Wolfhall

For the impulsive and remorseless book-collector that I am, the process of getting Hilary Mantel’s ‘Wolfhall’ in my bookshelf was uncharacteristically drawn-out.  I read many reviews about it, all of which described the book as an excellent read, but let it languish in my to-buy list for a long while..  I even walked away from the book at Odyssey because I wasn’t used to spending that much on one book. I finally bought it after a year’s worth of deliberation.  It took me another six months to start on it.  This is the first man-booker prize winning book ( or any award winning book  except in the children’s book category)  that i’ve read. Loved it!!

Mantel’s  style of writing takes some getting used to..but once you ease into it, it is well worth the trouble.  This book got me feverishly clicking links in wikipedia.. i felt like i HAD to know all about Thomas Cromwell. The author tantalizes her readers by saying just short of enough about Cromwell..And a mysterious character is always romantic, no exceptions!  The much less flattering depiction of Cromwell on most other sites on the net left me disappointed, but not for long. I told myself he was an almost universally misunderstood man..and of course that immediately upped the romantic appeal  There are a lot of better-informed reviews of Wolfhall out there. You would probably be hard pressed to find one as bereft of facts and analysis as this one.  But, history buffs out there who are reading my blog  ( or will be, once I have the number of readers that it takes to make the presence of a history buff statistically likely ), do not miss reading this book!!

His Dark Materials

One month back this time, I was reeling under the brilliance of Philip Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials. Having recovered slightly, I felt I was ready to write an objective review of the series.

If you like fantasy and swear by the good ol’ Lord of the Rings, Narnia and Harry Potter, this series is definitely one you should not miss. It is more of a science-fictiony fantasy as compared to H.P.. H.P tantalized us through some books with the ‘strongest force in the universe’ theory and anticlimactically concluded that it was love (Which it is, probably, but the story-line didn’t have much to do with that theory).

On the contrary, His Dark Materials weaves Dark Matter, alternate universes and theology convincingly into the time-tested tale of a young boy and girl who set out on an adventure. There are the mandatory faithful friends – people, talking animals and weird- creatures-from-other-worlds to boot. Besides, there are references to energy creation, evolution, the Church and atheism. In fact, more than just a reference to the last – atheism is the underlying theme of the book.

This series should be read for the sheer variety of concepts presented, the taut and expressive writing, the ensemble of fleshed-out characters, and the bitter-sweet feeling at the end of it. In my opinion, one of the best series in this genre,  always keeping in mind that Lord of the Rings surpasses all the rest.

Awesome – The word of our times

Conversation with a couple of friends-

Friend: Got a new phone! Check it out!

Me: Awesome!

Friend : Getting a promotion again! Second one this year..

Me: That’s AWWESOME!

Friend ( different friend…one can’t have it all) :  Guess whom I met?? Gerard Butler!!!

Me : ( wide-eyed, struggling for expression, choking over half-formed words..and then..) That’s AWESOME!

Is it only me, or is everything good, fortunate or beautiful these days termed “awesome”? I don’t at all like the idea that my brain refuses to budge from its set grooves every time I need to find a word to describe..err..awesomeness. Hence, I think its evident that my reluctance to use any other word in its place is a result of the all-pervasiveness of this word in our milieu. I even have proof – watch a few episodes of ‘How I Met your Mother’, and you will know one of the ways in which this word has permeated into the collective consciousness. ‘Awesome’ is the equivalent of the 60′s ‘rad/groovy’, the 20′s ‘dashing’, the Victorian ‘fine’ and the medieval..no, let me not tread these unfamiliar scholarly waters and destroy my credibility

Anyways, the point is that ‘awesome’ seems to win hands down each time I’m pitting it against other possibilities, in the brief second before mouthing the word. ‘Great’ is too generic, ‘nice’ too dispassionate.. ‘brilliant’ seems inappropriate to use about anything other than bulbs and white teeth.. ‘kickass’ has the word ‘ass’ in it..’mindblowing’ sounds like a word to be used only for special occasions, plus it has a vaguely destructive quality to it..’fantastic’ seems like too much..’fantabulous’ is way too pompous.. In short, not a word that simply means awesome, nothing more, nothing less!

