Beyond the vain pretentiousness of the bourgeois and the sleepwalking cynicism of the workaday live a mass of people, giant-like in their understatedness, who emerge from the urban gloaming to reveal themselves briefly, and, like the lambency of a flashlight under a blanket, illuminate us the ordinary from the inside out. They are human, these creations of a higher power, but do not possess identifiable human characteristics, being (for example) unable to feel baser emotions such as guilt or envy. They are proud, but not crippled by pride; they are self-assured, but unable to patronize. They will tell you about themselves and their achievements with a sympathetic smile on their faces, and a song on the tips of their tongues; this last not because they are condescending, but because they are, for want of a better word, of a fuller, more fraught adjective, happy.
These people twinkle -- not in the pedestrian manner of stars, but ephemerally and with more inherence, like mica on sweltering asphalt -- with the force of their own love for life and the energetic manner in which they choose to lead it, lending to us as they do some of their effulgence, leaving us blinded but joyous.
Until 12 AM today, these people lived only in the remotest regions of my imagination; now their existence is bolstered by the assenting nod of reality.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Saturday, July 21, 2007
A review of the Harry Potter series of books
I finished the last Harry Potter book today in a haze of speed-reading. Receiving it from a sullen postal worker at about 1:30 pm, I began with a dubious grin on my face and a light feeling in my heart. I arose from my (very warm) chair about five hours or so later, with feelings that were instantly recognizable. I observed that almost everything that I had previously thought of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, or anything else even vaguely connected with the series, needed examination in a new context. The scales, as they say, had begun to descend.
Before I tell you anything more about the book, I want to make a confession -- I am the most overbearing literary snob there is. My book list typically consists of only Booker Prize winning or nominated novels, or (at the very most) such other paragons of literary excellence as are recommended to me by similar snobs. As such, I tend to take writing seriously, and nothing that anyone writes is worth anything to me unless they write well. Those who cannot, I summarily reject. Also, and perhaps unsurprisingly, I cannot abide translations.
Accompanying this rather heavy-handed attitude is a strong dislike towards the bestselling novel. The only thing worse than a novel badly written is a novel badly written that sells a million copies. To people who ask me of examples of such aberrations, I will excitedly reel out, after a flood of self-conscious eloquence, the following names -- 1) The Da Vinci Code 2) Five Point Someone 3) The Harry Potter series.
After today's reading marathon,however, the last item will grace the above list no more.
Not that the book itself was startlingly revelatory, content-wise. There is no change in style or tone; nothing happens that has not already been anticipated. No characters undergo unforeseen reversals, and nothing really earth-shattering ever happens. In fact, one might even, after reading the novel, conclude that it is a fairly ordinary one, and has nothing within it that recommends itself to readers new to the phenomenon that is Harry Potter.
Which is why I liked it so much. It has been a long journey for Ms.Rowling, but she has emerged from it unscathed and unaltered. She has not, in these past few years, compromised her artistic integrity by, say, changing her characters in order to make them more likeable or (worse) more abominable. She hasn't abandoned her examination of the angst-ridden urban teenager, which has always been a pervasive theme. Most importantly -- and this is something that only becomes apparent towards the end of the seventh book -- she hasn't lost sight of the bigger picture.
That last quality, I think, is what appeals the most. After years of reading of subplots in which conspiracies hinted at and motives rendered obscure, it is a relief to find it all resolved in a way that is both satisfying and compelling. It is not easy to write a series of seven fantasy novels and keep track of all your minor characters and their raison d'êtres; it is harder to do so when they are being subjected to the scrutiny of the entire world. Ms.Rowling has pulled off an admirable coup.
I think it's misleading to criticize this novel, or the ones that came before it; it is important to keep in mind that the intentions of the author were always to write a series of novels for children, a series of novels in which wonderful things happen to ordinary people, and should be judged in that context only. To try and compare her to James Joyce or even James Thurber (as one critic famously did) is self-defeating, like trying to compare The Usual Suspects to Rashomon.
Novels are held together by two opposing elements -- the plot, which continually attempts to propel the reader onward to the next page, and the observation of details, that keep the reader engaged and assure him of things such as the fundamental humanity of the characters. "Thrillers" (for example) abandon the latter comprehensively and render themselves vacuous in the process, whereas most literature abandons the former, and renders itself incomprehensible to a majority of readers. Good novels attempt a judicious mixture of both. The Harry Potter series belongs firmly to this last, most excellent category.
Before I tell you anything more about the book, I want to make a confession -- I am the most overbearing literary snob there is. My book list typically consists of only Booker Prize winning or nominated novels, or (at the very most) such other paragons of literary excellence as are recommended to me by similar snobs. As such, I tend to take writing seriously, and nothing that anyone writes is worth anything to me unless they write well. Those who cannot, I summarily reject. Also, and perhaps unsurprisingly, I cannot abide translations.
