the curious incident of a dog in the night-time by mark haddon

before i add my views of our october book read to my blog, let me begin by thanking the whole book club team for the first fridays of every month. if it weren't for each of you, i would never have read the books suggested. i remain eternally grateful to you.

after our september discussion on the old man and the sea, dr roy suggested, the curious incident of a dog in the night time by mark haddon.

i agree. a title of a book can't get more weird than that. in fact, i had neither heard of the author nor the title so when a friend asked me over the phone, so what's on for this month, i answered, some stupid curious dog at night. :-)

mark haddon is an honourable man to write about an autistic child. i believe he writes from years spent working with autistic children. some say that those with asperger's disorder thought his depiction was inaccurate. however, i personally think that it is his experience and his novel, even though it is fiction, he managed to bring out the portrayal of an emotionally dissociated mind in this literary debut to fantastic heights. a sensitive and bleakly funny writer, he made the novel a puzzle in itself, pieces falling into place as the story moved along.

in 2003, he won the commonwealth writers' prize overall best first book and the whitbread book of the year award, now known as the costa book awards, which is one of the most prestigious awards in the united kingdom.

the award, listed in 1971 was based on a popular list enjoyed by readers. the winners are chosen by five different judging panels from different shortlists of five different categories, best novel, best first novel, children's, poetry and biography.

presently haddon teaches creative writing for the arvon foundation and oxford university.

for our book club, we have been told to choose the best book for the year from all the books we have read. when someone asks me a question like that, i see it as most unfair because i think of all the books as great within their own realm. however, since i had to make a choice, i chose the life of pi but if i was told to choose the most remarkable book of the year, it would have been about this 15-year old very special young man. it gave me insight into the workings of a gifted autistic brain. i have had experience with autism firsthand and i regret to say that not only was i indifferent to it but was also unable to respond to it the way i should have. therefore the remarkability really lies, not in my understanding of the autistic mind, but in the understanding of myself in regards to autism.

there is also a true sense of there being some weakness with the people around christopher. rather than with him. it’s a very effective book that shows a little of what it might be like to see the world in a completely different way, as well as how difficult it is to be a parent to a child like that. from a parent's point of view, the story is heartbreaking. when you want to love your child and hold him and have him love you back, you are not able to do so because touching your child may make him more fearful of you. and then as a parent, you do not plan for this but it presents itself to you and you don't know how to handle it. it was definitely an eye-opening book for me. amazing in a very special way because it put me in touch with a part of me i did not know existed.

oliver, rose, susan, dave, shirley, jade, brian, penny, dr roy and i were present. arpita and a few others came later.

rose spoke of detachment.
christopher seems emotionally detached. but is this what invariably accompanies autistic people? but then, i also see this book as an emotional roller-coaster. christopher is entirely incapable of understanding the various grades of human emotion and he is someone who needs to present himself logic in every situation. he does not recognise them but emotions lurk behind virtually every clue he uncovers. amazingly still, his pitch never varies. he remains on course...

the book's primary charm i think is in the first person narration where like i said earlier, one is able to gain insight into the mind of people with autism. undoubtedly it can get as frustrating as it can be interesting and haddon's intention of constructing each character and personality through the eyes of christopher, makes him literally the only person to focus on. however, there are interesting perplexing perspectives throughout the book and haddon himself says that in this simple book there are many layers of irony and paradox all the way.

brian brings up the topic everyone wants to talk about. christopher is always explaining everything except people.
the strange details, the frequent diversions into mathematical problems and diagrams evoke and form a certain type of mental landscape we may not be able to relate to. are we empathetic? can we be? is this a mediocre story with an impairment to catch our attention? but aren't all stories made that way?

do we feel compassion for christopher? can we dislike him? is it right to do so? is he a lesser being? is he innocent?

i think maybe most readers will believe the total innocence of a character if he or she is mentally impaired. forest gump being an example. so even if christopher is an atheist, and he hits people and threatens to stab a woman who is helping him, he is still the innocent one. do we excuse him because he is autistic, even if he is selfish? or are all autistic children supposed to be selfish because they don't understand selflessness? or are we only making excuses for their behaviours?

oliver says that the boy talks to himself often and dave says he keeps repeating certain things. shirley adds to that saying he is very logical and penny further adds saying everything for him is a mathematical equation.
the entire story is interspersed with mathematical puzzles that christopher works out, some for his schoolwork but most, for him to calm down, it is mainly used as a method for him to understand the world. everything he does is precise and honest. everything has to be logical otherwise he is unable to digest it. and everything has to have an answer, a logical one.

we don't notice the everyday things of life, we don't remember everything. is it good to remember everything?

jade says thank god that we forget because if one has to remember every small detail then we would most probably be depressed as we impose on ourselves a very heavy burden that way.

oliver then points out that christopher doesn't prioritise, he doesn't filter and he can't discard the useless information but dr roy says the fact that he chooses the good days from the bad is his way of filtering. and rose adds that it in fact makes life more manageable for him.

i am sure this book will be different things to different people. some will think of christopher's father as a psychopath, i see him as a good man who was struggling to live a situation like this.

the author forms the character for us but it is the readers who bring to those characters what they want. different people paint different things. to some, it is a sad book. to me it was about lessons and almost the whole book had me smiling. i thought haddon sprinkled beautiful humour in it. was it a happy ending or a sad one? i thought it ended beautifully.

i liked the fact that haddon never once mentioned autism in his book. how do we really know this guy is autistic? isn't it beautiful that an author can write this way? he never cited a specific disability or diagnosis to describe christopher's condition. and i was truly blown away by its subtlety, intelligence and depth.

i wanted my 13-year old niece to read it straight after i was done with it. i thoroughly recommend it to all teenagers. i think perhaps, this book would have changed my life as a teenager if i had read it then. there are lessons to be learnt and beautiful ones too. this book is an absolutely easy and compelling read and also thoroughly engaging with experiences of life, family, fear, fun and adventure through the eyes of an emotionally detached teenager.

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time and the curiously irresistible literary debut of mark haddon has been one of the most fascinating journeys of my book life. if the old man and the sea touched my soul, this one grasped it completely.

the old man and the sea by ernest hemingway

a few months have passed since i have attempted my blog. every time i sit down to write something, my mind gets diverted to other priorities. the stuff is jumbled all over my thoughts and i think i have forgotten most of what i wanted to write but then, `writing' has always held special joy for me so like a magnet, i am pulled back to this, recalling what i would like to remember in years to come.

our september book read was hemingway's pulitzer prize winning novella, the old man and the sea. it also won him the nobel prize for literature in 1954. it was his last major work of fiction to be published.

a simple story of an old cuban fisherman called santiago, who spends several days alone in his skiff, catching a marlin who is finally devoured by a school of sharks before he manages to bring the remains to shore. immediately before this voyage he goes 84 days without a catch.

the simple and humble lives of santiago and his devoted young friend, manolin made it an inspiring read.

kim, penny, jade, brian, johny, anne and dr roy were there for the discussion. gertrude came in a little later.

dr roy finds it a simple story, beautifully told. she and i have read it before of course, a long time ago during our childhood days. there are certain books and poems or phrases of which, when i read in my life they always gives me a new meaning or a new interpretation every time i do a repeat reading. this book did just that.

hardly 125 pages, an easy flip, the old man at sea, the young boy and the marlin is perhaps one of the most positive books i have read about life.
i own easily around a hundred of positive, self help, motivational books, yet this simple novella gave me more motivation than i would have hoped to achieve from those 100 sitting on my shelf.

i see this novella as a wise parable that teaches several lessons, a different kind of holy book on its own. as i said, it pieces together different puzzles every time i read it. and just as i finished reading the last line of the book, i told dr roy that i wanted to read it again. and i think in years to come, i would read it many more times.

i would like to think that, in that simplicity of plain and easy narration, the book contains a wealth of psychological and interpersonal complexities. i see it as courage and strength, as hope and desire, as small achievements in life and as life itself. i see it as a simple browse for children and a marvel for adults.

with this book, hemingway did to me what martel did with the life of pi. he made me santiago. i was in the middle of the sea taking on the once-in-a-lifetime catch of a prize marlin. i faced physical and emotional challenges that only the sea and i could understand. i also experienced physical, emotional and spiritual pain. i was alone with the elements and i was not sure if i was a part of them anymore. yet, i saw hope where there was none and i saw myself hanging on to it with a strength of will i myself was not sure i had.

this story featured santiago, the old man, manolin, the young boy and the ferocity of the human spirit. this short novel is fierce, full of vibrant energy and humanity, all the while being a slave to the realities of finite power, of the inability to struggle against something greater than yourself. crafted excellently, i was incredibly fascinated, impressed and touched. it helped me understand a part of myself, of life and a part of the challenges we are always facing out there.

