Book resolution

After I told myself I wouldn't make any resolutions this year, here I am again. Que sera sera and all that. My book resolutions...well, A and I made one towards the last quarter of last year that we'd be a little more stingy about buying books. In fact we went on a book diet, and only bought books for book club reading in the last 3 months, as a disciplinary and cost cutting measure. let's face it, it was also because our library is already overflowing with books and we don't know where to store them.

Anyway, my new resolution is to blog about every single book I read, even if it's just a couple of sentences. So here goes...

In December I read...

The Millennium Trilogy by Steig Larsson

Raiders from the North: Empire of the Moghuls by Alex Rutherford (juhu book club)

The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (delhi book club)

The Silent Raga by Ameen Merchant (delhi book club)

Cary Grant, A biography, by Marc Eliot

Ava Gardner, Love is nothing, by Lee Server

2 States - the story of my marriage, by Chetan Bhagat

That's a pretty short list, by my usual standards so I'm going to cop out by saying that the Millennium trilogy was a pretty thick set of three, not to mention my crazy schedule in December. I also started reading The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende but haven't finished yet.

When I began the Millennium trilogy, I have to admit that I wasn't all that impressed with the Girl with the dragon tattoo. I read murder mysteries on a regular basis so apart from the somewhat dysfunctional or at the least unconventional lives that the characters lead, the 'surprise' ending didn't really surprise me. But I was intrigued by Liz Salander. The Girl who played with fire, on the other hand, just reeled me in from the very first word. I just gulped it down, so engrossed was I in Liz Salander's past and in wondering what would happen to Michael Blomkvist and her. The third book continued the magnificent obsession and I spent sleepless nights submerged in their world of icy Swedish fields and hospitals, police conspiracies and internal politics. I thought as a series it was superbly written and the characters became more and more...well, I can't say likeable because sometimes you can't identify with their emotions or what they are doing, but people that you cared about and wanted to succeed and emerge with victory at the end. It sounds more than a little shallow to say you're sorry the author died and there can't be any more books in the series, but I am that shallow and greedy.

What's interesting is that in typical murder mysteries, say by Mary Higgins Clark and the like, the heroine is always someone who subscribes to middle or upper class values - she usually hetero, for one thing, she's attractive, dresses well thought not necessarily expensively, has a regular job and then unwittingly gets drawn into a world of chaos and evil, and in love with or falling in love with someone and finding resolution to that in the book. In Liz, we have a character who lives by her own rules, dresses punkily most of the time, is bisexual and casual about sex, falls in and out of love with Blomkvist, seems to not care about what happens to herself, doesn't trust the system and yet emerges as a character for whom you have such sympathy. Not just because of what happened to her, but because of her feisty take-no-prisoners attitude, for pure spunk, for her independence, for her cheek...even when she goes outside the law you feel like cheering her on.

I had been meaning to read Raiders of the North, having bought it in October, but had been lazy about it till it came up as the required reading for the Juhu Book Club. I've always wished someone would take up the cause of Indian history and bring periods of it to life like Jean Plaidy has done for British and French history, so I was quite excited about this one. Overall, I was disappointed by the quality of writing. It was extremely functional and pedestrian, and just didn't live upto the richness of subject matter. I got a better idea of what his life was like, his ambitions and all that but I didn't end up identifying with him and feeling with him through his triumphs and defeats. I wonder if the Genghis Khan book by Conn Iggulden is better - I have been eyeing that for a while.

The Palace of Illusions I already blogged about and I'm going to save The Silent Raga for after the book club meeting this month. So on to the biographies. I learnt a lot I didn't know about Cary Grant who would be on my list of 5 if he weren't dead. I've always loved his screen persona and it was fascinating to go behind that and learn more about him. Interestingly, he was one of the first stars to go idnependent of the studio system in Hollywood, apart from United Artists, and that's why he never won a single Academy award, except for Lifetime achievement which he won when Gregory Peck headed the panel and insisted on it. All the powerful producers of the day apparently resented him for striking out on his own so he could get a better deal for himself. He had quite a turbulent life, from a mother who was committed to a sanatorium by his father so he could get married to someone else, to being bisexual, having a strong of marriages and constantly needing to fall in love with the heroine of the latest film he was starring in. It's sad to think that someone who was that famous and that attractive constantly needed reassurance as to his own worth.

