Category: Books

  • The Catcher In The Rye

    JD Salinger

    Its perhaps a book that I should’ve read a decade and a half back, only because I could’ve related more then to the angst that permeates it. The timeframe and the narrative style would make the work seem small in scope – the book is set in about three days (not counting the recollections) and is told from the point of view of a teenage boy, who has just been expelled from his school (not for the first time) and instead of going home, spends the next few nights in a seedy hotel.
    But what makes this book unique is Holden Caulfield’s (the protagonist and narrator) way of distilling the thoughts and emotions of a teenager and making you feel for him. Indeed, there are many moments in the book that made me feel infinitely sad, though the ending seems to indicate that this is only a phase in life.
    The title is based on Holden’s mishearing of a poem by Robert Burns – Comin’ Through The Rye. Holden creates a fantasy on it – with himself being the guardian of kids who are playing in a rye field on the edge of a cliff, entrusted with the task of saving them if they are in danger of falling off.
    His attitude towards children – his sister Phoebe in specific, and adults would seem to indicate that he understands that at some point, kids will lose the qualities he likes them for (which are missing in adults) and he wants to be the heroic figure to prevent this from happening. A turning point in this role is his conversation with an English teacher of his – Mr.Antolini, who says that the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for a cause while an immature man would die nobly for it. Later Holden gives Phoebe his hunting hat, probably the symbol of his catcher identity.
    Its probably a book you need to be patient with (though its only about 190 pages) since (I felt) its only towards the end that Holden really manages to suck you into the idea of the book.

  • A Silence of Desire

    Kamala Markandaya

    ‘A Silence of Desire’ is seemingly about the turmoils in the life of a government clerk, after his routine is shattered one day when he finds his wife missing when he returns home from work. Furthermore, he also realises later that the reason she had given for her absence was not the truth. He suspects his wife of infidelity. Much flustered, and not helped by the discussions happening in his office on the social mores of womenfolk, he follows her and finds out something, which to him becomes a more painful thing to bear than what he had initially suspected his wife of. His structured life then goes through a turbulence, as his personal problems begins to affect his work, and even his character undergoes a change.

    What makes the book interesting is how the author uses the family to show the upheaval that happened in Indian society after the British left. The spirituality and faith of the traditional Indian housewife collides with the scientific and rational mindset of her British trained husband. The father is disturbed that his teenaged daughter would go to the ‘milk bar’ with a male friend, even if its in a group. There is even some reference to the conflict between north and south indian civil servants because of their varying approach to problems and fellow workers.

    Even as the author manages to create a microcosm of the changes that were sweeping Indian society, her narrative and prose manage to bring out the human aspect in a very convincing manner.

  • Bear with me, Mother – Memoirs and Stories

    MT Vasudevan Nair

    “Bear with me, mother” is a collection of memoirs and short stories from arguably the finest writer that Kerala has ever produced – MT Vasudevan Nair. The book has 16 memoir pieces and half that number of stories.

    Though its against the flow of the book, it might be a good idea to read the stories before the memoirs. This is because many of the stories have a touch of autobiography/ reality in them, and it might take away a little from the stories of you read them second.

    The memoirs work amazingly well because it takes the reader back in time. Even for a Keralite like me, it seemed like a different culture. Temple festivals replete with folk arts, ten days of Onam celebrations, communities which hadn’t split into religion based factions all point to a Kerala that was markedly different, and this was only a few decades back. The change is visible in geography too, as the author agonises over the fate that befell the Nila river.

    The author walks the journey of his life with us, with anecdotes from his school and college life as well as his early working days. In them, we can see many characters that made it to his fictional works too.

    The stories offer excellent glimpses of the author’s craft, and works like ‘The Soul of Darkness’ will stay with you for a long time. In yet others like ‘Firecrackers’, ‘Karkitakam’, and ‘Elder Sister: Oppol’ we see the world through the eyes of an innocent child. It is amazing how even in the translation, I could imagine what the original Malayalam words must have been and marvel at the wordcraft.

  • The White Tiger: A Novel

    Aravind Adiga

    The experts talk of India and China dominating the world’s economy in the near future. Aravind Adiga’s protagonist Balram Halwai agrees, and even states as much in his letter to the visiting Chinese Premier. But the macabre twist lies in his reasoning, and that’s perhaps why this book is unique.

    There are many books that talk about India’s rising middle class and its opulence. There are also ones that talk about the ‘Other India’, the one that lurks beneath the urban sprawl that inspired ‘India Shining’. So the premise is not a new one, but I haven’t yet read a book that explodes the accepted stories of India’s transformation with such a relentless and unforgiving narrative.

    The White Tiger is an animal that appears once in a generation, and Balram is given the title early in his life, for standing out amongst his classmates. He takes it to heart and climbs up the class ladder despite being born in the Darkness, where moving out of one’s position in the social hierarchy is impossible. From the Darkness, he moves to Delhi with his master. The city, with its politicians and malls, when seen from Balram’s perspective has a bleak tinge to it.

    Balram breaks all the rules that bind the traditional Indian joint family unit and ends up an ‘entrepreneur’ and a murderer. At one level, its a social commentary that starkly shows the difference in lifestyles of the various classes that make up India, and what it takes to break through.

    But more importantly, it is more a take on an individual’s morality – Balram’s and even his master Ashok’s, when traditional diktats meet the necessities of the modern world in a nation that has only begun its march towards a complete overhaul. Though one could be critical and claim that some parts of the novel/characters merely reinforce stereotypes, the fact that Balram’s story seems entirely plausible makes the book a winner.

  • Death of a Moneylender

    Kota Neelima

    Farmer suicides are unfortunately a ‘dog bites man’ story in journalism parlance, but Falak Anand is sent to a remote village in south central India to cover an almost ‘man bites dog’ version- a money lender has been found hanging, and an entire village is suspect.

    I quite liked the book for the premise, and the subject matter, because while this is a work of fiction, it gives a lot of perspective on the conditions and circumstances that forces a farmer to take his own life – crop cycles, dependence on rain/sun, credit facilities which show the reasons why farmers are forced to go to moneylenders despite the existence of banks, market economics and the wily middlemen, and the abject poverty that all these factors collectively land the farmer in. Add to this, a corrupt set of politicians and file-pushing bureaucrats, and the farmer is left with no other choice.

    In the context of the book, it takes the death of a decent moneylender who wishes well for the farmers, for this stranglehold to be loosened.

    Now, while I understand that the author has taken pains to ensure that the inhumanity of it all gets drilled into us, I felt that, as a work of fiction, it could’ve been edited better, especially the last 30 (about) pages, especially since the climax is quite predictable and given away by the summary.

    Also, except for Falak’s character, which dominates the proceedings, the others tend to be just supportive and all too stereotyped, despite a setting I haven’t encountered much before.

    But I’d still recommend it for sensitizing us to an India that is somehow forgotten amidst our relatively trivial urban dramas.