Book Review: Books by Chetan Bhagat

When one is supposedly the best selling english author in India, one must wonder what kind of books are these which "capture the voice of the current youth". After having read 'One night at a call center', 'Three mistakes of my life' and 'Two states' the simple answer is terribly thought out and equally wretchedly penned books. I could spend time elaborating on this but I will not because clearly the author of these books, does not pretend to be an author as much as someone whose writing seek to balance out the extreme erudition of say Arundathi Roy (circa 'The god of small things'). That said this leads one to wonder what does define an author.

I have no qualms in admitting that I am a literary snob and for me these books have no intellectual interest, however I have read a lot of 'chiclit' and even those are better researched and far more enjoyable & entertaining than these books by Chetan Bhagat. So at the end of it all I am just left wondering what was the intention of writing stories with exceedingly stereotypical characters, filled with racial, cultural prejudices. Stories where the characters are black & white and barely have any depth, which a child with limited imagination and with a decent grasp of the English language can write. Is the answer that that child did not write it and this author did? Or is this a reflection of the current state of affairs of 'literature'.

Book Review: The Weight of Heaven- Thrity Umrigar

This is the fourth novel written by Thrity Umrigar. The story involves the loss of a child by an American couple, who subsequently move to India to work at a Multinational corporation in a small town, which they see as a fresh start to their marriage,a way to get over their tragic past. Once they get to India it is mainly a train wreck waiting to happen, as you read the story unfold, one learns about their past lives, their current lives and till eventually the future is here and the train wreck happens. I found the book to be unimaginative and exceedingly unconvincing.

The author is a fantastically talented writer who unfortunately seems to never get beyond the most basic of stories and the most banal cliches. There are clearly a lot of emotions in this book, some of which are indeed believable, however adding some complexity to the characters would perhaps have added to their depth. The characters are very black and white and exceedingly stereotypical. The book deals with the issues of perceived American Imperialism, the impact of multinational corporation on small towns. That said it does not explore any of these issues in a seemingly comprehensive, unbiased way and uses the cliches to add to the predictability of the characters and the story line.

I have read most of the books written by Thrity Umrigar including her memoir First Darling of the Morning: Selected Memories of an Indian Childhood (P.S.), but I have been exceedingly disappointed in the lack of dimensionality to the last few novels written by her and this current one is no exception. I highly recommend reading Bombay Time: A Novel, that is a great piece of work by her. On a personal note, I did write to her after I read that book to tell her I had enjoyed it a lot and she wrote back to me a non-form e-mail, which I think says a lot about the author.

Book Review: Sonata for Miriam- Linda Olsson

'Sonata for Miriam' is a wonderful lyrical book, which uses multiple styles of writing (changing first-person narrative, letters) to convey the story of dealing with loss, finding ones past and unclosed love (is it ever?). Adam Anker is the main protagonist who accidentally discovers a picture in a museum which leads him to question his past which leads him to Poland although he lives in New Zealand and grew up in Sweden. In addition to this momentous event he has to deal with great personal loss and re-evaluate the priorities in his life. As the book evolves one learns of his loss, his discovery of his past, his past loves, his childhood. There are sections where one understands the behavior and responses of those who were close to him, through their own voices. While the story is a very touching beautiful story leading one back to the WW2 Krakow, it is more than anything a wonderful book exploring solitude, emotions and love. I have not read 'Astrid & Veronika' so I am not sure if the writing styles compare or even if it is a similar exploration, but I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever wondered about the lives of those past, as well as tried to understand love and loss. A word of caution is that this deals with a lot of emotions and I had to take a break from it and ponder and linger on some of the feelings created during reading this book.