in short, it touched my soul.

however, my passion and love for this novella was not shared by penny. penny found it very pathos. she also found it stupid that the old man was preserving his dignity by pretending he has food, and was playing nonsensical games with the boy. jade at this point, commented that there is absolute honesty in the relationship between the old man and the boy. to them, the game seemed almost joyful.

it is interesting to know that there are views which exist beyond our comprehension, and i don't mean that negatively. i have always been attracted to perceptions totally different from mine. thank you penny.

penny also brings up the fact that santiago doesn't seem to go beyond dimaggio. at this point brian asks us the question, what is really so great about this guy dimaggio?

a baseball legend, and the best or should i say the greatest baseball player during his time, joe dimaggio, who played for the new york yankees made an impression on every single american. he was loved, admired and worshipped by those who watched him play. he made records and he broke them. his most famous was a 56-game-hitting-streak, which meant that he hit at least one ball in every game for 56 games. everyone had confidence and faith in him and many were devastated by his death caused by lung cancer in 1999.

dimaggio's father, an italian immigrant was a fisherman. when dimaggio was young, he followed his father and learnt the art of fishing but he loved baseball more and worked his way up to become a professional player in san francisco first, and then later, with the yankees in new york.

i think the old man made a connection there. kim says maybe there are very few strong figures he could connect with. kim, the artist also loves and indulges in fishing. she says the book is a real work of art. just like art, where you have to deal with one layer after another, pain too is a layer beneath another in life.

brian talks about travelling alone referring to the old man alone at sea. i can relate to that. he says when you travel alone, you discover priceless things about yourself, about your experiences and the observances you make but then at some point in time, you actually wonder how nice it would be to share with someone what you are experiencing, so that its not wasted, something like leaving some kind of legacy or lineage or a even a kind of witnessing. i thought that was an interesting point. when i travel alone and however much i love it, i still want to come back and share it with my family and friends. jade says, yes of course, any wonderful moment or achievement that you have in your life, you will definitely want to share with people you love.

but then santiago also claims that you are never alone at sea, the elements are with him, there is a lot of teeming life, birds, fish, sharks etc etc. and then, there is the thing about the journey being more important than the destination, where even though santiago lost his fish, and came back defeated, he was not defeated at all. some think maybe he waited for this final catch, final victory, final return with his catch, flesh or bones, to finally lay himself to sleep.

brian also brings up something else which made me think deeper about books and what they have done to my thoughts, my perceptions and my life on the whole. he says that he always thought of hemingway as this macho dude, and he had this mindset about him which was not really great, so this book came as a surprise and really moved him with the compassion and sensitivity that hemingway so successfully induces in the characters.

i say it made me think deeper because every book that had a title i scorned at or an author i did not think much of, proved to be the best contributions to my life.

penny also asks about the dream the old man has of the lions in africa. what could the significance be? brian is quick to answer that the symbol of the lion is of pride, power and strength. maybe the old man was holding on to all that. maybe he felt good thinking of that knowing in actuality he was just a frail old man.

jade talks of the natural order of things. i call it the `is' ness of things. animals kill enough to eat. but humans kill for greed and power. men go fishing and hunting for the thrill of it. animals do it as a form of survival. so is santiago wrong in killing the marlin?

in the book, santiago respects the marlin, there is a part where he says it doesn't matter who kills whom. at times he regrets hooking the marlin. there is a part where he says, i wish it was a dream, i wish i did not hook it.

but the isness of things is also shown in the metaphorical value of this fable. there is an obvious man versus nature story here, where man needing nature for food is juxtaposed with the fact that nature is usually stronger than man and therefore can lead man to destruction.

gertrude says it is a very dry book but hemingway describes the fish like it can be seen in national geographic. he possessed an excellent art and skill of writing that made him deserve all the critical acclaims received.

hemingway is said to have based this book on his friend, confidant and boat companion, gregorio fuentes. he admired fuentes' courage and wisdom. fuentes swam through shark-infested waters to rescue a drowning man, survived few hurricanes at sea, and always knew through whatever hunches, where the biggest fishes would be running.

he met fuentes in the gulf of mexico where they took shelter from storm, and after their first conversation, hemingway immediately hired fuentes as his boatman. he said this of fuentes, `that man would rather fish than eat or sleep', which really showed his admiration of him. he loved and adored fuentes' simple and honourable life.

he spent many afternoons with fuentes fishing and at one such moment, one of the boatmen commented, they were out all day and did not catch a fish except a barracuda which cut somebody's hand and made a big mess with blood all over the hold. i would assume, he used that incident for his book too.

it also is a wonder how such a talented writer took his life in july 1961 at his home with a shotgun. maybe having four wives is a major cause of depression. hmm. but he was said to be suffering from increasing mental problems and depression. he was even admitted into some mental institution where his depression was seemingly treated, however, he committed the act of suicide soon after he was released.

ernest miller hemmingway's works maybe criticised to an extent of saying his novels are nonsense but today they belong to american literature and even though there will always be people who think his novels are rubbish, he will always have readers who will admire his work, me being one of them. when i finished his book, i wondered, how many authors in america could pack such a punch in a novella, a little over a hundred and twenty pages.

ratatouille the movie directed by brad bird

there are a few movies that i watch and don't even think of writing about them, let alone sit down and carefully organise my thoughts into a blog review or a synopsis.

ratatouille has made a lavish entry into my thoughts. i loved every bit of that pixar animation. the last time i enjoyed an animation so much was when i was with the lion king, disney's production in 1994. simba, the new cub born to king mufasa and queen sarabi took my breath away just like remy did this time.

i must add that the only creatures i really feel disgusted with in the world are rats. and the last animation of rats, flushed away did not inspire me to write about it.

however, a blue rodent, remy (voice by patton oswalt) in the latest brad bird concoction is intelligent, honest, clean, and has a talent - an exquisite sense of smell. his culinary aspirations take him to a five star restaurant where he becomes a chef!! it is the height of imagination but then the movie starts with the most popular french legend chef, auguste gusteau's (brad garett) new book, everyone can cook, so i guess why not a rat huh?

remy is a rebel, a french country rat who is aware what paris looks like even before seeing her. he walks on his feet because he doesn't want to get his hands dirty. he is refined and different. he refuses to believe what his rat clan say about humans and how bad they are. he watches gusteau on a popular tv cooking show while stealing from the kitchen of an old lady and he is impressed with what gusteau says and is positively inspired by gusteau's culinary skills. none of the other rats share his interest in haute cuisine. and YES!! he also READS!! :-) how does one not freak out with this movie?

ratatouille is a co-production of pixar and disney. preceding the movie, pixar serves a short animation called `lifted'. in it a novice alien pilot tries to abduct a sleeping boy with disastrously amusing results. the short, acts as a good appetizer but i think it would have been better if it had something to do with some alien rebel.

when remy is accidentally swept into a storm drain, he turns up at gusteau's restaurant in paris, which has fallen on hard times. gusteau is dead, the place has been demoted to three stars - and the place is taken over by skinner (ian holm), a scary and cunning man who wants to own the place.

fate lands remy into linguini's (lou romano) hands. the spirit of gusteau (though we are made to understand that he is only a figment of remy's imagination) encourages remy to surreptitiously turn a soup which is ruined by the garbage boy linguini, into something delectable. he therefore saves linguini’s back by fixing the soup. this leads to linguini being hired at the restaurant and when the talentless linguini is ordered to duplicate this masterpiece of a soup he is forced to form an odd culinary partnership with remy which eventually brings gusteau’s restaurant renewed fame.

they come to an unusual method of communication. hiding under linguini's toque......am impressed baby...:)....remy pulls and directs the young man's hair like a puppeteer to steer him to the proper ingredients and spices.
linguini falls in love with colette (janeane garofalo), the only woman in the gusteau kitchen, and with more than a little help from remy.

again with the help of remy, linguini finds out that he is gusteau's son and has been willed the place. everything is fine until a time when linguini reprimands remy and he walks off. linguini is unable to serve his special dishes and resigns to his room until remy shows up and linguini is forced to tell the truth to his assistants and cooks in the kitchen.
they all take off their aprons and leave. we are meant to understand that everyone thinks he is crazily bullshitting.
seeing everyone leave including colette, linguini hangs his head down and sighs! linguini and remy are out of ideas until remy's dad (brian dennehy) and the whole rat family come to the rescue.

the climax which ends everything beautifully is when anton ego (peter o'toole), the snobbish and fearful critic enjoys the dessert (ratatouille) prepared for him which is the same dish his mother used to feed him when he was young. he insists meeting up with the chef.

