tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17989386291336973552024-03-12T17:27:55.198-07:00keeping tabSitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.comBlogger113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-69658045655302052242020-06-11T11:40:00.000-07:002018-03-02T03:12:16.637-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
In keeping with several of my resolutions in life, I've decided to keep tab of what I've been reading. And because I generally like reading such lists on other people's pages, I'm going to put mine up as well. :-)<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;">Currently Reading:</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br />
The Gene, Siddhartha Mukherjee<br />
The Hand, Frank R Wilson<br />
The Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi<br />
Visions of Culture, Jerry Moore<br />
Affliction, Veena Das<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Next on my list:</b><br />
<br />
The Adivasi Will Not Dance, Handsa Shekhar<br />
Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee<br />
<br />
<b>Recently Read:</b><br />
<br />
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt<br />
77 Dream Songs, John Berryman<br />
Red Tape: Bureaucracy, Structural Violence and Poverty in India, Akhil Gupta</div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-62496517968535513312018-03-02T02:57:00.002-08:002018-03-02T02:59:56.054-08:00court of fools<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My love for Siddhartha Mukherjee is delayed. When people were talking about him (Emperor of All Maladies!), I didn't pick up the book - why would I want to read about cancer anyway? This year though, after a year of book drought, I was trawling across my house desperate for something to read. I had already started reading The Hand by Frank R Wilson, and was fascinated by much of the stuff he was talking about. I needed to run to the bathroom though, and it was nowhere to be found. (I only found it much later under layers of blankets on my bed). So I picked up the book at the top of my shelf - The Gene.<br />
<br />
Mukherjee is, more than anything else, a storyteller. The book is tightly knit prose pretending to be non-fiction. The very beginning, his journey to Calcutta; the story of a monk; the middle, a complex plot of people, history and places putting together something resembling a murder mystery - except the mystery is about the fundamental make-up of the human material body. Consider this. His description of the relationship between James Watson and Francis Crick: "It was not an erotic love, but a love of shared madness, of conversations that were electric and boundless, of ambitions that ran beyond realities. (...) They were self-appointed jesters in a court of fools."<br />
<br />
To talk about his way with writing people would be incomplete. His science writing is equally brilliant. There are a couple of pages where he describes the relationship between the genotype and the phenotype. Moving from genotype + environment = phenotype, he takes us through a range of experiments that lead us to a remarkable conclusion; that genotype + environment + triggers + <i>chance </i>(!!) = phenotype. Excuse me if I sound like I'm rambling about vague science-y things without context. But that's exactly the most exciting thing about Mukherjee.<br />
<br />
He tells it like a story. Not just any story: a racy, murder mystery full of crazy characters racing through world wars, politics (both petty university politics and poisonous world politics), nobel prizes, love - to build a narrative about the Gene. Each step along the way is carefully constructed, taking into consideration every side of the debate - people in conversation with each other through academic papers, conferences, experiments, discipline; sometimes across time, sometimes within same universities and rooms; sometimes wilfully so, sometimes simply by accident.<br />
<br />
Often, while reading the book, I told myself that <i>this </i>is the type of teacher I want to be. To weave together the most complex theoretical debates into such fascinating stories. Because at the end of the day, isn't that what it is?<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-59357371682638234492016-04-22T03:57:00.003-07:002016-04-22T03:57:48.606-07:00The Lost Generation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Lost Generation: Chronicling India’s Dying Professions<br />
by Nidhi Dugar Kundalia.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://openroadreview.com/rudaalis-sing-nidhi-dugar-kundalia-book-review-sita-mamidipudi/">Read my review here on Open Road Review. </a><br />
<br />
An excerpt:<br />
<br />
"Once we move past the novelty of these professions, of the nooks they occupy in battles and epics, of their romance and nostalgia, we have to ask, so what! Are these professions indeed anachronistic, stuck in a timewarp surrounded by Rudaalis waiting to weep? Or, as patriarchy, caste and feudalism change their natures, do they continue to make space for these professions?" <br /><br /><br /><br /></div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-29026352862699900522016-04-21T03:35:00.000-07:002016-04-21T03:35:13.742-07:00city and the river<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
by arun joshi<br />
<br />
um. i wanted to like it. really.</div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-1042293989670951282016-01-23T23:48:00.001-08:002016-01-23T23:53:15.594-08:00salman rushdie's new book<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
is stellar.<br />
<br />