Ava Gardner's story was also an interesting one. I've never watched too many films of hers and so didn't really know too much about her. It came as a surprise to me to learn that she was once married to Frank Sinatra. She was another classic Hollywood story - a girl from a really poor family who was discovered and then became a superstar in Hollywood but also a victim of both the studio system which in those days gave all the power to the producers - moguls like Louis B Mayer - and of the Hollywood lifestyle. Too many men, too much hurt, too many nasty surprises, too many questions about self worth...eventually, the siren who was a phenomenon world over lived and died alone in London, apart from a loyal maid and her pet dog. It was sad reading about her but also interesting to read about Hollywood's heydays, which is one of my areas of curiosity.

2 States was a book I bought and read while Bojjandi was in hospital, and I have to tell you that even under those horrendous circumstances, there were passages which made me laugh. The north-south divide is something I've lived with all my life, being a South Indian brahmin born and brought up in Delhi. First of all, hardly anyone can place me as a Southie, since I don't sport the stereotypical dark complexion, singsong Hindi accent and oiled hair. My husband is a Northie, so I have had to fend off irritating comments from his uncle about 'idli-vada-sambar khaati ho' to his family friends wondering when I was going to start eating meat. Some of my rellies on the other hand were worried about the 4 marriages funda, since A is Muslim, and one of them said I'd have to wash the sacrificial goat every Id. Well, we've never owned a goat, and I think with three kids A has his hands and bank account full, so that's that.

Some of the scenes were classic ones out of my own experience, though my parents don't live the stereotypical Southie life. I remember way back when a new South Indian family had moved into the government colony where we lived and mom sent me over to say hello and ask if they needde anything. I stepped in and it was like I'd gone through a time/ geography machine. The room - same size as our drawing room - was bare, save for 4-5 of those folding-type steel chairs, made expressly for the purpose of causing maximum discomfort to the sitter. The light fixtures were naked of shades, and 20 watt bulbs, at max, were dangling from the wires. There was also a straw chaape or mat rolled up in one corner. Pictures of Gods and Goddesses lined the walls. It looked like a room transplanted straight out of Basavanagudi or Mylapore, and the only things missing were the red oxide flooring and the pastel pink, blue or green walls. It didn't take long for me to run out silently screaming to myself and vowing never to return. I thought this bok was a fun look at the stereotypes that operate and the ones that are true too. I'd recommend the book to anyone from a mixed-up marriage.

This month, I've been reading lots of Asterix and Blake-Mortimer comics. I have also been reading some Danielle Steel books and rediscovering them. I just finished one called Bittersweet, in which a woman gets married to her sweetheart, gives up her career when they have kids and move to the suburbs and about 14 years down the line, finds herself missing a piece of her own identity. What shocks her is that her husband never once realises that she has made a sacrifice in giving up her career and never gives her points for it, and then the book moves on to a slightly more predictable love story. But I found the central theme very resonant.

I'm planning to read a book called When it's raining in Brazil, buy Starbucks, hoping to rev up my investing skills. I also have on my list Jeffrey Sachs The End of Poverty. And I still gotta finish Isabel Allende's book. But one thing that cropped up on my reading list last night after watching an episode of The Cosby Show, was the plays of Shakespeare. A weird thing happened to me a few years ago. I was flipping through my copy of The Complete works of Shakespeare, and all of a sudden, the prose was as clear to me as if it had been written in contemporary language by a contemporary author. I figure while the going is good, let me enjoy this serendipitous gift!

The Palace of Illusions...

...was our book selection for December. Written by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, it's the Mahabharata told from the perspective of Draupadi, and therefore quite different to other retellings of the epic which typically focus more on the sequence of events than any one character's motivations.

The book provoked a wonderfully rich discussion. While suggesting it, I had thought that since most of us have grown up with this story, reading a fresh perspective on it would be interesting. At the discussion we found that some people had never really gotten into it and this book wa stheir first detailed look at it, while others had been more familiar with BR Chopra's teleserial of the same which, while very well done, stuck to the traditional line.

There were very strong and opposing views on Draupadi. Vatsala had always thought of her as a strong woman and a feminist icon, and found herself a little disappointed by the pettiness of her issues which ended up being among the goads for the war. While Anju felt that it was a realistic portrayal of the way life works for most of us, and completely related to Draupadi's lifelong quest for validation of herself. Jayshree thought that good or bad, Draupadi came across as a strong woman, not the long-suffering Nirupa Roy-esque Sita of the Ramayan who meekly keeps taking what everyone around her dishes out and finally, once the last straw is loaded on her back, runs home to mother. But Draupadi stands up for herself, dares to question the roles of women and the behavious of those around her, and is a very real power. Ali felt that she played a strong role in everything that happened through both arguments and gestures like keeping her hair unwashed and unbound for 13 years. As he said picturesquely, "The Pandavas must have said let's do this war otherwise this stinky hair of hers will stay that way forever!"