an excellent movie about love, inspiration, honesty, bravery, appreciation and aspirations. it is about fulfilling one's dream and going beyond preconceived boundaries. it is about capabilities and accomplishments. it is about desire and intent. i loved it for its sheer inventiveness and artistry.

with astounding animation, inspirational messages, and an endearing cast, it is perhaps one of the best animations i have seen. i think some of the characters look physically modelled after the actors. bird does a brilliant job of facial expressions and dialogues. it plays against expectation and raises the bar for humour. the music perfectly complements the visual and i noticed that it slowly helped transport us into the story at every stage.

a delicious animated delight which will most definitely satisfy your appetite. it is a fun movie, something that may not make you laugh throughout but will make you leave the hall with a smile. also fast pace with memorable characters and pretty good humour. it is sophisticated enough for the delight of the adults and simple enough for children to enjoy it. a film above mediocrity and is almost close to being genius.

borders book club on the sailor who fell from grace with the sea

its the friday we have been waiting for. the book club day.

dr roy and i arrive at starbucks 15 minutes before time and we see faridah sitting there. this is our first encounter with her.

i pick up the god delusion by richard dawkins and am browsing through it when this gentleman comes to inquire about the book discussion we are having here. later i come to know that he is sam.

a while after that, an elegant and charming couple, oliver and penny walk in.

brian and jade complete the circle.

sam has not read. he just wants to listen. it is his first experience.

brian summarises the story basically for sam's knowledge. he talks of noboru, fusako and ryuji and their connections to each other.

it is now open to the floor.

faridah says the writer's background has affected the story.

like i said in my review, mishima the man and mishima the author cannot really be differentiated.

faridah also mentions the time, set way back during the war when people were trained to think like soldiers, samurais.

penny doesn't think it is about any one time in history. this book is more in the universal sense. she talks of the children. repressed kids.

well, yes imagine locking a child in his room at night. is it unthinkable?

penny has much to say. she is lively and full of views. the mother doesn't understand the child. she keeps her references to mother, son and sailor. are the names of these characters of any importance at all? the mother obviously knows something is going on with the child to have locked him up.

brian says something interesting. he sees it as a reflection of fear of childhood that the adults have. childhood denotes freedom and society is against it. he raises a simile to the pressure cooker, when you don't open the cover to release the steam, it comes out all warped and twisted.

oliver is sweet. he speaks politely and contributes a lot with his short sentences. reminds me of a time when i had to make a summary of this whole long story and i made such a terrible mess of it. he would have come out with an A+.

he says the boys dehumanise their surroundings. adult life is a bit dull. and jade laughs...a bit is perhaps an understatement.

brian insists that the whole thing seems phoney, superficial, he cites the murder of ryuji as an example. it is almost like a pagan sacrifice taking place on some wasteland, like a holy place, way out from everyone.

orlando feels a strong sense of japanese values. regimented and compartmentalised lives. along with him, penny adds their experience in disneyland and how they witnessed the japanese girls wearing the same type of dress like a uniform and carrying the same coloured balloons.

regimented or discipline? hmm.

we side-track a little. faridah talks of malaysians driving luxurious cars but still carry bullock-cart mentalities. and she goes into the malaysian mindset of desiring professionals out of their children, you know like engineers, doctors and the like. and children who take up art, theatre and other jobs are a definite let-down and disgrace.

brian and jade stress on a sense of loss. the loss of a dream.

of ryuji's? of fusako's? of noboru's?

as i ask this, i still cannot get over mishima's brilliance.

dr roy asks a general question. what do we think about ryuji, the sailor?

oliver says there is a parallel with noboru, the boy. they both yearn for the same thing. the freedom and to be away, the reason, noboru is disillusioned when ryuji wants to give up that heroic life for a dreary monotonous, good for nothing land life.

brian says ryuji is a good man. an innocent man. the tragedy is really his. neither does he achieve the glory at sea nor on land.

loneliness is apparent in all three. they are contained in their good lives, they excel in what they do, but they are all lonely. isn't that a misfortune in itself or an irony?

we touch on the actress and penny says she represents everything that has gone wrong with modern japan.

oliver compares the superficiality of the actress to the trust and innocence of the sailor.

brian says he is aware there is this unattainability of things, everything seems exquisitely beautiful but just a little beyond reach, and everything is wonderful but brittle.

it is affecting.

penny is quick to state, but then isn't that life? the grass is always greener on the other side right?

and brian says, yes but mishima doesn't point it out. he doesnt use the language, but it is still suggested.

i think back to his brilliance.

and it is here that i must mention how much i love his description of the sea when he compares and depicts it to be a woman. penny reads out that part to the whole group. and again, i fall in love with that paragraph.

brian talks of the culture. paradoxical. and surprisingly though, the japanese are at ease with the contradiction.

faridah and jade talk about the softness and care of the japanese people. jade points out that the actress says presents don't matter, it is the wrapping that's important. the little things and their presentation and attention to details seem to hold priority.

but then, these are the same people who have come up with the popular mangas (comics in nihongo) which are adapted into animes (animations) full of sex and violence.

brian agrees.

we talk of superficiality, artificiality, and manipulation.

dr roy mentions how manipulative noboru is at the chinese dinner where his mother and the sailor are about to inform him of their togetherness.

brian then asks her if she has enjoyed the book. she does not quite know how to answer that. the beginning is not very impressive but then she has not completed the book, so an opinion will not justify the question.

penny loves the description of the kitten's death. it is mishima's magnificence in directing the readers to the conclusion of the ceremony performed on ryuji at the end. so much is reiterated with silence, indication, and absence.

an outstanding writer.

oliver observes the contrast of portraying a homely pet, fluffy and loving, verses the heartlessness and violence of the act performed on it.

the structuring is superb. the two seasons. summer and winter, and with it, the attestation of the passage of time and the wonderful sunshine of happiness in disparity to the bleak and cold of disasters.

the japanese have to involve the weather in everything, and appropriately so too.

brian pretty much wraps it up by saying, mishima was incredibly brave as a writer.

lydia, the book has significance even if the title does not appeal to you. so do read it when you can. sarah, thank you for reading my blog. i am sure you would have contributed plenty if you had come for this one. kim, we missed your warmth and input tremendously.

the three of you missed the sailor and the sea, please don't miss the old man and the sea by hemingway, its only an hour's read (126 pages). don't want to miss your ideas this time.

ciao. until next month then.

the sailor who fell from grace with the sea by yukio mishima

saturday aug 4, 2007

i make an appointment to meet a client at klcc. i reach there early so i rush up to kinokuniya on the 4th floor and frantically look for yukio mishima's (his real name being kimitake hiraoka) book, the sailor who fell from grace with the sea.

when jade first suggests it for our book club, i look at the title and it puts me off. what kind of stupid title is that i think. but having a love for books must mean that i take care never to judge a book by its cover, and in this case by its title too. so i leave my thoughts behind.

this is my first encounter with mishima. i start reading the 180 paged book. it takes me less than an hour to finish 110 pages. it is a smooth read. no complications. nothing special. i need to go now. and will come back tomorrow to complete the book.

sunday, aug 5, 2007

i have only half a mind to go back and complete the book. i must mention this. perhaps for some reason if i had not gone back to read it today, it would have been one of my greatest regrets.

i complete the remaining pages in half an hour. what can i really say? i close the book and close my eyes a while. this is conceivably the most disturbing book i have read. i think to myself that the author must be dreadfully warped to end the book like that. so i decide to read about him.

sure enough, now that i have read him, possibly i understand the book better.

i ought to mention that mishima san performed seppuku in 1970 at the age of 45.
after having read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Mishima i think his life is as interesting and depressing as his death.

the book starts with a 13-year-old protagonist, noboru narrating his everyday thoughts. he lives with his widowed mother, fusako. they meet a sailor, ryuji who falls in love with her. so everything seems fine until ryuji decides to give up the sea to embrace a life of love, comfort and security ashore by marrying fusako.

noboru belongs to a clique of 13-year-old boys who consider themselves geniuses and think that the world is hypocritical, empty and meaningless. they are intelligent and act against societal norms. they are disgusted with their fathers, something which surprises me until i read mishima's relationship with his dad. their speeches contain almost shakespearian brilliance despite bordering insanity most of the time.

a sailor giving up the sea is perceived to be one of the worst kind of betrayals by these boys. someone who is full of bravado and masculine glory of searching for the horizon and always leaving women behind is now changing his ideals with inklings of romantic love, home, hearth and comfort. noboru who first idolizes him cannot forgive this deceit. ryuji must somehow remain a pure hero, uncorrupted by sentimentality. noboru must do something desperate to avenge this betrayal and so the boys secretly think of his elimination.

