The Kite Runner – review

How soon my views can be challenged? While reviewing Cuckold, I had argued in favour of a great story ahead of complex literary techniques. Many believe the The Kite Runner has a great story to tell and a moving story. Yes, the story is interesting and at times, moving. Yes, the book has enough to be a pageturner. But something is missing.

By no stretch of imagination can Kite Runner be classified as a great or even a good piece of literature. At best, it is an interesting story with impeccable timing of publishing, when the world, and Americans in particular, wanted to know more about Afghanistan. A few years earlier or a few years later, the Khaled Hosseini could have struggled to find a publisher and even if he did, the book would have got nowhere closer to the best sellers list.

The novel is written, clearly with the Western audience in mind. As a result, there is over-elaboration of events and words when not required and over-simplification of issues. If one wants to understand the thread of the Afghan society and the reasons for the rise of fundamentalist Taliban, this book doesn’t offer any answers. Super-imposing the school-bully-sociopath character of Aseef on Taliban is a shortcut the author should have avoided taking – this is straight out of mainstream cinema. Schindler’s List also had such a character but the depiction was with much more clarity – it came out quite certainly that a socio-path uses the cover of a fundamentalist racist regime to unleash his inner evil. But I think there is much more to religious fundamentalism than just the whims of a socio-path.

However most Americans might love such a depiction of Taliban – an organization consisting of cruel socio-paths and paedophiles, who supervise footballers running around in full trousers. This explains why the book was a major success. Nobody is interested to know why religious fundamentalism arose, how the common man, whithout whose support this cannot happen, is drawn towards the fundamentalist. Definitely the author is not interested into getting into deeper layers of the psyche of a fundamentalist society.

Kite Runner succeeds in exploring the impact and fallout of personal guilt. Otherwise, there are no pretensions of creating a piece of literature. Maybe, the book has been more than successful in achieving what it set out to achieve – it had just fallen into the hands of a wrong reader to elicit such scathing criticism.

Top 10 Books of the year – a farce

I wonder how people come up with Top 10 lists. Do so many people have so much time to spare that they are able to read all the good books of the year and then come out with the list of the best ones? I am extremely skeptical.

As far as I am concerned, the best books of the year are the ones that I get to read during that year – even if they are from ancient ages. An Othello, read in any year is the top book of the year for me. A good book is not like a newspaper – it is ageless.  When there is a ocean of literature left to be read, is it really important that I read the best of 2007? I would rather plump for an unranked unheralded gem from the previous year, which might possibly be better than the best book of the current year.

Cuckold review part II

Let me complete the review that I started. After having finished the book, I still stand by my previous post. Cuckold is a fascinating book. It is not a romantic historical from Scott that you can recommend to a teenager, because of the extremely high erotic content (not to say that it is an erotic book – to say so will be grossly misrepresenting the truth). But you will read this with the enthusiasm of a teenager.

You have to applaud the author for the sheer audacity of choosing such a plot, centering around historical characters but rarely retelling history as there is nothing much recorded in history about them. The authenticity of existence of the characters draw the reader deep into the book but sketchy historical facts available about them have given unlimited freedom to the author to tell his own story within the boundaries of history. Meera is mythical reality. Rana Sanga, Maharajkumar, Babur and Bahadur are historical entities. Apart from these, everything else is for the author to imagine and for us to be drawn mystically into this make-believe world, into the innermost terrains of the human mind that could belong to any century.

Unlike most other Indian authors writing in English, Kiran Nagarkar has not been excessively bothered about the Western audience. He didn’t need to. It is an Indian book, with a undeniable universal appeal. I dont think it was an astounding commercial success but it will live to see the 22nd century and probably beyond.

But Mr.Nagarkar, the trouble with writing such a book is that you have have not kindled any interest in me for reading anything else from you.  You have said so much here that I doubt you will have anything more left in you to tell. Hope you prove me wrong.

Cuckold – The book not bought

I was reading Cuckold over the weekend. I had just been to Strand Book exhibition and picked up more than a handful of books. I had left out Cuckold out of consideration for my already-exceeded budget. But one is always more eager to read the books that one didn’t buy. So it was with Cuckold. I was able to lay my hands on the book within a week at the library and started reading it, even while all the books that I had bought moved away from my bedside to the book shelf.

Not many people will write a review on a half-read book (or do they, one can’t be sure in such things). But I can’t wait to write this post till I finish the book. And the point is not to write a review for a 10-year old book, it is to make my point. So here I go.

