The Pile of Books

I have been feeling pretty mad lately; its the end of the fiscal year (which is synonymous with doomsday for everyone - the one in the job and the one tackling the one in the job) and though I have had a lot of 'free' time, most of it has been going into making time for me to be able to read anything besides corporate papers in the weekdays. Either way, I am touchy right now and little things set me off. Little things like... 1. There was a not-so-battered copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire lying in the heap at the foot of a second-hand bookseller. Really ?? You had the heart to give away the book where Cedric died ? And Voldemort returned ? I am astounded (disgusted ?) at your emotional strength. 2. An acquaintance said she found Hurt Locker so boring, she walked off the theatre at interval. I am sorry the movie wasn't a musical.  3. Another acquaintance refused to come to Les Miserables. Oh I am so sorry, there are no guns blazing in this one....

Nope. Not my favourite, and not by a long, long shot.  This possibly amounts to sacrilege for may hardened fans (and there are lots of them), but seriously, no, I quite disliked the book. This was my first Stephen King and the netizens/citizens surrounding me have created a pedestal for King, which, though having never read one myself, I was apt to accept and respect. So when I found that the novel was littered with useless slangs and really going nowhere unpredictable with the plot, I was crushed.  As rightly guessed, the language was my biggest concern. Call me old-fashioned or what, it seemed too juvenile to be using such parlance any more; it was too flippant for my taste, and in some parts, outright cheap (though in some cases, that might be pardoned, given that it was the perspective of a twisted psychopath). This story is effectively a script for an CW procedural drama. It looks fine on screen, but on paper, its charm is faded. I am talking Lee Child lev...

This happens to anyone who reads anything at all, right ? From newspapers to classics, our parlance becomes a function of the literary content we are dealing with currently. Right now, I am downing Winds of War (Herman Wouk) , A merican Gods (Neil Gaiman) and Mr. Mercedes (Stephen King), and their styles of prose couldn’t be more different. I am not a huge fan of King’s lingo (I find it too flippant), and naturally, Wouk is bordering on the delightfully stodgy so yes, my normal sentences these days begin with ‘nevertheless’ and end with a ‘booya’. There are two kinds of bibliophiles in this regard (at least in my opinion): those who stun you with their choice and economy of words, and those who wind their sentences for the sheer pleasure of being able to employ all the worlds running amok in the head (see how I did it ?!). Unless you are deliberately trying to confuse someone, being taciturn and yet effective is an amazing ability. You need a very thorough knowledge, naturall...

As one of my colleagues put it, short stories are tough. I agree, to an extent. And when it comes to the near-psychedelic themes of the brilliant Neil Gaiman, I agree completely.  Trigger Warning is a collection of short stories (and sometimes poems) ranging from a couple of pages to a couple of dozen. The premises are varied, mostly fantastical, and some are outright brilliant. While they are not yet as eccentric and macabre as Roald Dahl's ones (of which I am a huge fan), they read well enough. There are a couple of spin-offs of old fairy tales, a Doctor Who story and an extended universe of sorts of American Gods  among others. (The last one was my favourite).  One way or another, the stories serve their purpose of tickling your curiosity. Some like Truth Is A Cave In The Black Mountains or My Last Landlady  seem definitive enough - which, consequently doesn't make you think too much - others, like A Lunar Labyrinth end the typical short-story wa...

Well, this was depressing. I get all the iconic status and the associated jazz, but seriously, I was sad once I was done. I was sad even before I was done. It started barely ten pages in. Sometimes, reading classics can be quite a task.  Death of A Salesman  covers the last few days of a travelling salesman Willy Loman and his  struggle to reconcile with his unfulfilled expectations, which, are never-ending. His career is flickering, his family - in his eyes - is strangely out of shape and his rigid, core beliefs seem to be crumbling, and with them, his very soul seems to be ebbing away. He is supported by his painfully loyal wife Linda Loman, and his two sons - Happy, who as the moniker suggests, is barely aware of the consequences in his gaeity, and Biff, who appears to be the only family member with some brains and conscience, but is sadly, between jobs and figuring out life for himself. There is something pathetic about Willy, in his misguided self-assur...

