The Gathering by Anne Enright – A Book Review

The glaring rays of the sun are such a delight today; it’s a warm afternoon. It’s been raining unceasingly for the last two days and I can see the coconut tree in my backyard in its shadow, in its reflection in the small puddle that hasn't dried up yet and in itself of course  A small beautiful yellow butterfly with a dab of black flits playfully among the branches; now she is here, now she is not.

I follow her aimless path and I wonder what makes this beautiful being so restless, is there a purpose to her irritating journey where I lose her so frequently and then she appears teasingly from some other corner and I would have missed her if she would not have beguiled me into searching with such hunger. Even when she is long gone, she lingers in my mind and I realize it is not the restless butterfly buzzing in my head but the crazy and disturbing thoughts that Anne Enright through Veronica has drilled into me. I think I am losing it just like Veronica is!

Veronica is a mother of two girls; she is one of the twelve siblings. Twelve children and seven miscarriages; that has been the talent of her mother and father of course. 

There were girls at school whose families grew to a robust five or six. There were girls with seven or eight – which was thought a little enthusiastic – and then there were the pathetic ones like me, who had parents that were just helpless to it, and bred as naturally as they might shit.

Liam, her younger brother who she is closest to, is dead. Dead from drowning in the sea. He walked into it of his own accord. Suicide! Why? Did it happen due to an incident that happened long back at her grandmother’s house when they were innocent children; a shocking revelation to Veronica but which neither she nor Liam ever spoke about? But that was a long way into the past and Liam is in his forties when he finally decides to give up. What bearing on our everyday life does a past incident have, how difficult is it to forget this deeply rooted remembrance; does a single incident, however disgusting it might be, shape us, our decisions, our outlook towards life?

As Veronica gathers her family and journeys to bring back home what is left of Liam, his body, her thoughts about their inseparable childhood doesn't let her rest. In sporadic bursts, Ada, her grandmother, Charlie, her grandpa, the other guy Lambert Nugent and the secrets of their juxtaposed lives create a ruckus in her mind. She has turned into an insomniac, like a ghost she roams her house alone, drives aimlessly in the morning. She just can’t let go off Liam, their childhood, their growing up, their distances, their separations and it is driving her crazy.

 I am all for sadness, I say, don’t get me wrong. I am all for the ordinary life of the brain. But we fill up sometimes, like those little wooden birds that sit on a pole – we fill up with it, until donk, we tilt into the drink.

This isn't a story, it is the ramblings of Veronica, a lengthy loony conversation that she has with you where she reveals the madhouse of her mind, the uninvited disturbing thoughts that come up sporadically out of nowhere and at times you are infected and fooled into her pit of directionless nonsensical discursive. At times you can’t take anymore of her dirty and disgusting thoughts and like her husband, you want her to stop but she is in no mood to spare you and at times you grin at her silliness and absurdity. She is driving herself to madness, you think, and she IS, at the expense of her dead brother and their living thoughts and the discoveries that she makes post his death. I wouldn't be surprised if the author was on a psychedelic high or shamelessly drunk or in a disturbed state when she wrote this book. Is there a plot, there almost always is, but that is not what this book is about; its essence lies in its madness, in trying to comprehend and not be confused by what is reality and what is Veronica’s imagination.

And what amazes me as I hit the motorway is not the fact that everyone loses someone, but that everyone loves someone. It seems like a massive waste of energy……and we keep loving them, even when they are not there to love anymore. And there is no logic or use to any of this that I can see.

And I turn around again and gather the covers about me, as the thing my husband is fucking in his sleep slowly recedes. A thing that might be me. Or it might not be me. It might be Marilyn Monroe – dead or alive. It might be a slippery, plastic kind of girl, or a woman he knows from work, or it might be a child – his own daughter, why not? There are men who would do anything, asleep, and I am not sure what stops them when they wake. I do not know how they draw a line.

The initial pages of the book will remind you of ‘The Sense of an Ending’ because it is failing memories that Enright plays with. For me, the initial half of the book felt a little boring to the point I wanted to give it up which I don’t generally do with books, but I realized it was a building up of what captivated and influenced me in the latter part of the book.

There she goes again, my fluttering yellow butterfly.

My Rating : * * * * * * * * * * - 7/10 

Anne Enright

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner – A Book Review

A woman lies dying, a mother, Addie Bundren. Outside her window, her eldest son, Cash hammers and saws on the coffin he is readying for her even before she is dead. Her other two sons step out to earn three dollars aware that they won’t be there when she breathes her last. The old man, Anse, her husband lies there on a chair complaining about his failing knees.

