The Siege of Krishnapur : A Review

JG Farrell was only forty-four when he died in a fishing accident- considering his tremendous talent and the amount of insight he brought to his books, it was a genuine tragedy.

He is perhaps most well known for his Empire trilogy, which consisted of Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur and The Singapore Grip- novels about British colonialism and its effects on the colonies.

I read his Booker Prize winning Troubles a few months ago and found it extremely riveting. Though I had only a basic idea of Ireland's problems with Britain, the lack of a proper background wasn't a problem as I read Farrell's excellent novel about the Troubles of Northern Ireland. One thing that I'd definitely vouch for is Farrell's ability to entrance and keep the reader engrossed; not for one moment did I feel my attention waver, and finishing one of his books always makes me feel as if I were being torn away from a world I've learnt to know and love, despite all its faults.

I have just finished The Siege of Krishnapur. It was a strange coincidence that I read it during the week which, 154 years ago, marked the start of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 (only realising it later). The trouble started on 10 May, 1857, when a group of sepoys rebelled against the army of the British East India Company in Meerut. Discontent had long been simmering for various reasons, and the last straw came in the form of the new Enfield rifles whose paper cartridges had to be bitten off before use; the paper was supposedly greased with animal fat, which was an affront to religious sentiments. The unrest as Meerut spread gradually to various areas, including Lucknow, Kanpur and other parts of northern and central India. Farrell writes an account of the defence at a town called Krishnapur (is it the Krishnapur of West Bengal's Hooghly district?)- as I have always viewed the Great Rebellion from an Indian perspective, it was interesting, for a change, to see it with British (or Irish, to be more apt) eyes.

The Collector of Krishnapur senses trouble, and he begins setting up fortifications around the Residency in the form of much laughed-at 'mud walls'; the British population in Calcutta is amused at his caution as he goes visiting various important people to advise them of the brewing trouble. His warnings are not taken seriously, but he perseveres with the fortification of the Residency, thus dividing the British in the area into two groups, those who are for caution and those for assault.

Gradually, though, in the face of the mounting attack from the Indian sepoys, the Britishers are forced into shelter at the Residency, turning the place upside down with their various possessions scattered about amidst the Collector's prized trophies from the Great Exhibition at Hyde Park. The women are herded into the once-serene billiard room, while the others occupy various other nooks and corners. That the situation outside the walls of the Residency is delicate and there will be a paucity of food and water does not bother its refugees; they persist in maintaining their class distinctions. Petty fights break out among the women over the use of the one maid available; they persist in ostracising the 'fallen woman' who has been talked out of committing suicide and been persuaded to take shelter in the Residency.

Farrell's skill is evident in the strength of the characters, each of them being endowed with just the right attributes that serve to make them what they are, leading to their glory or doom. No one is absolutely good or bad, but in fact possesses the mixture of qualities so apparent in people all around. The Collector, struggling with the need to stay composed in the face of adversity, maintains a tenuous relationship with the cynical Magistrate. The doctors Dunstaple and McNab are diametrically opposite in nature; the one happily kind and comforting, the other a dour Scotsman, the tension between them reaching a climax as one of them goes into decline. Louise Dunstaple and newly-widowed Miriam Fleury forge a friendship based on necessity, grudgingly accepting the 'fallen' Lucy Hopkins and fearing the attraction she exerts on the men of the cantonment. Harry Dunstaple, young and eager to find himself in the middle of action, finds his lot thrown in with the poetic George Fleury, to whom everything must take the shape of words, and who tries to demonstrate his love for Louise as well as he can in the rather constrained circumstances.

The most haunting character, the one that really lingered on in my head, was that of the Padre: walking around distributing tracts, protesting against the heathenism of the natives as he saw the religion he couldn't comprehend (living in Krishnapur, as he said to himself, named after a heathen god himself), spouting theology viciously at the Collector as he tried to grapple with more earthly issues in the offal-strewn lawns of the Residency. He dug graves for the dead before they began to be dumped into a well, and grudgingly granted Father O'Hara a plot for his Catholic dead; spectre-like, he walked around in the early hours of dawn, praying for deliverance and marvelling at the magnitude of the sin around himself.

Honest, earthy and moving in its depiction of human nature, The Siege of Krishnapur definitely ranks among the best books I've ever read.

Mrs. Dalloway- A Review

When I first read Virginia Woolf, I wasn't perhaps in the right frame of mind for it; I let frivolity and impatience cloud my first-ever reading of a stream-of-consciousness work in To The Lighthouse, and didn't treat it with the respect it deserved.

Now, having read Mrs. Dalloway, I am in awe of Virginia Woolf. The clarity with which she puts forth the convoluted workings of the human mind are astounding- the various characters who weave themselves in and out of one another's lives as Clarissa Dalloway prepares for her party come together in an intricate tapestry, and how real it seems!

Clarissa Dalloway, recovering from an illness, goes about preparing for a party, reminiscing as she does so over the circumstances that led her to marry Richard Dalloway instead of Peter Walsh, the man with whom she walked the woods and had innumerable arguments. She dwells over her love for brash Sally Seton and ruminates on the kiss they once shared. As she sits mending her torn dress for the party, she is visited by Walsh- now back from his long stay in India, unhappily married, and now in love with a married mother of two. She invites him to her party; he is not sure he should attend. Her husband brings her flowers as he returns from lunch at Lady Bruton's; smarting at not being invited, she asks if she was inquired after. She stands uneasily with Miss Kilman, her daughter's German-born teacher who detests parties and finds solace in religion and food.

Woolf picks people off the streets of London and examines their lives. Fresh from the First World War, people are still putting their lives back together; Septimus Warren Smith, sitting on a park bench with his Italian wife, is pondering over his crimes. He will not get a patient hearing, however, because the two doctors who examine him have diametrically opposing views, and what he does with himself in the course of the day carries its own reverberations to Clarissa's party. She is angered that the misfortunes of a man she doesn't know should inflict themselves on her party in the shape of the doctor and his wife who arrive late, bearing those sad tidings- but she is convinced that the party is a success. Peter Walsh is there, as are Sally Seton and her elderly aunt. Why, the Prime Minister is also present, being talked of with a sort of awe in hushed tones.

The minute examination to which Woolf subjects her characters is admirable. Splitting the day amongst the people who populate Clarissa's life directly or indirectly, she drifts in and out of their heads, tackling the themes of suicidal depression and homosexuality, and life in general. Slights, disappointments, jealousy, inexpressible happiness- the vagaries of life and human reaction to them are duly dealt with. Can't you just see yourself there, in transports of bliss one moment, grappling with trivialies the next? The past presses upon us even as we make our way into the future, the present manufacturing memories that combine and occupy their niches in the subconscious, dormant until roused to sudden activity by the smallest stimulus.

