Haroun and the Sea of Stories; Salman Rushdie

I do not remember the last time I was grinning, smiling, excited, and as eager to know what happens next – as I was – when I was reading Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. For a while now, and age probably has got something to do with it – I have ceased to call things – life-changing. Perhaps, as we go along in our life and get to know that lesser life remains, perhaps there is less of life to change.

For two days, I lived an experience similar to that when I used to read story-books, a long time ago. That experience has a few determining qualities:

First, it creates heart-wrenching curiosity to know what happens next. There is excitement due to the dark shroud of dread, fused with a bright tube of hope. You feel all the emotions that the author wants you to feel. There is a sense of freedom in those slavish moment.

Second, the experience allows you to allow yourself to allow irrationality that we have absorbed from this world. And after we have allowed this willing suspension of disbelief, the fantastical journey becomes your own and you travel beside every character as you do with people in your everyday commute.

Finally,  it remains with you. Stories told well have a lasting impact on you. Think about the grandmother-generalisation, if you will. Her stories are the ones that have remained with you for ever. Grandparents in general and grandmothers in specific are prone to developing skills of good story-telling.

This is the first book by Salman Rushdie that I have ever read, and like most others, I know more about his infamous book and the surrounding controversies than anything else. If you have been following my reviews for a while, I usually refrain from superlatives, but this is the work of a genius.

Potential Spoilers Ahead

The story runs at three levels. In order that they were revealed to me: The first one and the most enjoyable is the story itself – the vents, the characters and their lives and accidents. Below it, not very well camouflaged is, a political and social level, which an adult will want to uncover. The partially concealed metaphors make you want to probe within the store of your mind about relationships, meanings and linkages. The last one, is philosophical. This is a layer that can be said to be common in almost every book, because of the subtle nature of philosophy and its ability to be found almost anywhere. Yet, in this book, it stands strong. It is forceful and has an enduring after-taste.

The meat of it, however, is still in the story and the adventure. It is fully fantastical, curiously exaggerated , and a challenge to your imagination at all times. The language is young and flows like child-like curiosity and mischief.

It is not, as I have now stopped calling things – life-changing – but it is definitely a book that may allow you to change your perspectives about some things in life.

In the worst case, it is a beautiful story – and this is such a wonderful worst case to have!

Innocent Traitor; Alison Weir

It’s much better if you love history. Even if you don’t, the format of the book should compensate for the lack of interest in historical books. This is not historical fiction, though the writer (Alison Weir) has taken the liberty of imagination at certain points, and to good effect.

The places where the text adds imaginative adornments are described at the end of the book, so, if you are persnickety about poetic license, you wouldn’t be too upset.

Personally, interest in the life of Lady Jane Grey was kindled because of a painting that hangs in the National Gallery in London The Execution of Jane Grey, by Paul Delarouche. While I consider myself to be fairly illiterate in terms of art appreciation, this particular masterpiece, has somehow always attracted me to it, sent many a question to my head and made my heart go in a knot. It was indeed fortuitous that my artist friend picks up the book and asks how come I missed noticing this book. I am happy, however, that she did notice the book and I did pick it.

The book is written in the first person, which helps change, the perspective of looking at history. You look at the events from the point of view of the character, in the event, at that time. It adds certain emotion and ‘personality’ to the event(s) and allows history to become warmer than a chronological the presentation of cold facts. And a brave attempt, may I add, for Alison says:

[…] I have tried to penetrate the minds of my characters, which is something that serious historians attempt only at their peril.

There are, I know, a few fussy writers who insist on the facts and the gaps in availability of historical data to be left as empty and dark as a question mark. However, this book, does offer a glow in that abyss. John Man, for example, speculates fairly well when he has to deal with gaps in history. His fillers, however, are more based on reason and logic. He does wonderful justice too – makes for interesting reading. Yet, it is all in the third person.

To read something written by the character, is a new-found pleasure for me.

Life of Pi

A few minutes ago, I was chatting with a friend and we talked of the state of “time hasn’t come” that we often experience with books, movies, and blog posts.

Life of Pi, Yann Martel, is one such book. I recall having picked up this book thrice before and for reasons incomprehensible, even as I write this review, put it back on the shelf in the store.

When I did pick up this book, it was almost without thinking.

