Atonement - The Movie

I generally don't like to watch movies made from books as a lot of what was in the book gets lost in the movie and one is left with an unfulfilled feeling when seeing such a movie. The reverse is also true probably. I never can buy a book if I watched the movie first. I am afraid that the scenes from the movie will interfere with my imagination for the pages of the book. But what if you watched a movie and felt like you just read a good book? Well, then you just go and do a post on it:-)


So we had this video 'Atonement' waiting now for more than a month to be watched and finally we got a good night to watch it. A beautifully told and photographed movie. Do see it and you won't be disappointed. I saw in the credits that it is made from a much acclaimed book of the same name by Ian McEwan. If I had come across the book earlier I never would have bothered to watch the movie. Then I would have missed the incredible photography of this movie. I am not an expert on photography and so perhaps it may not be a big deal. But I just loved and appreciated all the camera angles and scenes in the movie.

The story revolves around young Briony Tallis who mistook something she saw for something else and acted based on it which put her sister's true love into prison from which he ended up going to the war. Her sister Cecilia - Keira Knightly - took up army nursing and Briony - by then 18 or so - followed suit as a form of penance even though she was slated to enter Cambridge. Well told and well made movie with superb acting. I didn't go much for the grown up Briony as a Nurse but everyone else did a good job. Reminded me of English Patient a little. I liked this better though. Click here if you are interested in more details of the story.

Herman Hesse's Siddhartha

I had to use the gift card after all, since the Library was closed:!!! Of all the days, it had to be on this Friday when I got to sit home with the kids for a day. There is no point crying over spilt milk so I headed straight for Barnes and Nobles. The cover of this new paperback edition of Siddhartha had attracted my attention the last time I wandered around the store. Catchy, don't you think? I loved it. Finished the book. It was translated from the original by Rika Lesser. If the translation is so good to read then what must the original be?

This classic book will remain so as it transcends time. Sometimes when you re-read a book years later you are able to get much more from it and in some cases a different view from the first time. I have even come to root for a different character altogther. Case in point is Anna Karenina. Having read it in upper primary/middle school time I was unable to sympathize with Anna and was always rooting for her husband. But when I read it sometime last year I couldn't fathom how I didn't get Anna before... As always I digress. Let us get back to S for Siddhartha.

As the introductions take great pains to let us know, this is not the Siddhartha who became Gautama Buddha but the story is set in the same time as the Buddha's. S meets the Buddha in the midst of his quest for truth. I was able to follow S's quest so well and wholeheartedly agree with how it ends that I am left - can I say flabbergasted?- amazed at Hesse's understanding of life. I wouldn't say Eastern or Indian or Buddhist as what Hesse has laid out in there is the truth of life in this world. I urge everyone to read this book. it is not full of pedantic and long stretches of text that are beyond one's immediate grasp but laid out in simple and concise lines. Maybe it is this particular translator but it is Hesse that shines from it.

The last few pages - chapter Govinda-maybe a bit harder to chew as there Siddartha discusses with Govinda all that he was able to internalize during the course of his life. You can come back to this chapter later if it leaves you curious or it can be left alone as it still is a whole book for a reader like me.....This paperback edition is only $6.95 and I didn't have to think twice about adding it to my humble collection of books.

My Earliest Memories

This is not a book. Haven't been reading one the past few days. I am adding a bird and her nest to make up for it. She was happy to make her nest on our not yet taken down Christmas lights! But not to worry I am all set to go to the Library with the kids in tow. Hopefully I'll be able to get one to read in the midst of finding their books and videos. If not, have my trump card. er.. I mean a Barnes & Nobles gift card that I am going to use to buy Herman Hesse's Sidhartha. I think I have read it before but would like to have a copy of my own. So while things are brewing in the reading dept. I'd like to honor a sort of promise I made to this blogger friend's sort of tag:-)

I do have vague earlier memories of playing around in and out of the house with my sister and brothers, but this one stands out pretty clear.

Being the youngest, Mom was reluctant to send me out for the Sunday Catechism classes that my older siblings were enrolled in or had graduated from. All the more so because the church that we go for these classes was at quite a distance from home. The parish church that everyone goes for the Sunday Morning Mass in a vehicle of some sort is much farther. But one had to walk to the church where we attended the Catechism classes.  Why two churches? It is a long story that I might tell later.

Well anyway, since my sister (who is only a year older than me and deserves to be as 'young' as me is deemed the 'older' and therefore in charge of me 'the baby' ) was taking me it was decided to be okay. I reached the church without event and the classes went well. I was always one to hog classes and therefore loved it. I was almost 5 at this time.

It happened on the way back. I fell onto the unpaved road and brutally scorched my knees. It was not that bad but the visuals were terrible and I remember the expression of horror and love on my Mom's face on seeing it. She then and there decided that I should wait one more year before making that perilous trek again.

Though I could always feel a general love in the family I had never felt it so focussed on me, us being a rather large family. I guess this memory helped sow in me an appreciation for love from family which gives you a warm cozy feeling no matter how old you get. I hope my kids do know this from us even without such incidents.......

I have some more but I'll save that for later as now the Libary is calling....