Mrs. Dalloway is a book to be absorbed and dwelt upon- and re-read.

Living Off An Imagination

Roddy Doyle thought thus about receiving books as presents when he was ten: "Books weren't presents. I loved books, but they were a bit like food. I loved chicken, but a leg in wrapping paper would have been a huge disappointment." (Look here for the full article.)

I have always loved receiving books as presents. I just realised that when I mentioned that the volumes of Muriel Spark given me by Airborne marked the second time someone had gifted me books, I was wrong. At the end of Class 1, when we were moving away from Bhilai, my class teacher gave me two books; one a children's dictionary and the other a book of short stories.

I have no idea why she chose to give me books instead of a game or a doll as other people were wont to, but I think she was a very wise woman. On a long day alone at home (and newly unemployed, I'm going to have several), there is nothing that keeps you company like a book and your imagination. The book of short stories carried the tale of a princess who loved good things to eat and was thrilled by Turkish Delight, and for some reason I interpreted it as a whole recipe. I was determined to make it at home- I had decided it was something akin to pink-coloured, rose-flavoured ice candy- and I got as far as making ice cubes. I had not the vaguest notion of how to proceed from there, and whiled away the rest of the afternoon sucking at the ice cubes and hoping they'd somehow turn pink and rose-flavoured.

I could have been excused at that age for such ill-informed ideas; but what got into me during one summer vacation when I was fourteen or fifteen, I'll never know. I had grand plans to make reasonable inroads into my father's vast library; I ended up reading only two books in those two months. One was Larry Collins/Dominique Lapierre's O'Jerusalem- I read it very eagerly, appalled and enthralled by turns at the courage of the people fighting for what they believed in, and the means to which they were prepared to resort. I finished it pretty quickly and began Frederick Marryat's The Children of the New Forest, and I still blush to think I took so long to finish it. Part of the blame I can conveniently lay on my imagination- in the dim, curtained room, door closed and AC turned on, it was very easy to believe you were in the depths of a thick forest, the light barely let in by heavy foliage, fighting Roundheads with simple handmade weapons and weeding small plots of land. I stopped short at imagining I was having wild boar for dinner, because my vegetarian sensibilities rule over the romantic.

It isn't always easy to adapt a book on film, and several movies manage to warp the very idea of the book and create cardboard characters who seem the very antithesis of their originals in the book. Watching a movie made out of a book can be a very traumatic experience particularly if you live and swear by the book. Looking up adaptations of Little Women this morning, I stumbled upon a 1978 version, where the actress playing twelve-year-old Amy looked older and wiser than I do at this ripe old age of mine. An adaptation of Anne of Green Gables featured a pedestrian-looking Anne Shirley, without the spark of the eyes or the vim of speech that makes the legendary redhead the heroine that she is. An insult to the writer's imagination is what I call these shoddy adaptations.

Skipping lunch and writing this makes me feel a bit like Jo March, but I don't have a garret, apples, or a wonderful idea for a story, so I'll just rise now and betake myself to my simple lunch of cold rice, curd and potato chips.

Grudges and Discoveries

One of the few pleasures of work is a browse at the bookstore in office. Push open the door to this other world, inhale deeply, and you immediately shut out the noise of the clanking glasses at the juice kiosk and the relentless chatter of the crowds thronging the supermarket. Lunch, however, isn't always the ideal time to go in if you fancy being alone with the books, for there will always be those idiots- yes, I said it- asking at the counter for Chetan Bhagat, when their uninviting spines are already staring them down in the face from the shelves in the Indian authors' section, ranged alongside the more smug types like Shashi Tharoor and Arundhati Roy.

It takes all kinds to make the world, though, and none of us is above the occasional leave-your-brains-behind easy read, so I'll move on to my next, more reasonable grudge- people who talk loudly on their cell phones in the otherwise quiet confines of the bookshop, or worse still, let them ring loudly on. Why anybody should be interested in their ring tones I really don't know. A bookshop should be as sacred as a library when it comes to peace and quiet, but the fact obviously sails smoothly over some people's heads, so they'll laugh and giggle and organise games of tug-of-war in the aisles when you're trying to find a quiet corner where you can forget your latest confrontation with your team lead.

Despite these aberrations, though, the bookshop is still a happy place, thanks to the discoveries you can make. You must know the joy of having coveted a book very, very long and suddenly realising that it is no longer as expensive as it once was- and then you're prepared to worship the hordes of people who've conveniently ignored Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene in favour of Stephenie Meyer. I stumbled upon hardcover editions of The Heart of the Matter, Brighton Rock and Vile Bodies in this fashion. (Only Decline and Fall remains unbought, and I'm going to get a copy very soon.) They were sold at throwaway prices for hardcover books, the original price being a prohibitive GBP 5.99. Only Christopher Columbus could have been slightly more ecstatic when he "discovered" America, but on that particular day, you could easily have spotted the happiest person in the world.

However, I did make another discovery today which was by no means as heartening. A sudden impulse to revisit Heidi made me look up the Wikipedia page, and I discovered that its English translator, Charles Tritten, had taken it into his head to write sequels about Heidi's life as an adult, and about her children as well. I read an abridged version of Heidi when I was around seven, and Heidi has more or less stayed the same age to me. I definitely do not want to think of her as an adult with a family of her own.

One of the charms of the books we read as children lies in the eternal youth of their characters. I have never enjoyed the sequels to What Katy Did or Anne of Green Gables as much as I enjoyed these wonderful celebrations of the captivating innocence of childhood. It's bad enough for me to have to grow into an adult- so why on earth would I want to be bothered with Anne's fretting over her children's attacks of whooping cough? Childhood is about abandon and having somebody else worry for you, trusting and liking everyone you know, throwing tantrums and being ingratiated. Watching young boys and girls grow into adults in books is a premonition of the future, of the distant days best avoided as long as possible (which, with the endearing ineptitude of childhood, you don't really realise till you're a full-fledged grown-up). These chronicles of adulthood should be saved for their readers' own adulthood, when people begin asking why on earth they would want to read juvenile fiction- oh the travails of life!

Only JM Barrie really understood this, and if I knew where Neverland was, I'd be getting on a plane this very moment.

Shelves

I have memories of a sunshiny, airy house in Hyderabad, whose walls were kissed by the swaying branches of trees on soft summer afternoons. This house was populated by kindly spirits and filled with a quiet salubrious energy. I particularly remember a room lined with large bookcases- they might have appeared mammoth and daunting to a seven- or eight-year-old who was just learning to enjoy abridged illustrated classics, these bunches of different spines- but I also found it very welcoming and awe-inspiring.