this is why i love salman rushdie. exactly this. it's witty, hilarious and perfect. it's full of parables - most directly taking apart the current indian and global political regime, questioning the role of religion in the world today, the notion of free speech... (my favorite line from the book has to be - "anti-national element is an element for which there is no longer any place in our periodic table".) at the same time, it's a triumphant story about jinnis, love, war and crazy things. this is the salman rushdie the world fell in love with - let nobody have it any other way.<br />
<br /></div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-25541710647845586872015-10-22T01:05:00.000-07:002015-10-22T01:06:14.967-07:00a good run<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've had such a good run these past couple of months!<br />
<br />
Firstly, I went to Turkey (!!!) and Istanbul, oh my god, is where it's AT.<br />
<br />
Otherwise, the books I've been reading! SO good. After SUCH a long time.<br />
<br />
I am Radar, which I am convinced is amazing:<br />
"We can only witness the witnessing!"<br />
<br />
**<br />
<br />
The Sandglass by Romesh Gunasekara, which is as complex and lyrical a murder mystery as I've read:<br />
<br />
"My father... would've said that arrack has been extremely lucrative for a hundred years, so someone must be (interested in it). It was the only route to real capital accumulation: cheap to produce, and a permanently addicted market. Why do you think the British introduced these taverns? It's like the opium dens."<br />
<br />
or even:<br />
<br />
"...selling the paradise experience between death camps and suicide bombers to tourists who didn't care."<br />
<br />
**<br />
<br />
Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut:<br />
<br />
"Kilgore Trout once wrote a story called "This Means You". It was set in the Hawaiian Islands, the place where the lucky winners of Dwayne Hoover's contest in Midland City were supposed to go. Every bit of land on the islands was owned by only about 40 people, and, in the story, Trout had those people decide to exercise their property rights in full. They put up no tresspassing boards on everything. <br />
<br />
This created terrible problems for the million other people on the islands. The law of gravity required that they stick somewhere on the surface. Either that, or they could go out into the water and bob offshore. <br />
<br />
But then the Federal Government came through with an emergency program. It gave a big balloon full of helium to every man, woman and child who didn't own property."<br />
<br />
(pp. 73; Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut.) </div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-45444337004919871572015-09-17T23:55:00.001-07:002015-09-18T00:18:27.594-07:00i am radar<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
by reif larsen<br />
<br />
such. meticulous. detail.<br />
such brilliant writing. (ok, also may be slightly sluggish in places, but i'm not one to complain. the illustrations and footnotes more than make up for it).<br />
the kind of range reif larsen has is CRAZY. i think i have to read this book at least thrice over before i can see its bottom.<br />
ACK.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
ps. there is such a thing as post-book exhilaration. once it has passed, people are known to say different things about a book. for now i have to say this - i lived with this book for about three weeks. i read it in small doses every night and looked up a lot of things that he writes about. these things ranged from cambodian and serbian history to poetry, birds, theatre and wikipedia pages on quantum physics. i want reif larsen's job!</div>
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-7044199135128560922015-08-02T11:05:00.002-07:002015-08-02T11:07:03.172-07:00neapolitan novels <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
by elena ferrante<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Way too many conversations I had last month were rants about how new Indian fiction writers often write their characters too flatly: they write the "Indian" in contexts they hope break class barriers (in english) and in language that sounds like it is translated from the vernacular. Especially those who write women. I understand what they're <i>trying </i>to do. It's a part of a larger project of making <i>the unnamed, undepicted in images, not only unspoken but unspeakable*</i> speakable. It is to give voice to a subaltern, write those who aren't known, whose concerns aren't valued, whose lives aren't written. It's a project I'm fully convinced about - it definitely needs to be done. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But what comes out of it (especially in India) worries me. I can't put my finger on what it is, exactly. I know it's condescending of me to say this, but it's not self-aware or political in the way that it engages with its subject. If one is writing a character in a village in Bihar, or a slum in Bombay, or an earthquake in Gujarat, or a shop in Andhra Pradesh, it isn't enough to merely write that character in that context, one also needs to write a <i>person </i>capable of abstraction, intellectuality, thought. It is <i>so easy </i>to lose yourself in recreating what you imagine this person's world to be (even if it is well-researched), that you forget what it is like to be the person. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Such writing, in its urge to "capture" or "represent" what it imagines is "real", forgets that no text is neutral or apolitical in its engagement. You have to take a considered position. It is such consideration, in my view, that sets good writing apart from the mediocre. (If I may quote the awesome Alison Bechdel**, "I had set out to name the unnamed, to depict the undepicted, to make lesbians <i>visible</i> and I had done it! Wait a minute... I forgot to account for the observer effect! I've disrupted the space-time continuum. You can't pin things down without changing them somehow.") </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's also, if I have to get to the core of my problem, pretty damn patronising to write like that. So if someone is poor, they can't be intelligent? They can't have motives that aren't base? They can't be aware of their bodies, their sexualities, their emotions? They don't have the capacity to challenge power? They can't see what <i>you</i> see? They can't speak beautifully, in sentences that are fluid? They can't be political, engage in discourse? Why is it that you can't write poor people as people? Why can't you imagine yourself, give them a voice that is closer to yours, more <i>personal? </i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Anyway, the reason I'm talking about all this here today is because I just finished Book 3 of the Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante (translated by Ann Goldstein). It's a powerful series written by someone who does exactly what is lacking - she writes women who are smart, challenging, complicated, intelligent and intellectual. I took some time to get caught up in the first book. I thought it read too much like a translation, often grappling with how much of the vernacular should sound that way. It annoyed me because I thought it was going to be a lot like these Indian writers and translations. (Where you hear the original language in your head and keep wondering how it may have read). The second book was good too, and I was really taken by the way she writes. The third book - the third book was spectacular. It felt like it was written by someone who <i>knew </i>what she was about. She was finally sinking her feet in and telling you what she really thought. It was more complete, more culled out. Less raw. Less intimidated. Fluid.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
***</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
*"Whatever is unnamed, undepicted in images, whatever is omitted from biography, censored in collections of letters, whatever is misnamed as something else, made difficult-to-come-by, whatever is buried in the memory by the collapse of meaning under an inadequate or lying language - this will become, not merely unspoken, but unspeakable." Adrienne Rich, On Lies, Secrets and Silence.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
**I only just started to read The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, Alison Bechdel. </div>
<br /></div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-47535089467922119852015-07-13T11:02:00.001-07:002015-07-13T11:02:05.717-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px;">
Out on the open ground not far from the buildings<br />an abandoned newspaper has lain for months, full of events.<br />It grows old through nights and days in rain and sun,<br />on the way to becoming a plant, a cabbage head, on the way to being<br /> united with the earth.<br />Just as a memory is slowly transmuted into your own self.</div>
<div style="color: #4f4f4f; font-family: proxima-nova, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1em; padding: 0px; text-align: right;">
—“About History” by Tomas Tranströmer (from <em>Bells and Tracks</em>)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-23072675313136268162015-06-01T00:12:00.001-07:002015-06-01T00:17:38.346-07:00flood of fire<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
amitav ghosh<br />
<br />
ties up everything, and most beautifully.<br />
brilliant book, all by itself.<br />
<br />
more later.<br />
<br />
notes: mr. reid! whattaguy! (i missed mr. chinnery, but this "affliction" was brilliant! i did miss more of ghosh's humour, though.)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-74149375331166414752015-05-28T04:35:00.002-07:002015-05-28T04:36:55.184-07:00the buried giant<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
by kazuo ishiguro<br />
<br />
are we a sum of our memories? is history a sum of memories?<br />
<br />
is it just me or is ishiguro just plain boring?<br />
<br />
the more academic word for it is banal, apparently. but i <i>feel</i> like he's boring. uff. </div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-43629626065084144272014-10-26T23:09:00.003-07:002014-10-26T23:51:16.746-07:00a poem for a monday<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Reading this made me laugh. I love when poetry does that. :) <br />
<a href="http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/pages/?p=7501"><br /></a>
<br />
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">
<b><a href="http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/pages/?p=7501">Sarajevo to Dubrovnik</a></b></div>