Accompanying this rather heavy-handed attitude is a strong dislike towards the bestselling novel. The only thing worse than a novel badly written is a novel badly written that sells a million copies. To people who ask me of examples of such aberrations, I will excitedly reel out, after a flood of self-conscious eloquence, the following names -- 1) The Da Vinci Code 2) Five Point Someone 3) The Harry Potter series.
After today's reading marathon,however, the last item will grace the above list no more.
Not that the book itself was startlingly revelatory, content-wise. There is no change in style or tone; nothing happens that has not already been anticipated. No characters undergo unforeseen reversals, and nothing really earth-shattering ever happens. In fact, one might even, after reading the novel, conclude that it is a fairly ordinary one, and has nothing within it that recommends itself to readers new to the phenomenon that is Harry Potter.
Which is why I liked it so much. It has been a long journey for Ms.Rowling, but she has emerged from it unscathed and unaltered. She has not, in these past few years, compromised her artistic integrity by, say, changing her characters in order to make them more likeable or (worse) more abominable. She hasn't abandoned her examination of the angst-ridden urban teenager, which has always been a pervasive theme. Most importantly -- and this is something that only becomes apparent towards the end of the seventh book -- she hasn't lost sight of the bigger picture.
That last quality, I think, is what appeals the most. After years of reading of subplots in which conspiracies hinted at and motives rendered obscure, it is a relief to find it all resolved in a way that is both satisfying and compelling. It is not easy to write a series of seven fantasy novels and keep track of all your minor characters and their raison d'êtres; it is harder to do so when they are being subjected to the scrutiny of the entire world. Ms.Rowling has pulled off an admirable coup.
I think it's misleading to criticize this novel, or the ones that came before it; it is important to keep in mind that the intentions of the author were always to write a series of novels for children, a series of novels in which wonderful things happen to ordinary people, and should be judged in that context only. To try and compare her to James Joyce or even James Thurber (as one critic famously did) is self-defeating, like trying to compare The Usual Suspects to Rashomon.
Novels are held together by two opposing elements -- the plot, which continually attempts to propel the reader onward to the next page, and the observation of details, that keep the reader engaged and assure him of things such as the fundamental humanity of the characters. "Thrillers" (for example) abandon the latter comprehensively and render themselves vacuous in the process, whereas most literature abandons the former, and renders itself incomprehensible to a majority of readers. Good novels attempt a judicious mixture of both. The Harry Potter series belongs firmly to this last, most excellent category.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Death poems and guitar strings
Here are some Japanese poems, written by their poets at the time of their death --
On a complete side issue, I've spent--
a) the last week grading my students' exams
b) the last two days writing code, and,
c) the last five hours replacing my guitar's strings.
All of the above have frustrated me in roughly equal measure (I'm reminded of the quote/limerick -- "Problems worthy of attack/prove their worth by fighting back"), but I'm happy to report that I won in the end. Hah!
Bitter winds of winter --
but later, river willow,
open up your buds.
Pampas grass, now dry,
once bent this way
and that.
Inhale, exhale
Forward, back
Living, dying:
Arrows, let flown each to each
Meet midway and slice
The void in aimless flight --
Thus I return to the source.
On a complete side issue, I've spent--
a) the last week grading my students' exams
b) the last two days writing code, and,
c) the last five hours replacing my guitar's strings.
All of the above have frustrated me in roughly equal measure (I'm reminded of the quote/limerick -- "Problems worthy of attack/prove their worth by fighting back"), but I'm happy to report that I won in the end. Hah!
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Drip machine
What I told myself in September, when I "saw" the U.S for the first time --
1) Great country.
2) Doesn't know the first thing about coffee.
It was true. Their "French Roast" was quinine, only more expensive. Their "bold Colombian" boldly excited all the wrong tastebuds. And I couldn't begin understand how anyone could drink those infinitely bitter espressos, those concoctions of pure decoction. To a tongue weaned on Nescafe/Bru/Adigas philter coffee, all these Amriki coffees tasted... bad. In fact, my dislike was intense enough that I had begun to idly compare India to America on the basis of their respective coffee making skills; needless to say, India was coming out on top.
But coffee-wise my tastes have about-turned, thanks to a few months of Starbucks and JP's Java. I have gone from reviling American coffee to grudgingly acknowledging its merits in the wake-me-up department to extolling its virtues to other Bru-fans, all in about two months. In fact, it's come far enough that people have begun to look at me askance. Even before I left India, my shorts-wearing hair-growing rock-listening guitar-playing American-book reading tendencies were being subjected to some mild censure and being attributed to the "western-influence" endemic to urban adolescents in India, and now that I have gone so far as to change my taste in coffee, my people give me looks of resigned vindication. They say-your subjugation is complete.
