Category: Books

  • The Age of Kali

    William Dalrymple

    I love doing this – reading a commentary long after the age has passed. It’s more than a decade and a half since the book was published and I’ve read four of the five books that the author has written since then. Both of these factors gave me quite a few perspectives on the book and the writing.

    I see this book divided into two on multiple counts – first in terms of geography, second in terms of narrative style, and third in terms of being true to the ‘script’ of the book. (more…)

  • A Thousand Splendid Suns

    Khaled Hosseini

    The author’s second book and also the second book of his that I am reading – that would be nothing out of the ordinary except that I read the third book first and I’m yet to read The Kite Runner, which often gets compared to this book. I think this has given me a different perspective – to summarise that quickly, I found ‘And the mountains echoed’ a better book and I can easily see the author’s growth both in terms of overall plot as well as narrative style.

    This novel is primarily centred around 3 characters (four, if one has to stretch) and using a now-familiar narrative style, we are introduced to their different worlds quite seamlessly. Mariam, an illegitimate child, is forced out of her relatively peaceful life in Herat after the death of her mother. It’s difficult to understand what affected her more deeply – the change in perspective about her father, or her being married off to her father’s acquaintance and sent to Kabul. Mariam’s marital life quickly deteriorates, as does the ‘character’ of her husband Rasheed, and one cannot but feel for the isolation and helplessness of this woman who is abused physically and mentally without respite by a husband who preaches one set of moral standards while hiding stash of porn in his drawers. (more…)

  • Caesar

    Colleen McCullough

    The fifth book in the Masters of Rome series, and my favourite thus far. (and I only have The October Horse left to read) I loved the tagline “Let the dice fly” – uttered by Caesar as he crosses the Rubicon, a crucial moment in his own and Rome’s destiny. (the translation is still being debated though)

    The author is clearly in awe of Caesar, and by the time the book is finished, we’d probably be pardoned for sharing the feeling. Since she rarely tampers with history and only adds interpretations (of character motivations) we have to assume that, according to known history, Caesar was indeed a god among men! His confidence in himself is absolute, and while the author, on a couple of instances, shows the change in how it manifests itself as he grows older, and though Caesar seems to seek some validation from his peers, it is largely a “I don’t think so, I know so” stance that he takes on situations, plans and people. (more…)

  • The Difficulty of Being Good

     Gurcharan Das

    I’d liked Gurcharan Das’ “India Unbound” (that was a long while back, I haven’t read his later works) and I’m generally a sucker for all things epic, so buying The Difficulty of Being Good was a given.

    The blurb created quite the hype for me by stating that the book “shows us how we can come to terms with the uncertain ethics of the world today.” (a world which according to them can be compared to the one in Mahabharata) On hindsight, this does seem a reasonably impossible task and I should have figured that out before I started.

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  • Narcopolis

     Jeet Thayil

    What a trip! Right from the single sentence prologue that lasts 7 pages which, to me, also gives a clue on how to consume this book – “Do I take a single continuous drag? You can, but then you have to recycle it inside your lungs, better to take short pulls, “How long should I hold it in?… it depends how much nasha you want” In essence, I could have read it in one shot and deconstructed it in my head, or I could consume it languorously and let the author take me through it at his own pace. I chose the latter, trying to keep up with his lucidity and fantasy. I honestly don’t know if I got it all right.

    The narrator Dom leaves us soon after the book begins – to Rashid, the owner of an opium den, Dimple, the eunuch who is his ‘kaamvali’, and to a small extent Rumi. (no, just a shortened form of Ramesh) The networks of stories are like waves, probably matching opium induced undulations of the mind. They are continuous, and have similarities – of pain, and a need for belonging and love. But they are unique too, as we watch time pass by – backward and forward – through the perspectives of different characters. The Stoneman references give us an indication of the timeframe the novel is set, but we also get a glimpse of the socio-political scene of China in the 1940s thanks to Mr.Lee. (more…)