Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Tokyo Cancelled - Rana Dasgupta
I am never quite sure what are the marks of a good short story collection - is it a thread of commonality? Is it that there should not be a common thread at all? Only a theme? Or is it by default that you are expected to like only some and not all stories?
Repeated readings of old short story collections has just confused me further. Reading new collections too has not enabled me to come up with any new points. It was with this frame of mind that I read Tokyo Cancelled by Rana Dasgupta.
I liked the whimsy of most the stories and I liked the circle (just a figure of speech) of thirteen people but I did not understand the drama of it and according to me, was either not taken to its conclusive end or was meant to open ended and without too much drama(perhaps a lot like life itself?)
The elements of surrealism in most of the stories made it soothing to read because then I would not constantly draw parallels in real life. I even found some of the main themes very exciting - replacing memories or a magical in vitro procedure or speaking to minds or transmorgification or urban ennui (though am certain this is as life like as we perhaps dont want it to be) or uncanny ability to heal.
Like always found lines that could mean so much more when read ina different context.
There had been a long time for them to look at each other. To find depths in faces that has seemed conventional a few hours ago; to contemplate the fingernails of the hand on the arm of the adjacent chair, the worn soles on a pair of feet propped up on a briefcase, the overlooked stubble behind the jut of a neighbour's jawbone. [...]
[..] Was it not at times like this, when life malfunctioned, when time found a leak in its pipeline and dripped out into some hidden little pool, [..]
Like any other city today in India?
[..] has seen pictures of New York. But it was nothing compared to this. These towers grew close together like a bamboo grove and they were in every kind of colour: blue and gold and silver and, pink like cherry blossom and orange like the robe of a chuckling Buddha. And everywhere, men were building more, drilling and hammering and cutting until your head nearly burst. There were millions of people, and they looked as if they had no cares in the world: they dressed in magnificent clothes and walked stiff and tall.
Worth a read definitely and is a great book for a debut but it is this post that really made me reach out for the book...
Repeated readings of old short story collections has just confused me further. Reading new collections too has not enabled me to come up with any new points. It was with this frame of mind that I read Tokyo Cancelled by Rana Dasgupta.
I liked the whimsy of most the stories and I liked the circle (just a figure of speech) of thirteen people but I did not understand the drama of it and according to me, was either not taken to its conclusive end or was meant to open ended and without too much drama(perhaps a lot like life itself?)
The elements of surrealism in most of the stories made it soothing to read because then I would not constantly draw parallels in real life. I even found some of the main themes very exciting - replacing memories or a magical in vitro procedure or speaking to minds or transmorgification or urban ennui (though am certain this is as life like as we perhaps dont want it to be) or uncanny ability to heal.
Like always found lines that could mean so much more when read ina different context.
There had been a long time for them to look at each other. To find depths in faces that has seemed conventional a few hours ago; to contemplate the fingernails of the hand on the arm of the adjacent chair, the worn soles on a pair of feet propped up on a briefcase, the overlooked stubble behind the jut of a neighbour's jawbone. [...]
[..] Was it not at times like this, when life malfunctioned, when time found a leak in its pipeline and dripped out into some hidden little pool, [..]
Like any other city today in India?
[..] has seen pictures of New York. But it was nothing compared to this. These towers grew close together like a bamboo grove and they were in every kind of colour: blue and gold and silver and, pink like cherry blossom and orange like the robe of a chuckling Buddha. And everywhere, men were building more, drilling and hammering and cutting until your head nearly burst. There were millions of people, and they looked as if they had no cares in the world: they dressed in magnificent clothes and walked stiff and tall.
Worth a read definitely and is a great book for a debut but it is this post that really made me reach out for the book...
# posted by Janaki @ 10:42 pm 
