I’m halfway through reading ‘The Girl Who Married A Lion’, a collection of African folk tales - collected and narrated by Alexander McCall Smith, that delightful creator of detective Mma Ramotswe. I’m quite enjoying these stories too; they remind me a bit of the Jataka tales.
Reading Itchy’s post about the Mma Ramotswe series, I […]
Posted on November 12th, 2008 by apu
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Many years ago, when Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ ‘News of a Kidnapping’, was first published in English, I remember enjoying it immensely and wondering why not too many books of this kind were written in India. That was 10 years ago, when Indian writing in English was still all about Rushdie and Seth, and non-fiction was largely […]
Posted on October 31st, 2008 by apu
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I haven’t yet read any of the Booker-shortlisted novels, not one. Partly because all of them seem to be out of stock at my library (and I’m trying to be very cautious while buying books these days, I am scared that my home-office-library is soon going to run of space!) and partly because, well there’s […]
Posted on October 23rd, 2008 by apu
Filed under: Book Reviews, The Literary life | 3 Comments »
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Graham… I have not yet said that a boy should be taught to rush into the snares of life…I only say that it is better to arm and strengthen your hero, than to disarm and enfeeble the foe; and if you were to rear an oak sapling in a hothouse… […]
Posted on October 20th, 2008 by apu
Filed under: The Literary life, Women & literature | 6 Comments »
I like Jane Austen. Though her works are placed in prudish English settings and her endings conventional, I like her complete mastery over the depiction of that hierarchical society. I also like her heroines - Elizabeth Bennett, Emma Woodhouse - who are just that little bit off-centre, even if they end up doing the ‘approved’ thing of the […]
Posted on September 23rd, 2008 by apu
Filed under: The Literary life | 5 Comments »
Reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go’ for the tenth time, I am struck by the quietness of the book. This is not a book with verbal fireworks. The language is extremely simple and easy to follow, like most Ishiguro novels. The narrator is seemingly just narrating a story, her story. Yet, it all comes together […]
Posted on September 11th, 2008 by apu
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Lately, I’ve been reading a collection of Somerset Maugham’s short stories. I’m reading Maugham after a very, very long time, and I don’t remember enjoying his work, especially the short stories, this much when I was younger. For one thing, I was struck by the clarity which his descriptions produce. Reading them, it is possible to immediately […]
Posted on August 29th, 2008 by apu
Filed under: The Literary life | 13 Comments »
I’ve just finished reading noted anthropologist Richard Leakey’s lucid book on human evolution, ‘The Origin of Humankind’. In school, dreary teaching often made me feel as though science was fundamentally un-understandable. Biology was better than chemistry, which in turn was better than physics, the biggest bogey of all; still, this fear of science was almost […]
Posted on August 13th, 2008 by apu
Filed under: Book Reviews, The Literary life | 5 Comments »
A couple of weeks ago, I read the extremely well known Tamizh novel “Chithira Paavai”. This was written by the eminent writer, Akilan, sometime in the 60’s I think. I read novels mainly for their entertainment value - I am one of those terrible readers who is always impatient to know ‘what happens’. However, I enjoyed Chithira […]
Posted on July 21st, 2008 by apu
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Amruta Patil’s literary debut, Kari, is an ambitious graphic novel, a coming of age story with an alternative trajectory. As in many coming of age stories, the heroine Kari is young, in love, confused and trying to come to terms with an apparently meaningless existence. Her journey is however, more complicated. The object of love […]
Posted on July 7th, 2008 by apu
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