Awesome is the definitive word of our times.. unless I’m making it all up

Eat Pray Love

I had intended to write a full-blown review of Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller ‘Eat Pray Love’.
Instead, I’d like you to watch this video -

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html

Its a TED talk by Elizabeth on creativity and related topics.
I’d heard of the book many a time, but I read it only because I saw this video and wanted to hear more from her.

If you like her talk, inspite of the arguably shaky notions she presents, you should try her book.

If you found her arguments interesting and even mildly convincing, you should definitely read her book!

Three cups of tea

I haven’t posted here for a while now, for various reasons.. one of which is that I was engrossed in reading a couple of awesome books. One of them is ‘Eat Pray Love’, which deserves a review all to itself, some other day.  The other book, which I read close on the heels of EPL, is ‘Three cups of tea’, which is a book regaling the tales of a wonderful humanitarian of our times, Greg Mortenson.

Greg Mortenson was an avid climber, who strayed into a mountainous village in Pakistan after losing his way during his descent from the peak K2 ( which he unsuccessfully tried to scale). This serendipitious meeting between Mortenson and the villagers of Korphe in 1993 has resulted, 17 years later, in a network of more than 130 schools built in the remotest areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson came away from the village of Korphe, determined to build a school for the villagers whose kindness had saved his life. In the coming years, battling through indifference, cultural barriers and the forbidding terrain, Mortenson expanded his vision and built schools throughout the Karakoram region, reaching the most impoverished villages. Mortenson’s efforts in Pakistan and Afghanistan continued through the turbulent period that saw the Kargil conflict, 9/11, the ousting of the Taliban and the Iraq war. Mortenson was waging his own war on terrorism, by making education and a better life accessible to the poor.

Read this book for a rich, interesting account of life, traditions, and values in these regions. Read it to gain a new, maybe a more sympathetic perspective of our neighbors to the west. And most of all, read this account to be awed and blown away by what one man’s will and passion could achieve.  Also, check out the website of the Central Asia Institute, which Greg Mortenson co-founded.

If you’re in between books or looking for something to read, I’d strongly recommend this book.  It is up there in the league of books that could leave a permanent imprint on a person’s life and thinking.

These are a few of my favorite words..

I recently read an article about ‘power words’. These are words that apparently evoke strong positive emotions in people.  In no particular order, the words are- You, Money, Save, New, Easy, Love, Discovery, Results, Health, Proven, Guarantee and Free.. Do these words ring a bell? Very likely they do,  since we are bombarded with advertisements that use atleast one and often more than one of these words.

For no other reason than that my thought process is rambling, this article got me thinking about my personal list of pleasing words. This is not a post with a message, or coherence, or indeed anything that may make it interesting to anybody. I am simply listing here some of my favorite English words ( I’m sure any avid lover of the language has such a list in his/her mind, and a good number have it in their blogs as well. So this post lacks novelty as well as reading value)..There, the disclaimer is in place and I can now write with a clean conscience.

1. cicerone – A soft, musical word that should have meant something more profound than it does..it refers to a museum-guide.

2. mellifluous – Unlike the previous word, this one does have a meaning to match up to its tone.

3. tintinnabulation – A word I like for its goofiness A word that GRE test takers would recognize if they ever got beyond the first 30 word lists in Barrons.. I didn’t, but a hard-working friend of mine brought it to my notice.  Who would use such a word in conversation or even in a book?? A google search reveals that Edgar Allan Poe did use it, in a poem-

“To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. “

Heck, going by the above,  writing poetry looks like a viable career option

4. elven - J. R. R Tolkein rules!! He had an absolute gift for inventing words that sound beautiful to the human ear. Anybody who has read Lord of the Rings would agree. There is something so utterly magical,  so ethereal, so achingly lovely about the word ‘elven’. When I am traveling by train at night, and I see small clearings in the midst of trees, illuminated by a single lamp, I’m reminded of JRR’s elven world ( in particular, the night that Frodo and his friends spend with the elves in the forest).  If a single word could lift me out of mundaneness and into the realms of happy imagination, it is this..

