of common humanity and, ultimately, the possibility both of redemption and of love.

The plot sounds promising, except that isn't the plot at all. What emerged is a rather confusing mix of stories that shift from a vague past and an equally vague present. I was really confused because I didn't realize that Adele might be white. The whole 'redemption' story that you think is the crux doesn't really emerge at all. There are a series of 'interconnected' stories (it seems to be rather the fashion - to write of the strange interconnectedness of our lives, and how seemingly random people affect the deepest part of our lives). They were interesting in their own right, but never seem to come together to form a complete whole. You can guess from this review, that I am struggling to put together a coherent review of an incoherent story. That surprises me as Africa Junction seems to have received such rave reviews. It's just me making this out to be worse than what it probably is - but that's what I seem to do the same for much of life. ;-)

Verdict : Painful and disoriented.

Rating: 2/5