Thalamurakal - O. V Vijayan

A book that I bought on one of my visits to Kerala just because it was written by the much revered OV Vijayan. I believe Vijayan's style of writing revolutionized or at least opened up a whole new set of possibilities for Malayalam writers. You never read one of his books without feeling that you have come across something great. The wonderful part is, this happens with every single book of his I have read so far. 'Madhuram Gayathi', 'Gurusagaram' etc stand out and of course the much famous 'Khasakhinte Ithihasam' (Legends Of Khasak) . I'd even go as far as to say his writing is the Malayalam prose equivalent of Kahlil Gibran's poetry. I confess I have not read Gibran as much as I have read Vijayan and that could be why. The Gibran poems that I have read and the Vijayan books leave me with the same feeling of awe about the writer.

In 'Thalamurakal' (Generations) Vijayan tells the story of the ancient family of 'Ponmudi'. It is written as told by one of its last generations through the numerous family legends he was told and heard and witnessed. Vijayan's use of rarely used words are stitched seamless into the narrative and never stands apart. It looks at the different casts and religions of Kerala over the years with a discerning and leveled eye.

It almost feels like a biography where the narrator is Vijayan himself. 'Ponmudi Tharavad' has found a special place in my memory shelf. Click here to read an excerpt in Malayalam.

Anya Seton's The Winthrop Woman

I have passed by Anya Seton's books many times. I have this unreasonable liking for her name but was afraid the she is a romance novelist. Not that I have anything against novels being romantic but when I spend my precious time on a book, I'd like to have more than just only that.

The other day I stopped once again in front of Seton's books and bravely took this book out from the lot. The author's note in the beginning was quite reassuring as to the contents and for a history buff like me this was the perfect book to bring home. At first I imagined the title talked of many women from the Winthrop family but it was about one in particular. This one's life ran rather like that in a movie with stories and sub stories strewn all over.

Elizabeth Winthrop was a cousin as well as married to one of the Winthrops. Winthrops being among the first of many puritan families to arrive from England on ships in the hopes of making a puritan community thrive away from the persecutions at home. The most famous among the ships being The Mayflower I guess. The first thirteen colonies of the US appear all over this book based mostly on documented facts. It also attests to Elizabeth's courage and iconoclastic nature even in those times and her steadfastness to the family she had. A very satisfying read filled with geographical history and of the many kinds of people who sawed the seeds to the making of this nation with open tributes to the original inhabitants. Elizabeth's first marriage to Harry Winthrop, her deep friendship with his brother Jack who was the early Governor of of the state of Connecticut, her uncle and their father John Winthrop who was the first puritan Governor, her second marriage to the prosperous goldsmith Robert with a touch of madness in him and her last and peaceful marriage to Will Hallet and her many children and her relationship to the Native American woman 'Talaka' all form a wonderful kaleidoscope of real stories and real revelations. I didn't know that New York was once a Dutch territory and was called New Amsterdam for instance. Go here , here , here and here for more on the book, the author and the heroine.

The Palace of Illusions &The Kitchen God's Wife

Palace of Illusions
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is a favorite author whose books I know I will enjoy. So I couldn't wait till this her latest was available in the Library. Surprisingly her writing style was quite different in this book. I know because I have read almost all of her books. Check here for a list of her books and more info on the author. I am a fan of her lyrical style perfected in 'Queen of Dreams', Mistress of Spices' etc. and so missed it in this book. It is still a fascinating book to me because of two things. One, this is a concise book on the various stories of Mahabharata told in an easy to follow narrative; two, it is told from the unique point of view of Draupadi, wife of the Pandavas. So do read this or even buy one as I am planning to do if you were one of those kids who thoroughly enjoyed the mythical stories of Mahabharata and Ramayana but had only read stories from it in bits and pieces. This page and this has more on the story. The palace in question is the magical palace that Maya built for the Pandavas/Draupadi for that relatively peaceful period when they were ruling their half of the Kuru Kingdom.

The Kitchen God's Wife
While Divakaruni's books are a must read because of the additional pleasure I get being from India, Amy Tan's books are depended on when I am in need of an easy read with no hassles and am in no mood to start searching for one. I have read quite a a few of the author's books and know for sure that eventually I will finish all. But why hurry a sure thing? This book, like other Tan books portrays mother-daughter relationship in all its intensity. I do get her books mixed up in that I can't separate the characters from one book to the other. It does not interfere in the reading pleasure at all as each storyline is distinct and will remain a 'rainy day' source for me if I don't finish them all up too soon:-) Check here and here for a synopsys of the book and here for more on the author.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

When I came across this book I had a good feeling about it. But I didn't know I'll come to love one of the characters so much. The initial attraction for me was that it was written by a Maori about the Maori's of New Zealand. If you liked The Whale Rider ( the book) then you will no doubt find this book quite readable. The book is heavily laden with Maori language which you hardly notice while following the story that is being told. Keri Hulme has a special way with words. The book at first glance appears as if it's been hastily put together or not edited well. But pretty soon you are so engrossed in the book that this fails to matter! I said this is a Maori story but the story is so universal, that in the course of reading the book one almost forgets this aspect. The author's characters are strong but are not ostensibly so and the whole book is on its way to being a classic if I have any say:-)

The central and most endearing character is a mute, rebellious and possibly abused little boy who was washed ashore on a stormy night into the lives of Joseph (Joe) Gillayley and Kerewin Holmes (sounds a lot like the author's name too!). Kerewin is a loner who took an immediate though reluctant liking to this window breaker and petty thief of a boy and was rewarded in return with his love and trust. The boy who was named Simon lived with his foster father Joe when they met and the unlikely threesome were an item afterwards. Keri Holmes has succeeded so well in portraying Simon that even after I finished the book I kept wishing it didn't. I actually missed reading more about Simon! Read more about the book here, here and here.