The book is gripping. There is absolutely no doubt about that. It has a charm that only historicals can reproduce. And it is much more than a historical. Probably something more on the lines of War and Peace in terms of its philosophical content in the face of war or a Lord of the Rings in bringing a new world in front of your eyes. Ever since I ‘graduated’ to read heavy modern literary works, such a book is a rarity.

It again raises that taboo question in my mind. What is the objective of a novel? What is more important – form or content, style or story? There are so many books (that are part of most Top 100 lists) that I have read with admiration for the linguistic and creative skills of the author, almost usually at a snail’s pace. The story doesn’t drag you in – you are always outside it, looking at it in awe of the author. I have been reading Joyce’s Ulysses  for the last four years – it challenges my intellect but doesn’t satiate my yearning for a story.

Cuckold is different. I was taken back to my school days when I always wanted to finish any book in a single sitting, how muchever long that sitting took. The days when a Dickens or Scott or Stevensen or Kalki was able to take me along with them to a bygone era. Kiran Nagarkar has been able to do that to a much more intellectually-demanding adult mature reader. (And I am demanding – I can’t read a Sidney Shelton or Jeffrey Archer anymore.)

There are enough innovations in language, style and form. I don’t think anybody has ever attempted to tell a historical tale so authentically using contemporary language. Sometimes it reads like an Eliyahu Goldratt bestseller or a Dilbert strip.  I completely buy into his point. We dont know for sure what kind of language was used by historical characters in their converations – we might as well stop speculating and write in contemporary style. This approach has given the author unlimited liberty and he has been to tear away all shackles that a historical novel can impose on his writing.

It is interesting to think from the viewpoint of the husband of Meera, who was insanely in love with a God. History has been kind to her. She has been immortalized because of her love for God. But spare a thought for the man who married her. She was in love with someone else even if it was a God. She was persecuted by the family for not acting like a royale? But for the man, what would have been more important was that she didn’t love him. ‘We can exorcise the devils, how do we get rid of a god’ is what the protoganist would have thought and that is what he thinks in this book (so far!).

I had to tear myself away from the book to come to office and now I am itching to go back home to hear more from Mewar.

I think that is the real success of an author. The reader should be yearning to go back to finish the book. Such books stand the test of time. I think this book will.

Books unread

Everytime I step into a bookstore – and that is quite often, I have to buy something. The urge is insurmountable. The books, thus accumulated, are lying in a cluttered book shelf waiting to be devoured by me one day. If you judge me by the books that I have, I must be a voracious reader with delectable literary taste. Voracious reader, I once was. My delectable taste cannot be disputed either - it is something that I pride myself on. Unfortunately, my reading has not kept pace with the longingness to read. Lost in the corporate world, busy fighting everyday battles and recuperating when not busy, it is not easy to read. The more exotic one’s taste gets, the tougher it is to satiate it with a quick read. Most good literature deals with depressing topics and a depressing literary voyage is not the ideal recipe for a weekend rest for a mind already ravaged throughout the week.

However, little by little, I do get to undertake those literary voyages once in a while. In sudden spurts of inspiration or desperation (when I see a mountain of books that I have bought new), I manage to cover good ground. The latest books to be converted from my ‘books unread’ column to ‘books read’ catergory are two ‘Indian’ books - Identity and Violence by Amartya Sen and Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan.

Amartya Sen’s book was a new attempt for me. I have never been a great reader of non-fiction outside of newspapers and magazines. This book told me why. It is a great book, no doubt. I agreed with most of what he said and there were some deep insights which leave a lasting mark on you. But, the book could have been compressed into a quarter of what it is – there is so much repitition of ideas that can help you pass an exam on the book. Amartya’s core philosophy or theory is intriguing – famines are caused not because there is not sufficient food for everyone but because sufficient food is not (made) available for everyone. Democratic governments, however irresponsible they are, will prevent famines to a great extent. Having seen Krishna and Chandrababu Naidu governments getting toppled because of farmer suicides, one has to agree with this view. Democratic societies will not allow people to die of hunger even while being blind to millions living with hunger.

Amartya also touched on the woes of partition. Khushwant Singh painted a complete picture in his novel. A very powerful story, simply told – interspersed with a few unnecessarily explicit narrations of sexual encounters (one must expect this in a Khushwant Singh book)  and commentary on India (for the Western readers). A linear story told without plainly any jugglery of literary techniques. Raises questions on whether literature has been lost to technique in the last century. Even for my ‘delectable’ literary taste, a powerful story based on real life, narrated in a simple style, does have its attractions.