The Pile of Books

Sometimes I wonder about grey characters. Come to think of it, every story is written from someone's point of view. One person looking out at the world. It must be then, safe to assume that the character description is already prejudiced. Take our fairy tale villains for one; a cannibalistic woman (the witch of Hansel and Gretel ), the wicked fairy godmother ( Sleeping Beauty ), an ogre ( Jack and the Beanstalk ) and the most uncomfortable of them all, the baby-obsessed Rumpelstiltskin. It is only recently that interesting backstories and research into the original unadulterated versions of these stories are attracting attention. The happy endings are possibly the only things that are child-like in these stories; even one layer down, these stories are studies into complex human psych.  Which brings me to the bothersome point. We have all done some pretty vile things at some or the other point. If someone were to listen only to the victim of our injudicious behaviour, why,...

Well, this was only the movie script, and I can only imagine how the coursebook might be. Dear God, isn't it a relief to relapse into that world, and especially if Rowling herself creates it. Mind you, I couldn't help but compare between the playwright Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and this one, and the difference is so stark. Both have good stories - maybe Fantastic Beasts has less complicated a plot as The Cursed Child - but the latter comes nowhere close to the heart-warmingness of the former. I began Newt's journey on the big screen. We went for an evening show and we were thrilled as children. Personally, I have been a huge fan of Eddie Redmayne after the BBC adaptation of  Birdsong , so it was easy on my eyes to accept him as the sprightly, yet demure Newton Artemis Fido Scamander. The setting was perfect - a 1920s USA, with everything in dull grey and black and brown - an overall dreariness, which was uplifted by the lush, navy blue overcoat-bearing ...

Contradictions. All the way. I really love the character of Robert Langdon - he is the personification of all things romantic about growing up to be a hot professor dealing in history, mythology and all things mysterious with a touch of science (a bit of an Indiana Jones minus the brashness). I love Brown's plots concerning Renaissance-era artists and their quirks. I love the settings. I love the puzzles and their conspiracy-theory explanations. I love the pace too. But. When I put all of these together, why am I underwhelmed? The stories have all the ingredients of being a blockbuster of a book, and somehow they fail. The charm of The Da Vinci Code seems like a one-time hit, and a re-hash of the concept seems like a wasted attempt.  Maybe that's what it is. A blockbuster, I mean. At a time when, as a friend put it, apocalyptic doomsday seems to be the flavour of the season, mixing centuries old references with the present ominous environment seems like deja vu . His...

I swear I'm  not  being diplomatic about this, but the answer to that is 'It Depends.  Smiley versus Karla  trilogy   had me in raptures; I nearly cried (with misery) when I got sent the original version of  David Copperfield . Both were bricks; and much as I love Dickens, there is something daunting about a thickset copy with font 8 on a Times New Roman (or something similar). Thick books (strictly excluding text books) are usually fun. Look at  A Suitable Boy ; I bought it five years back and I'm still ploughing through. I haven't had the time to finish it or get bored of it (but then I'm a serial book-shifter*). And then there is  The Old Man and the Sea ; it is a pamphlet of a book, and I haven't (or rather couldn't) finished that either. So  it depends  on the content of the writing. I'm not saying family sagas are more fun or intellectually more stimulating than, well, an old man fishing in the sea, but somehow, the lac...

When I was at school, our English reader used to feature some very interesting pieces; some of them used to be two pager snippets of larger novels. These stories - meant for an extremely drab educational purposes - ranged from an excerpt about a young boy nearing suffocation in a box in which he was kidnapped, to a dying rhino amidst a group of poachers, and a marvellous hidden national treasure which, in the middle of being robbed, set off the alarm by way of tinkling bells. I eventually read the complete works, having borrowed them from an English teacher who used to reside in the apartment below ours. One piece of work though, had been haunting me ever since I had read it way back in the year 2002. The story was titled ' The Boots of Kemmerich' and I can most vividly recall the pain in the words. Ever since then, I had been looking out for All Quiet on the Western Front , and it wasn't until 14 years later, that I got round to read it. And it feels just the ...