More than fifteen years have gone by and much has changed. Two of the people whose kindness I remember from when I was a young girl have passed on. Aunty's shrikhand has sadly disappeared from memory. Uncle has left behind something more enduring- plenty of stories. I was enthralled when I came to know that this Uncle I knew was a celebrity in his own way; his stories won competitions for adults in Tinkle and were published in CBT books (an important part of my childhood reading), and how delighted I would be to see them in print! I stopped buying Tinkle a few years ago, but when I bought a copy on a whim, I'd be doubly thrilled to see one of Uncle's stories in it. And I came to know yesterday that there wouldn't be any more of them. I see a blank spot on the shelf.

******

His daughter is trimming her collection of books. I ask her how she can summon up enough strength to sell away well-loved books. She tells me with a laugh that she has reconciled herself to it; these are books that she has read twice or thrice every year, over many years. She is circulating the list of books she is giving away among a close circle of friends, people who she knows will care for them as she has. I've asked for some of them- Ishiguro, Dick Francis, JRR Tolkien, Sheridan Le Fanu. I don't know if I'll ever have enough courage to give up my own books. I gave away a copy of Kafka on the Shore a couple of months ago, and I still regret it at times, even though I know the recipient well and am sure that he will look after it properly.

Sometimes, though, keeping your bookshelves stocked isn't the most important thing in life.

Patrick French on 'India: A Portrait'

Cross posted on The Weed Joint

Author Patrick French was in Bangalore this evening, promoting his new book, ‘India: A Portrait’. Not having heard of either the book or the author earlier, I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to attend the session, until, through sheer coincidence, I stumbled upon this review on the Guardian website. Aravind Adiga hasn’t been too kind to the book- while praising the author’s style and in-depth research, he has denounced the large number of loose ends he claims to have discovered.

It will be unfair of me to take sides with either French or Adiga in this debate, considering I haven’t read the book. The Englishman came across as a keen, intelligent person in the hour-long session. Beginning with Ladakh, he talked of his journeys down south and among the Khasi tribes. He read out excerpts from his book and described the amount of research that went into it. A great deal of statistics was evidently involved, and French gave examples in the form of an analysis of the dynastic politics rampant in India. He was appreciative of the UID scheme and marvelled at the diversity of the country, and its acceptance without question, unlike in many other parts of the world where people were just learning to come to terms with it. He spoke of how science and religion weren’t treated as separate entities but coexisted in India, unlike in Europe a few centuries ago.

At the end of his reading, French fielded questions from the audience. When asked what differences he saw between India and China, having written about both, he spoke of the difference between India’s democracy and China’s single-party system where public opinion couldn’t be voiced as openly, and about the latter‘s single-child policy which was resulting in an aging population. He explained how a factor in the lack of young politicians in India was the number of career options available to the youth. On being asked what other facets he would have liked to cover, he mentioned that he wanted to write more about the North-East. He explained that he hadn't written about farmer suicides and some other issues because they didn't fit in with the tone of this book.

French steered clear of the more controversial excerpts that Adiga has discussed in his review. Perhaps, having published the controversial Liberty or Death – India’s Journey to Independence and Division earlier, French has decided to play it safe this time. It was disappointing though, for in bringing out some of the more colourful parts of the book, French might have excited greater enthusiasm for and interest in his work.

Adiga, in his review, has said that most books on India tend to be either literary or journalistic. Considering French writes with style while also laying emphasis on facts and figures, this book seems to be treading the middle line. I must admit that I didn’t think there was anything new explored in the book. In talking about the dabbawallahs and the small-scale entrepreneurs, French is only charting familiar territory, discussing subjects that we’ve seen Suketu Mehta and Mark Tully do earlier. If, instead, French had gone ahead to open up the North-East to the rest of the world and focused on things often ignored in favour of the exciting story of India’s growth coupled with the inevitable comparisons with China, this book would have been something to talk about. As of now, though, it just seems like yet another book on India from a foreigner’s perspective. Not a travelogue, not a book of dry figures, but something in between.

I scour the strainer hard, wondering at the particles of grime that manage to make their way into the various crevices unnoticed until they accumulate into revolting, sticky brown cakes. Set against the fluorescent-green plastic, it is not a pretty sight. The milk boils and rattles against the steel vessel, a brown crust forming on its inside. Time to turn it off before it swells and pours onto the platform- I abandon the strainer and do so. I take the lid off the container where I store the coffee powder and inhale the intoxicating aroma- it is the best thing in the world next to the fragrance of moist earth touched by fresh rain.

I heap generous spoonfuls of the powder into my coffee-maker, a very thoughtful birthday present, pour water into it and watch the thick mixture swirl within its dark confines. I set it on the stove and let it boil well, then drain the red-tinted decoction into my dark violet mug. The last pear-shaped drops splutter fitfully into the mug, this prized possession of mine. Even in my 'communal living' experience, it hasn't been used by anyone except me, barring on one occasion when it was offered to a Guest of Honour. It carries a white Fort Siloso logo, a souvenir from a place of battle and imprisonment. Who makes money off the souvenirs now, the descendants of the deceased or a mercenary tourism board?

And while I make my coffee and wash spoons and cups, I realise that I've been describing these acts to myself all the while, letting words take over entirely and form pictures in my head, even though I see for myself all I do. The colour of my mug becomes more vivid when represented by a word, the milk pouring through the strainer and mixing with the dark decoction makes a brew whose richness is enhanced by the words describing it in my head.

It is Rohinton Mistry working his magic all over again. Reinforcing my faith in words. He describes every minute action with a simplicity that makes you want to linger on in your reading. You're borne forward gently on wings of ethereal beauty, words encompassing and soothing and unintrusive. There is a tussle going on in my head this very moment, because I have a sneaky suspicion that I'm beginning to like Mistry better than Ruskin Bond. Ring out the old, ring in the new? No. I'd rather try and let them live together, or live myself with this painful pleasure of having to choose between two master craftsmen.

I finished The English Patient yesterday, and discovered yet another stupendous writer in Michael Ondaatje. This weekend has in more ways than one obliterated the traumatic effects of The Slap, and with writers like Mistry, Bond, Ondaatje and JG Farrell at my disposal, I'm not too inclined to step into uncharted waters very soon.

Summer is sneaking in through the meshed window, and bright moonlight is casting a silver patch on the kitchen sink, where unwashed vessels are piled up high. On the detritus of a long, lazy Sunday. It is already too warm for mid-January, and soon the heat will be upon us, another season of nostalgia and memories, part of the irreversible cycle. Now, though, I'll let Thomas Newman play and bury myself into Mistry again, before Monday rears its ugly head.