the group has it fatally wrong. this book deals with the cruel and animalistic nature of adolescent boys and their unreasonable thought process. their actions are repulsive and perverse. their obsession with death and their belief that a man can only prove his freedom by killing is totally distorted.

the fact that mishima allows noboru’s beliefs to remain unchallenged, and even to prevail, suggests that this sort of credence reflected his own views. and having read about him, i know it is okay to make that conclusion.

in fact, i can feel mishima's anger and disappointment throughout this book. mishima the man and mishima the author is not much different. having said that, i still think this book should be looked at separately and appreciated for its paradoxes, of beauty equated with violence and death, of passion and careless thoughts, of the yearning to be loved and the freedom away from it, of the ugliness and beauty of life and finally of courage and fear.

the story is elegantly wrought and mishima has distilled it down to its essential elements. it has surprised me with its complexity towards the end because in the beginning it seemed very simple. but slowly i got sucked into his bizarre and glorious (if i may describe as that) world. i will most definitely venture into his other books. since it is simple reading, its great for beginners. and though the theme is pretty disturbing, it does reveal some truths about human nature.

above all, i think it is a nihilistic masterpiece!!

borders book club on the time traveler's wife by audrey niffenegger

july 13, 2007

i have an appointment at 1830 hours at kelana jaya, giant. darn!!! my client is late. he turns up at 1920 hours. i scuttle through the contents of my suggestions with him and rush out of the building to drive like a maniac to reach borders, the curve at 2005 hrs.

shafinas, brian and lydia are already there, chatting. after a while jade comes in, takes her place and the discussion starts.

i am glad to see lydia. i first meet her at the holland film festival, we promise to meet a few times after that but our different schedules keep us from enjoying each other's company. she is a sweet young and intelligent future author. :-). it is only because of her, i complete the book in one day. lydia is asked to start the forum. she begins by declaring it is the most beautiful book she has ever read. she was hooked to it.

brian eyes her and speculates. (this is only my observation). he has this intimidating look. he is definitely not geared up to agree with her. he later says that he tries hard to like the book, the way his sister and mother liked it. but i think, some books are perhaps not meant for some people. brian says he thinks the book is trying too hard, he senses the writer being at work. furthermore, like i said before, i do not know what he sees in `the road', he must have this real diversed way of perceiving contents. it would have been great though, to have his analysis on the life of pi. regrettably, he was absent then.

jade wishes to identify if the book is about claire or is it about henry. i blurt out almost immediately ...it is about love and sex. hmm!! no one seems overwhelmingly delighted that i say that. oops. ok lets leave it at that.

the author is smart. she gives us both perspectives. can we really say it is just about one person?

jade likes the fact that henry is a crook, and that he actually enjoys being that especially when he teaches his younger self to do the unthinkable, pick pockets.

shafinas is quiet and composed. she only responds when we throw a question at her. until then, she listens to all our psychoanalysis. wiser is she who listens more and talks less. her view is that the author has portrayed claire to be perfect, an absolute angel, loyal, good, smart and faithful to henry. she is not in favour of niffenegger bringing in the infidelity of claire's moment with gomez. it is such a letdown to the perfect outline and build up of the angel.

makes her more human doesnt it? but then, is it a flaw or a strength? hmm.

why does niffenegger separate the book into two parts, the first and second. jade wonders if we have picked up any shifts.

everyone is quiet, a little unsure. maybe the marriage in the second part makes claire secure. we do not quite know.

jade puts it beautifully. in the first part, claire waits for henry to appear. in the second, she waits for him to disappear. hmm. we think about it. yeah, its true.

is this time travel an ability or a disease? a gift or a curse? would anyone be keen to live like that? not knowing when you will suddenly disappear into another realm of time, and then coming back to find out that you can't really change anything at all? we all have a consensus on that. definitely none of us are too thrilled to live like that. but i am sure it would do us no harm to have some tips on the `empat ekor'.

being henry is not easy. but he has adjusted, regulated, accepted and lived a complete life despite the condition. dr roy says it is frightening to abruptly find your self elsewhere and to survive through it.

is this book about time or timelessness?

shafinas says it is about hope and faith. it is about claire's bravery, the wait and the confidence that henry will appear sometime.

dr roy stresses on oneness, the soul mate that you find and the one you know will accept you for who you are.

brian says sometimes you can just meet someone but have this immediate connection to him, while others, you can spend a whole lifetime with and never have any chemistry at all. he likes the part when henry meets claire for the first time in the library and how henry has this natural affinity to move towards claire and gets attracted to her presence. bizzarely, there is a reason for everything even when we do not know what they are at that time.

jade speaks of niffenegger and infers that if she had perhaps contained the whole book into a shorter period of time or if she had made it more enclosed, it would have gotten more depth. she gives the example of two movies, the red lantern and kidnap. in the red lantern, the scene is the old courtyard and everything happens within it. it is more intense, full and deep, not at all contrived.

does this book seem terribly unnatural and manufactured then? does it seem unreal and like brian says, a book of `trying too hard'?

claire doesn't have anything constant with henry disappearing like that. but then the disappearing itself is constant, says jade.

lydia says that she is upset because claire's life seems to be about waiting for henry. she does not have an achievement of her own.
jade says that it is an achievement just to wait for henry for that long.
dr roy says, it comes back to kindred spirits.

shafinas thinks the book shows claire to be high spirited, strong and enthusiastic. a person like that should have achieved much more in her life. but they don't mention anything like that...it is only henry that she focuses on.

brian says niffenegger hasn't really explored the pain and the euphoria of this random life. the trouble of holding on to your senses is not something one can easily do. the constant wonder of this timelessness is not communicated.

dr roy says even during the war years, there are agonising moments just waiting for the people to return not knowing if they will ever come back. isn't that a heartrending feeling?

brian's query is directed at us. does the book move us?

lydia of course says yes, she finds it like a love letter beautifully written.
dr roy loves the beginning of the book and the sentence structures, the way it is written, and yes love always does move us in one way or the other as well as crafting eternal optimists out of us.
shafinas is puzzled, jade says she does not really get lost in it.

for me, i state that it does not really move me. i think a book moves me and has captured me completely when i am a character in it, with this one, i only imagined a situation where i am henry and i have this ability/curse to deal with. how would i survive it? but other than that, i can't say i was immersed in it like i was with the life of pi or even the road.

lets hope we don't fall out with the sailor who fell from grace with the sea. that's our book for next month by yukio mishima san. looking forward to it. sarah and kim, we missed your reflections and views. good luck with the exams. we expect to see you next month. happy reading. :-)

the time traveler's wife by audrey niffenegger

june has been a busy month. on the 29th, in the evening, i get a gift from my sister, and it is of course the time traveler's wife by audrey niffenegger, our next book club read.

july 1st, the next day i finish the book. an easy, light and smooth read probably because it is modern fiction. a love story, albeit with an unconventional format.
or is it science fiction? have not been reading much into the lovey stuff actually. prefer the literary type. this one has too much love and too much sex in it. but good for a change.

lydia, a friend, says she adores this book and has read it a few times. so my curiosity is raised and that is how i finish it in a day.

highly original. a soaring love story. a life long passion. detailed scenes. and dates. dates and dates.

in the beginning. i flip back the pages to check the dates since henry de tamble is travelling so often. after a while i realise that most of the time zones are chronologically following clare abshire's life.

henry is the time traveler. and claire is the time traveler's wife.

henry jumps around unpredictably in the timestream, appearing in the future or the past at random. claire is someone who is normal, who adjusts her life to the missing henry every now and then. the marriage is a challenge especially when there is difficulty in conceiving a child due to henry's chrono displacement disorder. essentially henry travels through time like some people have seizures or multiple personalities. when he is stressed or is unable to cope with a situation, boom...he disappears leaving his clothes behind and appears elsewhere in a different time zone, naked.

he revisits claire many times in her life, the youngest is when she was 6. we see how this impairment affects him, and what kind of adjustments he has to make to cope with these time travels. despite the unbelievable nature of time travel, niffenegger manages to keep us with her and not to question it but to go along with what she has to present.

i think love is a powerful emotion, more than that of even fear which can cripple you. perhaps for claire, the risk is worth the reward of seeing henry for whatever time she is able to. the risk is always worth the reward when there is love. it makes us the eternal optimists of our lives. with love everything seems possible and achievable.

needless to say, i loved the references to music in this book. an extremely convenient way for niffenegger to clearly define the era that the narrative is taking place in. i read later in some interview that she actually visits bands and listens to their songs, goes for their concerts during her free time. i think music is like good art, they speak to people in different ways.