Recipe books are books after all. And very sensual ones at that. It wasn't long back when cooking was still pretty much an exotic hobby to me; by extension, reading a cookbook wasn't really an option I found worth weighing. It was the same with cookery shows - I found them dull, except if the chef in question was kind to the eyes. Things changed gradually when I started staying by myself and the hostel/daily cook's food started tasting like grease. Browsing recipes started eating into my time for binge-watching series. My lunch box to the office started emanating alien odours - not wholly unpleasant, but certainly other-worldly. My colleagues started commenting on the shade of my dal and the abundance of salt in the curry. Mom used to describe elaborate recipes on the phone, and repeated them in case I had already forgotten the first step by the time it was time to serve it hot with a sprinkling of coriander.  It was around this time that I realised that cookboo...

Love is multi-dimensional; in the sense that it is a congregation of feelings, both good and bad. They all build up to something familiar, like an old pair of socks, and settles down snugly within us, without us much realising. The feeling of loss is also an indication of that love, and the only tragedy is not feeling anything at all.  Murakami's beautiful  South of the Border, West of the Sun is a journey of the heart. Nothing really is straight-cut when it comes to Murakami, but this is an out-and-out love story, as predictable as it can be in terms of the practical outcomes, while the complex turns of the heart are what makes this story so unique. Little Hajime is a single-child, who learns to live in his own quiet world, and befriends Shimamoto, another lone child at school. When both go their own ways as teenagers, Hajime still remembers her fondly, and moves on with his life , not realising how stuck he is. He is happily married with two daughters, with the...

Besides the pouring rain against the glass panes, the next best thing for me is a dry spell, with a shaft of sunlight escaping through the dark bank of clouds and illuminating a runway on my bed. These instances are rare to come by in the thick of the monsoons and so I relish them, as I am doing now with one or all of the below: A good book : The lighter the better. Or else something as engrossing as a Harry Potter or an Alistair McLean. The intense plot only ferments too well in the rain-washed sunbeams.  A good book and a takeway : A steaming box of wok or some incredibly cheesy pizza that dribbles on the pages. Nasty stuff, but there's no combination like comfort food and a comfort book.    Long-drawn out, ballad-like music : My husband is a connoisseur of good music, and more often than not I am listening to some heart-rending song on the loop. On afternoons like today, it feels like an ode to love and loss and all things bittersweet.  Watc...

Isn't that something to look forward to ?! An 8th in the line of the Harry Potter saga...Unlike when I was younger, I did not pre-book this one (sad what ageing does to you) but just tried my luck at the local bookstore and hit it off. Lucky me ! It went down in a week, which must have been the time it used to take me to tackle The Order of the Phoenix back in my schooldays. And it left me happy. Not delirious and confused, but happy.  Nothing wrong with the book at all; in fact the story was as tight as you could ask for, what kept nagging me was that I was missing out on some of the finest writings of Rowling herself. If only this were a 2,000-pager, I would probably have taken a couple of days off from work and gorged on it till I was bloodshot in the eyes. However, considering that a story as complex as this is written in a theatre-format, I am pretty surprised at how well it has come out. Admittedly, the movies took some time to mature (personally I started l...

I am back from a most refreshing trip (Italy and Switzerland!!!). Actually, I've been back some time now and it took me this long to find my feet back into the mundane (ugh) life that I lead. If that sounds grumpy, its at least better than how I feel. No wonder travelling is touted as one of the best ways to gain perspective and general well-being.  I daresay, my reading has aligned itself with my travels. I've always had a weakness for European literature (by which I mean predominantly British, though). And Italy - being the living, breathing image of all things romantic and chivalrous I had imagined, has turned my attention towards works that have so far been in the realm of reverence and oh-I-am-too-stupid-to grasp-all-that category.  The one thing  have never really got a hang of, is poetry. At school, it used to be difficult for me; prose I found easier to read between the lines, but not poetry. I have in fact, always, attacked poetry with the intention ...