The Slap, or An Exercise in Futility

Cross-posted from the The Weed Joint

Please tell me that Christos Tsiolkas isn't writing 'The Sequel to The Slap, The Reverberations of an Uncalled-for Act in Civilised Society'. Put my fears of column inches and breath going waste over a clunky, plotless, ineffectual mass of drivel to rest. I wouldn't want to see trees destroyed and the earth endangered to put into circulation so much inanity, re-creating caricatures that already scream at you from your television screams in sexed-up soap operas.

With shallow characters proudly boasting weaknesses which Zeus and His entire Pantheon would quail at themselves, and writing that sounds like it has been ripped off an uninterested Class Seven student's English homework, The Slap is easily the most irritating book I've ever read. It beats England, England hands down and makes you wonder at the intelligence (or lack of it) of befeathered panels of judges who propose and extol the clumsiest pieces of writing as introspective studies into societal patterns- I seriously doubt even Tsiolkas ever thought his episodic mishmash of characters would ever be construed seriously. Well done, then, Christos, because you've managed to pull the wool over the eyes of quite a few people, and I hate myself for having fallen prey to the frenzy and the hype. I confess to my crime- I read two-thirds of the book. Persecute me in any Court of Law if you will, but please don't write a sequel. If you don't have any such ideas, I hope I'm not giving you some.

And to think this embarrassment of a book won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, something that was once sensibly awarded to the sublimely beautiful Lloyd Jones novel Mister Pip, shakes my faith in humanity and gravity and everything we're taught to believe in. The characters are extremely weak and you never have a chance to get into their skin and feel things the way they do. The attempt at threading together multicultural influences in Australian society isn't remarkable in any way, and the idea I take away from the book is that all immigrants stick together and seek flings with other immigrants when bored of their own lives (which is almost all the time). No one is happy, and life is one big frown between scrunched-up eyebrows. The only positive thing is that the book arouses your curiosity in a way- you keep reading, hoping you'll stumble upon some kind of plot. Right now, though, I think life is too short, and maybe even gloomy (I learn from my reading experiences) to keep plodding through the rest of the 'story'.

The blurb on the cover says the book is about how the lives of a group of middle-class people are affected after they become unwilling victims/witnesses of an ugly incident at a barbecue, where a man slaps a three-year-old child. (If, in the course of reading the book, which I sincerely wouldn't wish upon you, you are inclined to side with the 'wicked man', don't worry- Hugo is the most irritating child in the history of literature. Blame it on the parents- the most annoying ever, in their own right, so there you have it, a family of excellence.) Relationships suffer, affairs are ended or embarked upon, and whether or not they're all because of The Slap (my roommate likened it to the title of a cheap movie, and I wouldn't disagree, because this is a literary equivalent) I haven't been able to, or bothered to, figure out. Tsiolkas has an OCD-like fixation with carnal pleasures and four-letter expletives, and you can't go past two pages at a time without being treated to voyeuristic images and sounds of moaning and sighing. Christos, my man, too much of anything isn't good. Anything. That isn't half the problem, though, because you cannot write. Period. You've had your fifteen minutes of fame, so get yourself a beer and retire to the pleasures of the desert and the ocean, drive from Perth to Melbourne and back, play rugby if you will, but don't let us hear of you publishing a book ever again. Unless, of course, it's a manual of some sort.

PS: Those who know me will understand that I must have detested this book to spew so much venom against a poor individual. I might think differently tomorrow, but I don't want generosity to efface the truth.

The End of the Week

At close to half past four in the morning, the effects of two cups of midnight coffee are wearing off, and I don’t expect my writing to be at its best. However, there is a certain kind of peace that only words can buy, and it is therefore inevitable that even at this late (or early) hour, I should find myself curled up in the smaller of the two sofas, greedily reading one of my library books.

I have spent a night at work, peppering it with generous doses of Angela Brazil’s school stories, Marina Lewycka’s slightly disappointing ‘A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian’, and J G Farrell’s marvellous creation, ‘Troubles’. Brazil and Lewycka are light reading, but even with the strain of the night bearing down upon me, I find myself most drawn to ‘Troubles’. I forget that the book is not written in first-person and that I am not the Major, finding himself drawn into the strangely absorbing whirlpool of life at the Majestic in troubled Ireland. The cover is largely blue and green, and the letters of Farrell’s name look like they’ll topple over any moment, just about slotted into place anyhow by a quavering hand. Lugubrious the story might be, but you flit to it like an insect to lamplight, knowing well that it won’t cheer you up- but Farrell’s top-notch writing keeps you pegging away at it, dreading the approach of the end of the book. The frequent references to the English cricket team playing against Australia seem like a coincidence, and a reminder of the fact that while I sleep, England will be trying hard to save face in the third Ashes test this morning.

The ‘tequila shots’ (as Airborne, coffee-drinker-in-crime puts it) of coffee come in small tumblers- we get four for the two of us, the frothy spot of milk sitting topping off the lovely rich brown of the concoction. It isn’t bad coffee, by cafeteria standards, and it keeps us going as we rant, laugh and linger at the table, cigarette smoke mixing with the mists of cool winter nights. The air is rather foggy under the lamplights, and we reminisce about North Indian winters, quite removed from the moderation of where we now live.

I’m home now, and the sky is a murky pink. I have long forgotten my constellations, Orion being the only one I can now recognise. There are no stars here today, though, and no trees nearby- no birds or the soughing of winds through leafy branches. And because blades of grass don’t sing loud enough for me to hear, all is quiet but for the abrupt screeches of distant vehicles braking.

I am entitled to my “Friday evening”, to look forward to the weekend, and this is how I do it.

PS: If there are any glaring mistakes here, do let me know. At half-past four, you don't feel entirely inclined towards editing your own tripe.

'Room' - A Review

Irish-born writer Emma Donoghue's novel, Room, was shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. It didn't win, and like any novel propelled into publicity thanks to its appearance as a contender on major prize lists, had its fair share of fans and disparagers. Despite all the hype surrounding it, though, Room does come out as an honest novel, deceptively simple, but in fact possessing a depth that reminds you of life as it used to be, before you stopped letting the wool be pulled over your eyes and decided to open up to reality.

If you've forgotten the first time you visited the beach and the various sensations the pricking of the sand underfoot and the tang of the salt-air evoked, then Room will remind you of them. Swinging in the park, making real friends out of cartoon characters on television and forming an instant camaraderie with total strangers will no longer seem like childish pursuits to be looked down upon the length of adult ego-sized noses.