This was a hit. I have earned a reputation in my family that I pick up the most ancient and abstruse work available (Dante’s Inferno for instance, or Silas Marner ). Unsurprisingly for me – and surprisingly for those who haven’t read anything about or by Voltaire or Dante – their work is far more liberating than most present day writings. And they managed in far fewer pages too. Alphabet of Wit is 62 pages long – blank pages included. It is a collection of very short essays by Voltaire on various topics ranging from Adam to Zeal, and oh, the topics are listed alphabetically. Voltaire’s outlook is refreshingly practical, considering his generation. Even considering our own, actually. Also, his sense of wry humour – at first a bit stodgy – is very appealing, once you get used to it. Since the essays are short, it is easy to stick it out for pages and get acquainted to his style of writing. Though admittedly, it is a short book and it is hard to say if the style could have s...

Being nearly as interested in movies as I am in books, I tend to allocate actors to certain characters in my head. With Harry Potter and his universe, I was naturally in a fix, because I didn't really know that many kids on screen at that time. But I guess the movie franchise's biggest victory lies in its perfect casting, right down from Albus Dumbledore to Dudley Dursley.  While browsing through my bookshelf, I glance at each title and visualise the key characters and/or incidents. The cinematic nature of this activity (cinematic only in my head; nothing cinematic about me gaping at my books) is entertainment enough. I figured I may actually be making life that much easier for future movie productions, if I shared my insights into this aspect...  Holden Caulfield: Johnny Depp. Hands down. If not him, then Matthew McConaughey. I'm thinking of soft, observant eyes and a drawling voice in the head. Alistair MacLean's men:  Daniel Craig fits the bill perfe...

"There was a time, long ago, when the only peaceful moments of her existence were those from the time she opened her eyes in the morning until she attained full consciousness, a matter of seconds until when finally roused she entered the day's wakeful nightmare." The 'she' is Scout, of course. The argument she presents above is a reflection of what Go Set A Watchman is all about. This Harper Lee work - which was penned even before To Kill A Mockingbird - bears only a vague resemblance to the book that won her the Pulitzer. It holds its own ground, story-wise; though the knowledge of the chronology of its creation adds to the understanding of Mockingbird .  Jean Louise Finch is now 26, living it up in New York, with a heart full of ideals and steadfastness, sown over her childhood spent in the mundane town of Maycomb, Alabama. The town hasn't really changed much, maintaining its volatile balance between appropriateness and crudeness. Not that ...

Honestly, I don't know what the title means. Not that I am fixated on its inspiration or anything, but like the protagonist's quest into the origins of the name of the town of Mother's Rest, I can't figure out what it implies. And there ends all my complaints with the story. Jack Reacher scores again. With much more elegance and style. Or probably, the elegance comes in the prose style of Lee Child. Basically, Reacher is still the hulking, laconic, vagabond do-gooder. The only difference this time round is the way Child has made Reacher a bit more suave. The plot tends away from a crime thriller - though, as always, it starts as one - and ends in an action thriller genre; but those acquainted with the Reacher series would have, by now, been accustomed to this deviation. Nevertheless, it continues to be a little  bit disconcerting when the solution does not tie up with the rest of the story. Barring the ending (or rather the oh-shit- this -is-the-answer mo...

Yes ! I started with Go Set a Watchman two days back ! My notes so far (I am a little less than halfway through): 1. There's no one cooler than Scout. Atticus maybe. But no one cusses like Scout. 2. Jem. Well, that hurt on page 13. 3. Jem, Scout and Dill as kids again. Oh the fun ! 4. Aunt Alexandra. And her corsets. 5. Maycomb. Nothing substantial has happened so far, which is OK by me. Reading about Maycomb is like going back to my childhood. Nothing beats that.