the past, present and future intersect resulting in hinted information revealed earlier even though the actual experience cannot be altered. the time traveling is interesting, niffenegger does a wonderful job of it and she places the sequences in an eventual `easy to understand' form and therefore it unfolds well and our minds can piece together the story as easily as if there were no jumping dates. a lot of thought has been put into getting the time travelling right. great work.

i hear they are making a movie with eric bana as henry and rachel mcadams as claire, due to be released middle of next year. would be interesting to watch it.

as always, i immerse myself in any book that i read. after i finally put down this one, i thought to myself what if, what if it happened to me? would i have liked it? is it a disadvantage? if it were an illness and i had it, would i be happy with it, having the chance to know all that i don't and the chance of bringing back future thoughts, would i want it?

tough question. good book. smart author. hope she writes something else with less love and sex. :-)

musings. on exams. my fair lady. farewell to friends. mother's day. shrek3. pirates of the c.. book club on the life of pi. the namesake - the movie

i leave for hanoi on june 12. another one of those air asia free one million flights that allow me to enjoy the gift of travel. i set off alone this time. and i do it with a smile. :-)

much to say. more to do. therefore, i will make each part brief.

examination.

may 24. my sixth level exam on rfp (registered financial planner). there are seven levels. the seventh being the toughest.

the sixth level has a reputation of being easy. i wish it is so.

i sit for the 2-5pm paper. i finish in an hour, not for the reason that it is a breeze but because there isn't much i can do. i give it my best. tough paper. but i am positive.

i will pass.


my fair lady - the musical

may 19. raymond invites me to watch my fair lady in the plenary hall in the klcc convention centre.. a first for me. life truly begins at 40.

he buys the cheapest tickets (rm 100 each) and does not forget to bring his binoculars. i get a chance with it when he feels he wants to rest his eyes. we sit far far away ...hmm. right at the back. but we are not alone. :-)

getting acquainted once again with eliza doolittle and prof higgins does wonders to my soul.

anyone who plays eliza is bound to be compared with audrey hepburn and julie andrews, and in all reality they are the best.

i forget her name, (will check later with raymond), but she does an excellent job of originality. prof higgins is as good if not better. the rest of the cast makes the play an absolute thrill. i enjoy every second of my rm 100 seat. ;))

i sing along with the timeless songs of the rain in spain, i could have danced all night, wouldn't it be loveRly, with a little bit of luck, get me to the church on time and on the street where you live. so does raymond. we shout at the top of our voices and get glares from everyone.

the musical is long. almost 3 hours. i don't have time to stay back and talk to raymond about the play. i rush to catch the last lrt at 2345 hrs. the plenary hall is 25 minutes away from the lrt station. i walk super fast. walk. skip. run. walk again. run again. phew!! i barely make it.


migration.

two of our colleagues. gurbinder and his wife, ravin leave for adelaide. they have two lovely sons. gurbinder and i go a long way back. we are friends. ravin comes later into my life but we grow in laughter, sharing and in friendship.

may 10. a few of us get together. old and new colleagues of the insurance industry. we give them a farewell lunch party at bangles, a north indian restaurant just opposite great eastern life.

this again is a first. and definitely the last.

bangles is slow in service and uninteresting in cuisine. a regret for everyone, but an experience.

we all give speeches, individually. they are touched by it all. we bid farewell and part. this reminds me, i have to write to them tonight.

we promise to keep in touch.


mother's day

may 13. we celebrate ma's day in genting. i get a free superior room at the first world hotel. i take ma, didon, yana and putul. we have breakfast at home and drive up to genting in time to check in. we pack lunch and have it there.

in the evening we take ma around in the wheelchair and then send her back to the room along with yana and putul.

in the evening, i take didon for the fly defy-gravity show (which again i get free for two) at the pavilion. a great krypton stage with all the crystals pointing upwards, a master illusionist with sexy dancers and chinese aerial acrobats fill our two happy hours to the brim.

one thousand years into the future, 2 tribes - the waterlings and the skyfires, fight to survive.

the evil skyfires who are bigger and stronger also have the advantage of flight. with every full moon, hundreds of skyfires (the hua chen 14-member acrobatic troupe from henan province, china)take flight to attack the virtually defenceless waterlings. cowering in fear, the waterlings hide to survive.

desperate, they call upon yv to save them. yves barta fantasmagorie (yv)from france is the wizard savior of the waterlings. he tells them there is only way they can defeat the skyfires. they have to learn how to fly.

so can you imagine, we look up sometimes, at the stage some other times and on the sides so as to catch all the flying characters!! what fun. we keep pointing out to each other, look there, look here, look look look!! jeez!!

a great ma's day. being together means a lot. putul makes us beautiful cards with her crazy creative art work. one for me too. she finds a way to make me her mother. she insists that her head is from my stomach while her legs emerge from didon's. didon jokes saying no wonder she gets all the kicks.

it is cold. we buy dinner and walk back to the room. pizza and mcds. the day ends well. the next day, we wake up late, check out and drive back to the heat of kuala lumpur.


shrek 3

may 22. just two days before my sixth level rfp exam. i have two free tickets. didon is busy. she asks me to take putul. i do not want to take her. she is a professional at `not sitting still'. in the movie hall, she wants to go to the toilet every half an hour. she turns around and stares at everyone or walks the steps next to the seats. she is constantly restless. so i say no way. i love the first and second ogre films and i was not going to miss paying attention to this one.

so instead, charan, didon's colleague takes her place.

king harold dies. there are two heirs to the far far away throne. shrek himself and arthur pendragon, a nephew. however, prince charming wishes to get to the throne first. the story revolves around that.

oh yes. shrek and fiona have cute ogre kids. hehehehe.

merlin is there too. and arthur with lancelot.

there is a new addition. puss in boots (antonio banderas).

the donkey and dragon have kids? hmm.

all the fairy tales are here...as we know it and after we know it, the good, the bad the ugly, taking each others' places.

do i feel they are running out of stories? or is this sequel an absolute necessity? are they perhaps putting in a lot of stuff to distract the audience from the main story? or can it be that they have no more fresh ideas? well, i do not know.

it is just that the first two shreks still make me smile. however, it is easy to feel disappointed with this one. but then, i'll say this..that anything and i mean anything, with the ogre is always good fun for me. :-)


pirate of the carribeans - at world's end

may 26. two days after my rfp 6th level exam. thank goodness it's over. ;-) see, chee kiang, charan and i head for the cineleisure, 35km away from home to watch it. we are late. a friend of see's is in the hospital so he has to stop by for a while. i ask shamshul to meet us at the movie hall directly.

free tickets again. :-)

am i disappointed after the curse of the black pearl and dead man's chest? hell, nooooooo!!!

i love every moment of this mad fun. hehehehe. actually, how do they do the davy jones' beard thingy...full of worms? goodness! reminds me of the time i had to wash off the maggots from the dustbin. took me three hours to get rid of them completely.

however, i think, i seriously think some editing will do the film good. it is too long and some parts are unnecessary. well, that's what i think. :-O

we come back home late. everyone is tired. i still think of those worms. hope i don't dream of them. @#*!!


borders book club the curve damansara

june 1

we meet and talk of the life of pi.

brian is missing. it is only jade, sarah, dr roy, kim and me. kim walks in later though. lydia, hope the car gets okay and you are able to make it the next time.

we have much to contribute. the topics divert to other things. to youth, to education, to religion in malaysia, to bride burning etc.

we see this book theologically. but as the book promises the belief in god, we ask ourselves if our thoughts have changed.

we talk of animals, humans and the relationship with each other.

we talk of the zoo. and how we visit those animals behind the cages, and the irony of it all is that they see us behind cages too.

it is a book of fresh ideas, imagination and as jade says best discovered, not recommended.

kim walks in and comments on my blog. she says it has helped her to continue reading with a renewed interest. she likes the part where i say the book is a delicious treat to savour.

it is pleasure to know my blog can create a spark of passion in someone, anyone, to read. i am happy even if it is only a spark. thank you kim.

and at this point, i must bring in mj (maryjo), a very dear friend of mine in the US. she reads my blog and tells me that she will name her next pet orange juice. frankly, i do not know how to express this joy i feel. she gives meaning to the things i share with her. thank you mj for being as beautiful as you are.

sarah goes on about page 5 and how piscine gets his name. it has touched her soul and she plans to share this book with her students.

dr roy has much to say. pi advises parker cautioning him of his safety, he tells him, `beware of man',

food for thought.

