Friday, May 19, 2006
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Marakami
Like most books on my shelf, this too has been langusihing for a while. I expected it to be another surreal read (thats the problem - expectation kills almost all anticipation) but the book was was tidy read.
Interesting, engaging and unpredictable to some extent. The book kept me going till the last page, at which point, I felt that while it was not the expected end (I still prefer good happy ends where the boy gets the girl), my mind had galloped ahead expecting many more letters from Naoko to Toru and many more conversations with Midori.
A story about Toru Watanabe remembering life when he was just beginning to discover a life of ending adolescences and losing important in your life and how it is a way of life - pleasant or not. The various people he meets and how each teaches him something (a lot like life eh) and its finally a story. Some drama and some mundane-ities and its all over.
Some parts are really sad.. like Midori getting used to funerals or how sex and love can be so skillfully detached and that its so incredibly common. Its like these things happen but you dont want to actually accept that they do.
One part I really liked was the unusual settings Toru gets to know the women in his life - on a terrace with a fire on, in a sanatorium, in trams. This too mirrors life. I mean, it so happens with me that while driving back home, nearing my destination and I am bang in the midst of a superb conversation that I remember for years to come. Oh I always have them in unusual settings - in temples, by the shores of a river while waiting to go rafting, waiting for the soup to arrive at a road side stall or waiting for the movie to begin... such conversations always stay with u...
I did not get understand why this is such a revolutionary book because it is not like his typical writing, where I always most certainly have to go back and read the lines again.. but yes the language is so fluid and delicious that you want to cherish phrases as you read them.
Here are some interesting reviews of the book.
Interesting, engaging and unpredictable to some extent. The book kept me going till the last page, at which point, I felt that while it was not the expected end (I still prefer good happy ends where the boy gets the girl), my mind had galloped ahead expecting many more letters from Naoko to Toru and many more conversations with Midori.
A story about Toru Watanabe remembering life when he was just beginning to discover a life of ending adolescences and losing important in your life and how it is a way of life - pleasant or not. The various people he meets and how each teaches him something (a lot like life eh) and its finally a story. Some drama and some mundane-ities and its all over.
Some parts are really sad.. like Midori getting used to funerals or how sex and love can be so skillfully detached and that its so incredibly common. Its like these things happen but you dont want to actually accept that they do.
One part I really liked was the unusual settings Toru gets to know the women in his life - on a terrace with a fire on, in a sanatorium, in trams. This too mirrors life. I mean, it so happens with me that while driving back home, nearing my destination and I am bang in the midst of a superb conversation that I remember for years to come. Oh I always have them in unusual settings - in temples, by the shores of a river while waiting to go rafting, waiting for the soup to arrive at a road side stall or waiting for the movie to begin... such conversations always stay with u...
I did not get understand why this is such a revolutionary book because it is not like his typical writing, where I always most certainly have to go back and read the lines again.. but yes the language is so fluid and delicious that you want to cherish phrases as you read them.
Here are some interesting reviews of the book.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
I just finished The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I began it it with great trepidation but it more than liked it. The book is deceptively calm - like one of those movies where you something is going to happen but you dont know how or when it will happen but everytime you turn the page you this this is it.
Amir and Hassan - two children who lived in a wonderful bubble called childhood. All it takes is one incident to change all that. And somehow that tone is set from page one of the book. But one thing I did not expect is its sheer grab-you-straight-by-the-throat quality. And that happens every time the books turns a cornerstone and there are many.
The two lose their innocence in ways that makes you put down the book and hope to make the world a safer place for children. It is a story that explores friendship, courage, cruelty, humanism, loyalty and is brilliant without being maudlin. The more I talk about the story, the more I will give away.
You know there is this ugly fasciation where repulsive behaviour is concerned. There is a morbid fascination. You continue to stare and look even after getting digusted like I try and make eye contact with the lizards in my house.. and watch them eat cockroaches and butterflies but on a similar note, here you keep turning page after page, reading and reading and wondering and reading! Of course the book is not repulsive at all but the words conjure up images that are distressingly real.
I could write loads on how the book is so not what you expect and how it affected me and so on. But will just say - go read it. And yes close each lingering issue else it will come back to haunt you at absolutely unexpected times.
Amir and Hassan - two children who lived in a wonderful bubble called childhood. All it takes is one incident to change all that. And somehow that tone is set from page one of the book. But one thing I did not expect is its sheer grab-you-straight-by-the-throat quality. And that happens every time the books turns a cornerstone and there are many.
The two lose their innocence in ways that makes you put down the book and hope to make the world a safer place for children. It is a story that explores friendship, courage, cruelty, humanism, loyalty and is brilliant without being maudlin. The more I talk about the story, the more I will give away.
You know there is this ugly fasciation where repulsive behaviour is concerned. There is a morbid fascination. You continue to stare and look even after getting digusted like I try and make eye contact with the lizards in my house.. and watch them eat cockroaches and butterflies but on a similar note, here you keep turning page after page, reading and reading and wondering and reading! Of course the book is not repulsive at all but the words conjure up images that are distressingly real.
I could write loads on how the book is so not what you expect and how it affected me and so on. But will just say - go read it. And yes close each lingering issue else it will come back to haunt you at absolutely unexpected times.
