The Bookworm

I’d promised to myself that I’d read 50 books in 2009. I didn’t keep count though I read quite a handful of books. Just that I hardly read any non-fiction. What a shame!

2010. I already have a selection of books at hand. And what more, a large number of them are non-fiction (of course one would point out that most of them relate to the economy). And, I have some books by Indian authors too (I’d read reviews eons ago and I picked them up at a sale). Here’s the list.

Fiction (9 books)

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest

The above three books form the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson, a Swedish journalist (and rights activist) who died before the books were published. I’ve heard that these books have become a rage the world over (and I’d not heard of it at all). The books have been translated from Swedish to English. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

The Black Book. By Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish author who won the Nobel in 2006. I’ve been immensely impressed by his works that I’ve read so far (My Name is Red and Snow.

The Romantics by Rajkamal Jha

The Blue Bedspread by Pankaj Mishra

The Collected Novels of Khushwant Singh

The Time Traveler’s Wife

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

I have never read so many Indian authors in a year. It’d be fun reading Khushwanthough!

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. The only reason for picking this up is that it won the Booker. I wasn’t mightily impressed by the last couple of years’ Man Booker awards (Arvind Adiga and Kiran Desai). I hope I’d not be disappointed once again.

Non-Fiction (11 books)

Infectious Greed (Frank Partnoy)

A Search in Secret India (Paul Brunton)

The Crunch (Alex Brummer)

Fooled by Randomness (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)

What On Earth Happened? (Christopher Lloyd)

Panic! (Michael Lewis)

Undercover Economist (Tim Harford)

Storms in the Seawind Ambani Vs Ambani (Alam Srinivas)

Traders, Guns and Money (Satyajit Das)

Beyond the Last Blue Mountain (RM Lala)

Veerappan’s Prize Catch: Rajkumar (C Dinakar)

It doesn’t matter if I end up reading 25, 50 or 100 books this year. I’d love to end up having gone through some quality stuff. Happy reading!

A Storm Named 'Snow'

I’m 42. I fall in love head over heals. But it ends unrequited (after the initial promise of togetherness and happiness). I return to my solitude, drinks and dream-world. At 46 I am shot (and killed) for my transgressions of the past.

If only ‘Snow’ could be summarised thus!

Orhan Pamuk paints a compelling, claustrophobic, dark, bleak and surreal picture in ‘Snow’. It’s not just the story of Ka, the poet, a political exile and his quest for happiness. It tells us the story of a society in turbulence. It tells the story of the people whose faith shatters along with their lives.

This is the second Pamuk novel that I read. There are some threads that run common in both the novels. One is the presence of ever-falling snow. There is no respite from it. Second is the strong female characters (and of course they’re irresistibly beautiful). Ipek and Shekure (of ‘My Name Is Red’) share the same traits – they are women who know what they want. Third is the role of the author himself in the book (in ‘My Name Is Red’ Shekure tells us that she’s told the entire story to her son, Orhan). And just as in ‘My Name Is Red’ in ‘Snow’ too there’s a character named after a colour. But there end the similarities. Beyond this, the style of narration, the mood, characterisation, the setting, the time – all are different.

As the snowfall continues, the town of Kars gets cut off from the rest of the world. As the snow falls, the events unfold, the poet-protagonist’s beliefs are shaken, the insecurities increase, claustrophobia sets in, and the political tale grows morbid. Ka, caught in this vortex vacillates between his love for everything Western (and hence secular?) to his new awakening for the religion. And his belief in achieving ever-lasting happiness in the bliss of love wavers throughout too, before being doomed.

The conflict of ideologies – of the Left, Western and the Religious – forms the centre of ‘Snow’. The freedom of choice and its non-availability makes matters worse. This is evident in the play that is staged (the unavailability of a headscarf even to be used in a play in the 1930’s contrasts sharply with the gasps of shock expressed by the audience watching the same play in the 90’s). One might even be forgiven if one sees a soft corner in the author’s narration for the religious youth. Then again there is the irony of extramarital relationships, pre-marital sex, wining – all condemned by Islam. And the doubts of the existence of God in the minds of the believer. ‘Snow’ isn’t just a good reflection of what’s happening in the Turkish society but also is a wonderful mirror of the happenings in the entire world. When one reads about the headscarves girls of Kars, one’s mind immediately recalls the memories of the Muslim girls in Paris. It also reminded me of the ugly bias in India when the issue was all over the media, thanks to the Sikhs in Paris and elsewhere in France (“It is important that Sikhs be allowed to sport their headgear” everyone said but the same support wasn’t seen anywhere for the girls who wanted to cover their heads).

When I read ‘Snow’ I was overcome by extreme emotions. I haven’t found another fictional character like ‘Ka’ that I could relate to. I could see myself in his thought process, in his behaviour. I saw my own failures in his. I suffer from the same superstitions, fears and fallacies. I exhibit the same kind of supercilious attitudes. I marvelled at the author’s ability in creating such a character (of course I’m no poet like Ka) while also getting irrationally angry for laying me bare like this to myself.

'My Name Is Red'

My desire to read at least 25 books this year might just come true. When I travelled to Guwahati I could pick up 6 books (4 fiction, 2 non-fiction). Two of the books were bought by CL for me. Importantly I haven’t read a single title by any of the authors I’ve picked up this time (5 different authors; I picked up two titles of the same person).

The first book I read of the six was, ‘My Name is Red’ by Orhan Pamuk, the Nobel laureate of 2006. I still am reeling from the spellbinding effect the work had on me.

The novel, set in the 16th Century Ottoman empire is a murder mystery among many other things (murder mystery being the simplest of the descriptions). The novel begins with the corpse talking to the reader (the one who’s been murdered just then). Now you don’t expect a novelist to make the corpse tell the story do you? Well nor do you expect every character in the book speaking to you. But they do. Not just men and (some) women but also some of the paintings (or the attributes thereof) – as the novel is based on the lives of miniaturists of the time (the victim and the murderer are miniaturists). The novel also relates the glory of miniature painting and its decline (due to the spread of the influence of Western painting into the Islamic culture) vividly. It also is the saga of love – the love of Black for Shekure over many years. A story that recounts the love that’s lost, found and lost again. One comes across a storyteller who also happens to be a cross dresser (if this shocks you don’t read further), a world where men desire and lust for young boys (and it seems almost all men do here), a religion that influences the entire fabric of life (Islam), the gossip at the coffeehouse (where you’ll find the story teller narrating the tales of a dog, a tree, Red and the Satan) and a raging debate on the changing morals (well, the entire debate is about the change taking place in painting and painters but then one tries to read between and beyond the lines too).

Orhan Pamuk writes in Turkish. If his work is THIS brilliant even after translation, one can only wonder how marvellous it might be to read the original. As an author his triumph lies in the nuances he brings to the characters he sketches, the dry wit that flows through the narration, the beautiful critique of religion and the amazing treasure of historical data he presents without boring the readers. As I read the novel my respect grew for not just the art of miniature painting but for the religion, Islam. This is a must-read for any person who loves books.