we talk of the circles in our lives and what they contain. how many circles do we have? do we just live within these circles or do we attempt to go beyond them?

we talk of religion and how martel mocks it in a certain way, when the three religious leaders come together and are adamant that their religion is the best, and above that, condemning the rest.

dr roy says martel is smart to characterise pi's parents that way, making his father a non-believer and his mother the way she is. otherwise, just the mention of embracing islam will be explosive in any hindu household.

is this philosophical? is it a religious experience? or maybe a spiritual one?

it is great travelling with pi, being him at one time, being parker the next, or just experiencing and tasting the surroundings. i still love the algae island. :-)

will make the travel to hanoi a success before i come back and gorge on the time traveler's (it is spelt with a single t right?) wife. see you next month.


the namesake - the movie by mira nair

almost always i am disappointed when i watch a cinematic interpretation of any books i read. so since a year back i decide to watch the movies for what they present.

but do i still compare with the book? yes in a way, i do. but i also know that it takes a genius to present a movie the way i imagine it in the book.

in the namesake, i feel the characters and the main story is only partially developed.

after the book, the review of which i paste on my blog, i wait desperately to watch the movie.

as i enter the hall, i expect nothing.

and perhaps because of that, i think tabu does a great job. it is not over the top. seems simple and perhaps real. irfan khan is not that bad himself. i like the pace. but some parts seem disconnected. again, perhaps it is because i know the book and see things missing here and there.

zuleikha is prettier on the net pictures. she is ok. maybe, just maybe a few elements are missing in her part but i think she does a good job otherwise.

kal penn and sahira nair are fine too but no particular actor is outstanding. the movie seems mediocre.

didon likes it and perhaps for some it lives up to their expectation. to some others, it is just a pure bad film.

to me, it isn't such a terrible film but i think mira nair can definitely give more meaning to the `namesake'.

do i recommend it to others? maybe i will just say, to avoid disappointment, either read the book or watch the movie. don't do both. :-)

the life of pi by yann martel

i do not know what it is about every book i read, but i am always so mesmerized at the way they are narrated. perhaps we admire most about others what we do not own or are ourselves. my life long dream has been to write a book of pulitzer/booker quality. yeah, i do have a pretty untamed imagination.

as soon as i finished the book, the first question i had in mind was, no not about god, :-) but if this story carried any truth at all.

i frantically searched the net, checked if tsimtsum existed at all or if it sunk, asked around and finally got a written journal from martel himself claiming it to be a work of fiction.

was i disappointed? in a way, yes. i would have wanted the algae island and the meerkats to have been true. they seemed an exact replica of some of the wild stuff i constantly dream about. mum says the kolkata museum houses such an algae.

however, the book being a complete fiction, only expands my admiration for martel. he made an impossible story credible. that is how simply i would put it. it renewed my faith in the ability of novelists to generate the most outrageous journal into something plausible and may i add, believable.

the reading was mainly on the lrt to and back from my appointments. there were times i would laugh out loud and then suddenly realise i was on a public transport. or i would miss my stop and take the same train back. i literally got lost in this story and there were times i imagined i was pi, more than once actually. remember the part about `untamed imagination'?

frankly, i could smell the sea along with everything else that i did not wish to smell. it is quite an adventure you know, being stuck in the middle of nowhere with something so ferocious. many times along the journey, i wished parker and i could just lie next to each other in comfort and support.

this book promises the belief in god after its completion. being a non-believer, i delighted in those words and having been the one to suggest it to the book club, i consumed every word. did i become a believer?

how do i explain this the best way?

there isn't one correct solution to any situation. there may be many or there may be none.
every element lives in harmonious relation with its neighbour. every experience has its purpose. every event has its significance.
life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced, a story to be written.
are both reality and fantasy dwelling on the same duality concept that good and bad are floating on or is everything a part of the universe and therefore no analysis needs to be made?
it offers no answers. but it suggests. and questions. you will get out of it what you perceive of it and what you need to have for the moment. and if you know that you are within a cage, it will rattle the bars of your cage, whatever that cage may be.

i was thrilled at pi becoming a devout follower or member of three religions all at the same time claiming he only wants to love god. it sort of proved so many things i say as a non-believer and it made me wonder if such a thing would ever be allowed to exist. martel cleverly brings in three different religious leaders who come together and insist that pi belongs to their religion wholly and totally. they spite and ridicule each others' religions. does one have to belittle another religion to prove his religion is good?


i asked shamshul today about islam. shamshul is a muslim. he is also my colleague and friend.

i dreamt of mecca last night.

this morning when i met shamshul, i asked him if i could visit mecca, being a non-muslim. he said saudi arabia has strict rules allowing only muslims to enter the area. then i asked him, if i was a muslim, would i be able to practise other religions? is there any thing in the quran that says i simply cannot be a devotee or believe in any other religion? he said yes. it clearly says that idol worship is not allowed, and god cannot give birth nor be given birth to. he simply exists. and the wise men are all known as prophets and not god.

sigh.

i started reading angels and demons today. is god the big bang? is god a he? is god mother earth, which would make her a she? is god antimatter and matter annihilating to photons?

hmm. dan brown is something else!

pi is cast adrift in a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and at first a hidden 450 lbs bengal tiger, which is spotted later.

i loved the fact that martel called the orangutan, orange juice. it made me smile and made me smile again. and long after i finished the book, i continued to smile thinking of orange juice. i know people would rather concentrate on the magnamanous richard parker but like i said, orange juice touched my soul.

the hyena devours the zebra and orange juice. richard parker eats the hyena. and so it is only pi and parker on the boat for 227 days at the heart of the pacific ocean. pi realises the only hope of survival is to tame parker and to help feed him. he overcomes the challenges, learns to take it one day at a time, and looks for ways to keep himself and parker alive through sheer desperation. the long days at sea takes a toll on his health and mind.

martel dazzled me with his simple prose and his mastery of the mysteries around the story. if there are parts of the book that come up short, i almost do not notice them.

did he deserve the 2002 booker prize for fiction?

without a doubt!

audacious, exhilarating, brilliant. it is a timeless youthful book, not falling into any easy categories. it is paradoxical and gently and perhaps humorously challenging, researched in its scope and fascinatingly unique different from the other shipwreck stories i have read. it embarks bravely on life's mysteries, faith and perceptions, reality and illusions, strength and harmony. the life of pi is a delicious treat to savour.

not an easy genre to work on. his narrations remain just about credible. pi lands in mexico. the japanese interview him and do not believe his story. here, martel challenges his readers to completely disbelief in all he has written and he comes up with another story just as easily in just a page or two, making it just as real with a twist that turns the tiger into pi's own alter-ego.

one has to choose between mundane reality and a beautiful fantasy. but then, can the truth not be just as beautiful? most believe in the second story even though the whole book is about the first. the implication is that we all believe what we want to believe.

martel started the book in 1997. it took him four years to complete it. he meant it to explore the nature of reality, the wondrous and vastness, along with the strength of mother nature, the possibilities of humans and animals co-existing, the nature of religion and its relationship to humans and the concept of survival.

his novel is apparently coming to the screen. interestingly, it's being produced and co-written by m. night shyamalan, and directed by alfonso cuaron.

so would i recommend a package of india, adolescence , the pacific ocean, zoos, animals and zoology, religion, philosophy and spirituality, a japanese sinking ship and survival, canada and algae as a read? :-)

most definitely. its all in the essence of pi.

border's bookclub, the curve damansara on mc carthy's `the road'

may 11, 2007

almost everyone turns up at around eightish. amanda, brian, kim, sarah, jade, dr roy and me.

rose and wan shen come later.

jade tells us a little about the road and how we had no idea what it was all about when brian suggested it last month. she opens the discussion to the floor.

kim and dr roy speak. we all agree how depressing the book is.

the only rose amongst the thorns, brian, says it is the best book he has read in his life. he clearly sees something we don't. :-)

there are no chapters in this book. hardly any punctuations. no apostrophes, no names mentioned. one wonders if that makes everything irrelevant? do we only need information through his narrations and descriptions?


dr roy talks of how many time mc carthy mentions the landscape as barren with ashes of grey giving a feeling of further depression.

however, brian insists it is incredibly beautiful, even though it is stripped off colour, it is still full of texture, extremely serene and hugely spiritual. there is a sense of mystery in their journey and all that comes with it.

amanda agrees, adding that it does not explicitly bring out the spirituality but the evidence of it cannot be ignored.

dr roy maintains that mc carthy shows life as a continuous process. the fact that one goes on living, striving, struggling, making every effort to stay alive, searching and carrying on the journey on the road itself presents a spiritual thought.

