On beauty by Zadie Smith - A book review

What on beauty does this book describe, reveal? Beauty in relationships – I’d be sarcastic to say yes; not a single relationship in the story comes close to be called or deemed beautiful. On beauty of the mind and thoughts? Hmm, let me think! Almost every character has strong thoughts – about themselves, about others – though finally revealed to be cynical, not beautiful. On beauty of words then? – Naaa, nothing poetic here, literally or otherwise, except for Levi, one of the teenager’s gangsta rap, a form of music which anyway doesn’t go well with me. Finally, on physical beauty? Negative again – except for Victoria’s and Zora’s booties being lustfully mentioned, no other arresting attributes have been really described to substantiate beauty.

Has the title been chosen sarcastically then, for the absence of it?

The story involves two families, the Kippses and Belseys, in confrontation with each other due to the conflicting thoughts of each influential male parent, both being renowned professors. The lives of their children intertwine inadvertently, as both children and elders make ugly choices, ones that hold the power to destroy their relationships and lives. Most of the story is also about the mental and emotional struggle for existence of black families in the white world and this is effectively portrayed through the thoughts of different ages, gender, peer pressure and intellectual capabilities of the multiple characters.

This is one of those books I find difficult to comment on, so let me think aloud what I felt or didn’t feel while reading it. I didn’t feel bored for sure at any point in time. Was I eager to know about the characters – yes. Could I empathize with them – not really! And that’s probably what has had that disoriented feeling while reading the book.

The book subtly touches upon the cynical nature of humans; no matter how well one resolutely deceives others with their so called unshakeable intellectual thoughts or morals and values, what one fails to realize, rather finds it immensely tasking to own to is the vanity of the self over these very thoughts. And this vanity is so inordinately ludicrous and deceptive that the rules are defined stringently for others but not so for the maker. One advertently or inadvertently gives concession to oneself and calls oneself only human to having broken the very rules one sets, but comes down strongly upon the others when they are guilty of similar dishonesty – my mistake, your crime!

It is also about the beauty and monstrosity of love; a feeling that is always more painful than healing. My feeling is that Zadie Smith, through Kiki Belsey, highlights the beauty and strength in accepting – oneself and other, things that have happened and are happening,  while passionately and patiently hanging on to the simple contract one has with life. A good read.

My rating: 3 out of 5

Image copyrights:

Book cover – https://www.amazon.in/Beauty-Zadie-Smith-ebook/dp/B002RI9WLQ

Zadie Smith - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zadie_Smith

Villette by Charlotte Bronte – A book review

We have friends. We had friends. And we’ve had friends. And known people – different kinds, all kinds. 

And one of them most certainly has been the quiet one. An introvert.  Probably an observer. The one of few words, though not so few with the trusted ones or the ones liked and loved. A pupil in a classroom the teacher hardly notices, inconspicuously blending with the tables and chairs than with the mirth and melancholy of the living, not a prominent colour, rather a fading shade in the continuum. Yet, not a chameleon, not a manipulator but manipulated. Not there to hide, nevertheless remains hidden; plainness and simplicity are hardly ornate conspicuous virtues.

Disdained by a few, sympathized by others, they are always the ones expected to understand, yet not worthy enough to be spent time on to be understood. A strong shoulder for others’ woes, a cheek softened by others’ tears; not needing it, yet sympathized. Not meant to love, to be loved, yet to be talked to about love, yet to be asked to about love; their sensibility is accepted, their sensitivity is ignored. They are probably the ones one would be most comfortable with, would like to share with the most, but when a social event is to be organized, theirs are the names easily forgotten or thought of the last. One would expect them to comply, never say no to the many things hurled at them as a friend, but the same ones would never have the time, effort and energy to remain and return the favour when it is their turn.

Is it diffidence then that moulds them? No, no, no! They are the tested, they have endured and though they fight formidably the inexplicable battles of life that once surprised them, but not any more owing to its regularity and familiarity, they have long ago thrown down their arms and surrendered to Fate. The resilience stems not from a weakness then, rather a solidity derived from the lessons of an unprivileged life.

We pass so many of them; they are the multitude; they seldom are granted a second look. But they are needed, essential gifts for the privileged. And we need a Bronte to tell us that they, not just survive but see, feel, cry and laugh like others; at least they have the ability to. They do live too.