<a href="http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/pages/?p=7501">by Eileen Carney Hulme</a><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Unintentionally we captured</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">a rainbow, the sky half dark</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and the sun full of energy, mischievous</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">in an affectionate way. Perhaps</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">we had too many coffees or</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">the narrow roads and mountain</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">passes had raised our heartbeats</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">but here we are like go-betweens</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">carrying love letters or breathless</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">sighs from country to country</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">and this rainbow sneaking in</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">hitching a lift with no word</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">to the wind.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">**</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><a href="http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/pages/?p=7501">From <i>Ink, Sweat and Tears. </i></a></span></div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-79867853824235648402014-10-24T10:37:00.001-07:002014-10-24T10:37:44.702-07:00illicit happiness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This isn't really a post about the book. Having so disclaimed, I will write on. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I just read my third* book this year in which a person commits suicide: The Illicit Happiness of Other People, by Manu Joseph.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The other two are Sense of an Ending (Julian Barnes) and Foreigner (Arun Joshi). I think Arun Joshi and Julian Barnes are absolute geniuses. No question about it. I'm yet to make my mind up about Manu Joseph, although I must say I am veering towards pretty good. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I started reading this book at my grandmother's funeral. I sat in a corner while everybody else did their own thing and read. It was slow progress. I got through about 100 pages over that week. I did more staring at the book than actual reading, but I was glad to have something to hold. When I picked it up, I didn't know it was a book about a dead person. It was only on the flight home when I pulled it out of my bag, my cousin told me with a wrong-choice sort of tone, "it's pretty intense book". She, herself, bought a book called 'Punjabi Parmesan' which also turned out to be a wrong choice. (It turned out to be non-fiction and nothing like the name suggests. Go on. Google it.) I don't think the being-about-death bothered me though. In the general state of mind I was in, any book would have taken me this long to finish. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Immediately after the week I spent at home with my entire family doing our own thing and only reading about 100 pages, I was on a flight to Patna. I spent a whole week in Bihar at field work, mostly alone, living in okay hotel rooms in Gaya and really crappy hotel rooms in Muzaffarpur. During this time, I tried to read. Instead, I watched Homeland. (The first season. The second and third seasons I reserved for Muzaffarpur). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I ended up reading more of this book when I was waiting for my train to Patna at the Gaya station. My suitcase, my backpack and I, we sat there for a whole couple of hours again making very slow progress at the whole reading thing. A man who was sitting next to me (whose efforts at putting his hand on my thigh I kept thwarting) eventually tried to make conversation with me: "Aankhein kharab ho jayenge. Idhar mat padho." I shot him my angriest look and turned up my headphones. Again, the book became something I only pretended to read till the train came while I listened to that week's All Songs Considered and seethed. </div>
<br />
The book has remained in my handbag since.<br />
<br />
I only picked it up today because I wanted to do something that wouldn't involve my laptop (and as is evidenced by this blogpost, that didn't last very long), and didn't want to read something new because all the books I am in the middle of are making me very guilty. (There are a couple more on Kindle. Kindle is the worst, because I don't even remember which books I have started reading. Today, I clicked on a book called 'Thief's Magic by Trudi Caravan, and as I started to read it I realised I had actually finished reading the damn thing! I really need to go back to updating that list.)<br />
<br />
And I finished it.<br />
<br />
And I must say that it's quite good, this book.<br />
<br />
Okay goodnight.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
*I'm fairly sure there is a fourth. I just can't remember which.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-91988871740697309742014-08-09T21:26:00.002-07:002014-08-09T21:26:58.440-07:00diary of a bad year<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
j m coetze.<br />
<br />
uff. still reeling from it. might not stop reeling from it. </div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-57370245313434750512014-07-08T04:41:00.001-07:002014-07-08T04:46:23.638-07:00khakras and sanderson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
i understand my 'i'mtoobusytoreadwhine' posts are getting boring.<br />
<br />
instead, i give you a picture of where i woke up this morning. :) (it's a village called gajapura, about 80 kms from godhra, gujarat. i noticed only later that my finger got in the way.)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVt6VKHE8wDpsNjgMpIvPSrbo0kr2HI1bbsuUKZDT60QEZupmBq_T2tpH74IrwI37C7yP81Q8R95Tuzz84BFX7DVknD1Re70-ErT3bb3XTjIKkl-YKbZ5ftS3w-XCxDPFurFnLpkCfgGc/s1600/DSC_0024.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVt6VKHE8wDpsNjgMpIvPSrbo0kr2HI1bbsuUKZDT60QEZupmBq_T2tpH74IrwI37C7yP81Q8R95Tuzz84BFX7DVknD1Re70-ErT3bb3XTjIKkl-YKbZ5ftS3w-XCxDPFurFnLpkCfgGc/s1600/DSC_0024.JPG" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