I thought, the Life of Pi was a wonderful book. In a literal sense — full of wonder! After a very long time, a book that I have completed in a single sitting. I have been reading a lot of non-fiction lately, most of them left half-read, all the more reason that this book was clasped tightly, till Pi made it home. And even though we know right at the beginning that Pi made it home, the tension prevails.

The presentation is wondrous. The build-up is good. I thought that the travel bit was a bit too long, and there were parts of the story that didn’t seem to fit in very nicely with the big story, but it was still fine. The bigger story is nice — it keeps building itself and changing forms during and after the read. Well-researched, I would say, because I am not aware of Martel’s biography, and I doubt if he spent a lot of time in India, to know things intuitively. The language is as simple as can be, except for technical nature of the boat.

Some of the statements come very close to the heart. They touch you, like a feather, leave an almost everlasting smile on your face.

Sacred Games

Either I am suddenly being a sucker for books or too much of a coincidence seems to be the new pollen of this summer. (is there anything called a quadincidence?)

In a month I have devoured four books, the 947th page of the last book, flipped shut a while ago, and I was unceremoniously brought back with a thud to my real world . But the pollen-like omnipresent coincidence is not just in the reading or theme of the books – it is in the fact that I loved all four of them!

You have of course read my feeble attempt at the review for South of the Border, West of the Sun, by Haruki Murakami which I wrote a month ago. It was closely followed by a feebler attempt of A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, by Marina Lewcka. After these there were some loose flings and one-night stands with a couple of other books; then a week ago, I finished The Average American Male, by Chad Kultgen and a while ago, Sacred Games, by Vikram Chandra.

There is one prevalent theme in The Average American Male and Sacred Games – the language. Real world – as it happens. Offensive and loaded with expletives; swearwords and recurrent profanity. Disgusting, if you have relatively inflexible standards for good language. If not, they do make for good great reading.

The first generalises characters through a specific character. The Average American Male will no doubt evoke indignation from female readers. It is a funny book. Even if your sentiments are violated, you wouldn’t be able to stop that one smile escape sneakily. I’ll repeat myself:

The most interesting ‘story’ I have read in recent times. The presentation is just too mind-numbing. I have been in splits for a long while after I finished reading the book. Really very funny! This is a definite read – but be careful of not taking it too seriously, and be even more careful of taking it seriously!

Sacred Games, however, is a different game altogether. The characters are very real. And I mean “real”. Whether by design or otherwise, there isn’t a huge cover up about where the inspiration came from. You can’t but help draw parallels from the dramatis personae (when was the last time you saw a dramatis personae?) and the sights and sounds of those places that you experience everyday. Especially if Mumbai is your home, even if it is temporary. Mumbai reverberates throughout the book. I felt the same when reading Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts, yet Shantaram is a “true story,” so in that sense, it is different. Yet, Sacred Games came across more as a true story than Shantaram did.

There are some obvious Genghis Khan (John Man) ‘patterns’ in the book. I am sure of that. I have read both books. I am sure Vikram Chandra has too – and he has used it with flair and to good effect.

The Guardian review says:

What with international espionage, gangster chronicle and police procedural themes, it looks as if Sacred Games is going to be something of a boy’s book. So it is for the first couple of hundred pages and then Chandra begins to build up the female roles. He finds significant tasks for these characters in the plot, but also enjoys their worlds in themselves…

It is far from a boy’s book. Though I’d hazard a guess why it may be perceived so – mafia, espionage, counter-espionage, double-crossing, murder, sex, yachts and such – yet I believe he has been able to take the reader beyond it. The language however is a possible put-off – as I said earlier – to someone who gets easily offended (but in that case, you could get offended by just living in this city!)

I won’t deny it – I thoroughly enjoyed it. The masala elements are all there. It is almost a Hindi Movie. Action, emotion, romance, drama – there are even songs in it! And then, when was the last time RAW was ‘used’ in an international espionage fiction? But this book is beyond espionage. It is beyond the city. It is beyond fictional characters modelled on real-world characters. It is beyond what the Guardian review calls “an epic thriller which doubles as an anatomy of modern India.” (This is just one small spoke in the wheel in modern India) Even with its never-ending 947 pages, the presentation of a thriller is refreshing. The standard pace of a conventional thriller is conspicuously missing. At each climactic point Vikram Chandra withdraws, teases you for a long time, yet brings you back contentedly where you would have wanted to be. The drama of the entire story is in its intermittent absence.

With a little bit of an open mind, I leave it to you to discover yourself agreeing a little bit with everyone in the book yet keep your beliefs intact.