Charlotte Bronte presents us the journey of Lucy - an English teacher in a French establishment, hardened by the eccentricities of life, and still nurturing a softness within; a candle which will burn a long time, inevitably changing shape but not the intensity of the flame within; her strength is her character: simple, pure, resilient. God bless Lucy. God bless M Paul Emanuel more for seeing, recognizing and applauding with a sincere heart another one that others couldn’t. But then which God – Lucy’s or M Paul’s?

This is the first book I have read by Charlotte Bronte.  It hasn’t been quite an easy read; I’ve had to reread certain pages multiple times.  But then poetry has never been easy to comprehend, the unseen lines between the printed ones, once scribbled, are the ones that delight and carry the depth. And it is the unseen, the unexplained, the implied that makes a thing, a person, a thought more beautiful. Bronte’s words are a stamp of her genius.

One of my favourite paragraphs from the book – Lucy, struggling by herself, trying to write to Dr John Graham Bretton, an acquaintance from her childhood who’s surfaced again in her troubled youth, and who has managed to invoke in her feelings hitherto unfelt, unrecognized, unknown by the validation of a mere letter written by him to her.

To begin with Feeling and I turned Reason out of doors, drew against her bar and bolt, then we sat down, spread our paper, dipped in the ink an eager pen, and with deep enjoyment, poured out our sincere heart. ….. nobody ever launches into Love unless he has seen or dreamed the rising of Hope’s star over Love’s troubled waters) – when , then, I had given expression to a closely-clinging and deeply-honouring attachment that wanted to attract to itself and take into its own lot all that was painful in the destiny of its object; that would if it could, have absorbed and conducted away all storms and lightnings from an existence viewed with a passion of solicitude – then, just at that moment, the doors of my heart would shake, bolt and bar would yield, Reason would leap in, vigorous and revengeful, snatch the full sheets, read, sneer, erase, tear up, re-write, fold, seal, direct, and send a terse, curt, missive of a page. She did right.

My rating: 5/5

Image copyrights:

Charlotte Bronte: https://brontesisters.co.uk/Charlotte-Bronte.html

Book cover: https://www.amazon.in/Villette-Wordsworth-Classics-Charlotte-Bronte/dp/185326072X

The glimpses of the moon by Edith Wharton – A book review

I begin the year with matters of the heart – not bad!

Edith Wharton’s romantic novel starts with two lovers enjoying a moonlit night. The moon – a romantic orb, a lover’s muse! Lovers make of the moon what they want to – a comparison, a resemblance, a poem, a sonnet. Its beauty is safe at a distance – an object to marvel and awe upon, guarded from a likelihood to lose its luster from proximity and accessibility.

Ediith Wharton is one of those writers I have come to respect a lot because of her comprehension of people’s hearts and minds and for her effortless articulation of subtleties in their thoughts, words, behavior and mannerisms. In her stories, she gently rips apart veils of correctness and exposes the endless lines of scruples. The ‘Age of innocence’ and ‘House of mirth’ are two of my favourite books. She is as articulate in this one, laying bare the confusions and distortions in the heads and hearts of both sexes but somehow I didn’t find it as captivating as the earlier two reads.

It is probably because the characters, for what they are and definitely not for the way they are penned down, didn’t quite appeal to me. Rather, it won’t be untrue if I said I despised most of them. The protagonist couple Suzy and Nick Lansing, living off the affluent, privileged and elitist society, is not the kind I really look up to or hold in high regard – I’d rather reason out for a murderer. And it becomes preposterously tedious when this parasitic appeasing lot, sponging on high society, reveals a moral spine and a mind of its own. Nothing wrong with having your own values, whatever they might be, but it takes an ugly form when one attempts to be the head and the tail at the same time, to one’s benefit.

Suzy and Nick have lived their separate lives in such proud servitude and now when they each have found the rebellious other, they enter into a frivolous marriage – a contractual one, a pact unshackling the tethers the institution of marriage is generally associated with. Their elite friends have decided to help the couple live off their fortunes for a year and make their houses available to them in turns.

