the life of david gale

may 2nd, this year was my last blog. so much has happened, so many books read and movies watched but i haven't made this place my priority. work, family, travel and now studies have crept in as major time stealers. but i met someone recently who shared my interest in films that do not enter the mainstream cinema, and he was kind enough to loan me a few movies for my watching pleasure.

the first one that i would like to write about is the life of david gale. i absolutely love alan parker for mississippi burning and till date the film is incomparable to any, and then later, his evita had a more profound effect, so based on the past directions, did i enjoy the life of david gale? i am not sure but i thought it came forward as a true story, which to me was pretty impressive.

a college professor and texas death penalty abolitionist, david gale and his colleague constance, work for an anti-death penalty organization called death watch. kevin spacey who is gale is accused of rape by a former student. i honestly find it deplorable when someone is accused of bogus rape, as was in this case. gale loses his job and family, develops a drinking habit and is later convicted of murder of his colleague and best friend, laura linney who is constance.

he sits in jail five days before he is to receive a lethal injection when suddenly a reporter is requested by him to write his story. kate winslet is bitsey bloom the reporter. believing that the sentence was just, bitsey was totally unsure of gale's innocence until the interview slowly unfolds, and she sets out to uncover the mystery of what was not known by the media.

a very unique film with a twist of an anticlimax and not a complete focus on gale as in the life of gale. we are rerouted to other characterizations of the main purpose of the film which was to prove a point and to make it understood. the energy of suspense and passion along with the mystery of the whole tragic death of constance was made an achievement in a cause.

as a critic i would naturally find clichés which were negative but on the whole it did not dampen my appreciation of how they managed to hold and keep my attention to the screen until the end of the story.

not a perfect film, but a captivating one, and did it live up to parker's high standard? i don't know, maybe not, the structure of the film and the spirit of the story may have meant to end the story well, especially when the media exclaim at the end that david gale finally achieved in death what he could not achieve while he was alive. i thought it strange though, i think, if one were to really think, there is another side to this and the climax or the anticlimax of the picture, efficiently and obviously betrays the very ethics gale and constance stood for.

well, thats just my opinion, but despite it all, i loved spacey. and winslet, she was beauty in entirety!! :-)

the reluctant fundamentalist by mohsin hamid

I have not been blogging for quite some time now. My sister's death on January 26th has slowed down almost everything for us, life still isn't back to normal yet. We have missed many book club sessions and this time when we received mail from Aaron and Sakina to attend the 2nd of may on the reluctant fundamentalist, we (meaning Dr Roy and I) decided we would attend.

I only got hold of the book yesterday and while watching a bollywood show on Astro channel, I managed to complete the book.

When I had 15 pages left to conclusion, Dr Roy asked me how I felt about the book and I said I don't know, its different. I often think some books have the end justifying every bit of its content and some others do not even need that end. With the reluctant fundamentalist, it could have been the latter.

I think this novel looks at the increasingly volatile and precariously balanced relationship between the West (meaning America) and the East (Muslim countries), and how without a certain sense of empathy, this equation can steadily spiral downwards. There is much in it about identity and relationships, both on a personal level and a national one.

Set amidst the backdrop of business malaise in 2001 and the impact on New York of the September 11th attacks, Hamid's protagonist is a man called Changez (sounds more like changes to me), a fresh faced young Pakistani student at Princeton who was later head hunted into a plum role with a New York valuation firm and with top financial analysts. Besides revelling in his new expense account lifestyle, enjoying the sophistication and comfort of his new cosmopolitan life, miles away from his humble roots in Lahore, he also falls deeply in obsession with an American woman.

The novel takes place entirely at a cafe table in Lahore, Pakistan where Changez, tells an unnamed (and unheard) American man the recent events of his life from his graduation in Princeton, his trip to Greece with school friends, his truncated romance and long-running obsession with Erica (an allegory intended here with amERICA) an anorexic classmate, who is in turn obsessed with her dead boyfriend, his meteoric rise in his first job with the elite valuation firm, Underwood Sampsons (again an allegory with US) and the build-up and aftermath of 9/11 altering Changez's view of America at least as much as America's view of him.

But why are these two meeting, and where is this conversation actually heading? There is a gradual sense of increasing menace as he describes the chain of events that have led to this moment, and there are enough hints to tell you that the ending may not be to his listener's liking, nor to ours. The suspense builds as Changez leads the American up to the present. There's a sense of foreboding, of mutual suspicion and distrust, but the reader can't tell who's in danger till the last moment, and arguably not even then.

This novel is a dramatic monologue, in other words a half-conversation, a half-story. Is the reader expected to provide the other half of the novel's meaning? Was there an American at all sitting there and talking to Changez? Was it all in his imagination, an illusion, a fantasy?

Is this novel a realistic depiction of Pakistan's troubles? Is it a shrewd description of one man's troubled progress or digress, and is it worth reading to discover the subtle truths that critics of the West are not necessarily ignorant or violent, and that the most dangerous fundamentalists are not necessarily
religious?

Are we absolutely sure that the American who wears a black suit with bulges in places that might cover a hidden holster is a CIA/FBI agent or that a bearded Muslim with a long robe is a terrorist? Is the message telling us that appearances can be deceptive?

In the reluctant fundamentalist, Changez largely shares a love-hate equation with the US. He loves being a New Yorker, both his high-flying job and girlfriend fill his heart with a sense of pride. However, at the same time, Hamid's protagonist is no pushover. Clearly, Changez has a mind of his own and feels a deep sense of attachment to his motherland (Pakistan). The fact that bright minds like him have to desert their own country, to fill the coffers of an already overdeveloped, supercilious country, leaves him frustrated.

