Maeve Binchy's Chestnut Street

Reading Maeve Binchy's Chestnut Street is like reading the Book of Proverbs. It may sound like a harsh attribute for a work of fiction. But as far as I am concerned, the Book of Proverbs is full of practical advise on how to live in this world. It is the Bhagavad Gita of Christianity. Each chapter in Binchy's book will provide you with a valuable lesson on life. Really the book reads like a combination of proverbs and Olive Kitteridge. Besides, who wouldn't like to live on a street named Chestnut Street?

Each chapter of this book is about a person or family that calls Chestnut Street their home. They could be living there, returning there or connected through family who lives there. At first I didn't like that the stories were not connected. But each story is so interesting that I ended up liking the format. It also allowed me to put the book down at good places to come back to. There are no barren spots which you want to turn over fast. Each chapter is a good read on its own. This is is just perfect for a time starved working mother who is addicted to books. What I love most is the age old wisdom that shines out from every page. It is  cleverly disguised and you will not know that you are getting this little nugget of advise until you are at the end of a story. By that time you are nodding your head in full agreement. A great book! Having no time is simply not an excuse when it comes to a book like this. I was sad to find out that Maeve Binchy is no more. Check out a free short story from this beloved author at her eponymous website.

The Power Of One by Bryce Courtenay

I wish I had sat down as soon as I was done with this book to jot down my thoughts on it. It just was not to be and here I am wanting to post about this classic book yet not fully remembering all that happened in it. I just have this great feeling of having read a good book... First published in 1989 it fell into my hands only now. It was a gift from H for my birthday. Whenever he decides to give me a book as a gift he always gets it right. He says it is with the help of the clerk at the book store but I'll take a good book any day over other gifts.

It took me while to finish it. I put it down at times only because I had to. It tells the story of a boy somewhere at the beginning of the apartheid in South Africa. A lonely boy who learned to take that loneliness by its neck and turned it around to a place of inner strength despite or because of all the experiences that came his way. Please read it and you will find yourself pausing at times and going back to re-read some stuff time and again because it speaks to something in you. Here is one: "-how I learned that in each of us there burns a flame of independence that must never be allowed to go out. That as long as it exists within us we cannot be destroyed". And another: "The power of one was based on the courage to remain separate, to think through to the truth, and not to be beguiled by convention or the plausible arguments of those who expects to maintain power."

Bryce Cortenay passed away in 2012 but he will live forever through the power of his words.

Humans

HUMANS

This link showed up on the google home page recently and I clicked it out of curiosity. It is a well made documentary of real human emotions. Well worth watching. Enjoy!

Ottayadipatha By Madhavikutty മാധവികുട്ടിയുടെ ഒറ്റയടിപാത

This was one of the books I bought at Kochi Airport on the way back after visiting India in April to see my ailing mom. I didn't get to it until I had to go back so abruptly. I grabbed this book to help me hold it together on the lonely flight there and back. It did help me a bit and made me think a lot. I tried my best to hang on to my rosary and Madhavikutty's thoughts instead of my own thoughts. My mom loved to see anyone reading and she always had a twinkle in her eye even when ostentatiously scolding me for reading while eating at the table. The book seems to be a collection of Madhavikutty's regular columns that came out in a newspaper or magazine. This is not mentioned anywhere on the cover or inside but the writer pretty much indicates this in most of the articles/chapters in the book.

Madhavikutty is better known and respected as poet Kamala Das in the outside world. Her writing was way ahead of the existing societal norms in Kerala/India and so instead of unconditional respect for her fresh writing style and forthrightness, she was much maligned and gained inadvertent notoriety in the beginning of her writing career. Luckily for her and her readers, the quite strength and quality of her writings just couldn't be held back. It looks like the one person who needed to understand her, got her better than even she understood herself. Her husband Madhav Das who worked as a bank officer. She is from the famous Nalappat family, being the grand niece of Nalappat Narayanamenon who reigns large in her childhood memoirs and the daughter of illustrious poet Balamani Amma. In her memoirs we see that Madhavikutty does not talk much of her mother and talks nostalgically of the time she spent with her grand mother in their ancestral home along with all the simple people of the larger household. Her Malayalam is written in very easy style. The very simplicity makes you feel like she is talking to you directly. I have not read her controversial autobiography but I feel that in order to understand this great writer you must also read 'Ottayadipatha'. She writes each article in it with clairvoyance and an alluring frankness.  I read more than half one way and the rest on the way back. Because of the special circumstance under which I read it, the book will always remain with me. This is a great book that discloses many truths that are gradually revealed to each of us as we continue to live this long life on earth. She is able to put each of her precious thoughts down in a way that is easy to decipher and with humility. This gifted writer passed away in 2009 but her books will never lose their relevance as they speak of basic human nature and every day truths. Let us hope Madhavikutty's little granddaughter Nayanthara will carry her gift forward into the next generation. Google searches will tell you that director Kamal is set to make a movie out of her life sometime this year with Vidya Balan as Madhavikutty. I hope it will be a movie that will do full justice to this consummate writer.

Books, Books, Books

No matter how busy I am, I always find time for books. Especially since this is the main form of relaxation for me. So even if I haven't written much in this space, I have read many a book. It is best to write about a book as soon as you have read it. So once a few days pass by, I am reluctant to write about it and the cycle repeats. I will put down some things on the ones that I remember.

Beginning with the latest that I read on our flight to the east cost.

