Two Books. No, Make That 3.

There is always a book waiting in the wings begging to start, midway through or almost done. Of all the books I read these months past, these 3 couldn't be left without giving a mention here. This doesn't mean the rest of them I read were garbage. Many were decent reads if not great, like Christin Hanna's The Nightingale, A Gentleman In Moscow by Amor Towles or The Silent Patient by  Alex Michaelides. But the three books detailed below, reside in my cache memory till I give a formal farewell before shelving them away in the core memory.

Becoming By Michelle Obama
No introduction is necessary for the much admired former first lady's soul inspiring memoir. One thing that stands out is the sheer volume of information imparted with such an economy of words. I envision Mrs. Obama, sitting serenely scanning her entire life, her brain churning all the memories and deftly yielding a comprehensive summary in lucid prose that became this book.

She is extraordinarily gifted and I understand this great nation was blessed to get the Obamas as a package. His brilliance, universality, and love of humanity, blending perfectly with her insight, unbound intelligence and pure energy. They truly complete each other. That the country was governed by this union of spirit and wisdom for 8 years is a matter of simple good fortune. Where I used to think of her as a really smart person, I now believe her to be a pure soul untouched by evil. This is her strength and the bedrock of her personality. The role played by her parents, brother, and extended family is an important one in the making of Mrs. Obama. Her father with the unwavering work ethic, of infinite love laced with the right dose of humor, her mother a watchful, caring, and diligent presence who did everything possible to nurture all aspects of her individuality without interfering and her brother who loved and protected her unconditionally. Together they created their own little heaven with the little they had which then spilled over to the Obama family of four.

I don't like being a fan of anyone.  I am a true believer of personal power so long as one puts in the effort. But I have to say that the universe somehow conspired to give us this true soul and her spouse to be inspired from. Personal tragedies often shape what we become and inspiration is the mantra that can make a difference in that struggle. And lucky for us, we have inspiration in a bottle.. I mean.. a book.

All The Light That We Cannot See By Anthony Doerr
The protagonist in this story is blind and we are shown the world through her inner eyes. The tap, tap of her stick against the pavement keeps us in suspense whenever she is on the move. Anthony Doerr is a painter of words who brings to life this world war II era story in occupied France replete with a museum, secret boxes and keys. The girl's story is intertwined with that of an orphan boy in Germany who became a soldier of the same war on the other side. The two worlds keep colliding and blending, strewn so with pearls from Doerr's bountiful cache of words. Delightfully written, with evocative chapters, this is a must read.

Where The Crawdads Sing By Delia Owens
The book kept popping up every now and then in various booklists but it wasn't until a friend recommended it that I added it to my phone notes. From there it reached the next logical step of purchase with my self prescribed book-a-month allowance. Here is the thinking behind the allowance: at this stage in my life, if I cannot buy a simple book to read and enjoy, then why-oh-why do I exist? There, I am happy we are on the same page:-)

Author Delia Owens grew up in the coastal lands of Georgia which may have prompted the writing of this book about a little girl bringing herself up in the marshlands off the Carolina coast. Every sentence is alive with fantastic critters from this coastal world inhabited by the Marsh Girl. The beauty of a great blue heron is so palpable that I envisioned I touched it. I lived among the gulls and canoed across lagoons looking for fish and digging for mussels, collecting feathers from the myriad of visiting birds, and pocketing shells churned out by the sea from every part of the world. More than the story or the lonely girl child, it is this living, throbbing, coastal life that kept me captivated. More so because it transported me to the rain drenched lush green land of Kerala that I had spent my magical childhood in. Short and sweet. A book to read.

Jane Smiley's The Duplicate Keys

Note: This too is from an old draft and posting now before 2018 slithers away forever. This year I have read some fantastic books both in Malayalam and English and I'll just post the names in a later post to at least have it as a list here.

I know Jane Smiley of The Thousand Acres needs no introductions. Yet the very fact that a movie got made from her books made me leery of wanting to read her. Yeah, I can be mulish like that. But now it looks like I am ready for a Smiley😊. A winning decision on my part! The Duplicate Keys is a very readable book with some teeth to it. Smiley's expertise in showing a period or time is just enthralling especially since she revels in putting the right kind of people in it. New York is always a haunting place and the period of interest here is the rock and roll era in the music industry. The story is around six friends who moved from the Midwest to the Big Apple with thoughts of making it big and what happened to them when their plans did not pan out exactly as they'd hoped. Of course the cover page proclaims this as a cliffhanger murder mystery and all that but what keeps you going is the characters and their interactions to each other in light of the murders. The murders and the investigation surrounding them  satisfied a certain craving for mysteries in yours truly and made it for lighter reading. Now I know I can come to a Smiley if I want such a combo. Don't get me wrong, this is probably the only murderous book Smiley wrote but a writer who can do it so deeply has my trust.