We debated whether the key motivation of Draupadi was her quest for love or her need for recognition as an individual, not the add-on to Dhri or the bounty to be equally shared among five brothers. We all thought it was interesting that she has a relatively unconventional view of her role, be it because of the prophecy she had to fulfil or because of her own strong will - she was not particularly involved with her children, and was much more focussed on her life with her husbands.

Many things in the book struck a chord with us - for instance the fact that despite Vyasa's specific warnings about the three occasions which will prove turning points, Draupadi pursues the very course of action she was warned against. Very like life's oh-no-seconds. And the fact that at the end Draupadi wishes she could have loved Bhima back the same way he loved her, since his love for her was the most uncomplicated and the purest. Don't so many of us wish we could have loved the nice guy/ gal back?

Karna, always one of the most interesting characters in the story, again stood out here as in fact the most honourable character, apart from his one lapse in Dhritarashtra's court at the vastraharan. Yudhistra, being Dharma Raja, loves drinking, gambling, loses control of himself while doing either, and then has to be persuaded to take up the right course of action in pursuing the war, while Karna pursues his Dharma without making the same fuss about it.

We found it interesting that while Chitra focuses the story on Draupadi, she called it The Palace of Illusions, thus giving it a greater philosophic scope for debate, as opposed to Pratibha Ray's Yajnaseni which continued to focus on Draupadi herself. One of the best truths in the book is the line that Krishna says about Sikhandi, which I am paraphrasing here - He believes it to be the truth, and therefore it is the truth. In fact the Palace of Illusions is an allusion to the Hindu concept of maya, which believes that the whole world is in fact just a creation of Maya - an illusion.

Indian authors

Let me, first of all, admit to my pretensions to non-intellectuality. That means I'm a little scared of books that seem difficult or intellectually challenging, and usually don't go there. By and large I prefer easier reading - classics like Pride and Prejudice, the whole genre of Golden Age detective fiction including Sapper et all, swashbuckling adventures and romances, fictional biographies etc. One genre that I have unfortunately never been able to get into is Indian Authors.

I have tried to read some of them, and my husband used to buy all of them once upon a time, but now we have decided we're too old to pretend to grey cells we don't have ( anyway post 30 one is supposed to start losing the few we had acquired till then!). I find many of them very difficult to read, angsty and depressing. The one I do like is Chitra Banerji Divakaruni - though she does get repetitive. I used to read a lot of Nayantara Sehgal at one time but not lately. I also feel that what many Indian authors write about hits too close to home - I'm an escapist when it comes to reading and would rather read about a better/ more interesting world than the same old - if I wanted reality, I'd curl up with the daily newspaper!

It's interesting - I had never analysed this before but now that I have and the cat's out of the bag, I feel happier - no more pretending/ feeling intellectually challenged for not wanting to read about the miseries of Parsis/ partition/ urban/ rural Bengal/ whatever!

Speaking of which let me also admit that I thought the book The Namesake sucked. What was the big deal - it was just another second gen immigrant's tale. Gogol never came to life! What was amazing was the luminous film Mira Nair crafted out of it, and the fact that she realised that the story lay in Ashima and her husband, their evolution and the struggle to adjust.

Also, I did not like The God of Small Things, apart from the last chapter which describes the affair between the mother and Velutha. The rest of the book was badly over-written and incoherent!

Liked: Swati Kaushal's Piece of Cake. Light, witty and charming. Contemporary.
Born Confused, I think by Tanu...Desai. Intelligently and movingly written 2nd-Gen tale.
English, August by Upamanyu Chatterjee. Funny and heartfelt.
The Cuckold by Kiran Nagarkar. Poignant and lyrical in its writing.
Chitra Banerji Divakaruni - Beautifully written, real characters, poignant moments
though I do wish all the Indian characters weren't from homes where women were
suppressed, and who found freedom and self expression once exported to America. There
are a few of us self-expressing non-suppressed types even back here in India. In fact,
going by reports about the Indian community in the UK, there may be more suppression
and oppression going on there!