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.