But there are no free lunches, there never were, especially with the rich, especially for the not so rich – the dependents. The privileged need playthings to while their time with, to feel important, to have them listened to and at times to hide their dirty laundry, and the poor appeasers are obliged to keep their secrets for them – a payment in kind for the privileges they are bestowed upon with. Not everyone thinks it to be an obligation though, not Nick! And when he finds his wife think of her conniving with her benefactor to keep the benefactor’s illicit affair an obligatory repayment, he is appalled by the thought and loses no time to abandon her with an urgency, in the very second month of their marriage.

What follows, as they go back to blending into the rich colours of the elite society, is their individual struggles to find out if it was love in the first place and a series of events that allow them to question themselves about their values and actions in the midst of a society marked by money, privileges, selfishness and authority. Can one have the best of both worlds? – the cunning and shameless can, I suppose. But do Nick and Suzy continue with what they think is right or what is right? And what is right, anyway? To own up has never been easy – to own up your love, your mistakes, your immoralities, your imperfect thoughts because we twist our values to what suits us at that point in time; we convince ourselves of it.

The story also highlights the fact that in a demanding situation, most of the times one ends up thinking and acting for the other person – speaking is an option but it often turns into an onerous task and the silence, open to a multitude of interpretations, ultimately makes it even worse.

In the end, I did soften a lot towards Suzy. I would have shaken hands with them both for what they finally did and the way they did it. A little unbelievable, but then that’s romance for you. Half way through the book though, I was only pleading out of impatience and boredom – okay tell me the end, let’s just finish this quickly, whichever way it goes; I had started caring less for the characters.

My rating: 6/10

Image copyrights:

Book cover - https://www.raptisrarebooks.com/product/the-glimpses-of-the-moon-edith-wharton-first-edition-rare/

Edith Wharton - https://www.famousauthors.org/edith-wharton

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens – A book review

Regardless of it being acknowledged or not, one has a favourite child, if you have borne children of course. Charles Dickens mentions in the introduction that of all the books and characters he’s written about, David Copperfield was the closest to his heart. And one can only fully comprehend why after having read this mammoth of a book and smiling with pleasure while reading the last few pages offering a final account of the multitude of characters that form David Copperfield and his eventful journey.

Our education system often introduces ‘Morals and Ethics’ as a subject, separately, with a few case studies thrown our way every now and then, to render an elaboration or explanation. I personally believe, our human culture would benefit more from a book like this were it to be a part of the curriculum, if not entirely it.

Most of Dickens’ stories are the rags to riches kind, and David Copperfield is no exception.  It is in the sustenance of a humility, strongly clasped to, and the simplicity they hold on to with a giant’s unyielding embrace, no matter how puny their exteriors, that most characters in this story make believable the arduous journey and explorations of their lives, in turn stimulating the reader. The story is replete with patience, firmness, goodness, acceptance, afflictions, endurance and many more such attributes closely associated to life.

Oh, how I would have loved to have an eccentric aunt like Betsy Trotwood, a coconut in human form, benefitting equally from her austerity as much from her softness. And a friend like the less privileged Thomas Traddles, a paragon of simplicity, a connoisseur of the simple pleasures of life, a retainer and caretaker of mirth arising out of them. And what joy would it be to have an elderly companion like Mr. Pegotty, a rustic venerable creature who has a heart bigger than the ocean he rides on. And Agnes! To think of her as a goddess could be acknowledged as a rightful thought, but to treat her as one would only be imprecise; it would rob humanity of the embodiment of what is truly human. Many more, many more. These fine characters choose or desire to choose the right kind of privileges that life offers and they aren’t money, status, property or vanity; it’s more of finding permanence in the temporary. And the story isn’t lacking in unscrupulous figures and elements, in case you were wondering.

I say I would have loved to have the people in David Copperfield’s life, but then, do I deserve them? We all have had or come across our Betsy Trotwoods, Traddles, Agneses and Pegottys in one form or the other but did we recognize them, hang on to them, or let them vanish? That has defined our lives and will continue to do so. Though, I claim that this story has highly influenced me, what I do with it or am able to do with it is all that matters.

‘What you seek is seeking you’ said Rumi. David and Agnes’s story and relationship is a realization of this quote; things, feelings and people we yearn for lie right before our eyes and yet we travel far and further seeking them, inadvertently overlooking.

