Anjum Hasan’s “Difficult Pleasures” is borderline surreal, the jacket told me. She would be in my top 3 favourite authors list, and I am completely awed by her writing (check the last para here) but I wonder if even that can explain the surreal thought I had as I read the first few pages. Can a book be called a home? What is a home after all? Isn’t it just an idea that is sometimes real and tangible and exists physically?
And that was the surreal thought – every time I read this author’s books, it’s like going home, as though I could reach inside, get into the story and talk to the characters and they wouldn’t consider me out of place at all. I could belong. Yes, it’s surreal, and I haven’t been smoking, but I just couldn’t get the thought out of my head.
until next time, home away from home