Having lived for five long years in one eleven-by-eleven cork-lined room, Jack is unaware of the world outside. Everything on television is just fantasy, his long-suffering mother tells him, to snuff out any craving he might have for an impossible whiff of fresh air or a romp in the streets. Their captor, whom they call Old Nick, visits them almost every night, bringing them supplies, taking the trash out, and then 'making the bed creak' while Jack stays closed up in the wardrobe until it is safe enough for him to scramble into bed beside his mother. Life goes on thus, until one day, Jack's little, room-sized world is shattered by the revelation that there is an 'Outside', that television isn't all fantasy- Dora the Explorer is, but not the men and women and children, the aeroplanes and the birds. What Jack and his mother see through the skylight actually exists, the objects whose names Ma keeps forgetting are real, and she has a name- two names, in fact- for the rest of the world to call her. For a child born into captivity, fathoming that the various planets on television are in fact all pieces of one large reality isn't easy.

When Ma finally reaches breaking point and makes a daring plan that she and Jack call their 'Great Escape', he is extremely nervous. He has to be 'scave'- brave though he is scared- and rescue his mother from the clutches of their captor. But things don't just end there, because that'll mean opening the door to reality, to a world that Jack is unsure of entering. And while Jack runs in pursuit of liberty, you find yourself egging him on, hoping and praying hard that he’ll make it safely into the arms of a trustworthy adult.

In Room, Donoghue makes you see the world in a way that you used to, through a pair of forgotten lenses buried deep inside but fished out with urgency as you realise that there is much that should be valued but is taken for granted. You warm to Jack instantly as he describes his life alternating amid Wardrobe and Bed and Skylight, his personification of all the objects around him, even as the existence of real people outside seems like a mystery. Inspired by the horrific Josef Fritzl case, Room portrays brilliantly the horrors of a life that most of us would struggle to imagine. Told entirely in Jack's voice, it is innocent and devoid of any frills or sensationalism.

There are instances towards the end of the book where it seems to lose a little steam and the tautness of the narrative seems to slack away a bit- however, as you read about Jack and his mother coming to terms with change and absorbing the ways of life around them, little by little, you cannot help but put yourself in their shoes. You do wonder at the tremendous intelligence of a boy who has lived a confined life for five years, exposed to the world outside only through an hour of television everyday and the five picture books he has obtained for ‘Sundaytreat’. Most of it seems to draw from real-life incidents across the world- they are shockingly many in number- and the powerful imagery Donoghue evokes brings credibility to the story.

Touching without being unnecessarily dramatic, Room is a strong recommendation if you're looking to fall in love with writing all over again.

PS: This is probably the first time I've read a novel in its year of publication, and I have my library, JustBooks, to thank for it.

Thirty Years in Neverland

If I could save time in a bottle, I'd choose to borrow a time-machine first and travel back around twenty years to when I had just learnt to read. I wasn't much of a fan of colouring- though I liked collecting crayons- but I loved the splashes of brightness on the pages of comics. The speech balloons were invariably ignored as containers of serious, unwanted information, all concentration being devoted to pictures. And, of course, Tinkle was the comic that won hands down.

To this day, when I visit a book-stall at a railway station or on the pavements, my eyes skim past the rows of glossy magazines with photographs of larger-than-life celebrities on their covers, seeking the warm colours of that one comic that brings back waves of nostalgia of the years when life seemed more wholesome and complete than it does now.

Tinkle is 30 years old. It may not be as delightful as it used to be- the curse of modernity- but it is still relatively innocent and earthy, a breath of fresh air in the midst of pretences and the frightening race for an early adulthood.

Which Tinkle character/story lingers on in your head all these years on?

There was a time when I used to await the postman's arrival eagerly. In the late nineties, when emailing hadn't quite caught on, and in the early part of this decade, when a friend and I refused to succumb to the impersonal, frighteningly quick transmission of events that took much longer to transpire, I looked forward to finding a thick envelope in the letter-box. I'd tear it open eagerly, trying to be as careful as possible but soon giving in to curiosity, leaving unsightly gashes across the envelope and leaving it just about fit to return the letter to for future sessions of re-reading. You know those lovely long afternoons when, on a sudden fit of inspiration, you pull out old stacks of paper from dust-laden shelves, intending with uncharacteristically stern resolution to throw away everything that you don't need- and at the end, the pile would perhaps be just a couple of sheets thinner, and you'd have ended up a lot richer for it. I love reading old letters- they carry the whiff of sky, sun and eucalyptus-scented winter breezes, of a childhood happily spent.

And now, while I don't have a postman to wait for, I do have another messenger- the man who delivers my books from the library. I love the texture of the plastic-covered, well-preserved books as they are pressed into my hand, more often than not new and unread (which is when I'm grateful for Chetan Bhagat's popularity); I sit down with them, puzzling over which to begin, admiring the covers, studiously avoiding the blurbs and saving the introductions for the last. (I have discovered spoilers in introductions earlier, and because I don't quite like skipping them, considering someone has worked hard on them, I just leave them to the end.)

So now, tantalisingly piled up on my bookshelf, lie Alice Walker's The Color Purple, a Rabindranath Tagore omnibus and Pallavi Aiyar's Smoke and Mirrors, a book on China that I've been wanting to read for very long. Lovely how you stumble upon books you really want.

Time, then, to set the pile receding.

Winters And Libraries

What sucks you into the past, drawing you inexorably into a vortex of mismatched memories pulled out of forgotten niches, a patchwork quilt of uneven squares put together effortlessly without your knowledge?

A little while ago, thanks to an untimely power-cut, I ended up on a chair by the open door, reading in the light from the corridor. A familiar fragrance hit me hard- a perfume I've used earlier, I think, but it was so strong and so pervasive that I was rather distracted from my reading, riveting though my book was. It carried the memories of a particular winter when I'd used it, also reminding me of welcome mild sunshine on misty mornings, yellow sun-dappled patches and moving cloud-shadows on rocky hills. Grumble as I might at having to force myself out of the sheets on cold, unforgiving mornings, I love winter.

I have been reading almost all day today, and now I am on the smaller of our two sofas, leaning against one armrest, feet propped up on the other. A chill wind, reminiscent of distant winters, blows in through the wire-mesh across the window. Of the jumble of winters in my head, the one I remember most clearly is that of my last year of school- when I had a complete volume of Sherlock Holmes presented to me (yes, I was quite old by normal standards when I read Arthur Conan Doyle) and I dipped into it, one story a day, eyes straining at the small print, nose burrowed in to take in the intoxicating fragrance of paper and print. I’d run my fingers over the illustrations, feeling the sticky texture of the inky black figures, losing myself in the lamplit fogs of Baker Street and London. I’d pick the stories out by title, trying to guess at their propensity to intrigue and astound. Exoticism helped, of course, and terms like “Greek Interpreter” and “Red-headed League” were met with eager curiosity.