5. bliss – I guess perfect happiness by any other name would sound as sweet Even if ‘cabbage-head’ or ‘mushroom’ or ‘sycophant’ was used to describe perfect happiness. Though for the most, language has evolved wisely – words that sound nice mean nice things.

6. billowing – I imagine clouds moving rapidly across the sky, like they show in tv serials to indicate the passage of the day. I’m not even sure if that’s what the word really means, but that is what it means to me ( in the spirit of Humpty-Dumpty in ‘Alice of Wonderland’- “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean”.)

7. dryad - meaning wood-fairy. An obscure word that I have seen in use only in L. M Montgomery’s books. Again, it conjures up visions of something other-worldly..I seem to have a weakness for such words.

8. lilt – one of the prettiest, jolliest words ever ..it has got such a nice twang to it.

9. rustling – this word makes me think of flowing new silk dresses and newspapers and trees swaying in a powerful breeze..all pleasant recollections.

10. coy – a tiny word that conveys so much

I’ve also just realized that I love the words gossamer and cobwebs and shimmer, but I think I’ll stop here. The complete list would leave everybody craving for less, and even I might get bored reading it again.

Now, to finish this winding post on a balanced note. A word that I thoroughly hate the mention of -  sumptuous..especially when used in the context of food. It is totally irrational..how a foodie like me can dislike a word that means a lot of food but so it is.

( Thanks Sis, for loyally reading to the end of this post You’re the best! And anybody else who finished reading this self-indulgent piece, thanks even more.. you weren’t forced to read this, unlike my sister Do leave a comment with your favorite words! )

(P)smith, Emsworth and the rest of them..

Since I first read a book from start to finish, probably at the age of 9 or 10 or thereabouts, I have ripped through a gazillion books at a speed that’d make a tornado feel pretty silly. Out of all of these, no author has been such a delight to read as P.G Wodehouse has.

I first discovered P.G Wodehouse ( ‘Plum’ to hordes of adoring fans) when I was in the 9th standard.. Our school, which couldn’t be called a model school, no matter which way you looked at it, had a few redeeming graces. The library was one. And it was pretty full to the brim with P.G Wodehouse. I was an indifferent student back then, atleast in my estimation ( popular opinion was that I was a geek.. I suppose the glazed look in my eyes when I was daydreaming was mistaken for rapt attention). All those dreary hours in class I whiled away thinking about P.G Wodehouse’s stories, living in them, and having conversations with the characters. If my head had been examined back then, the verdict would have been ‘basketcase in the making”.

P.G Wodehouse’s world is impossibly perfect – boy loves girl, and girl always loves him back, and vice versa.. and all money troubles of young couples in love are resolved by the hapless Lord Emsworth ( who has one great love, his prize-pig.. which is incessantly stolen by all the scheming young couples to blackmail him and make him cough up money).. If ever a hero is jilted in a story, he is sure to find a better girl by the end of the book..and so on. In short, the stuff of fairy-tales.

However, I think this is a fairy-tale that would appeal even to fans of realism. His perfect stories are simply the backdrop for the famous Wodehouse brand of humour. Side-splittingly funny without being abusive, sarcastic without being bitter, mocking without being cruel..P.G Wodehouse is the grand old gentleman of comedy. He prods at the idiosyncrasies of his characters for us to laugh at, but gently. You can see he is indulgent to his flock of people.

I could write reams about P.G Wodehouse, but I’ll sign off after just one more burst of enthusiasm..for Psmith, my favorite P.G Wodehouse by far. Probably the one story-book hero Im never going to get over. From the time he introduces himself to a gaping parlourmaid..”My name is Psmith..the P is silent, as in pshark and ptarmigan”, I fell for him, hook, line and sinker.  If only, if only Psmith was for real!