All I can tell them in reassurance is that I don't like baseball more than I don't like cricket, and burgers will never replace rasam and curds with rice.
1) Great country.
2) Doesn't know the first thing about coffee.
It was true. Their "French Roast" was quinine, only more expensive. Their "bold Colombian" boldly excited all the wrong tastebuds. And I couldn't begin understand how anyone could drink those infinitely bitter espressos, those concoctions of pure decoction. To a tongue weaned on Nescafe/Bru/Adigas philter coffee, all these Amriki coffees tasted... bad. In fact, my dislike was intense enough that I had begun to idly compare India to America on the basis of their respective coffee making skills; needless to say, India was coming out on top.
But coffee-wise my tastes have about-turned, thanks to a few months of Starbucks and JP's Java. I have gone from reviling American coffee to grudgingly acknowledging its merits in the wake-me-up department to extolling its virtues to other Bru-fans, all in about two months. In fact, it's come far enough that people have begun to look at me askance. Even before I left India, my shorts-wearing hair-growing rock-listening guitar-playing American-book reading tendencies were being subjected to some mild censure and being attributed to the "western-influence" endemic to urban adolescents in India, and now that I have gone so far as to change my taste in coffee, my people give me looks of resigned vindication. They say-your subjugation is complete.
All I can tell them in reassurance is that I don't like baseball more than I don't like cricket, and burgers will never replace rasam and curds with rice.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
A short history of my relationship with translations
My visit to a new city is usually accompanied by a visit to a local bookstore, which in turn is usually accompanied by a book purchase. My stay in Houston this weekend was no exception, when myself and an old friend went to this uptown bookshop for a quick browse. Now I had Haruki Murakami on my mind when I entered the place -- I had heard much about him from Amazon and other such erudite sources -- and when I saw Kafka on the Shore in the bargain section, I picked it up without much hesitation. I did not know at the time that Mr.Murakami was a Japanese writer writing in Japanese -- in my naivete, I had thought of him as another Kazuo Ishiguro, only better. The book I had bought was a translation.
I was eighteen when I first attempted to read a translation -- I had picked up The Godfather excitedly, having heard much about it from everyone I knew. However, about a quarter of my way through the first ten pages, I was confronted with an velleity to stop reading, and, a few minutes later, I had already returned the book to its dusty corner in my rotating bookshelf, feeling, as I did, vaguely puzzled. Here was a critically acclaimed book that had been turned into an even more (if possible) critically acclaimed movie; a colossus that bestrode the literary world with hubris; a book to which all of us, according to one critic at least, apparently owed something -- and I hadn't liked it. Clearly this must signify some sort of personal flaw -- after all, most others couldn't get enough of it, and seemed to put it before any others they may have read. It was only much later did I come to know that Mario Puzo, the author, had written the book in Italian, and that it had been translated into English by some worthy who clearly paid more attention to the story than the style he imparted to it.
Since then, I have found a similar intolerance within me for books "translated into the English". The Name of the Rose. Doctor Zhivago. The Bhagavad Gita. It did not matter how important the book, or how high its reputation; if the author was not a native speaker, I would not buy it.
Or, at least, that was my resolve until three days ago, when I purchased Kafka on the Shore by accident. Now I am stuck with a book that is sure to disappoint in at least one category, and it remains to be seen whether it will make up for this shortcoming by excelling in others. Until then, I wait with breath bated and lips tightly pursed.
I was eighteen when I first attempted to read a translation -- I had picked up The Godfather excitedly, having heard much about it from everyone I knew. However, about a quarter of my way through the first ten pages, I was confronted with an velleity to stop reading, and, a few minutes later, I had already returned the book to its dusty corner in my rotating bookshelf, feeling, as I did, vaguely puzzled. Here was a critically acclaimed book that had been turned into an even more (if possible) critically acclaimed movie; a colossus that bestrode the literary world with hubris; a book to which all of us, according to one critic at least, apparently owed something -- and I hadn't liked it. Clearly this must signify some sort of personal flaw -- after all, most others couldn't get enough of it, and seemed to put it before any others they may have read. It was only much later did I come to know that Mario Puzo, the author, had written the book in Italian, and that it had been translated into English by some worthy who clearly paid more attention to the story than the style he imparted to it.
Since then, I have found a similar intolerance within me for books "translated into the English". The Name of the Rose. Doctor Zhivago. The Bhagavad Gita. It did not matter how important the book, or how high its reputation; if the author was not a native speaker, I would not buy it.
Or, at least, that was my resolve until three days ago, when I purchased Kafka on the Shore by accident. Now I am stuck with a book that is sure to disappoint in at least one category, and it remains to be seen whether it will make up for this shortcoming by excelling in others. Until then, I wait with breath bated and lips tightly pursed.
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