Miniatures

Molu loves anything mini. This includes the uber cool mini cooper among other things like tiny jars, furniture etc. She is a wizard when it comes to shaping little things to perfection with polymer clay. No, she is not into jewelry. Not yet. Here are some beautiful hearts, a slice of water melon and an almost perfect cone of ice cream with sprinkles she made today.

The Little Paris Bookshop By Nina George

Let me be honest. I picked this book from the new arrivals shelf at the library mainly for one reason. That the full name of the author very much resembles names originating out of my birthplace. But by the time I checked it out I knew that this author is not a native or non-native Malayali . But a book with 'bookshop' in the title just had to be a delightful read. Not only were my expectations met but were exceeded by the end of the delightful journey that was this book. Nina George wrote the book in German although the story takes place in France.

George's adoration of books and love of reading spills out from every page as she takes us through the life of the leading man Monsieur Perdu. He is, wait for it..  a book seller at the aptly named  shop 'Literary Apothecary'! I am telling you there is not much to dislike here.  Perdu is the self appointed physician offering sure footed advise on what books each of his customers need to buy regardless of what they actually came in for. Wouldn't I have loved to be a customer there! There is more. He sells the books from a converted barge moored on the Seine. He keeps the vessel serviced so it is still seaworthy despite its static state. While prescribing ably for his customers Perdu is unable to mend his own wounded heart. He is besieged with memories of beautiful Manon. She had stormed into his life from Provencal France, ruled it for a while and then just left one day without notice. The bookshop with its loyal clientele and the occasional tourist kept him going. After twenty such long years, he meets sweet Catherine who is nursing a recently wounded heart and of course Perdu is there for the rescue with a perfect selection of books. This change prompts him to set off on a journey that will bring closure with Manon.

Perdu travels down the Seine on the now unmoored barge, deftly navigating its many canals and tributaries. He found some unlikely companions in this impromptu journey. Two cats named Kafka and Lindgren who used to frequent his shop and the young successful author Max Jordan who is suffering  from a severe case of writer's block. Later on they are joined by an old Italian friend of Perdu who helps them negotiate some of the practicalities of river travel. It helps that this friend also enjoys cooking. At Avignon he hands off the barge to the friend and goes on foot with Max in search of Manon among the vineyards of Bonnieux. Along with the cast of characters described so far, what ups the ante of this charming book are the ubiquitous books and lengthy discussions on various books. Perdu himself would love to write a book one day. A book of emotions that are neatly organized under each alphabet. Such a great journey to have had! There is even a section for delicious french recipes at the end of the book. If you liked 'The Book Thief', chances are that you will like this one too. 

A Man Called Ove By Fredrik Backman

You have to be a very patient reader to get into this book. If you do, you will be richly rewarded for having known the man called Ove. Be forewarned that you will need a wad of napkins to get through all of it. Ove is a Swedish retiree living in a housing colony made up of all kinds of people. His days are always the same and precisely set around the clock. Grumpy as he is, he finds himself getting involved with the Iranian family that moved into his neighborhood. Through the many interactions he had with them, we see that Ove's heart is in a far better place than many. I found it a little slow, but felt like if I don't finish it, Ove will disapprove. So honestly, I continued for Ove's sake. Such is the strength of his character, even though fictional. It is a good book to read with a refreshing take on this world where honesty and integrity are fast becoming jaded values. Ove might inspire you yet again to strengthen your hold on those and to live life as its true followers.

You Go Girl!

Finally the US can now say it is a developed nation without having to hide the gaping hole to this claim. We are not there yet but it is just great to see a viable woman candidate for the US presidential elections. I am not a Democrat or Republican and not particularly an ardent supporter of Hillary Clinton. But she definitely beats the competition this election year and is clearly a capable candidate in her own right without the need for any labels. Still, when my son (his summer has already started) who is avidly following the elections texted to say Clinton is close to winning the primaries, I couldn't help but feel a certain thrill! I was surprised to see many women feeling the same across race, ethnicity or party lines. Now let us hope this nation can claim its rightful place in history by electing its first woman president. It's been 100 years since women got the right to vote here but better late than never..