And then she is dead. Her favorite son Jewel is not around when she is dead neither is Darl as they had expected. She didn't want to be buried here, at this place but she wanted to lie beneath the earth at her folks place. So the journey begins to take a lifeless body, a long gone wife, a detached mother to Jefferson, miles away where she wished to be buried. But there has been a relentless rain and the bridges over the river have been washed away by the flood. So the decrepit cart is turned through another town but cross one of the rivers they must. As they challenge the river on the ford, the cart succumbs and the mules are fat and dead with their peeping legs at the surface of the angry river. The coffin is afloat and the brothers are barely able to save it and themselves and Cash, the eldest son damages his leg when the cart falls over him.

For ten long days, the family, at the arrogance of Anse Bundren, the father, drifts with the soiled, smelly and decaying body towards Jefferson as the buzzards circle the sky in anticipation.

And is that all? Yes and no! Written in a manner in which Faulkner dedicates each chapter to each character and the voices are their own, there is a shameful past of the dead woman, the instability of Darl, the pigheadedness of Anse the father, the rebellion of Jewel to live with the family yet stay apart, the secret of the daughter Dewey Dell and was Anse’s rush and determination to bury the body in Jefferson truly from the love of his wife or was it a contrivance at the cost of his family

            There is a considerable amount of rawness in the characters and the writing as each character reveals their perspective and contributes to the happenings. I felt the story being dragged relentlessly by the unheeding mules of repetition. I neither loved the characters nor hated them apart from the thick headed bigoted Anse Bundren, the father. And there is no comic relief, unless you call the ignorant and ghastly cementing of Cash’s injured leg as humor. William Faulkner, to me, simply presented the characters and left the deciphering to the reader which is not a crime at all but I just couldn't register the greatness of this critically acclaimed piece of American literature, nor did the language appease me. Sorry Mr.Faulkner!

           

 My Rating : * * * * * * * * * * - 5/10

William Faulkner

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde – A Book Review

I have been grinning all through the reading of this play! If there is a definition of satire, this has to be it (forgive me my ignorance of not having read more of this kind). I have always respected sarcasm because it is one of the wittiest forms of intelligence and if I may take the liberty to say so, a remedy to the plain and dull way of general life. And Oscar Wilde immerses you in it, completely, and you would rather choke on the drollness of his language than struggle to breathe the unembellished procedural air above. His extravagant descriptions are a celebration of words.

“Mabel Chiltern is a perfect example of prettiness, the apple-bosom type. She has all the fragrance and freedom of a flower. There is ripple after ripple of sunlight in her hair, and the little mouth, with its parted lips, is expectant, like the mouth of a child. She has the fascinating tyranny of youth, and the astonishing courage of innocence. To sane people she is not reminiscent of any work of art. But she is really like a Tanagra statuette, and would be rather annoyed if she were told so.”

Oh and there is a plot too; of deceit, of blackmailing! Sir Robert Chiltern is one of the richest and most respected gentlemen, of considerably high stature in the London society and an unblemished eminent individual in the political circle so much so to be a proposed member of the Parliament. Yet, his reputation, his entire political career, his future and more importantly the undying love and respect of his wife vacillates on the thinnest of threads orchestrated by the guileful Mrs.Cheveley. She harbors in her breast, a devastating secret of which the society is yet to be educated. So, would Sir Robert Chiltern hold his fort of honor and see his life wasted or would he yield in to the foxy scheme of Mrs.Cheveley – only if things were so easy!

“Sir Robert Chiltern: To attempt to classify you, Mrs. Cheveley, would be an impertinence. But may I ask, at heart, are you an optimist or a pessimist? Those seem to be the only two fashionable religions left to us nowadays.”

Enter Lord Goring, a charming dandy of great fortune who is equally reputable but for his unmistaken competence in his indolence and unconcern; for him a matter of pride. Ladies are beguiled by his presence in spite of his glorified love for himself; his father’s tongue for him is not so eloquent though. His love for Mabel Chiltern, Sir Robert’s sister is undisclosed to her though her’s for him is loud and prominent.

“Lord Goring: You see, Phipps, Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. Just as vulgarity is simply the conduct of other people. To love oneself is the beginning of a life time romance, Phipps.”

Sir Robert Chiltern considers him a dear and trustworthy friend and pours his heart out on his mystifying dilemma. What follows is a comical Shakespearean circus of confusion which would be welcomingly applauded on a real stage – comical for the readers, tragic for the characters.