Colm Toibin's The Blackwater Lightship

If Jodi Picoult is your source for light reading on deeper subjects, then Tóibín  is your ultimate source for a full dose on such subjects. Almost Dostoeveskian, Tóibín is in full control of his prose, characters and story. Each page reminds us of a movie director making a vision come to life with masterful orchestration of every object, every movement. The intensity of each of these scenes are paced and never lost to us, the reader. I have read Tóibín before and this was as great as expected. It is mainly told through Helen, a young school principal who is dealing with her brother's fight with AIDS as well as her complex relationships with her mother and grandmother placed in and around Dublin, Ireland. Only Tóibín can present us with so many characters, each complete for us to understand yet not giving away anything in the process. Every single book by this author is a find in itself.

I Know This Much Is True By Wally Lamb

Wow, Wally Lamb and Colm Tóibín in the same post! Talk about larger-than-life, stalwarts etc., I am reading Wally Lamb for the first time and what a loss it would have been if I had never come across this author. He is a modern day Dostoevsky who completely inhabits his characters and brings to light every possible emotion they have with ease. Be it real magic or magical realism, he writes with such authority that we are just putty in his hands. He credits having grown up with four sisters as an only brother for his intuitive understanding of the female mind. After I read this book, I went on to get his first novel 'She's Come Undone'. It is a great first novel but I feel nothing and no one else can beat 'I Know This Much Is True'. 

Told by Dominick, the non-schizophrenic twin, this tale takes us through their lives with their mother, stepfather and other array of characters that shape their lives. The larger than life presence is that of their maternal grandfather Dominico Tempesta whom they never saw. He passed away while their unwed mother was expecting them. They grew up in his imaginary presence made real by their mother's reverence for him.  Dominick is more like this grandfather and Thomas, the other twin is a lot more like their sweet, shy mother. Only Wally Lamb can tell you the complexities of their lives with such clarity. A wealthy but hard and absent grandfather, unknown father, strict stepfather, mouse of a mother made more shy with a harelip, Thomas being favored by their mother for his sweet nature, Dominick being favored by their stepfather for being the stronger one, living in the shadow of racial superiority as well as witnessing and sometimes being subjected to all kinds of prejudices, all of this just shines forth from Lamb's book in perfect harmony. Lamb deftly portrays an Indian psychiatrist who helps Dominick to unravel the pent up feelings about himself and his twin. The amount of knowledge he displays of India through this character is purely amazing. Olive Kittreridge, Conrad Richter and many others come together effortlessly in this blessed author's hands. That he weaves magical realism unobtrusively to the absorbent reader is nothing beyond magic! Wally Lamb has earned his place in world literature, period.

Many other books have passed through my hands. The ones I want to write about  now deserve more attention than I can give today. So I will post on those at a later time.

Susan Pohlman's Halfway to Each Other

The subtitle for this book is : 'How a year in Italy Brought Our Family Home' and it is the Italy that got my attention since we had just booked our tickets to go to Italy in summer. It is a memoir and I was looking for pointers from someone who actually lived in Italy. It was not a waste at all because if it wasn't for this book I wouldn't have known to take a beeline to St.Peter's Square to see the Pope as soon as we reached our hotel that Sunday.

Pohlman is a good writer and the book is written from the heart. I took some lessons from it without even realizing that I did. She and her husband were living the American dream to the fullest. Shuttling their two kids back and forth for their myriad of activities and entertaining for the husband's high profile and busy work and taking part in all parent volunteering at the school with barely any time for each other or for the grand home they had bought together. When counseling didn't work the couple decided it was time to divorce. That is when they took a last trip together for a work related conference of Jim Pohlman. Having had some time for each other in between entertaining guests rekindled some of their old feelings and suddenly they were not sure that divorce was the right choice. Jim asked Susan if they could give it another chance with the irresistible choice of living in Italy for a year, away from the rat race waiting back home. Normally a grounded creature of habit, Susan was not so sure of this uprooting of their lives but she agreed with Jim in giving each other another chance. Being on vacation and being with each other without all the baggage helped them to see themselves as they had in good times.

Once the decision was made, they sold the house and got the kids admitted to the only International school in Italy. The location of this school decided where they will live. Thus the entire family sans their sweet dog moved lock stock and barrel to the top floor of an apartment building in Italy close to Genoa. Despite the initial hiccups and general feel of reduced amenities compared to their American lives, the family soon adjusted to the slow relaxed pace of life in Italy. Susan even managed to memorize what pasta goes with what sauce and was able to order things with confidence towards the end of their stay. She found friends among the other school moms and both kids adjusted after at first being extremely grumpy about the regular routine in their lives.

At the end of the year, they decided that without a steady income they simply cannot continue in Italy. So they moved back again after much thought but this time with a solid marriage and happier more mature children. They also simplified their lives by opting for a smaller home and making things less complicated to manage.

This book is inspiring and thought provoking since it makes you look at many things through a different eye. Even if they were things you knew it still is good to hear it from another source. The book serves you in more ways than one. As a travelogue, a self help sort of book and just a plain satisfying read.

Golden Gate Bridge

The picture says it all! If you expected a treatise on GGB I am sorry. I just wanted to post a picture of the California landmarks project that my girl did for her final 4th grade project before it starts to gather dust in the garage:-) The important thing was we had lots of fun doing this particular project. H and I had walked the entire bridge both ways when the kids had gone to Colorado with relatives. It was just beautiful! The orange color is actually International Orange and was chosen so it is easier to be seen by ships in the fog. We got it when we mixed copper with yellow I think. Molu and I had fun with all the facts she collected as we had all gone there just last year again when some family friends visited. The memory was still fresh for her and so her report was very detailed. I love San Francisco where GGB is and consider ourselves lucky that we live at a drivable distance. My lettuce and celery are graciously providing a backdrop for the tiny bridge.

Summer is here and backyard is inviting. The pond which had muddied from grass clippings when the gardeners came has cleared after H filtered it through UV light. 4 out of 6 fish we had in there survived the winter and the new environment.