Hemingway Happiness

When I was in Boston, I remember one biting, blustery day that P and I decided would be perfect for a shopping excursion. On our way to the retail, we came across an enormous outdoor display of used books, many of them absolutely beautiful copies of old classics. Well, I didn’t have much money and it really was freezing, but I bought a lovely copy of an old compilation of all of Hemingway’s short stories. Published in 1954 by Charles Scribners Sons, it’s a sturdy hard cover version, and I never got a chance to read it until now.

I started with “The Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, first published in a 1936 issue of Esquire, a fabulous stepping stone for a foray into Hemingway’s brutally brusque, curt world.  The typical dialogue-driven storytelling is at its best, leaving the story itself to the deducing ability of the reader, at the beginning at least.

The story of a hunter whose courage fails him and his ensuing shame and mortification in front of his wife, “The Short Happy Life” is darkly comedic, brilliantly conceived.

And since it’s Hemingway, I don’t need to say much else. Read for yourself and tell me what you think!

The Romantics by Pankaj Mishra

I have to be honest here. The only reason I picked up this book was because it looked pretty, it was by an author I had heard of, and it was only Rs. 100 – approximately two dollars. The catch is this – I’ve never read any fiction by Pankaj Mishra, only reviews of other people’s fiction. I enjoy his criticism, and I think it is insightful and incisive. But buyer beware – and I guess this probably applies to me as well – the talented fiction critic is not necessarily a readable fiction writer.

The Romantics, Mishra’s only novel, is well-stated, with a lovely use of language and semantics. But if I, an unestablished not-yet-emerging author, had written this novel for a creative writing class, I’m sure it would have come back to me slashed and bleeding red ink all over the place. Mishra tells a first person narrative of Samar, a young academic living in Benares, and the various foreigners – presumably the titular romantics – he encounters, becomes acquainted with, and may or may not befriend. He aimlessly meanders, as does the novel, through about a decade of his life, without really accomplishing much.

Given Mishra’s background at Allahabad university and living in small Himalayan towns, it appears that The Romantics is a memoiristic expansion on a few years of Mishra’s life, which gives me reason to forgive the excessive soul-searching and overstated dissatisfaction that characterizes Samar’s approach to his surroundings. Mishra lays out an interesting though predictable cast – Anand, a failing sitar player, Miss Diana West, a middle-aged Englishwoman who is languishing over a dead-end love affair, Rajesh, the politically polarizing and poverty-stricken university student, and the mesmerizing French Catherine, with whom Samar is undeniably smitten.

The difficulty comes with the fact that the cast of the novel doesn’t really do much. They enter relationships, break out of them, travel, meet people, and that’s pretty much it. The descriptions of Benares are beautifully written and make the reader want to get up and get on a plane immediately. But by the end of the novel, I only felt that Samar had lived a while and learned little, and there was minimal emotional growth on the part of any of the characters. I might go so far as to say that the autobiographical nature of the novel forced Mishra to shy away from further developing the characters – perhaps he knew too well who they were and who they were going to become and was afraid of divulging too much to his reader.

In an essay called Edmund Wilson in Benares, which is actually an overbearingly recurrent theme throughout the novel, Mishra writes,

“I spent four months in Benares in the winter of 1988. I was twenty years old, with no clear idea of my future, or indeed much of anything else. After three idle, bookish years at a provincial university in a decaying old provincial town, I had developed an aversion to the world of careers and jobs which, having no money, I was destined to join. In Benares, the holiest city of the Hindus, where people come either to ritually dissolve their accumulated ’sins’ in the Ganges, or simply to die and achieve liberation from the cycle of rebirths—in Benares, with a tiny allowance, I sought nothing more than a continuation of the life I had led as an undergraduate.”

This could pretty well serve as a summary of the novel. It’s not that there is anything inherently wrong with a memoiristic autobiographical approach to storytelling. But the fact is that a story is a story, and regardless of where it comes from, it has to remain a story. The author cannot use the fact that it is his own story as an excuse to leave the plot and the characters two dimensional.

There were other problems with the novel, like strange anachronisms that I’m surprised no one caught. For example, he speaks of students debating the controversial policies of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi – 1984 or so – and then speaks of gifts of CDs. The narrator does not know enough about American culture to know who David Letterman is but knows what a G-string is. And the worst of all was the word “disorientated.” Yes, it is a word according to Merriam Webster. But it was used circa 1704. Definitely out of place.