i ask if such a thing would happen to us.
jade immediately springs on to that saying why not?
sarah doesn't go that far in thought, she just reads the book for what it represents.

but the thought crosses my mind several times.
what will i do in a situation like that?

will i be like the mother of the boy who gives up her life knowing she will die anyway? or will i be like the father who chooses to carry on living mainly for the sake of his child?

i bring up another option, there is still the bad guy. in a situation like this, will i choose to be the bad guy, the cannibal, who is also a survivor?

most of us do not think of that. we are the good guys, we will not turn bad. but then, how can we positively say anything correctly if we are not in that situation?

jade brings up the fact that we have never really been that hungry...starving. we eat all our meals on time without even ever being hungry.

i mention the movie papillon where this guy in prison grabs the cockroaches to eat them. with disgust i commented once that i will never do such a thing even if i am dying, and a friend immediately said, `how will you know if you have never been in that situation?'

food for thought.

in a situation like that, my belief system may not be the same anymore, it will change my thoughts, my perceptions, my strengths and i may end up eating my own friend's flesh. remotely unlikely but never impossible.

jade talks of right and wrong. will we not do the right thing, the human thing?

but my views on this are a little perplexing to those who do not quite perceive it the same way. i think people divide vice and virtue, right and wrong as though they are two different things, neither one having anything to do with another, yet there is no useful virtue which has not some alloy of vice and hardly any wrong which carries not with it a little dash of right. virtue and vice, right and wrong are like life and death or mind and matter, things which simply cannot exist without being qualified by their opposite.

thus, would it be wrong to be a cannibal, because it is the inhuman thing to do? or would the perception of wrong and right change the whole concept of humanity? i don't know. i am merely suggesting a different point of view.

jade asks if this novel is about death. i say yes. mc carthy says death is a major issue in the world. any writer who does not address it is not a serious writer.

amanda wonders how mc carthy will end his book. dr roy says it seems an unending story. i think very early in the book that mc carthy will end it with someone's death.

however, the book does not end in itself. it is a new beginning. kim contributes but she has not finished the book so she just listens to everyone. rose has not read it at all but is so convinced that she is dying to read it. brian says it is not about an ending.it is a momentum. the boy goes back to the road like he is allowing things to come as they may and he is prepared to face them. brian mentions trust. despite the inspites, one can still trust in a situation so horrifyingly deceitful and fearful.

the boy has an aura. a halo of goodness around him. he cares for the other souls along the way. he is youngish, probably ten years of age and according to sarah is afraid of his father dying. she says they have a special bond, jade thinks they actually do not get along. dr roy says they needed each other to carry on the journey and their lives.

jade brings up about the memory thing. it seems like the father does not want to remember the past. then amanda comments about how he wants to but does not know how. it is strange because he throws away his wife's picture, that being one way or perhaps the only way he could remember her and the times together.

wan sheng says remembering makes things difficult. an attachment to the past makes it difficult to live the present. every thing is in the now. they have each other and they must carry on. the boy knows no hoarding, no worrying, he just lives for that moment, perhaps because he knows no other way. he grows up suddenly towards the end and when the father gets ill, the roles are sort of reversed and he becomes the protector.

a difficult book to breeze through or even discuss i think. but brilliantly written and presented. this is a first for most of us in the post-apocalyptic section. hope to read, think and understand further into the possibilities of a completely different life than the one we are presently leading.

maybe, just maybe we should think of our lives first before we can think, understand and appreciate the life of pi for next month.

my registered financial planner's exam is on the 24th so there will be no indulging in reading until after that. good luck to all and hope to hear from you.

gsc holland film festival 2007

watched `blue bird' on 26th april thursday, courtesy of some free tickets collected earlier.

this focuses on a 12 year-young girl who is perfect in every way. merel is good in her studies, loves to read, takes care of her handicapped brother, is a good daughter to her parents, swims and dives as well as she sings and so on, the list is endless. she is however bullied by her classmates, this and a few other situations lead her to behave strangely.

good acting, with very good expressions and a pretty simple storyline. for a 12 year-old, a pretty tough role but performed excellently. loved the movie.

did a movie marathon on the 28th april saturday with mariken, eric in the land of insects and paradise now.

`mariken', another good performance by a child actor, is also a very pleasant film with a good story line. it had a fairy tale set up to it and of course the ending was a good and happy one just like all fairy tales.

mariken is found by a priest/monk/medicine man/magician who is banned from town. he takes care of her and teaches her to read in a place where reading is frowned upon for women. her search for her mother and a goat that she wants to buy from the market leads her to an adventure she will not forget, along with some good people she meets who are actually related to this monk.

loved this one too.

`eric in the land of insects', i think is mainly for kids, but then who am i to complain?

another child actor, this time a male, who has to prepare a paper and a talk for his school. he chooses to speak on insects. so the night before the talk, something magical happens to erik and he enters a world of insects. he experiences a wild adventure with different kinds of butterflies, moths and bees and comes back to his world in the morning. he reaches school and gives an excellent and entertaining talk on his experience.

enjoyed it, would have wanted to see something more adultish though.

`paradise now', nominated for the oscars, had a strong cast and great acting. the language used is arabic throughout the film. it is about two friends who are recruited for a suicide bombing in tel aviv. it did not end well, perhaps because it was cut. i am not exactly sure what happened. but perhaps there were some scenes of violence or whatever, much of it was cut. the rest that we could watch were of excellent quality.

another one up for the dutch movies. and down for the malaysian censorship board.

as soon as i came out of the movies, a girl gave me a survey form to fill, there were some questions there about holland etc. so completed that, gave it in and came back home.

on sunday, they called me up to tell me i won two more free tickets and i had to collect it that day itself. so took the lrt, reached there, collected the tickets and watched two movies, fighting fish and do not disturb.

`fighting fish' was in chinese. a full action movie with an okay story line. but since i have seen too many chinese action flicks...this did not compare well.
certain parts were almost deliberately silly, but overall, an okay entertainment.

came out of the hall only to rush in for the next one, `do not disturb', the script being in english, was easier to watch. an easy flow. william hurt is one of the characters, but the main character is again a child, this time one that is dumb and since she has a wild imagination, they almost do not beleive her when she says she witnessed a murder. very funny and a great laugh...a comedy and tragedy? hmm.

good one.

2nd may...watched `guernsey', a very badly reported and commented on dutch movie, but i thought it was pretty cool. again, there were a few blanks, too many intimate scenes which we were not allowed to watch. lacked action, a slow and very silent movie, one had to guess alot in their silences but things unfolded eventually.

its about this woman who finds a dead body in her bathroom and soon after that, she is suspicious of her husband cheating on her, so she follows him everywhere he goes on a daily basis. the film is about her and her family, their depression and happiness, their lies and honesty etc.

it ends abruptly, but pretty alright to watch.

the only movie i did not get to watch in this festival was schnitzel paradise, was not too keen on watching it anyways, the story line seemed like some shakespearen spoof or something.

hmm...dont think anyone watched these many movies in a festival for free at one go...this was a first for me too. ;-)

the road by cormac mc carthy

`the road', a novel by cormac mc carthy is searing, horrifying and hypnotic. i did not expect a postapocalyptic novel when brian suggested we read this one for our bookclub.

i am not sure if this is an aftermath of some nuclear holocaust or some great fire or even an asteroid/ufo impact. whatever the cause, it had destroyed civilization and most of life on earth. what probably remained of humanity were some cannibals (the bad guys) and their prey, the good guys who are basically the people who scavenge for canned food and other surviving foodstuffs (like tramps). it is about civilisation's slow death after the end of the world.

unlike most authors who create a description for their story, mc carthy creates a story out of his description. it is almost like he uses his enormous gift of language over nothingness.

i was taken aback with the lonely and burnt landscape, the extreme cold of the snow, the lack of security in a lawless life, and the meagre availability of food for survival.

the journey is taken by a father and his son, a journey of love and tenderness, survival and endurance, lessons in a friendless world, shattering dilemmas, unspoken feelings, the cold of the weather on the blanketless beings yet the warmth of humanity and finally hopeless death.

some parts of the book are very difficult to understand. i went back a few lines to re-read and see if i had missed out on anything. even though it is gripping and haunting, it is also bleak and dreary. one cannot relate to something like that and imagining it would mean creating further confusion.

his sentences are incomplete. but he sends the message across. they are almost like some powerful prose that are lost on the unchallenging mind. how he envisioned such a nightmare and destruction is horrifying in itself. is this how it is going to be finally?

his book is of very high literature, with difficult vocabulary and cautious details besides being unexciting as it only describes the journey. definitely not a first book to pick up for a non reader. it is depressing, discouraging, and a complete disaster of our physical, emotional and spiritual being. in simple words, it is scary.