            Oscar Wilde is a master of wit. Reading ‘An Ideal Husband’ brings to life a forgotten era of Lords and Viscounts, of long flowing skirts, uncomfortable layers of clothing, of ornate bonnets, of unreal wigs, the affectation of verbal soliloquies, the silverware and the annoying docility to indignation among others. For our generation and the one’s arriving, this polished multitude is or would be more incredible than the speaking lion from the Chronicles of Narnia.

            I could only try to imagine being teary from the sporadic bursts of laughter if I ever had the following kind of conversation with my father, and my father? He would only be assured that after all, I am a lunatic.

“Lord Caversham: Want to have a serious conversation with you, sir.

Lord Goring: My dear father! At this hour?

Lord Caversham: Well, sir, it is only ten o’clock. What is your objection to the hour? I think the hour is an admirable hour!

Lord Goring: Well, the fact is, father, this is not my day for talking seriously. I am very sorry, but it is not my day.

Lord Caversham: What do you mean, sir?

Lord Goring: During the Season, father, I only talk seriously on the first Tuesday in every month, from four to seven.

Lord Caversham: Well, make it Tuesday, sir, make it Tuesday.

Lord Goring: But it is after seven, father, and my doctor says I must not have any serious conversation after seven. It makes me talk in my sleep.

Lord Caversham: Talk in your sleep, sir? What does that matter? You are not married.”

My Rating: * * * * * * * * * * - 10/10

Oscar Wilde

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon – A Book Review

Claim to Fame : The book won the 2003 Whitbread book of the year award. It was long-listed for the 2003 Man Booker prize.

The neighbors’ dog is dead. He was called Wellington and he is Mrs. Shear’s dog. Someone killed him brutally by driving a garden fork through him. Christopher Boone is the prime suspect since the dead dog is last seen in his arms. Christopher Boone likes dogs. He is 15 years old. He hits the interrogating policeman because he tried to touch him; he doesn't like anybody touching him. He needs to find out who killed Wellington; he decides to do some detecting and goes around the neighborhood asking questions against his father’s command.

            When we were children, we blindly believed in our history books, in the martyrs, the brave and the wicked and evil persons. We believed in our grandmother’s stories of dreadful ogres and that they hid behind bridges to devour humans. We were told that Jack & Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water and we never questioned if there wasn't another well or river or lake nearby. We simply trusted what we heard, what we saw. If my father convinced me as a kid that I could not touch the moon because it was too high above the mountains and some malefic forces had made the ladder reaching to it disappear, I believed him then but I don’t question him now on its authenticity because I grew up, I understood that everyone cannot have all answers.

            Christopher Boone is autistic. His mother died of a heart attack two years back. He never lies, he knows all about galaxies, is brilliantly intelligent to get an A grade in the A level math exam, he is brainy with equations, remembers acutely what he sees and aspires to be an astronaut. He does fall short on emotions and communicating though and feelings need to be explained to him. He needs to be told in detail and without any ambiguity for him to register. He can’t be told about the nonexistent ladder hanging from the moon!

            Christopher’s pursuit for Wellington’s killer opens up hidden closets and buried skeletons when he realizes that there is a lot that his father has concealed from him. He now knows who has killed Wellington, he discovers that his mother is alive, finds the letters that mother had written to him but were never handed over by his dad and knows where she lives. Why his father, who loves him the most, has committed such a lowly act he doesn't want to know. He just wants to get away from his father and this takes him on a daring journey to London to his mother’s place where there is another revelation to be disclosed.

            One character I really liked in the book is Siobhan, Christopher’s teacher who is gifted with an enormous amount of patience. Narrated in the first person, Mark Haddon writes intelligently and in a lucid manner presents the life of Christopher. It is a difficult subject to tread on. You are at times stunned at the clarity of thought that the child has and would want to be him in some difficult situations in life where you know the truth and dare to speak it devoid of emotions, hurt or pain - but then autism is not a choice. We, with a slightly better boon of communication face so many difficulties in routine life; spare a thought for the courageous Christopher for whom every other person is a stranger and bewildering, a simple journey on a train is such a mammoth and scary task. That he is a mathematical genius yet fails to understand love and care in the true sense does hurt though.

Just imagine this logical and scary piece of thinking by Christopher:

“And people who believe in God think God has put human beings on the earth because they think human beings are the best animal, but human beings are just an animal and they will evolve into another animal, and that animal will be cleverer and it will put human beings into a zoo, like we put chimpanzees and gorillas into a zoo. Or human beings will all catch a disease and die out or they will make too much pollution and kill themselves, and then there will only be insects in the world and they will be the best animal.”