Every page of David Copperfield’s struggle to find himself and his destiny is worth it; I wouldn’t raise an alarm for it being superfluous if hundred more pages were added relevant to the sublimity of the story. Every word is a lyrical fit in the entertaining Dickenson language, if I may call it so, a defunct linguistic glory that twists and turns in its dialogue of words for the right meaning and effect. The era of respect and respectful language has diminished over the years and has changed form drastically and what we are left with now is a boorish platter of expressions in most current day literature. That’s why Charles Dickens and his contemporaries are important; the classics are essential; their task is to remind us of what we were and (being optimistic) of what we could be.

The only discontent I felt was in the neglect of Ham. Had David Copperfield or Charles Dickens been alive, I would have been tempted to ask a few questions about him. Marked by simplicity, loyalty and care, his character, even when wronged, receives nothing more than mere sympathy. Even in his death, Dickens through David’s account, writes little of him and more of the despicable flamboyant Steerforth, whose perished body lies beside Ham’s. I guess it is Dickens’ way of portraying an unfair life with even the virtuous of characters giving in to the formidable unfairness of it? We ultimately return to the chess box, but what we do before that defines us.

A must read for anyone who likes a good story, a tale well narrated. Highly engaging and influencing. Highly recommended.

My rating: 10/10

Image copyrights:

Book cover - © https://www.amazon.in/Copperfield-Vintage-Classics-Charles-Dickens/dp/0099511460

Charles Dickens - © https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Dickens-British-novelist

The Lighthouse by Alison Moore – A book review

Language Teachers often make their learners read a text and ask them to summarise it or provide a gist; the reading sub-skill is called ‘Reading for gist’. The Lighthouse does exactly the opposite, if you ask me. The epigraph more or less provides the gist and then Alison Moore expands it to create her story.

She became a tall lighthouse sending out kindly beams which some took for welcome instead of  warnings against the rocks.

- Muriel Spark, ‘The Curtain Blown by the Breeze’ - Epigraph

Alison Moore’s story, long-listed for the Man Booker, is an allegorical tale about Futh, a middle-aged man recently separated from his infidel wife Angela. Futh thinks a walking holiday will help and hence he travels to Germany from the U.K. He’s been on a walking trip once as a child, with his father.  The infidelity of his wife and her deserting him are not the only painful thoughts running on his mind. He hasn’t had the best of childhoods and has seen duplicity and adultery in abundance as a child. All the thoughts of his mother leaving his father and him, of the adulteries of his father, of Gloria – the lady neighbor, of Kenny – the only friend he talks about and of Angela of course – a girl he always looked up to and looked out for, only to be ignored, and is now his wife and soon will cease to be. Apart from the emptiness, he always carries with him the silver lighthouse, a perfume bottle, which wasn’t supposed to be his.

I remember what my father had once said when I was a child and a moth entered through our window and was desperately buzzing against the tube-light. I had wanted to drive it away, but my father said “Leave it alone; it’s come to die.” And I did find it lying dead on the floor the next day. I have encountered many moths and other insects since then, devoted and obsessed with the light, being wasted to the same fate, either eaten by the slimy tongue of a predator or restlessly tiring themselves to death. The moths, and other such nocturnal insects, it is said, seek to travel by the shining light of the moon, by a method called transverse orientation (just like humans keep the North Star in a certain position to know where they are). And the electric illumination confuses them. Stupid insects. Just like stupid humans – we only think we are intelligent until proven wrong by an upper hand. We seek lighthouses to save us; we travel to our end!

And Ester is the other character Alison Moore freely writes about. She’s the owner’s wife, of a hotel that Futh has booked as part of his travel holiday. Another moth that has chosen the light-bulb instead of the moon. Coincidences and misfortunes then ensue and you see Futh, and sometimes Ester, inadvertently being enticed by the shining light of the allegorical lighthouse, fluttering desperately against the light without being aware of any dangers lurking.

Alison Moore’s symbolic writing renders an uncanny feel to her story. Like the moths and lighthouse, Ester’s Venus Flytraps too allude to a mystery of alluring, capture and doom. I liked this simple novella; the language is simple but the meaning is full of allusions, hinting at, building implicitly layer upon layer of a suspense of misfortune that you earlier ignored or overlooked.  