Movie Review: Buddy (2003)

'Buddy' is a simple cute movie made by Morten Tyldum from Norway. It is one of the movies in the Film Movement series (Year 2 [2004], Film 9). Buddy is the story of Kristoffer, Geir and Stig Inge who land up having their own TV segment("like jackass but with a heart". The outlandish stuff performed by Geir and the oddities of Stig Inge are taped by Kristoffer. While they battle through fame and other things in their personal lives the show goes on till it reaches a point where they can no longer be jackasses and realize what friendship means and they have to become adults. The story is pretty predictable but is yet a cute, heart warming love story shot in Oslo, Norway. It is a perfect light-hearted movie for a Sunday evening.

Movie Review: The Band's Visit (Bikur Ha-Tizmoret- 2007)

The Band's visit is a delightful movie from Israel made by Eran Kolirin. The premise of the movie is very simple, a band from Egypt is invited by the Arab Cultural Center of a town in Israel to play for their inauguration. Unfortunately something goes amiss in communication and no one comes to receive them to the airport leaving them to deal with transportation on their own. They manage to reach the town they think they need to be in, but obviously they make a mistake and land up in an incorrect similar sounding town. The movie is mainly about that and the day they spend at that town. This is a very slow moving movie where nothing much happens but yet is a very heart warming movie about people. The conductor of the Alexandria Police Orchestra is Lieutenant-Colonel Tawfiq Zacharaya (Sasson Gabai) while the proprietor of the town restaurant is Dina (played by the ever so exemplary Ronit Elkabetz, who is also there in 'Late Marriage').There are a motley of other band members and people in the town who also add to the movie. The plot might not be much but the expressions of the people and the portrayal of the scenarios is worth it to watch this movie. The dialogues are in a mixture of Arabic, English and Hebrew and it is definitely a shame that this was not accepted as the official entry for the Oscars last year.

Review: The Millennium Trilogy

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl who played with Fire are the first two novels in the Millennium trilogy penned by Swedish journalist and author Steig Larsson. These books were published after his untimely death in 2004, although their English translations were available in the US only in 20008 & 2009. The books are sequels, however they are also independent entities, one does not have to read the second book to find out how it all ends, in fact perhaps there is no real end so to speak. These along with ‘The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest’ are the so called ‘Millennium Trilogy’.

The books are classified as thrillers, however they reflect the issues tackled by the serious journalistic work of Stieg Larsson. In one phrase the main issue is Human Rights; this combined with prejudices, whether racial, religious, cultural or a combination of all of them, domestic violence, dominance (physical as well as economic), misogyny, rights of immigrants, rights of psychiatric patients. In addition, he makes a statement about the current economic differences in the people across the world, corporations, and globalization as well as how that forces the direction of power with criminals using it to their advantage. That is a lot of serious issues to deal with in a thriller. Larsson does a great job of tying together all these elements and does not mince words. He tackles the issues head on and shows how they affect the lives of the characters in his novels. It is not the intricacy of the plots or the flaws which might exist in these two novels which are relevant, but the fact that Larsson writes with such brutality and power that one is sucked into the novels. He does not give us a supreme hero in either the form of Salander Lisbeth or Mikael Blomkvist but the fact that his heroes care about the issues which affect a lot of people in the real world that makes it a more interesting read.

Autumn Sweater- Yo La Tengo

when I heard the knock on the door
I couldn't catch my breath
is it too late to call this off?

we could slip away
wouldn't that be better?
me with nothing to say
and you in your autumn sweater

I tried my best to hide in the crowded room
it's nearly possible
I wait for you, oh, most patiently

we could slip away
wouldn't that be better?
me with nothing to say
and you in your autumn sweater

so I looked for your eyes and the waves looked like
they'd pour right out of them
I'll try hard, I'll try always
but it's a waste of time
it's a waste of time if I can't smile easily
like in the beginning
in the beginning

we could slip away
wouldn't that be better?
me with nothing to say
and you in your autumn sweater

we could slip away
wouldn't that be better?
me with nothing to say
and you in your autumn sweater
you in your autumn sweater
you in your autumn sweater
you in your autumn sweater

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