Tagged by Reflections

The Rules are as follows:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.

2) Italicize those you intend to read.

3) Underline the books you really love (and strikethrough the ones you hate!).

4) Reprint this list in your own blog.

I have added another category where I have also italicized the books that I read a while ago, liked and would like to read again.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnights Children – Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte's Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

My score is: 59/100.

Any book lover who would like to do this will find some new books or authors. I did a quick google search on some of the ones that I hadn't heard of and italicized the ones that I'd like to lay hands on. Thanks reflections!

The House Of Blue Mangoes - David Davidar

This gem of a book was recommended by a family friend. She is an avid reader and so I just bought the book when she spoke highly of it. It was not a mistake and was worth every penny.

David Davidar tells the story of a village alongside the Coromandel coast (Chevathar) and the Dorai family. The book is an easy read and the story flows along well. I have yet to hear of anyone who did not like the book that I loaned it to. Being from Kerala it was also interesting for me know of this community that enjoys 'puttu' and 'appam' just like me:-) So go ahead, buy or borrow and enjoy! Davidar is one of the founding members of Penguin of India. Read more about the author and the book here, here and here.

And Quiet Flows The Don - Mikhail Sholokhov

I was waxing long about almonds here and somehow that brought on a mention of Russian names which in turn revoked the memory of this book that I had read long time ago. I'd like to read it again to see how my perception of the characters have changed from then to now. I remember there were four volumes and am not sure if I will be able to finish them now in a reasonable time. Now that I look back, our home had a well stocked library if you can call rows and rows of bookshelves that. I have not seen my father reading much but he was responsible for most of the books and a brother with a bookish pen friend abroad was responsible for some. I did come across a handwritten full novel that my dad had finished while fishing through his papers. I still remember the sheepish grin on his face when asked about the book and the concealed pleasure that at least one of his broods came across it. It was written in an older Malayalam style and so he must have written it when he was younger. Then of course there were the classic literary books you have in your syllabus and considering the number of older siblings I have, these were also a decent bunch.

I remember coming back from school on the day mid-summer vacation started and throwing the book bag away with a punch and settling down on the floor next to the book shelves that I'd been eying the whole year. My Mom always encouraged me to read as much as I want except of course when I take it to the next level and bring it to the dining table:-) But there was always schoolwork and so I rather looked forward to the abandon with which I can enjoy the books once vacation starts. Mom loved it that I liked to read so much. Something I find that my husband also shares with her except of course when it affects our normal flow of things:-) I similarly love it when I see my kids engrossed in a book. The younger one is still too little to read but she is getting there. There is something about a book in hand that is just wonderful.

I used to leave the heavier looking books alone for fear of not being able to understand them but as I continued devouring the books, finally these were the only ones left. This is how I came to read the heavy weights like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and found to my surprise that they did contain some nice enjoyable stories once I got past the mental block. I loved reading great fiction through English as they were the ones available. It took me till my undergrad years to get to know the Malayalam greats like OV Vijayan, Lalithambika Antharjanam etc. I am a fair reader. I think the Muttathu Varkey stories speak to a certain part of the heart and therefore enjoyable. I absolutely loved Varkey's 'Inapravukal' and I believe he is the author of the eternally endearing 'Oru Kudayum Kunju Pengalum'. You can always find gems if you look for them. I wouldn't call the book 'A Stone for Danny Fisher' by Harold Robbins a gem but it was well written. That was the first book I came across where the narrator was telling all those stories from under ground where he was already dead and buried! Recent Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk's 'My name is Red' is another.

My brothers had an admirable collection of comic books that were hard bound together to 4 or 5 big volumes and I didn't leave these alone either! How could one forget Superman, Mandrake and Phantom? Bahadur and his Karate antics also caught my fancy and next in line were Flash Gordon and Batman. Those were nice books and were not as fierce as the comics we see today. I had taken my son to a comic bookstore here with the hope of introducing him to these old time greats and I couldn't really find any that appealed to me. He has since fallen into the hands of Pokemon who I guess are rather cute. I am glad he and my daughter enjoy the TinTin collection of comics that I got for them. They were rather inexpensive to buy from India. Recently I found an Asterix book and guess who was as eager as my kids to read it?

I was searching for Mikhail Sholokhov and Don on the net when I came across this wikipedia page that mentions a controversy that the first part might not have been written by him. He won the Nobel Prize for literature for this. Read more about it here. But anyway Pantelei Prokofyevich and his brood of the Melekhov family were portrayed well and this was when I noticed that Russian names for daughters or wives take after the family names ending in 'va' as in Aksinia Astakhova for the Astakhovs and ends in 'ov' as in Astakhov or 'vich' for the sons or Dads. This may just be for the region the story was set in as I don't see this being followed as a rule. I enjoyed figuring this interesting piece of info out myself. This also rang familiar when I read a book about Norwegians where the guys were 'sons' and gals were 'daughtirs' as in Gunnarson and Gunnarsdaughtir for Gunnar's kids. Don't know more about this though but it is filed away as an interesting fact. The story is set on the banks of the life giving river Don and of course there is always a war in such epic books. Pantelei's black sheep of a son Gregory Panteleyevich (see the -vich added to his dad's name as his last name?- and Ivan Astakhov's much abused wife Aksinia develops a relationship that forms the thread for everything that happens in the book. Here is a nice synopsis of the story. And Amazon rarely disappoints if you want to get some user reviews.

When it rains it pours, time to bring out some lighter books. Soon....