Myriad thoughts on a million things
Archive for May, 2009
Unaccustomed Earth – An ‘Indian’ Review!
1
I had read an excerpt of one of the stories of this book in a literary magazine…..and I quite liked it. In a small dose, the excerpt showed Jhumpa Lahiri as an accomplished writer. Her prose is simple and strong with an ability to connect with the reader on a variety of shared emotions. So when I found the book at a friend’s place (Rupa…! Finally I put your name in a post…. happy?! J), I picked it up with much excitement.
A few stories down and for me the book became a good example of how one must not judge the book by its cover (Also made me recall a sermon my dad gave me long ago on why I should pick my friends after a more careful thought through examination). The first few stories are interesting… one is amazed by her artistry with feeling and describing human emotions. The story telling style keeps one hooked and wondering where its leading… but invariably when one gets there, the end is so mundane that sometime’s one is found wondering if the journey through the pages was worth it.
And it’s not just that… After the first few stories…it gets a little repetitive. One can’t but say ‘Enough with the Indian American Immigrant stories with the Bengali people!’ I like variety when I’m reading short stories…. And this book was a disappointment from that angle. Bengali Parents, Macher Jhol, Misfits in American society, Calcutta reveries, Death and changing relationships… yeah…yeah… we get it.
I know she’s an award winning writer and all, but I don’t have to like the book just because of that.
Reading other reviews on this book made wonder if I lacked some emotional depth that other people seem to have. I didn’t feel any of the much touted ‘gripping emotions’ of human relationships dripping through the pages. One Mr Chanakya warns in his review “Don’t be terribly surprised if you find your eyes moist while reading the book since it actually touches you where it matters the most.” Ouch…. For me after the 3rd story, my eyes were moisting with boredom!
World Without End
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1200 pages in small print…. I knew reading this Ken Follet book was going to be a daunting task. But more than daunting, it turned out to be an all consuming task.
For me books are high involvement items. When I’m reading one, I find myself researching things about it and finding out more about actual events referred to in the book. So after the initial 100 pages, (where I was tempted to throw away the book more the once) the book transformed into a different world that I found myself wondering and researching about.
Set in a small town in UK (Kingsbridge) in early 1300s, the story chronicles the life and times of a cross section of protagonists. Royalty, Peasantry and Clergy…the book shared the struggles and victories of people from different backgrounds and whose lives intertwine through the 50 decades the book covers. The commerce vs the church issues, the basic medical knowledge and treatments, the hardships of peasants, the destruction of the Black Death and the challenges of basic scientific knowledge, made me think about these times in wonder. We take so much of the knowledge and things we have today for granted… its only when we read about these times does one realize that we have so much to thank human endeavor and curiosity for.
I especially found the section on the Black Death intriguing. They made me recall some paintings and models of the plague that I once saw in a museum in Canada. I remember looking at the paintings and wondering about the destruction. Only after reading the book did I grasp the real magnitude of the tragedy. 1/3rd of Europe’s population was wiped out! That’s about 75 million people….
All in all, the book is interesting, a tad long, but worth the time. A book recommended only for the brave hearted.