That was a winter when my grandmother stayed with us. For some reason, it stands out in my memory. Was it the happiest winter of my life? I was preparing for my Board Exams then, so it wasn’t a particularly exciting period, but there was the feeling of standing on a threshold, girlish hope meeting serious ambition, the sense of a milestone about to be crossed. I was definitely nervous, but also quietly confident. Yes, I’d like that winter back- life has never been quite the same since then, ever since I finished school and entered the hellhole of Junior College amidst people so parochial they’d give the khaap panchayats a run for their money. And no, there isn’t any flippancy to this statement, because it is true, and I was extremely surprised, that even to this day in India, the girls of a college can be forbidden from standing on a balcony for some fresh air; the boys in the opposite building had full freedom to do as they liked, of course. Wear your dupatta this way so you are properly covered up (a group of seductive temptresses that they considered us); don’t talk to boys (a sure way to have the most serious aspersions cast on our characters); don’t go home even if you are very ill- all that matters to us is that we can use your rank in the entrance examination to rake in the money.

The long hours of grinding notwithstanding, I had to have my books. I’d strain my eyes on the bus to catch those few precious minutes of reading. A break from studies meant going back to Rob Roy’s adventures or Buck’s travails- I loved my books with a fierce intensity then, because they seemed the only thing to look forward in that bleakly competitive period, where people fought for dubious laurels and the only skill respected was that of learning by rote.

There, I’m done ranting. Now for a bit of excitement.

I enrolled with Just Books yesterday, the library in the neighbourhood (and I’ve been living here five whole months!), and came home with a rich bounty. They have almost every book that would, in a bookshop, result in a double-take or a sharp intake of breath when you look at the price tag warily, with one eye open, hoping it won’t cross that Scrooge-worthy budget of yours- because, after all, you are a girl of slender means (thank you, Muriel Spark!). I’ve chosen the option that allows me to order books online and provides home delivery and pick-up, twice a week, and I get to borrow four books at a time. So I have a fleeting feeling this is going to work out more conveniently than it did in Singapore- plus, they have a magnificent collection. There is no cap on the amount of time you can keep the books for (which detail I’m not going to succumb to- I want to get through as much as I can quickly), and one round of cursory browsing has already sent me into a dizzying spell of indecision.

Here is my first reading list:

Disgraced - JM Coetzee (finished in one sitting today, review coming up soon, though I suppose I’ve already dropped a hint now about what I think of it)

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (reading it now, and I think it’s going to be fantastic)

Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortensen/David Oliver Relin (Airborne's recommendation, looks promising)

Nine Lives - William Dalrymple (which said Airborne has already staked a claim to, and that I have yielded to him without a murmur of protest- partners-in-crime deserve some gratitude at times)

Whoever says that the Kindle and all other fancy electronic devices spell the destruction of books has his head screwed on in the wrong place.

"Never Judge A Book By Its Movie"

So said JW Eagan, quoted on one of my bookmarks from Crossword, and I agree wholeheartedly with it. A stack of DVDs isn’t on my “three things you’d take with you to a deserted island” list- I like cinema only in moderation, because it somehow seems to drain my reserves of patience (and I take the blame). But there is hardly anything as off-putting as a horrendous movie made out of a perfectly good book.

It is almost criminal to watch the movie adaptation of a book before having read the book itself. Reading is an impetus to the imagination, and it is the prose that is supposed to create the first impressions in your head-this is also the measure of how successful an author has been in impacting your thoughts. Succumb to all the hype of a movie before you’ve read the book it has been adapted from, you’ve almost surely lost the excitement of the richness of language and characterisation which drew such overwhelming images in a person’s mind that, incapable of suppression and containment, they spilled onto the screen. I floundered through the movie adaptations of Wuthering Heights, Mansfield Park and Rob Roy- finishing none of them- but ravenously devoured the books.

That said, there have been a few adaptations that have made a successful transition to the screen from paper. The eternal tearjerker Little Women was almost- certainly not entirely- loyal to Louisa May Alcott’s novel, but I’m thankful I read the book first; I wouldn’t have wanted Winona Ryder’s (then) rosy face interfering with my own picture of Jo. Into The Wild was just as good in its sincerity, but I’m glad the first images of the forests, the wildernesses and the people Chris McCandless met were in my head- even though it was a real-life story. Middle Earth wouldn’t have been as mysterious and darkly beautiful if I’d seen the Lord of the Rings movies shot in the more homely locales of New Zealand first.

The movies the actors choose to do later, and their real-life adventures splashed across newspapers also ruin it for me. I really don’t like to believe that the protagonist in the Twilight series (need I explain further?) was the thoughtful young woman who McCandless almost fell in love with. Ryder, troubled and accused of shoplifting, couldn’t have been the merry, still-tomboyish Mrs. Bhaer, could she?

Then there is the publicity. I would have enjoyed Ice Candy Man more if Deepa Mehta’s characters- omnipresent on television when 1947 Earth was released, thanks to relentless promotion- hadn’t superimposed themselves on the faces I was gradually painting in my head. My copy of Vanity Fair has a photograph of Reese Witherspoon and her corseted cleavage on it. Is she to form my idea of a character as vivacious and interesting as Becky? I think not, for I certainly trust Mr. Thackeray‘s capabilities better- I’ve covered the book in paper and shut out the names of the cast, the director and the costume designer. If the wise mothers and chaperones talk of sprigged muslin, I’ll figure out for myself what it is, thank you very much.

The day I decide to turn the awe-inspiring Mexican story The Power and The Glory into a movie, I’ll let you know. But you’ll be allowed to watch it only if you’ve already done Graham Greene the courtesy of reading the book. For in this case, it is extremely evident which one came first.

'Unaccustomed Earth' - A Review

Cross-posted from The Weed Joint:

Some people never come to know a home.

Home isn’t always the brick-and-mortar structure where you took your first steps as a baby, played hide-and-seek with visiting cousins, did your homework as you struggled through the inevitable monotony of examinations and classes, wept into the pillow over the spurning of your crushes and had the numerous ‘final’ arguments with your parents about your decisions- before you gravitated back of your own volition.

Home is about wanting to belong to a piece of earth, to identify with something so strongly that it reverberates in your being no matter where you are, reminding you constantly of where your roots were first laid, before you were uprooted without knowing what the future held. Home is what you choose and which comes to your mind first- much like religion and the identification with God.

Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri’s third book, is a simple, beautiful nudge in that direction, trying to make sense of the confusion of being uprooted. This collection of short stories, crafted with unforced elegance, describes the sceptical migration, and eventual acceptance, of an unusual environment – the first few months of confusion and homesickness, the process of settling in, and often the resignation of first-generation immigrants, even as their children grow exceedingly comfortable with their new surroundings. Letters fly back and forth between Calcutta and the US, vacations are undertaken with solemn regularity- a few months of redemption from alien customs- as the children continue to outgrow their already tenuous bonds with their parents’ homes, the visits begin to grate on their nerves as time passes.