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

“All day, the colors had been those of dusk, mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of mountains possessed of ocean shadows and depths. Briefly visible above the vapor, Kanchenjunga was a far peak whittled out of ice, gathering the rest of the light, a plume of snow blowing high by the winds at its summit.” Thus begins Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss. If you are not caught by these lines then the book is not for you.

Desai is the daughter of well known writer Bharati Desai and she has won a Man Booker Prize for this book. I believe this book is a cut above many of the books I have read recently. It is not a fast read at all and at times the story seems to go nowhere. But that is beside the point as the strength is in the language and Desai just excels in it. All that mist reminded me of another well written book called House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III but the comparison ends there. Without judgment Kiran Desai is able to portray everyday struggles in all zones of life. If you have tried to put an emotion into paper then you know how difficult it is, but Desai’s pen weaves effortlessly and beautifully through all kind of situations.

The story revolves around the remnants of the British Raj in India particulary in West Bengal and the struggles of Gorkhas of Kalimpong. Read here to get a background on Kalimpong’s history before delving into the book. The love story of Sai & Gyan gently traverses the book and gives it the semblance of a story too.

Haweswater by Sarah Hall

I was supposed to go out for a group lunch the other day. Something changed at the last moment and I found myself with a sanctioned long lunch hour at work. There was a Barnes & Nobles near work that I had always wanted to checkout and this presented the perfect opportunity. Armed with a location map and yahoo driving directions I found the place relatively easily. Much to my delight this location had a Starbucks café which agreed perfectly with my lunch plans. I wanted a book so I could sit and read and eat. Ah! Isn’t that heaven? But I also didn’t want to spend much on book to satisfy a whim. This is when I noticed the $4.98 books on display from which I selected a book ‘Haweswater ‘ by Sarah Hall. To be honest what intrigued me about this book other than its price was the name of the author’s previous book included on the cover page. ‘The Electric Michelangelo’ Very intriguing, is it not? I thought an author who could come up with such a name surely has imagination. I ordered my latte – I wished my husband could join me since ordering a latte is our guilty pleasure – and a blueberry scone, found a quiet place by the window and settled down to read. The book was good, not disappointing as I had secretly feared and the whole lunch time and more passed in bliss before I could bring myself to spring up for getting back to work. Having said that, I have to say it is not an easy read. The story is told laboriously so as not to lose any details and might be boring to some. The author’s strength for an impatient reader like me was that I was willing to read through each of the words so as to be pulled more and more into the story she is trying to tell. I wanted to read the story without skimming it and was also quite happy to put it down for other errands knowing I will come back to it to finish it.

Sarah Hall is a British author and this is her second book. I intend to find her first book from the Library as I believe it will be good too and it was a Man Booker prize finalist. This book tells the story of the tenant farmers of Britain in the 1930s in the village of Marsdale and how the building of the Haweswater Dam affected their lives. Having grown up in a farm could explain why I took to this book.

Kazuo Ishiguro - When We Were Orphans

I had the luck of a book lover the other day in the local Library.
Had a short time to select a book because I had started earlier
from work and my husband called to say he is picking up the kids.
Browsing fast I couldn't really latch onto a book that tells me that it is
worth my time on it. I so wanted to try a new author that I didn't want
to resort to my tried and trusted authors this time.

Finally I picked a book which only sort of spoke to me and was on my way to checkout a little disappointed when I noticed it. A hardback with that look! In a flash the books were switched and during a respite from home activities read the first few chapters. The book read like an Arthur Conan Doyle/Daphne Du Maurier style that I enjoy much. I was congratulating myself on this find as I had spotted many more books by the same author in the shelf which now I can borrow with no second thoughts. It was then I noted the less noticed caption under the book title. 'From the Author of the Remains Of The Day'. But of course!! I had watched the Merchant-Ivory movie and liked it and knew right away that now I am totally at peace with my "new" author. Kazuo Ishiguro was born in Japan but grew up in Britain where his family emigrated. He won the Booker Prize for 'Remains of the Day'.

Here is the dish on the book:
Christopher is a Shanghai born British boy whose parents mysteriously disappeared in the orient. He also left behind his boyhood Japanese friend Akira whose memories never faded for him. After returning to London he became a famous detective and all the while he had the inkling to one day go back to find his parents. It happened during the opium wars and his father used to work for a British Company that also dealt in opium. Enough said. When he managed to go back the Japanese were invading China and the book goes on to describe how he partially succeeded in the search for his parents and the revelations that came on its heels.

Two Books. Again!

Yes, I seem to be reading in pairs these days:-)

Midnight At The Dragon Cafe

Judy Fong Bates is an author I chanced upon in the Library. I had not heard of her before.

The story is about the life of a Chinese family from the Mainland that immigrated to small town Canada in Ontario. It is interesting in that it gives a glimpse into how the family and probably many others like theirs adapted to life in a foreign land fleeing from the communist regime of the time.

What The Body Remembers

Sahuna Singh Baldwin was born abroad but brought up in India and settled abroad. The story is written from a women's perspective. Provides enough insights into a strong woman's mind who had no freedom to express it. It is also entwined with India's Independence and the partition which can evoke familiar emotions of forgotten sorrows.

I am not sure I will be looking for works from these authors diligently but I won't run away if one chances upon me.