anyway, since i've been travelling, trains are reading conducive. but since i'm constantly exhausted, i've gone back to reading stock fantasy, and as a refreshing change (kill me later for using the term), chick lit.<br />
<br />
so in the first half of the past ten days, i finished the books from stormlight archive by brandon sanderson (2 nos.) it was quite belatedly that i realized that this wasn't, in fact, the series that he has managed to finish just yet. which was quite a bummer because now i have to wait till spring 2016. suxx. it read like standard fantasy, and it was just what i needed because it wasn't too involving. the plot isn't going anywhere anytime soon, so it's easy to put it down and go to sleep. i understand that neither of those things is a compliment.<br />
<br />
on the sixth day, i finished saba imtiaz's 'karachi, you're killing me'. like i kept telling everyone who asked - it was fun! i don't think it was meant to accomplish anything serious. and it was hugely predictable. but also cute! and fun! yay!<br />
<br />
the next few days have been spent reading brandon sanderson's mistborn series (2 nos.) suffice to say, stormlight archive is way nicer. this is... okay, i guess. it keeps losing its sense of narrative often. but i look forward to starting on the third book nevertheless.<br />
<br />
i also have a copy of nam le's 'the boat' that i'm lugging around everywhere. what can i say, reading sanderson off kindle on my phone is more convenient?<br />
<br />
anyway, more khakras just arrived. and work, i'm not mentioning work. </div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-84054889679797887302014-06-19T11:25:00.003-07:002014-06-19T11:25:41.493-07:00pfft<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
time, ladies. i keep cribbing about it because i genuinely ain't got none. <div>
<br /></div>
<div>
on the other hand, someone tell me what to read? i miss reading.</div>
</div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-19914473338853127122014-04-20T07:22:00.000-07:002014-04-20T07:22:02.718-07:00predictable fantasy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
is the most amazing thing. it's my go-to filler reading, okay? <br />
<br />
(also, I can't wait for May! when I can start reading normal things again! and possibly writing! Yay!)<br />
<br />
I've been saying this too much - but Mr. Eliot was right. April <i>is </i>the cruellest month, even if not for the reasons he gives.<br />
<br />
Anyway, case in point - The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay.<br />
<br />
It's like he wrote it because he wanted to write a Wheel of Time + Other Generic Swords and Sorcery Fantasy mashup. Without any real originality, either. And with high levels of predictability. It's not like he even has an excuse, okay? He wrote it in 2001, by which time Wheel of Time was pretty cult. He couldn't have been catering to those fantasy nerds with limited fantasy worlds without having read Wheel of Time. So what's with the good v. evil story with the tapestry weaving as the tapestry will? I mean, did you forget that you also wrote Tigana? Which is crazy awesome? <br />
<br />
But because I'll take a (good) 14000 page series with a Dark One anyday, I think it was imperative for me to invest time and energy into a similar series by an author I love.<br />
<br />
I'm basically saying that because he's awesome (yes he is) I just hadta read it alllllllll. So sue me. </div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-16027124502402714272014-04-10T07:27:00.000-07:002014-04-10T07:27:03.820-07:00this year thus far<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
1. um, without realizing it, i seem to have read almost everything guy gavriel kay has written. this is pretty cool, except i haven't made any notes about any of his books. i only have the fionavar tapestry left, i think. slow and steady?<br />
<br />
2. books i started but haven't finished: the luminaries (it's long and difficult to carry around okay?)<br />
moons of jupiter - alice munro and<br />
insects are like you and me - kuzhali manickavel (short stories are difficult to do in one go)<br />
vasudeva's family - vaidehi (i forgot it in a friend's house. too lazy to retrieve it)<br />
once upon a time in scandinavistan - zac o yeah (it offended too many of my sensibilities to go forward with it).<br />
<br />
3. books i read very slowly: we need new names - noviolet bulawayo (too much emotion, but beautiful)<br />
hired man - aminatta forna (took me a while to get involved in it)<br />
<br />
4. books i swallowed:<br />
a tale for the time being, ruth ozeki (book of the year, yet)<br />
god in every stone, kamila shamsie (need to read more by her to make up my mind)<br />
the foreigner, arun joshi (a love letter to arun joshi is forthcoming)<br />
everything by guy gavriel kay (sigh)<br />
<br />
it's been a slow quarter-of-a-year fiction-wise, but only because i've been too busy to do any reading. any reading i have done has been largely guilt-inducing, and this is never good. come may, i promise to turn into a book monster. :) </div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-76495839079241517042014-03-24T05:50:00.000-07:002014-03-24T06:16:56.896-07:00a god in every stone<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
by Kamila Shamsie</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I don't have the time to write something longer, but I have to note these down or I'll forget.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
1.