My Rating : * * * * * * * * * * - 6/10

Mark Haddon

Smell by Radhika Jha – A Book Review

There is a thundering sound up there. The first drops of rain fall on the parched earth; they have traveled miles only to splatter against the myriad surfaces  and amidst the scattering crowd looking for shelter, a penetrable smell arises; of the soil. It has always been there but it takes the advent of the rain to catalyze that strong happy odour, a smell marking change, a wetness redefining green and your eyes close unconsciously as you sniff with a deep breath and a heaving chest and the smell permeates and fills up your senses.

And can a stronger, better and unparalleled smell exist than that of a mother? An infant sleeping peacefully, cuddled in the safety of her embrace; her touch and scent an invisible layer of protection. You don’t need to turn around to know she is there; her clothes bear elaborately that cognitive, distinct Motherly smell and the presence of it lingers like a taken for granted comfortable acceptance; an acceptance which didn't need any accepting.

Then there are the myriad confusing smells of spices, the intoxicating fragrance of the rose, the salty smell of the sea, the pungent odour of sweat, the eggy smell of a freshly baked cake, the reeking of dried blood, the stench of death, the raw carnal smell oozing from the wild sensations of passionately intertwined bodies. We all have a realization of these smells but Leela, the protagonist of this novel envisages that her olfactory senses go beyond the normal. She has been displaced to her uncle’s house in France, abandoned by her mother due to the untimely death of her father in Nigeria, where she belonged.

Her life changes immensely as she is trying to come to terms with the acerbic tone of her aunt and her new lessons in cooking (which would be an integral attribute in her life later), when an untoward incident forces her to run away from the only family she knows in France, that of her uncle and aunt’s.

“I had rather be a whore than return back there”, she proclaims.

Her only friend Lotti comes as a guardian angel to her rescue and fixes her up with a female model for sharing a room. Once with Maeve, the model, Leela conveniently forgets Lotti. A few months later, when Maeve can’t accommodate her due to personal reasons, she shows the way for Leela to be au pair for the Baleine’s and their two growing children. Once comfortable with the family, she readily gives herself to Bruno (Mr. Baleine) and dreams of him forsaking his wife for her. And this doesn't last for long as she ultimately realizes that her placement at the Baleine’s was scripted since Bruno had a penchant for exotic females. Out of the Baleine’s family and she dives straight into the arms of Philippe Lavalle, a tycoon in the food business, a Casanova known to play and fiddle with beauties and dump them at will; she wants to be famous with him as the stepping stone. Her newly found friend Olivier, who likes her, has warned her against him but she has this penchant of abandoning well wishers and conveniently forgetting their favors in hard times; maybe this feeling was absorbed from her abandoning by her mother. From one male to other, she chooses and allows herself be used and abused and she wants people to be feel sorry for her sorry state. She keeps Philippe Lavalle mused by describing to him the various smells emanating from his body, during the wild love making and otherwise and when she fails to entice him anymore, he throws her out of his life like clearing a speck of dirt from his shirt.

Almost throughout the book, you hunt for a connection to smell, you seek to discover the extraordinary olfactory sense of Leela, but you realize you are toyed around with and the only unobvious premise you are presented is Leela’s disturbing discovery of a strange unpleasant smell within herself which she is afraid will get exposed to others and will render her unacceptable and she is turning crazy in bits because of this made up fear. In the end, it is a stranger, a ventriloquist who makes her realize that there is no smell, it is just a self created veil against which she prefers hiding and has now found comfort in and how important it is for her to drive away that fear from her mind which permits others to strike heavily and disgracefully on this vulnerability of not being accepted.

The writing appears subdued to a great extent and lacks passion. The author implicitly wants us to sympathize with Leela’s naivete and vulnerability but the want to do so lacks merit when the character is so thankless, selfish and unconcerned. It seemed like Radhika Jha had a mouth watering delicious dish in mind but she somehow what is finally presented is a bland assortment on your hungry plate.

My Rating : * * * * * * * * * * - 4/10

Radhika Jha

The Sense Of An Ending by Julian Barnes – A Book Review

Do you remember your first kiss? Not a peck on the cheek; the real thing! I do. That memory of mine is so distinctly etched within the complexities of the brain that when I want to voluntarily remember and revive it, it gushes like an unstoppable river with an indefinable urgency. And I am not surprised at my analogy of a river; it is only natural because a river it was, rather the rocky banks of it where it happened. She was sitting beside me as we went on with our idiosyncrasies when a soft noise behind alerted us both and we turned almost at the same time and in doing so our cheeks brushed. Our cheeks brushed but our hearts thumped by that slight touch and I can never forget that longing, vulnerable and effusive look in her eyes, nor can I forget the inevitable fear and the simmering blood in me from the sudden adrenaline rush. It happened in a jiffy, the converging of our shaky lips, the urgency to taste, to suck, to slither and probe unknown corners within the small room of the mouth. Maybe it was the inexperience that had the lasting effect of this trembling and groping memory.