This realisation further dawns upon him when 9/11 occurs and Changez feels a strange sense of thrill at 'someone bringing America to its knees'. From there on, life is never the same and his disenchantment with America is complete.

Interestingly, Hamid's point here is that a feeling of fundamentalism can arise in the unlikeliest of people, when they feel pushed to a corner. Though the book does not, in any way, glorify fundamentalism, it subtly points at how sparks of fundamentalism can be ignited in the most placid looking people and circumstances.

Mohsin Hamid was born and grew up in Lahore, Pakistan. He attended Princeton University and Harvard Law School, worked for several years as a management consultant in New York and as a freelance journalist in Lahore, and now lives mainly in London.

His first novel, Moth Smoke, was published in 2000, his second novel, The Reluctant fundamentalist, was released in the U.S. in 2007. It was shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize. He said that people often ask him if he is the book's Pakistani protagonist. He wonders why they never ask if he is the American listener. After all, a novel can often be a divided man's conversation with himself...

I feel in some ways, The Reluctant Fundamentalist reads like a first novel, particularly given the parallels with Hamid's own life as evidenced by the biographical details on the book jacket. However, it is in fact his second, and one notices there are deeper possibilities in the construction of the novel than the simple use of autobiographical elements..

Did I feel sympathy for Changez? No, our lives are made of choices and it was his choice to give up the American dream and go back to his home country. Did I admire him in any way at all? Yes, perhaps I did.

Finally, the Reluctant Fundamentalist is a quick, compelling read and I think Hamid is a writer to watch out for. Will attempt to read Moth Smoke now.

atonement by ian mcewan

i am behind on
reviewing a few books i have read last year but since i will not be able to attend the book club on the 11th of this month, i thought i would blog atonement and share my part of the contribution.

jade suggested the atonement by ian mcewan last month saying we should read the book before the movie is out.

i read the book in one and a half days in the beginning of december last year. even my sister was surprised. however, i must mention that i truly have a terrible memory, one that has induced me to start my blog in the first place. i can hardly remember books i have read, movies i have watched, stuff i have written and names of places i have been to. i am the epitome of the absent-minded professor if i can call myself that. so bear with me if i don't touch on matters that i should have.

there are very few books, almost none that i dislike. i may not go ga ga about a book but i will almost never dislike it.

i say this because atonement felt a little distant with me. i mean frankly i thought ian mcewan was brilliant and i have only nice things to say about him but i watched the trailer of the movie, and i think (and hope) that joe wright would appeal to me more.

shortlisted for numerous awards, including the 2001 booker prize for fiction, and the whitbread book award for novel - 2001, it won the 2002 national book critics circle award for fiction.

the story in short, the catalyst, a 13-year old precocious briony tallis is an aspiring writer with an overgrown heightened imagination (possibly dangerous) whose one lie sets the destruction of life and love affair between her sister cecilia and robbie, the son of the tallis family servant. it also sets the basis for the whole book, and years later, wrecked by guilt of her mistake she is seen to seek atonement.

in part one of the book, mc ewan does a brilliant job portraying briony as arrogant yet naive, confident with a know-it-all attitude, yet insecure. we meet her at age thirteen first when she seemed all that, at 18 again when we see her regret her childhood insanity and at seventy seven when we know the truth and finally leave her behind. she witnesses the love attraction and action of her sister with robbie, mistaking it for an attack. based on her belief that robbie is a pervert, she declares injustice for him. robbie is sent to prison.

in part two. we witness letters between the lovers and their undying love for each other. mc ewan distresses us with the separation and the injustice. set in 1940, war comes to europe where robbie is freed from jail on the condition that he joins the british army in northern france. what keeps him going is not patriotism but his desire for freedom and an urge to return to cecilia, who stood by him throughout his trial and imprisonment.

we see part three as briony seeking atonement. she is eighteen, a nurse at london hospital and has understood fully the weight of her misdeeds. she is aware of her guilt but still hopes for forgiveness. she searches for cecilia, wanting to make things right. cecilia and robbie are unforgiving.

mc ewan leads us and plays us with all those emotions and we look forward to perhaps a good ending for the couple who missed out so much on their togetherness.

the epilogue is where i realise mc ewan's devilish brilliance. he makes briony reveal the sickening truth that all this time we have only been reading her story, her novel, the way she wilds it up in that head of hers, which is why despite there being a terrible betrayal, an unforgiving one, she is still able to justify it. in reality she never seeks forgiveness from her sister and robbie, instead, they die before that.

so the book is actually a novel within a novel, we don't know the difference between reality and her creations. one wonders, being such imperfect creatures, we have this inability to see we are wrong. and sometimes when we do see, we do not admit it, instead work around it hoping no one would notice.

this symphonic novel of love, separation and war, childhood, friendship and class, guilt, deceit and forgiveness is a masterpiece on every conceivable level, especially the attention to details that mcewan gives the scenes is masterful. it seemed like he was almost writing it for a film. his writing is consistent and the war scenes were much researched into, the horrors of war extremely well depicted and the sense of terror and pain is empathetically felt. his novel is haunting, well crafted and all the descriptive passages can be easily pictured. even though the ending was depressing, i think the book's subtle complexities were magnificently put together.

a masterpiece on literature and a thought provoking novel. read it.