The anticipation of love: The whole book is full of it. It is always
standing around at the edges, teasing you, testing you, seeing if you'll
fall for it. I did, convincingly, every time. I fell for every
character meant for love, whether or not anyone in the book actually
did. I fell for Qayyum Gul (with his hands behind his head alone on a
berth in a train; one eyed Qayyum, sure yet so very unsure of himself.)
And I kept hoping <i>she </i>would too. I kept looking for it - Now it will happen, oh, now she will recognize him, wait this is the moment. A <i>moment. </i>I can't say if I loved the book for the anticipation of love, or for the love there actually is. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
2.
Reading Shamsie is like reading a non-fantasy Guy Gavriel Kay. It
feels like you're really reading a book on history in story form. It's
well-researched and a terrific pleasure. Makes you want to read up on
little things. (May be I'm drawing this comparison because I've been
reading Kay like a beast. But if you read Kay and Shamsie in succession,
I dare you not to make it too). I loved her account of wartime Britain
for its little details, the politics, the opinions. I loved how Vivian
grows through the book: I love her idea of service to a nation in
wartime, and how it changes as she becomes her own person. I love the
tension in the book when the man from the government comes to meet her.
You <i>know </i>she can't be that silly, you <i>want her </i>to not be that silly. When she <i>is, </i>you're immediately heart-broken. You know what is coming, it's an inevitability. But you hope because she hopes. <br />
<br />
3. I really really want to go to Turkey.<br />
<br />
4. My southern school education somehow missed out on the immediacy and
intimacy of the history of partition, and I think this is true of many
of my South Indian friends. A lot of North Indian friends of mine have a
romantic notion of Pakistan - they have roots there (a grandparent who
left, lands, families, that sort of thing). To me, it has always been a
different culture, a different people. When I found out that they have a
Punjab too, somehow Pakistani butter chicken became something I had to
try. (I was 11. Not much has changed). So when I read Pakistani writers,
I read them as I would read any other writer. Suddenly little
unexpected things pop out at me and I think <i>aha, </i>there's
something I didn't expect you to be like. With Mohammed Hanif's Alice
Bhatti, I kept thinking that way about caste. About how I <i>understood </i>its perpetuation without really thinking about it as different/Pakistani. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It
happened with Shamsie too, but not in the same way: With her, it was
about the cultural references. The train stations, the quaint streets,
the clubs. (In my head, they look like old Hyderabad, and I can say with
some certainty that the clubs are the same everywhere. I've been to
Gymkhanas all over the country, and if they haven't changed between
Hyderabad, Bangalore, Calcutta and Delhi, I doubt they're largely
different or the sandwiches are much better in Pakistan). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-71143570294416893192014-01-13T09:11:00.002-08:002014-01-13T09:13:23.506-08:002013<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">10 Books of the Year, off the Top of My Head. </span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><br />
1. Cronopios and Famas, Julio Cortazar</span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">One of the most amazing books and authors I have ever read, possibly. I will write about him when I can. If I can. Ever. </span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><br />
2. Adi Parva, Amruta Patil</span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">Wrote about it already, but it is the questions that stay with me. A book whose writing is better than (if possible) the art. What a beautiful, beautiful book. </span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><br />
3. Tender is the Night, F Scott Fitzgerald</span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">I read this a few months before I watched The Great Gatsby. It made me cry, which only one other book in recent memory did. But also, it made me marvel at sentence after sentence; re-read chapters, paragraphs, and the whole book. Because Fitzgerald makes reading prose seem easy and light. After I watched the film, I was able to see this book in a new light. I saw what he was saying about wealth and the middle-class, why it was important for him to write it the way he did (in the order he did, I mean), and about lov<i>ing </i>(not outside the context of wealth). </span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><br />
4. My Tender Matador, Pedro Lemebel</span><br />
Dance with it. See its beauty. Let it tear you apart.<br />
It will. <br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><br />
5. Numbers in the Dark, Italo Calvino<br />There's a reason this is one of the best compilations of short stories ever. Or several. </span><br />
<br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">6. Book Thief, Markus Zusak</span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">I cried a lot. That's what this book is about. In a good way? </span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><br />
7. (Much as I'd hate to admit it) Towers of Midnight, Sanderson and Jordan</span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">Over! Yay. (Okay, in all fairness, it was a decent book. Obviously Mat and Tuon were my favorites. It was a little too cut and dry, but if it was anything else, there would have been no point to it. It ties up every single loose end in the way you expected it to end about six books ago. So if, like me, you like your fantasy to be happy and predictable, you'll probably like this book. But if you have to read thirteen other books to get here, you probably won't get this far. So um.)</span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><br />