the writing throughout is of course magnificent and powerful, with a dynamic description of violence, despair and destruction, and fearless wisdom, desperate care and assurance. it also amazingly describes trenchant and shattering situations, with yet the feelings of warmth and gentleness which never fail to emerge despite the hopeless quest.

an excellent base for a non commercial film. :-) i was just informed that john hillcoat was said to direct the film based on this novel sometime this year. lets wait and see.

water - a film by deepa mehta

watched the much acclaimed `water' last night. nominated in the best foreign film category at the oscars this year, water is deepa mehta's third film after earth and fire.

based in 1938, in the midst of the national freedom struggle led by mahatma gandhi and his progressive ideas, water focuses on the struggles and lives of widows of various ages who are rehabilitated in an isolated ashram (supposedly in benares, india).

however, mehta could not shoot her film in benares, as there were many political and religious fundamentalists against her making this film, so she had to re-shoot with a fresh cast and crew in sri lanka.

in this film, she depicts widows having to undergo suffering and injustice above succumbing to the pressures of society while being shunned and insulted, used and degraded for no fault of theirs.

one wonders if society in india has changed at all from those earlier times. we constantly hear of women being treated badly and what about widows? it is a sin, their sin, that their husbands have died.

how does a 7-year old survive her husband who is 87 yrs of age? how does she not become a widow? why should she be treated like an outcast? and to think that she is only a child unaware of anything except maybe her dolls and other play things.

in bapsi sidhwa's book as in the movie, it is mentioned that `a woman is recognised as a person only when she is one with her husband. outside of marriage the wife has no recognized existence, so, when her husband dies, she should cease to exist.'

however, generally in india, did things change very much after the 1930's?

in `water' the child character, chuiya (played by sarla, a sri lankan) was hardly seven. does it still happen in our modern educated society?

i personally think it does especially in the remote villages in india. the mindset has not changed.

in the film, the widows owned no worldly possession, had their hair cut short, ate only one tasteless meal a day (no fried foods were allowed),wore the same sari which was basically a white piece of cloth, slept on the floor in dark cold rooms, begged for money outside temples and since the collections were usually meagre, they were forced into prostitution just to survive.

a beautiful film that exposes hypocrisy as a rich brahmin man (narayan's father in the film) who sleeps with these widows, justifies it `Our holy texts say brahmins can sleep with whomever they want, and the women they sleep with are blessed.'

`water' is about love, bonding, sacrifice, ignorance, education, customs, cultures, and women's issues.

it is about us viewers knowing and making a difference, or rather correcting an injustice occuring in the evil side of human society.

a must watch.

who will cry when you die by robin sharma

an easy read. sharma puts the book in 101 short chapters, each taking up only just one or two pages. for those who complain of the `hassle and pain' of reading, this book is a smooth read with big and clear fonts and the size of the pages being almost half of an A4 size paper.

i have read a zillion books on motivation and self improvement. frankly, i did not at all like robin sharma's `the monk who sold his ferrari'. i thought it was too much preaching and no educating. but then the world worshipped his book so maybe its just my view.

and this one too did not make that much of an impression. he just borrowed words and phrases, took them from other books and authors/speakers while claiming it to be his.

he merely quotes everyone else and states what every other motivational speaker-writers have said before him.

this book tells us of the things needed to be done in our lives, and even though i do not agree with some of them, i do see the benefits of getting them done. other than that it is no big deal.

for those who have never read a single motivational book, you could start on this simply because he basically summarises all the other books. it is very light reading and you can finish it on one train journey. :-)

my name is red by orhan pamuk

8th april 2007

ferit orhan pamuk won the nobel prize for literature on the 12th of october 2006 for his book `snow'.

regarded a post modern writer, he was the first turk to have won the prize. at the time of the announcement of the nobel prize, he was undergoing trial for accusing his country of being involved in some mass killing of the armenians (1 million) and the kurds (300 thousand) in anatolia. in an interview he had given to a swedish magazine, he insisted that the turkish government wronged these people.

i was fascinated with orhan pamuk's biography so my sister and i bought `snow'.
at the same we also bought `my name is red' and since i had started the book a year ago while browsing through the novels in kinokuniya, i decided to read the latter first.

finished it today.

pamuk is an amazing writer. however, the book is a complicated albeit fascinating read.

he is amazing because he presents the novel in many voices (nineteen narrators i think)and from amazingly different perspectives. a brilliant way of making it obvious that we should not just see things from one view. some of these narrators are not human. he gives them voices. and each chapter is narrated by a different person, animal or object.

supposedly a murder mystery, though definitely of a very different kind, when the murderer was revealed towards the end, i found it strange that i did not want him dead or tortured for the murders he committed. the book has this effect on you...it sort of makes you feel that the killing was not really important and yet the whole book was about the murders.

pamuk sets this story in the late 16th century in istanbul amongst the miniaturists of the sultan murat III, stressing on the difficulties of the declining ottoman empire that he says the turkish government avoids discussing due to the easy acceptance of the influences of the west.

he describes the paintings in exhausting details, so much so that one is easily bored with the minutest of all descriptions, and especially since we are not able to relate to them.

the book revolves around artists, illustrators, miniaturists and paintings. a brilliant symposium on the part of art and the typical love, jealousy and greed amongst the miniaturists. it is also about innovation, styles, changes and imitations of the art work over the years.

i was confused with the characters as he doesnt give them real names. even though the pace is slow and again, too detailed, the description is out of this world.

however, he also puts in love and romance in a very strange manner, a manner which we might not understand and therefore it instills a sense of impatience with a dash of annoyance.

like i said it is a difficult book to digest but he has opened up my mind to things i never imagined, never read about and never perceived through such extraordinary views. even the deliberate blindness with the god gifted sight and appreciation following that threw me off balance just as much as the love, romance and sex did.

red speaks in just one chapter. she is the colour of divine splendour and earthy violence. so why did he call it `my name is red'? hmm! a topic for discussion.

i loved orhan pamuk's style but it was an effort going through the detailed stuff i had no idea existed. he is an absolutely remarkable writer and deserved the international impac dublin literary award in 2003 and the french and italian book literary awards in 2002 for this book. orhan's real brother is really shevket (the one he describes in his book) and he talks of shekure as if she was his real mother. he however, ends the novel impishly having his mother state that he would go to any extent to lie just for a good story.

if you are for light reading and fast pace, this is a definite put-off. however, if you are in a small way, literary and love a perception beyond your own, this will do you wonders. :-)

border's bookclub, the curve damansara

6th april 2007

we (swagata and i) meet brian first. my sister had met him last month when they had the discussion on kiran desai's `inheritance of loss'. we are thrilled when they tell us that 15 people are turning up.

this is an absolute first for me. this gathering, to talk about a book we have read. and it is so exhaustively exciting.

after around 5 minutes, ida and shirley come and introduce themselves. and then jade. and half way through our `intelligent' exchanges :-), nicholas walks in, says the traffic is bad. he is an educator and a philosopher (no offence nick!!!)

eight people do not turn up. sigh!!

we discuss hosseini's kite runner.

brian talks of friendship. jade feels closest to amir. shirley says baba does not love amir any less throughout his high expectation of his son and as a result, disappointment. she asks if things can possibly be different if one exposes oneself to a different environment, ida cries when she reads that amir has wronged hassan. my sister says expectation of all parents are similar to this and she speaks of rahim khan being kinder to amir as a child than baba ever is. for amir, the need to be patted, loved and appreciated is fulfilled by his father's best friend.

i slip out `stupid amir' and say i feel closest to baba. i insist on the shafi and sunni differences, the hazara and pashtun, their upbringing, their cultures, practices, teachings etc, that these have shaped amir's and hassan's characters.

how do we get out of this boundary created for us? brian says there is a small voice directing us to do things differently...justly, our conscience! it is almost a whisper. do we listen to it or do we habitually ignore it?

nicholas talks of choices and happiness. he talks of closure. jade wants to know why we need this closure. i want to know if they think amir finally redeems himself. is redeeming oneself closure? brian asks me why i think the end of the book is perfect. jade thinks so too. the rest of them are half way through the book.

i say this is the saddest book i have read for a while because of the guilt that hosseini continues to stress on. brian redefines sadness and i see his point. maybe i shall edit my blog review. maybe not.


we drink starbucks coffee, think, discuss, listen, agree, disagree and question. two hours of stimulation and great ponderings. i dont even realise when the cofee gets over. did i drink mine at all?

hmm.

thanks guys and girls. it was a pleasure.

looking forward to travelling `the road' on the 11th of may. see you then. ;-)