Lahiri’s prose is exquisite- never unnecessarily voluble or complex- she writes with an empathy perhaps born of experience. Her characters are very real and honest, their aspirations reflective of what we often see- the need to get into an Ivy League school and study a course that will please their parents, to drink alcohol on the sly, to try and make sense of the slick “arranged marriage” machinery that spreads its tentacles even in a foreign land, thanks to the omnipresent mashis and kakas of the neighbourhood. She writes about Bengali families and their fixations, the fragrance of her ancestors’ culture pervading the stories.

Stories about the Indian diaspora aren’t uncommon. Lahiri, however, endows her story with soul and that much-sought-after quality of re-readability. Sometimes, yes, the characters' lives do seem to resemble one another too much- but this might be viewed as a reflection of the universality of certain situations in life. Unaccustomed Earth, with its intelligence and searing insight, makes it a sheer pleasure to read, setting it apart from anything else in its league.

Rated?

One opinion, strongly expressed, has caused quite a storm in a large number of literary minds on the veracity of the accolades bestowed upon some distinguished writers. I’d like to see Indian writing caught in the throes of one such vigorous debate some day, with readers bewildered by the sheer quality and variety of work at their disposal.

Anis Shivani, without mincing any words, has launched an onslaught on modern American writing. Here in India, or even in the UK, as is evident from the comments here, the writers in this list may not have been much heard of. I admit to having read only Jhumpa Lahiri from amongst the authors Shivani lashes out at; and I've heard of Amy Tan, but that doesn't really count, does it?

A large amount of causticism has been poured into this article, and it isn't hard to agree with the fact that the proliferation of platforms for brazen publicity has led to a good deal of mediocrity being stood up on a pedestal and worshipped with unrestrained devotion. Does that inevitably lead, however, to a lack or loss of willpower to revolt against whatever is shoved down our throats as acceptable and deserving? A critic's opinion isn't the last word- surely we know how to think for ourselves and make our own decisions on the merit of a book, without succumbing to a more learned/degree-endowed person than us. Criticism shapes opinions, yes, but what is the yardstick that applies to a good critic? Look among the comments in the Guardian link referred to above, and you will find unsparing disparagement heaped on Dan Brown (some readers even use the looking-down-their-royal-noses tactic of having forgotten the name of the author of The da Vinci Code). Stieg Larsson, going by the thread, is headed for the same brand of literary infamy a few years down the line. Which brings to mind Chetan Bhagat, in our context.

Indian writing, and indeed, any English writing outside of the USA and the UK, is hardly referred to in these columns. Readers have been asked for recommendations on underrated writing here- sifting through the comments, I picked up only two Indian names- Vikram Chandra and Arundhati Roy. A grudging mention was made of Aravind Adiga as a writer who failed to justify the hype. Vikram Seth was dismissed as dull. (Digressing, a few European authors whose works have been translated into English have been suggested, which makes the comments quite a treasure trove of probable good reads.)

Indian writing in English aspires high, but seems to flounder by the way and lose sight of its destination. You don't necessarily have to write an immigrant story to be recognised by the rest of the world, just as you don't need a Nobel or a Pulitzer or a Booker to place a final seal of approval on a piece of literary work and parade it as being something worthy of global attention. Most Indian writers who have a fairly wide reach abroad seem to tell stories of cross-cultural acclimatisation or indulge in a bit of India-bashing, dredging up sensitive subjects that fetch much international mileage and make the world turn superficially horror-stricken eyes on a country that forever escapes its comprehension, whose tenuous balancing of modernity and tradition obfuscates it. Occasionally, something as incisive as Animal’s People is written- but this is a story where the big players will have to share some blame and turn contrite- not comfortable enough for the collective conscience of two continents.

It may not be a conscious attempt at derision, but it is quite difficult to fathom why not enough writing out of India finds a global audience. Why does nobody discuss Tagore in the same breath as Dickens? It isn’t always necessary to write about people and places that are largely identifiable- science fiction isn’t based on credibility, Graham Greene probably had never been inside a temple or within the narrow streets of a colonised village to enable him to find delight in Malgudi. Tagore was humane and sympathetic, and quite often tragic- adjectives that are often attributed to Dickens as well. Why, then, don’t they enjoy an equal amount of popularity among lay readers abroad?

If the present state of writing in India has anything to do with distorting the image of English works produced here in general, there couldn’t be a bigger disappointment. Most Indian writers who find mention among global readers have had some degree of international exposure. What we need, perhaps, are down-to-earth sensibilities. This is where Chetan Bhagat, as I grudgingly admit, scores- his books are extremely affordable, and a bit of smart marketing has helped him strike a chord with a large Indian audience. Either substance or adroit marketing isn’t an option- it never was. Thanks to the amount of hype that can be whipped up in no time, and the minuscule attention spans that we seem to have ended up with, not all honest, genuine writing seems to find its right place.

Don’t get me wrong- I don’t mean to say that finding honourable mention in a British or American newspaper is the only measure of quality. What is most important to a writer is to write for himself- and then, if he is being published, to connect with a wide audience. It is, after all, interesting to see what it takes to transcend barriers and find acquiescence among distant voices. Critics and high-brow readers set their own rules. We don’t have to abide by them, nor do we always have to play to the publishing gallery. We do need to remember, though, that we’re more than shmaltz and garish weddings, poverty and social taboos. We have good stories to tell, and we can tell them extremely well.

A Nondescript Bookshelf

A few months of extreme bibliomania have filled my narrow bookshelves to overflowing.

Technically, I don't even have a bookshelf. When you're sharing a flat with other people, you tend to forego certain privileges. I make up for the lack of space by crumpling up my clothes anyhow and jamming them into tight wads in the cupboard so that I can devote some space to my books. That the clothes are barely fit to be worn when taken out later and need quite a bit of patient ironing is a different story- rather that than silverfish fattening themselves on the precious pages of my books.

Another shelf where my books are piled up in chaotic fashion is prone to dust- this is where the not-so-new books go. On blue nights, though, this is what I like best- going into that tiny room which is occupied by two large study tables, an ironing table and a stand to dry clothes on. I shut the door and feast my eyes on the variously coloured and textured spines, swell with the pompous pride of possession. My fingers hover on one book, and then another- seductively ranged out that they are, where Dracula draws my attention one moment, I'm suddenly lured by Madame Bovary the next. I have the comfort of knowing that if this shelf doesn't satisfy my needs, there is another waiting in the wings. Books to dig into and lose myself in, one for every shade of the day- because when did I ever go through twenty-four hours without having a dark cloud loom ominously over my mood and then seeing a bright streak of glorious moonlight break through it?