8. Ka, Roberto Calasso</span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">I've never seen Indian mythology in this way. Roberto Calasso is almost academic in so many places, that this book is sometimes tedious to get through. It is definitely not one of those things you can read in one go. But it is also one of the most rewarding reads of the year. </span></span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />
9. Mezzanine, Nicholson Baker </span></span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">Oh! The! Footnotes! Just that. If not the whole damn book.</span></span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />
10. Em and the Big Hoom, Jerry Pinto </span></span><br />
<span class="userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}"><span class="text_exposed_show">Also wrote about it already, sort of. <br />
<br />
I might cheat later, but this is it for now. <br />
<br />
I forgot! 11. Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz!! (Also see - <a href="http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.salon.com%2F2012%2F07%2F02%2Fthe_search_for_decolonial_love%2F&h=pAQGiGU1r&enc=AZO0wl8CTAPdt4u9rkPSGmb-AtGIt3TvLPyLfDcRB4q7izcm9ZSJ8dpASRZWKpUD13Uv42vI444VxDL59-JmidflpSqltkyl7xSMM5Kj8ZzAWUqi-iyOxpbbRNAQ2TCHX5mGL5N6zc3wHy8bSYT9AvPj&s=1" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.salon.com/2012/07/<wbr></wbr><span class="word_break"></span>02/<wbr></wbr><span class="word_break"></span>the_search_for_decolonial_love/</a>)<br />
12. Shadow Lines, Amitav Ghosh (Which I've been saving up for ten years and finally fell in love with.)<br />
</span></span></div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-64078297800296668052013-12-26T04:39:00.001-08:002013-12-26T10:33:32.759-08:00why do we like horrible movies?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I have spent at least the past three weeks being bothered by this. There is no easy answer. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I shall first give you context. When I was sick, I watched a lot of things on TV. Initially, I thought I would use this time productively, catch up on some good reading, all the TV shows I've been putting off and so on. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Instead, I discovered a new love for <strike>cheesy</strike> crappy, horrible telugu movies. I FF-ed through most of the violence and music, but the fact is that it is a legitimately new love. It bothers me that I find these films amusing, and that I was entertained by chauvinistic, violent, sexist, thoroughly feudal plot-lines. It bothers me that slapping Brahmanandam is what passes off for humour. (Dookudu, anyone?) I do have standards though. I discovered through trial-and-error that some films are too bad even for my taste. (R.. Rajkumar, for example). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I write about this today because I have reached a breaking point. I watched <a href="http://mumbaiboss.com/2013/12/24/the-vigil-idiot-dhoom-3/">Dhoom 3</a> twice. <i>Twice. </i>And I will recommend it to anyone who wants to watch it. Happily. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
One of the explanations I heard for why we like horrible movies is that we are socialized into it. It is an explanation I like, but can't prescribe. We grew up to the steadily deteriorating plots of Chiranjeevi and Balakrishna. As children, our parents let us like their songs and watch their films. How did we end up at nearly every hero marrying his maradalu and fighting for his family honour (any Prabhas, Ravi Teja, Pawan Kalyan film)? We like that these men can kill hundreds and talk about why not killing is a good quality to have in men. We like that their idea of recreation is being aloof from women, as some sort of power trip. But I see these problems with these films and like them anyway (Attarintiki Daaredi? Best mainstream Telugu film of the year, imho). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The thing is, I don't necessarily <i>need </i>films to have any of these elements (Godavari!! which is NOT a horrible film). I love films that aren't like this at all <i>more</i>. Which doesn't take away from the fact that I genuinely like horrible films. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So I seek another explanation. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Why did I like Dhoom 3? Because Aamir Khan is invincible, even in death. Because it's emotionally stupid, and has you rooting for a character. Because its "brilliant" moments are <i>crazy</i>. Because it is earnest and cute, and really the kind of movie I want to watch when I need to be cheered up. I'm not saying leave-your-brain-at-home. You don't have to. I like it <i>because</i> it's stupid and I find it silly because I like bad movies. Because he has a tush I want to slap. Especially when it is in the middle of the screen. (Is slapping someone's butt also something we like to enjoy because of bad Telugu movies? I don't know. Do we learn to sexualize from how we see sexualization? I don't <i>know!!</i>)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
All these horrible Telugu and Tamil films are now being made in Hindi
too, so obviously there is an audience for films that think like this. Films like Chennai Express, Rowdy Rathore or any Sonakshi Sinha film really are either remakes or being written along these lines. Whether as satire or as films that are meant to honestly be like this, it is a disturbing phenomenon. I don't want to think that these films are getting produced over and over again because that's what people are like. I only say this because even <i>I </i>enjoy some of them, and I can't get over the fact that I do. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Why do we like horrible movies?</div>
