{"id":10951,"date":"2016-04-03T10:29:28","date_gmt":"2016-04-03T04:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/?p=10951"},"modified":"2020-11-15T14:03:34","modified_gmt":"2020-11-15T08:33:34","slug":"cough-syrup-surrealism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/2016\/04\/03\/cough-syrup-surrealism\/","title":{"rendered":"Cough Syrup Surrealism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tharun James Jimani<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m not sure I really ‘got’ this book. The obvious story line is not really complex – Charlie, a Mallu boy in Chennai, whose dad expects him to become an IAS officer just like him, gets sucked into a world of drugs, music and sex, every fifth page. He also has an identity crisis, and like Peter Pan, refuses to grow up, despite quite a lot of self flagellation and advice from his parents and friends. A nineties kid who refuses to acknowledge, let alone accommodate the noughties, his relationships are anything but simple.<\/p>\n

Mao (a figment of Charlie’s imagination) might get irritated, but I wondered if this was the only level this book was operating at. The narrative (and this is not necessarily criticism) is very Charlie-like. I always had this feeling that there was subtext I was completely missing out on. On many occasions, I plodded through text – the Charlie analogy I’d use is that it’s a bit like smiling at pop culture references you haven’t really got. Charlie’s thoughts – for example, mixtapes and body parts – would make for a great conversation when stoned. I wondered quite a few times whether that condition was a prerequisite to reading the book! I’m not even sure if the author meant for this to work that way, but when we have a title that has cough syrup and surrealism, that thought is bound to cross your mind.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I liked the understated humour, and the occasional, almost shy, wordplay and wit. There was something endearing about that. There are only a couple of places where I was willing the author to get on with the narrative, otherwise the pace is trippy and racy at the same time.<\/p>\n

If you want something radically different from standard fare, this might not be a bad idea.<\/p>\n

\"Cough<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tharun James Jimani I’m not sure I really ‘got’ this book. The obvious story line is not really complex – Charlie, a Mallu boy in Chennai, whose dad expects him to become an IAS officer just like him, gets sucked into a world of drugs, music and sex, every fifth page. He also has an […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[370,6007],"tags":[4999,5000],"class_list":["post-10951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-fiction","tag-cough-syrup-surrealism","tag-tharun-james-jimani"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10951"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11142,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10951\/revisions\/11142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}