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....

The Best Short Stories of Fyodor Dostoevsky & Perumbadavam Sreedharan's 'Oru Sankeerthanam Pole'

When I read 'Crime and Punishment' some time back it took me a while to get Raskolnikov out of my system. I can't always read a book like that as it can bring you down some. It goes without question that Dostoevsky was a gifted writer and well versed in the workings of the human mind especially if it was a deprived life.

It took me some time to finish all the stories in the book. I enjoyed every single one of them except 'Notes from the Underground'. Could not read it at all as I couldn't make head or tail out of what he was trying to say. The best are probably 'White Knight' and 'Honest Thief'. I don't presume to critique such an esteemed author's stories. So I'll just say the ones I liked were wonderful and the one that I couldn't, well, I just didn't get it. Read more about the book here. One reviewer has notes on each of the stories in the book.

Why bring in Perumbadavam Sreedharan when talking about the great Dostoevsky? Why not will be a more appropriate response. I remember reading his 'Anthiveyilile Ponnu' most likely in Mathrubhoomi magazine and being thoroughly impressed by the newness of his expressions and the strength of his writing. So when I went to browse in a bookstore in Kerala a few years back I didn't hesitate to buy 'Oru Sankeerthanam Pole'. It turns out that Perumbadavam has great respect for Dostoevsky and wrote this book as something he just had to. It is the story of the young and hapless Dostoevsky and a girl called Anna who came to help him with the writing of his novels. Anna became his wife. It is said that she had been the great love of Dostoevsky. Too many greats eh? Can't help it. Anyway the book is pretty good and I think reading 'Sankeerthanam' made me understand and appreciate most of the short stories in the first book. So if you come across either of these books, go for it. Don't forget to read the foreword by Perumbadavam if you get his book. He is described as the writer with God's signature on his heart. This is Dostoevsky's description too. I don't know about that but one thing is true. You will not fail to be impressed by this writer. Not sure if any English translations exist but that would be quite an event! Read more on Perumbadavam here , here and here.

The Town - Conrad Richter

Another trip to the library yielded this splendid book.

It is a fictionalized history of the early settlers and the towns they built after coming to the "new world". This the third in a trilogy and Richter won the Pulitzer prize in 1951 for it. 'The Trees' and 'The Fields' are the other two books. I have not read those, but there was no loss of continuity. The story revolves around a daughter of the founder of a small town called Moonshine. Sayward and her many children and their future is intertwined with the growth of the town in this book.

The language is deep and nostalgic and if you live far from home or were interested in family tree sort of stuff like me then this will ring a bell. Go here for some info and here to browse more.

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.

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.

The Glass Palace

My first book by author Amitav Gosh. I had read a Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth and found it rather tedious and so was afraid to take another book that appeared similar. Being from India I had satisfied myself that I pretty much knew the history of its Independence. It was a surprise to find that the events described in 2 or 3 paragraphs in history books can span the sprawling canvass of events laid out in this book. It gives us an idea of what went on with Indian officers in the British Army during those eventful times. I didn’t think the story will lead this way as it started around its intriguing namesake The Glass Palace which was the official residence of the Kings of Burma then. There too it was interesting to read of a Golden Burma especially as we are faced with quite a different kind of Burma these days. If you are a historical fiction buff like me, then you will find this immensely satisfying. It follows the story of orphaned Rajkumar through the streets and forests of Burma, the Rubber estates of Malaysia and eventually into India. The events are historical yet well told in a fictional format. Do read when you are ready to enjoy some history. I watched the Hindi movie ‘Lakshya’ after reading this book. There is not much connection between the two except both sort of refer to the Indian Military Academy. Amitav Gosh’s book shows IMA’s roots and the Movie gives its current scope.

Of Books, Authors and Me:

I got carried away with the food part of my blog. Besides, no new books had entered my horizon. Now I have another one in a row! The book I want to speak of today is ‘My Sister’s Keeper’ by Jodi Picccoult.

Jodi Piccoult is a Harvard educated former school teacher turned prolific writer who develops her characters pretty deep with few exceptions and this is what attracted me to her books. When you read her books you get to know the characters pretty well. Some of her support characters have a little ‘masala’ inclination but her superb writing intermingled with her mastery of words more than make up for it towards an enjoyable read. It has enough of a mystery to it to make you want to finish it all in one stretch. No other book of hers has affected me as much as her book that I mentioned above. It tells the story of a sister who was conceived just so her sick older sister suffering from leukemia can have her cord blood. A book where the question about the reason for existence becomes rather interesting. The book examines this from the perspective of many of its characters. The mother character is very close to one’s heart though portrayed rather coldly. I read the book ‘Plain Truth’ first and then went on to get all her books from the public Library.

Middlesex

Don't let the title stop you from reading this well told story. I just finished reading ‘Middlesex’ by Jeffrey Eugenides lent from a good friend. Eugnides’ book is such an interesting and classic book that it transcends cultures and surprised me in the same instant with the reach of its understanding. I can’t say I read the book without putting it down as something special because being a compulsive reader I can’t put down most of my books without finishing:-) But this is a good book and a Pulitzer prize winner to boot. The writing style is unique and to me seemed like a blend of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Arundhathi Roy. It is written from the point of view of a hermaphrodite – a person with unsure gender identity - again don’t let that define the book as it really explores the 2 sided nature of everything in this world as well as some interesting nuggets of history that span generations. Come to think of it any good author will have to have split perspectives to be able to present male and female characters in a book. This serious and complex novel is written in a lighthearted style that I enjoyed much. I find that I always love novels peopled with lot of characters. Probably an after effect of having lived in highly populated India....

Two books : Agnisakshi & Family Matters

Today I’d like to talk about two books. The first one is close to my heart which  is in Malayalam and written long ago. The second book is more recent from an Indian author written in English.

The first is ‘Agnisakshi’, written by that doyenne of elegant Malayalam literature Lalithambika Antahrjanam. I am not sure if there is an English translation and am not sure if a translation can do justice to her language. No other book has captured me so much both with the story line and with simple and elegant language. There, I have used elegant twice already but that is what comes to mind when I think of this book. Antharjanam wrote short stories and articles most of her life and wrote this novel in her seventies at the behest of an editor friend. This was made into a Malayalam movie but I have not seen it yet. In my experience if I like a book first, then the movie based on it usually will not keep up with the expectations. The story is told in the form of a memoir by a now old lady –Thankam aka Mrs. Nair- about her brother and sister-in-law in a traditional Kerala Brahmin –Nampoothiry- household of old but changing times. One caught in the ties of tradition and the other on the cusp of breaking from it and how inevitably they go their separates ways still loving each other. The story begins when she meets her sister-in-law as a yogini/holy woman while on a pilgrimage with her son which takes Thankam back to her childhood days. I can’t say enough of Antharjanam’s language. Chitra Banerjee Divakarunee’s poetic prose comes somewhat close I’d say. The lingering feeling is that of having read something so soul filling and sweet. I never realized that Malayalam could be used so lyrically.

The next book is by Rohinton Mistry. A writer born in India of Parsi heritage. Well written with engaging characters, this novel still clutches my heart when I think of it.The story of a Parsi family with 2 kids whose sweet and gentle maternal grandfather comes to be cared for by them and how it affects/changes the lives of each of the members. Owe the discovery to my kind friend who is always on the ready to lend me books. This is a must read and will make up for not being able to read the first book.