So, does Futh ultimately receive a welcome or does he, not realizing, ignore the warnings against the rocks? It is ultimately Futh’s silver lighthouse that substantiates the epigraph – finally literally.

Next time I see a moth, I know what I'll call it.

My rating: 4/5

Image Copyrights:

Book cover - © https://canongate.co.uk/books/2041-the-lighthouse/

Alison Moore - © https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/books/review/alison-moore-the-lighthouse.html

Death by Water by Kenzaburo Oé – A book review

Kogito Choko is a renowned Japanese author (like Kenzaburo Oé) and most of his books have been turned into plays by Masao Anai, a theatre virtuoso.  Choko has been longing to write a novel about his long dead father but not before accessing a red leather trunk which his father had carried along to his mysterious and controversial death by drowning. He has a recurrent dream from witnessing the scene when his father ventured in the middle of a storm on a small boat to his death. Kogito’s imaginary doppelganger Kogii who no-one else can see was on the boat too. This shadowy Kogii, who had been his only real playmate during his growing up years departs mysteriously too.  Kogito feels trapped in the blurring lines between reality and dreams.

The novel’s main theme revolves around these lines from T.S.Eliot’s poem ‘The Wasteland: IV – Death by Water’ which feature in the novel repeatedly.

‘A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.’

Kogito doesn’t get access to this elusive trunk for about three decades or more until his mother dies and when he does lay his hands on it, to his dismay, he finds that most of the materials he had supposed could give him more details of his father have been destroyed by his mother.

Masao Anai and his theatre cadre, for his next play, are heavily depending on Kogito Choko writing the much awaited ‘Drowning Novel’ which is supposed to be an apt summation for Choko’s earlier novels and characters. However, to everyone’s dismay, Choko abandons the idea after the disappointing revelation of the contents of the red leather trunk. And then the story hops from one hackneyed subject to another such as the troubled relationship with his brain-damaged grown-up composer son Akari (Oé has a developmentally disabled son named Hikari who’s a composer too), the Occupation war, the end of an emperor’s era, the plight of farmers in the countryside, references to the spirit world, and finally meandering to other serious social issues like rape and abortion.  

There are many ways to kill a person. You can spend a bullet and shoot him in different parts of his body, strangle him, stab him a few times, even choke him under water. And then you can also use a harmless looking weapon and batter someone to death, beat him to a pulp and keep doing so even after the soul has left him. Kenzaburo Oé seems to strongly approve of the latter.

Imagine this:

Me telling you – I bought khaki coloured shorts today.

My brother telling you – Do you know he bought khaki coloured shorts today.

My mother telling my father – He bought khaki coloured shorts today. They look good.

My father telling me – You bought khaki coloured shorts today from that shop.

Neil Armstrong telling Edwin Aldrin – That man bought khaki shorts today. Amazing, isn’t it.

WHO telling the world, an earthworm informing a centipede, a spider whispering to a fly – SOMEONE BOUGHT KHAKI SHORTS TODAY.

Did you not wince every time you heard about my khaki shorts after the first mention? I did too – badly, every time I heard about the red leather trunk and the ‘drowning novel’, then at the hackneyed mention of an experimental yet irritating (I really thought so) ‘tossing the dogs’ concept of drama, and then reading/listening to ten different people telling each other how badly Choko had behaved with his son Akari, and then about Meisuke’s mother and the insurrection! Oh, and did I forget to mention witnessing Choko’s father on the night of the storm aboard a small boat with the red leather trunk and his doppelganger Kogii. It’s like Jackie Chan teaching ‘The Karate Kid’ each move a zillion times so it is ingrained in the brain and is sort of automated when it is to be executed in real life. Oé treats each theme in a similar fashion; particularly the drowning of his father is a tiring leitmotif in the novel. The author should have known that it is a story we are reading and not an art we’re trying to master; the reader must have the freedom to remember or forget, and not be battered by hackneyed descriptions of the same subject.

I don’t normally quit a book midway, but there were times I almost shouted out ‘One more mention of the red leather trunk and I’m going to take a devilish pleasure in painting each page red; one more time someone describes the scene of his father’s death and I’m going to tear out each page and sink it into the bucket.’ Death by words, by banality!