            And then years later, I met her yesterday at a reunion. We had broken up a long time back and I thought she would give me the cold shoulder but when we met, she was pleasant and smiled. She introduced me to her husband and when he left, the cunning person that I am, I tried to remind her of our first kiss on the rocks. She made a face as if someone had shoved a frog in her mouth – “Grow up, she said, we never went beyond holding hands, you never had the courage and I left you precisely for that lack of passion, so stop making stories and being a loser” – and she walked away, disgusted.

            “Liar!” I wanted to scream. Was I lying, couldn't be. I tried to go back to that day yet again in my mind, but it was not easy this time, I couldn't hear the sound behind us, I felt the palpitation but the look in her eyes were missing.  So then, was she right? Where did the glorified memory come from then, which I colored so frequently? Was it a fragment then, that I had invented and made myself believe in by forced repetition, a heroic act I was incapable of? Or had memory failed me? I felt like a fool, rather lost….

“And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our accounts, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but – mainly – to ourselves.”

Memories - a strong part of our existence. How much can we rely on them? How much of it happens and how much of it is created? What part of it is lost on us? And how much do we remember? Would life be the same when we realize the memories we have been nurturing are mere figments of our imagination? Julian Barnes plays and puzzles us over the meandering streams of sprawling memories and leaves you amazed and helpless and lost. I loved the matter-of-fact and witty writing style and from the very first page; it was a delight as the curtains unraveled to the mysteries and failures of the mind.

“But time…..how time first grounds us and then confounds us. We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being safe.”

This is the life of Tony Webster and he begins his tale from his school days. His close pals Colin, Alex and Adrian, the new boy, like all from that difficult age, are struggling to find answers, delving into their own theories and are being happily convinced and content by their own arguments; anarchists in their own right. In all this, the new boy Adrian Finn is being looked upon by the trio as a thinker, as having a mind who doesn't accept without reason or principles; any form of rebellion is good in that age, more true of the mind and thoughts. The suicide of Robson, one of the school boys after having got his girlfriend pregnant shatters the entire school and our quartet of philosophical thinkers concludes that the act ‘was unphilosophical, self-indulgent and inartistic: in other words wrong.’

After the friends go their own ways to different universities, Tony falls for Veronica, a stubborn girl, but not for long as they go separate ways and as if to mock Tony, to make him realize how inappropriate he was, she hooks his best friend Adrian. Before Tony’s break up however, he visits Veronica’s family, which he finds to be substantially erratic except for her mother who warns him against giving much leeway to her daughter. Tony wonders what she means by that. Adrian being the gentleman that he is, seeks permission from Tony for his courtship with Veronica through a letter and Veronica is part of that letter. Tony writes back his consent and it is forgotten. Until the suicide of Adrian at Veronica’s place comes as a blow and Tony is sure that the disturbed Veronica is to blame.

“It strikes me that this may be one of the differences between youth and age; when we are young we invent different futures for ourselves; when we are old, we invent different pasts for ourselves.”

Tony is now retired, divorced, life is monotonous but not mundane. The clear waters are again rippled when he receives an envelope from a solicitor; Sarah Ford, now deceased, according to her will has left him five hundred pounds, a note and Adrians diary, which is conveniently missing from the envelope. Sarah Ford is Veronica’s mother and the last line of her note is pretty disturbing – “P.S. It may sound odd, but I think the last months of his (Adrian’s) life were happy.”

Why did Adrian choose to leave his diary to him, why did Veronica steal it, what was in it that she didn't want him to read. This begins his quest for the last belonging of his friend Adrian. Veronica plays her own games to keep it away from him but does send him a copy of a letter; the same letter Tony had written to Adrian and Veronica years ago granting them permission to go on. That he is shattered on reading his own writing would be a much suppressed adjective. He gets lost on himself. Was he lying to himself all these years or was it his own failing memory stabbing him wholeheartedly, or did he push himself to believe what he thought was a fact? The quest for these answers, the truth, the need to be set free, to unwind, to remember, to obliterate the shades of grey takes him yet again to Veronica and what he learns, not through her though feels like a hard punch which knocks the air out of him. Adrian Finn, you were something, weren't you – as the friends would have put “That is philosophically self-evident.”

I already want to read this book again.

P.S.: The I and she in the first 3 paragraphs are purely fictional characters!

My Rating : * * * * * * * * * * - 9/10

Julian Barnes