Thursday, April 28, 2005
The World According To Garp - John Irving
A book about a writer writing on his being a writer, on his mother being a writer, on her writing, his writing, his reading about writing and of course all this interspersed with his writing - after an introduction (by a fellow reader) like this how could I resist reading this book?
But like more books achieving or claimed to have achieved cult status, this book falls short. Oh yes! It does entertain and keep one amused but somewhere along the way fails to make the point it sets out to make or may be makes too many of them.
Jenny Fields, her son T S Garp, their life together with his and her myriad family spans his entire life - all of thirty three years. What starts off as his entry into the world slowly evolves to make his life a reluctant feminist to his becoming a moderately successful writer interspersed with familial upheavals.
Garp was, like his beliefs, self contradictory. He was very generous with other people, but he was horribly impatient. He set his own standards for how much of his time and patience everyone deserved.
Almost summarises the book...
Progressing in a back and forth pattern, with verbs and tenses playing truant, the book surges forth. Entertaining nevertheless, this book strikes a cord many a times, especially for (self professed and otherwise) writers.
There is a faint, trapped warble from some televisions tuned in to The Late Show, and the blue gray glow from the picture tube throbs from a few of the houses. To Garp this glow looks like cancer, insidious and numbing, putting the world to sleep. May be television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer's irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn't reading.'
The language in the book is good but nothing above the ordinary. The language does not accentuate the tale, just narrates it. The book brings forth many notions that are immensely entertaining and thought provoking - single parenting (and how!), feminisim, the knack of writing as opposed the skill of it, fidelity, real life influence on writing, violence in daily life and the basic fear of losing one's loved ones.
To my quasi-feminist mind, I love Jenny and her ideals and would love to emulate her, had I even half the courage.
In this dirty minded world, Jenny thinks, you are either somebody's wife or somebody's whore - or fast on your way to becoming one or the other. If you dont fit either category, then everyone tries to make you think there is something wrong with you.
[..]
... Garp explained to his mother the Viennese system of prostitution. Jenny was not surprised to hear that prostitution was legal; she was surprised to learn that it was illegal in so nany other places. 'Why shouldn't it be legal?' she asked. 'Why can't a woman use her body the way she wants to?
Why not indeed!
* Are excerpts from the book
But like more books achieving or claimed to have achieved cult status, this book falls short. Oh yes! It does entertain and keep one amused but somewhere along the way fails to make the point it sets out to make or may be makes too many of them.
Jenny Fields, her son T S Garp, their life together with his and her myriad family spans his entire life - all of thirty three years. What starts off as his entry into the world slowly evolves to make his life a reluctant feminist to his becoming a moderately successful writer interspersed with familial upheavals.
Garp was, like his beliefs, self contradictory. He was very generous with other people, but he was horribly impatient. He set his own standards for how much of his time and patience everyone deserved.
Almost summarises the book...
Progressing in a back and forth pattern, with verbs and tenses playing truant, the book surges forth. Entertaining nevertheless, this book strikes a cord many a times, especially for (self professed and otherwise) writers.
There is a faint, trapped warble from some televisions tuned in to The Late Show, and the blue gray glow from the picture tube throbs from a few of the houses. To Garp this glow looks like cancer, insidious and numbing, putting the world to sleep. May be television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer's irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn't reading.'
The language in the book is good but nothing above the ordinary. The language does not accentuate the tale, just narrates it. The book brings forth many notions that are immensely entertaining and thought provoking - single parenting (and how!), feminisim, the knack of writing as opposed the skill of it, fidelity, real life influence on writing, violence in daily life and the basic fear of losing one's loved ones.
To my quasi-feminist mind, I love Jenny and her ideals and would love to emulate her, had I even half the courage.
In this dirty minded world, Jenny thinks, you are either somebody's wife or somebody's whore - or fast on your way to becoming one or the other. If you dont fit either category, then everyone tries to make you think there is something wrong with you.
[..]
... Garp explained to his mother the Viennese system of prostitution. Jenny was not surprised to hear that prostitution was legal; she was surprised to learn that it was illegal in so nany other places. 'Why shouldn't it be legal?' she asked. 'Why can't a woman use her body the way she wants to?
Why not indeed!
* Are excerpts from the book
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Has to be said
Just whisked through a piece by the fabulous George Orwell (Eric Blair) titled Politics and the English Language (available on Gutenberg).
A crisp essay on how to utilise English to its best possible way without being needlessly verbose. Using a language most efficiently does not always mean using big, unpronounceable words and sentences that stretch around the block!
As a journalist, we were always asked to follow some thumb rules. Here they are again - summarised succintly.
[..]modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, andmaking the results presentable by sheer humbug.
[...]
I think the following rules will cover most cases:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.
Read the full essay here.
A crisp essay on how to utilise English to its best possible way without being needlessly verbose. Using a language most efficiently does not always mean using big, unpronounceable words and sentences that stretch around the block!
As a journalist, we were always asked to follow some thumb rules. Here they are again - summarised succintly.
[..]modern writing at its worst does not consist in picking out words for the sake of their meaning and inventing images in order to make the meaning clearer. It consists in gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else, andmaking the results presentable by sheer humbug.
[...]
I think the following rules will cover most cases:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.
Read the full essay here.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
The Demons of Chitrakoot - Ashok Banker
Its a third of a seven part series of the much written about Ramayana. This series is increasingly emerging to be written for people who did not grow up hearing about the epic. Its repetitive, cliched and not half as interesting as the first book promised. And it is just the third book. Hopefully it will get better.
I love the epic... (shows how our "gods" are as flawed as any one and even then repressed women!) and that they ate and drank and lived life to the full (though three hundred odd untitled wives is a bit much for any man today I think). Hope the author does not butcher it any further.
The story is at a point where Rama, his wife and his brother (what happened to his newly wedded wife I wonder?) leave for the 'seven years twice' exile in Dandakavan. rakshasas, asuras, Manthara and other "green pus filled " thingummies as she puts it.
In case you still want to read it, make sure you at least read the first two - Prince of Ayodhya and The Seige of Mithila and here is the fourth one, yet to arrive...
PS For the third book, a special edited edition was released only in India, thanks to nuts who masquearade as politicans.
I love the epic... (shows how our "gods" are as flawed as any one and even then repressed women!) and that they ate and drank and lived life to the full (though three hundred odd untitled wives is a bit much for any man today I think). Hope the author does not butcher it any further.
The story is at a point where Rama, his wife and his brother (what happened to his newly wedded wife I wonder?) leave for the 'seven years twice' exile in Dandakavan. rakshasas, asuras, Manthara and other "green pus filled " thingummies as she puts it.
In case you still want to read it, make sure you at least read the first two - Prince of Ayodhya and The Seige of Mithila and here is the fourth one, yet to arrive...
PS For the third book, a special edited edition was released only in India, thanks to nuts who masquearade as politicans.
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...
Loving for food?
Aphrodisiacs are well known for their place in history. Cant say I have had much experience seeing their power unfold but came across this book while browsing for some food related writing. While the book must be something of a success, it is this opinion that led me to google for more information on the book.