Nonetheless, a few things from the novel stood out strongly for me and I realize they are to do with culture. Firstly, I felt the Japanese culture’s acceptance of death is sublime. In a way, it seems they ready themselves for it, which to me is an extremely brave thing. Throughout the book, different characters including his wife, sister and daughter talk openly and elaborately about Kogito’s death in his presence and he listens calmly, a death that isn’t known when it’ll come. All throughout the book, family members and other characters blame Kogito Choko for not preparing or readying Akari, his son for Akari’s death when it comes. They are quite comfortable, rather happy having morbid discussions. In contrast, in the Indian culture, from where I belong, people don’t like talking about it; they generally fear death and inadvertently fight for life till the last gasp. I’m sure in both and most cultures, life is valued as much. And the acceptance of suicides is also daunting. Yes, there’s not much you can do but accept it eventually but the peaceful acceptance and the glorification of it made me uncomfortable.

The other prominent feature I experienced was the act of being straightforward; it’s exaggerated to a new dimension. Even if one has committed a stupid act, one wouldn’t be comfortable or stolidly be a mute audience when reminded repeatedly of the unpleasant behavior. In most cultures, it would come across as rude. Tolerance and patience probably derive their meanings from the phlegmatic characters of this book and this richness is definitely a lesson to be learnt if one can and is willing to.

Kogito Choko in one of the chapters, when talking to Unaiko, the new theatre virtuoso, says why he doesn’t write fantasy – probably because he’s not capable to do so; so he relies on imagination which has some basis in reality. Kenzaburo Oé takes a lot from his real life and refers freely to his previous novels.

T.S. Eliot’s lines are echoed in the few lines written by Kogito’s mother and completed by Kogito:

“You didn’t get Kogii ready to go up into the forest
And like the river current, you won’t return home
In Tokyo during the dry season
I’m remembering everything backward
From old age to earliest childhood.”

And all characters from then on find comfort in repeating these lines and stating the same meaning to each other like a chant. Probably, through repetition, they keep things alive in their minds and maybe strive to find new and different meanings.

It would have been a much nicer story had the author been harshly concise with it.

My rating: 4/10

Image copyrights

Kenzaburo Oe - © https://groveatlantic.com/author/kenzaburo-oe/

Book cover - © https://www.amazon.in/Death-Water-Kenzaburo-Oe/dp/0857895486

Tomorrow by Graham Swift – A book review

Tomorrow is going to be a big day for Paula and her family, especially for her husband and her teenager twins. A revelation is going to be made; it could have a devastating consequence or pass off as an acceptance, not altering the togetherness they share.

Paula lies awake the night before the revelation, reminiscing about her entire life, the choices she made, the choices they made as a couple, the memories of the arrival and growing up of their children. She is mentally readying herself for the questions that are likely to surface tomorrow. A secret is going to be revealed.

Reading the initial pages, I felt happy about the book and the writing. I liked the suspense Graham Swift had created for the reader; I liked the way each chapter ended in an exclamatory manner. I like ramblings, the way writers like Swift and many others are able to articulate the mental agony and jubilation that goes on inside the heads of a few. However, when Paula’s adventures and musings had just started to amuse me, I felt she just kept rambling about the same things again and again. Her hackneyed musings felt like a senile old person’s ranting, which she isn’t; which I’d hoped Swift wasn’t. Probably, that was Swift’s precise motive to give it a natural touch but honestly, after a certain point, Paula’s memories came across to me as mere fillers and there wasn’t much to hold on to.

Often I ended up saying ‘You’ve mentioned that before.’ ‘Get on with it lady.’ ‘What’s the big thing about it?’

Definitely not the worst of books but surely not the best of Swift either. I laughed when I read a few reviews after completing the book; some even mentioned they have a new ‘Quit’ shelf after they read this one. Well, I wouldn’t dismiss it as that; a good attempt I’d say. Nonetheless, I couldn’t sustain my interest for Paula’ ramblings for long; I ended up not feeling much or strongly for her. And what I also felt missing was the father’s point of view, just like he’s missing on the front cover of the book and is seen alone on the back cover although the picture is one of togetherness.

MY RATING: 5/10

Image copyrights

Book cover - 

©https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/277532.Tomorrow

Graham Swift © https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/18/here-we-are-review-breathtaking-storytelling-from-graham-swift