A Legend Is Born! K.R Meera's ആരാച്ചാർ (Hangwoman)

Where should I begin? Should I start by saying that K.R Meera is as eligible for the Nobel Prize as Gabriel Garcia Marquez was or that her brilliantly written book should be translated into all possible languages or that I wish I could meet Chetna Grdha Mullick, the vibrant and quite unforgettable protagonist of this extraordinary tale?

K.R Meera is an amalgam of all great writers before her. In her writing I can see O.V Vijayan, Ashapoorna Devi, Marquez and a hundred others I can't quite place. But it is Meera's own voice that gives this novel its resilience, her heroine towering over the pages and not letting us get away so easily. It brings us back like migrating salmon swimming upstream to reach into its pages and make us lose ourselves in its enchanting diorama. Each page chock full of stories to last a generation, its heroine an eloquent narrator calmly pulling us time and again into the undercurrent of violence, disrespect, fulfillment and history, making it the saga that it is. Born as a legend from Meera's magic pen, this book will endure through time.

It has already been translated into English with the name "Hangwoman".  I haven't read that but I hope the subtlety of Meera's assertive language is not lost in translation. The heroine is India's first ever hang woman who is descended from a long line of Grdha Mullicks serving as hangmen going as far back as 400 years before Christ. The city of Calcutta is presented in full character, replete with freedom fighters of pre-independence India, the river Adi-ganga, Kali-ghat, the burning pyres of Nimtala-ghat, Sonagachi, all surrounded by tagorian lore so native to Calcutta yet so entrenched in the nation's soul. In this 552 pages long epic Meera has managed to touch on the entire nation's history while doing full justice to the city that she inhabited for a year or so to write the story. The only major omission I noticed was that of Mother Teresa, a name almost inseparable from that of the city to outsiders.

In their sparse house on Strand street with a steady stream of funeral processions to Nimtala-ghat filling the air with the smell of death, Chetna lives with her disabled brother Ramu, her parents, grandma/dhakuma, kakku/uncle, kakki/aunt and their two children. Like her grandma, Chetna knows the stories that made her family conquerors of death for so long. Each of her forefathers acted in the capacity of executioners for the ruling regimes of their times. While hanging through a noose is the preferred method of the Grdha Mullick family they have carried out justice with knives and lashes when required. I loved knowing the many names of the Grdha Mullick forefathers in the inner stories. Loosely based on real life events linked here at various places, Meera has created a powerful book from her vast imagination. Like the divided chambers in one of the numerous fables in the book, Meera skillfully weaves us in an out of many a chamber of luscious stories told through Chetna as well as her her grandma. It all seem to have started with one Radha Dharan Mullick, the first ever hangman of the Grdha Mullick family, from the time of the Nandas.

In her Dostoevskian thoughts on life and death, twenty two year old Chetna paints the turmoils of someone who has to dole out death as part of their civic duty. No one can make the knots of the noose as well as a Grdha Mullick. When the Government reluctantly agrees to extend the official hangman contract to this woman descendant of the Grdha Mullicks, TV channels and women's organizations were quick to tout her as the epitome of universal woman-power and self-confidence. A job that was never before taken up by a woman! Her father Phanibhushan Grdha Mullick aspired to be an actor but was forced to take up the family duty to make ends meet. He is eighty eight years old in the story and is only happy to take the center stage and play his part with panache in the tug-of-war between the news channels scrambling to bring the story of the first hangwoman to the public.

Chetna and Phanibhushan are caught in the intricate web of duty, journalism and money woven around them. Reporter Sanjeev Kumar Mitra plays a rather large part in this aspect of their lives.
To complicate things, Chetna finds herself falling in love with Sanjeev whose interest in her has many strange faces. Despite the myriad of sub stories that makes the book so long, the author has a firm hand on her story and keeps it going at the perfect pace for a reader fully along for the ride. That this momentous book written in excellent Malayalam is fully based in Calcutta with all characters inhabitants of that city, is rather startling. This gifted writer has a treasure trove of stories and the command of language and imagination to tell many such tales to the world. I will be waiting to experience that literary brilliance yet again...