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.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Saturday, May 12, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
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. ;-)
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.
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