My bookshelves are my vanity, as I unabashedly admit. But because the primary purpose of my books is to be read, I don't feel half so bad about my spending sprees as I might have if I were shopping for a bottle-green spine to go with the cream walls- or whatever it is that a colour coordinated person might choose. Books are not ornaments. I like having my bookshelf piled high and wide because it delights my soul. Nietzsche and Wodehouse might be unlikely bedfellows, far apart in nationality, genre and epoch, but put beside each other here, they feed and delight my soul.

I do enjoy peeking at other people's books on the bus or on the street, staring at the volume tucked under somebody's arm and observing the person so keenly I might be mistaken for a stalker. I like to know what other people are reading and be introduced to writers whose existence I've lived in blissful ignorance of. I cannot imagine a world where there isn't a book waiting to discovered and devoured or a new person wanting to connect with you through pages of print made strangely personal.

Everybody's Main Street

Sometimes, the words can’t wait to fly out of your soul. The soul, yes, that is where they reside- the brain and the heart are too commonplace for something as profound and mysterious.

I must write about this book, though I haven't reached the end yet. I am into the last fifty pages of Main Street, at last on my way to finishing a book that has gathered dust and biscuit-crumbs and slowly started to go dog-eared over the months, despite all my attempts at saving it from ruin. My efforts consisted of everything but actually trying to read it.

And now, as the clouds suddenly open up for five minutes after a morning of indecision, I am glad I decided to finish the book. I started it last December- and at a reasonable length of four hundred pages written in simple, uncontrived language, it wasn’t particularly challenging in terms of length or style. However, there was a sort of claustrophobia about it- a tiresomeness, the identification of Carol’s character with the life that a number of us are trapped in, the ambitions we set out with and are discouraged in pursuit of by baulking influences that don’t even deserve a place in our stories.

When a city-bred girl comes down to a village and tries to metamorphose it with her grand ideas and bring it up to speed with the cities, of course she isn’t looked upon with indulgence. Carol falls in love with and marries a doctor from Gopher Prairie, filled with maidenly hopes and ardour, but as the days wear on, she realises the chasm that lies between his dreams and hers. She is attracted to other men, questions her faithfulness, and almost always finds under their various facades an unappetising monotony, the acceptance of circumstances as they are, the reluctance to step away from all that is comfortable and familiar. She hopes of replacing the grime and the grey sullenness of the town with spanking grandeur- but it never was easy to awaken a sleeping giant.

Carol shuns the interferingly kind matronly crowd and the malicious gossipers- a perpetual layer of dust and antiquity seems to lie over the streets of Gopher Prairie, which makes it only natural that the slightest degree of polish, rebelliousness and sophistication in a newcomer warms her heart towards him/her. The drama clubs and the book societies are deftly taken from her hands and mauled to suit the tastes of the villagers- no breath of modernity or broadmindedness is allowed to reach them. A woman who reads a lot and dares to find love outside her marriage is to be regarded with scorn; it doesn’t matter, though, if a group of married men chooses to pitch camp outside the house of a single young woman at night- she can conveniently be accused of being a flirt and corrupting their minds. A drunken young man cannot misbehave with a woman he has escorted to a dance- it is she who has got drunk and seduced him.

The women are jealous, the men indifferent- an air of languor lies thick about the village, and it isn’t just one example of stubborn inertia. It is supposed to be reflective of the American society in the early decades of the twentieth century, a study of the weaknesses that pervaded the small towns of the country- and the fate that befell the few people who stepped out courageously, brimming with hope, to change the situation.

Sinclair Lewis eventually went on to win the Nobel Prize and this is the work supposed to have gained him recognition- and it isn’t difficult to see why, considering how many of us struggle against the trappings of our own lives- not always with the endings we choose.

Sparking Contemplation

If you knew exactly when you were going to die, and you had just enough money to treat yourself to something you’d desperately wanted all your life or buy presents for the people you loved, what would you choose to do?

This question arose out of contemplation of The Driver’s Seat, Muriel Spark’s novel nominated for The Lost Booker, ultimately losing out to JG Farrell’s Troubles. It isn’t what Spark is asking her readers to think about, per se- it is just one of those random, idle thoughts that creep into your head.

The Lost Man Booker Prize was thought of as a palliative to the injustice done to books published in 197o and considered worthy of one of the biggest prizes in literature, because the people behind the Booker had suddenly decided in 1971 that books published that very year, and not the previous, would be eligible for the prize. The Booker, too, of course, has been extremely susceptible to controversies like any other prize, and very often books winning the honour don’t seem to justify the hype.

Farrell has been widely spoken of as a worthy winner. Having not read Troubles, I haven‘t thought much about it, but I did enjoy The Driver’s Seat. It doesn’t lay bare the entire story in clear terms- on the contrary, Spark leaves a lot to imagination. While she liberally strews hints of the fate that awaits Lise, her protagonist, as the story builds up, she doesn’t invest in superfluity to describe a history that may be of no consequence. Of course, I’d like to know why Lise acted the way she did, but when a writer challenges her readers to use their heads and come up with plausible explanations for her characters’ actions, she connects with them in a special way- she makes them work for the pleasure of getting the most out of her writing. (The first story to challenge my imagination that comes to my mind is The Lady or the Tiger- a short story from my English textbook at school- where the fate of a man, condemned to death if he opens the wrong door, lies in his passionate, jealous lover’s hands. We wrung our hands in agony and complained about the author’s cruelty in leaving us in the dark.)

The minute details of Lise’s actions are beautifully described- you see her there, in her impossibly bright clothes, conspicuous on account of her jarring incongruity. The various encounters, leading up to the ghastly finale, though seemingly humane, have a sinister undercurrent running through them.

Spark is no ordinary writer. Her power lies in her storytelling and the consummate ease with which she summons it. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a brilliant study of human nature, and at different levels, you more or less begin to sympathise with the characters and condone their fallacies. Jean Brodie, a schoolteacher “in her prime”, creates a close-knit set of girls whom she hopes to impress her mark upon. She dislikes blind, unquestioning conformity, and anything that isn’t good enough for her will not do for the Brodie set either. Her ploy doesn’t succeed the way she hoped it would, and the “betrayal” brings to an end her prime, or so her girls think- but she lives on in several ways, loved and remembered well by the ones she nurtured. The characters are intriguing and human, and extremely interesting to study.

Two novels down, I am still unable to slot Muriel Spark into one particular category as a writer- and I look up with eager eyes at the two thick volumes of her collected writings that stand on my bookshelf.

A Little Thank You Note

Funny as it may sound, this is only the second time someone has given me a book for a present (and that's after fifteen long years)- and for one that I've been hunting up and down for- thank you, Airborne, for the volumes of Muriel Spark.