</div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-74982226983424405862013-12-19T12:19:00.001-08:002013-12-19T22:29:41.039-08:00tigana and last light of the sun<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
by Guy Gavriel Kay</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Sometimes, I have trouble thinking of Guy Gavriel Kay's work as fantasy. I suppose it is warranted, considering how rich it is in its historical research. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I read Tigana last month, and was thoroughly impressed by it. Almost every single review I have read makes a mention of its size, but not once through the book did I feel like I was reading a really large book. (It might have something to do with reading it as an ebook). I say this because of how crisp the writing was. I don't think there is a single sentence in the whole book that doesn't have to be there. It's a story that tells itself through how it is structured, adding layer upon layer to every tale told. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I finished reading Last Light of the Sun today, and while this book isn't as large as Tigana is, it is engaging and thorough as Tigana. Again, not a single sentence out of place, and a story whose structure is made for marveling at. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The most amazing thing about Kay is how he writes characters you always want to root for. In both books, he tells a story from several opposing points of view, and makes you love every person in the story. It takes real skill to pull something of such complexity off, and Kay does it. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The other amazing thing about both books is how he tells a story that is set in a context he has researched extensively, but at no point does the story take a backseat to the research itself. One could treat it as an entirely imagined universe, and not miss anything (or if I did, I didn't really feel too bad about it). </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
One of the most interesting authors I've read all year, for sure. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Edit: Forgot to add, Tigana is absolutely completely heart breaking. THAT has to be in every review. <br />
<br /></div>
</div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-55981335258401108662013-12-17T07:58:00.001-08:002013-12-17T07:58:31.942-08:00sick reading<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've spent the past six weeks at home, mostly in bed. (Before you ask, I am entirely well now. There was never anything to worry about). This post contains my brief observations about reading while sick.<br />
<br />
1. When one is really unwell, reading is better time pass than watching television. This has something to do with the light hurting your constantly sleepy eyes, I think.<br />
<br />
2. Contrary to what I used to think, even if one is doing absolutely nothing all day for weeks, it is difficult to spend much of that time productively. For me, this was because all I really wanted to do was sleep. (For the first couple of weeks, even listening to music was tiring. Cue - something profound about how much we take our energy for these things for granted). <br />
<br />
3. When one is unwell, one wants to read crap. That's right. I didn't want to focus. I didn't want to think or worry or feel for characters or admire clever writing. I wanted to read crap. So what I appreciated the most is the Philippa Gregory book. And the Mills and Boons book.<br />
<br />
3.1 When I felt horrible about what I was reading, I read a LOT of Terry Pratchett. I went through nearly my entire collection. It definitely made me feel better. And then I read every single thing Kate Griffin ever wrote (as Kate Griffin). Which completely erased my guilt while also making me happy. <br />
<br />
4. Having access to other people's Kindle accounts feels like being in a candy store where everything is free. (This observation is also applicable to non-sick people). <br />
<br />
5. Better than reading is watching Prabhas films. I am entirely serious. </div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-53677356912563509582013-10-02T00:09:00.000-07:002013-10-03T21:52:44.700-07:00book!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
FULL WHOLE BOOK!<br />
<br />
whee!<br />
<br />
(It took me missing three whole deadlines to give up on looking at my laptop and read the first thing I got my hands on. Give it up for The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna!)</div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1798938629133697355.post-67416258255528052642013-09-16T07:11:00.001-07:002013-09-16T07:11:21.676-07:00rereading<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
it's that time of the year again, ladies and gentlemen.<br />
<br />
i'm rereading fantasy.<br />
<br />
until last year, i spent my rereading fantasy time secretly and guiltily reading wheel of time. now, since that is pointless and patrick rothfuss is only two books long and abercrombie is only three and i'm not exactly sure about jim butcher and i have none of my jasper ffordes with me in delhi (and i'll probably go jump somewhere before i reread game of thrones), i'm looking for new and awesome fantasy things to read.<br />
<br />
suggestions are welcome. <br />
<br />
xo<br />
<br /></div>
Sitahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15880461247743520860noreply@blogger.com0