Overall, I’m not unhappy that I read the novel. The descriptive writing was truly evocative and the language was good. The story left much to be desired.I think it was a good exercise for me as an aspiring writer. It was a lovely example of how a perfectly good premise can be executed so unsuccessfully. Mishra hasn’t written a novel since, and I think we’re better off that way. He’s a fabulous essayist and a skilled critic. Stick to what you’re good at, Mr. Mishra, and let someone else do the other stuff.

is reading a litblog cheating?

I find that I have less and less time these days to commit to reading books, magazines, even the news. Honestly, I haven’t read anything but medicine textbooks in a couple of months. But the fact still remains that my heart is roaming the recesses of the litblogosphere, whether I like it or not, whether it’s allowed to or not. There are probably other hapless souls out there, looking for the vicarious pleasure of reading a good litblog in the absence of some solid time to sit down and read a worthwhile book. I derive some comfort in knowing that I’m not alone in my sad little world.

I’ve been an Open Letters Monthly reader for quite a while now, but fell behind for a few months. I discovered yesterday that I had missed a beautiful essay by Scott Esposito on packing a bag full of books to take to Mexico with him on a year long trip. The heartfelt discussion of how difficult it really is to choose how many books you’re going to take with you, and of course what books you have to leave behind for a month, a year, 6 years in my case, was something I could really identify with. Anyhow, a little bit of research led me to the blog he hosts, www.conversationalreading.com. I’m hooked. It is filled with some great thoughts, has plenty of variety, and is eclectic, if a bit cluttered.

Hope you can take a look and see how you like it.

Up next, The Millions Blog.

Kafka On The Shore – Haruki Murakami

I realized that the mistake I’ve been making with this blog is that after finishing a book or other reading material, I wait for inspiration to strike before I actually write down reflections. But that’s the inherent problem with that system: they’re supposed to be reflections. Which means if I wait for inspiration, I probably won’t ever end up writing.

So here goes.

Some of my dearest friends – and people whose reading recommendations I take quite seriously – have been recommending Haruki Murakami’s novels to me for quite a while now. Due partly to lack of time, partly to lack of availability, I never managed to get through one until today. I checked out Kafka on the Shore from the local library and to tell the truth, I wasn’t sure if i’d get through it. It’s rather long and seemed a bit daunting, but I started it yesterday and I’m finished today. It was quite the adventure, a roller coaster ride of sorts, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A rough plot synopsis (no spoilers, don’t worry)

Kafka Tamura is fifteen years old, does not smile, and is running away from home. On his way he meets spunky Sakura, the ambiguous Oshima, the beautiful, sad Miss Saeki, and several others. Mr. Nakata, an elderly man who has never recovered from a wartime affliction, can converse with cats and meets truck driver Hoshino. A bloody murder brings their stories together, in incomprehensible ways. Through various twists and turns including a stone, a forest, a library and a painting, Nakata finds peace and Kafka finds resolution.

Some first impressions:

I was thrown off at first by the nonchalant manner in which Murakami has his characters spout out philosophical aphorisms, periodically coming to stark realizations through sometimes hurried and seemingly odd conversation. After reading through a few chapters, though, I began to understand that it is less of an artificial construction and more of a stylistic utensil of sorts. Strange and affected though it may seem, Murakami’s characters themselves inhabit a world of strangeness and affected naturality. So for them, such Rand-like haphazard philosophical renditions are quite commonplace and should not be construed as otherwise.

Garcia Marquez also comes to mind, of course, with the surreal, Dali-esque warps of time and place. There is some quality to Murakami’s writing, however, that bring distance to the reader’s mind, that make one feel the solitude and aloofness that Kafka, Oshima, Miss Saeki and Mr. Nakata bring to life off the pages of the novel.

I think the reader might get a little more out of the novel with a tiny bit more knowledge about Japanese history, culture and literature than me, but it was not too much of a hindrance that I don’t have much. The transparency of Murakami’s language was a pleasure but does not speak down to the reader or insult his intelligence.

There are a few threads in this intricately woven tale that I think are left hanging, probably intentionally. I suspect that after a night’s sleep I may find myself weaving my own resolutions with whatever strands are still loose in my memory.

As with any deeply haunting read, the cadences and synesthetic sensations of the novel insinuate themselves into the reader’s mind, becoming part of the system, for a while at least. I thoroughly enjoyed Kafka On The Shore and would highly recommend it.

Left Behind

It’s quite a shame that I’ve managed to lose track of what authors I should be reading. I had a reading list back in high school, almost ten years ago, and I sincerely kept up with it for quite some time. After a while, though, it started to seem like an exercise in futility. It’s still a dream of mine that I should get through at least one representative work by every author on that list that every literary person should be familiar with. I managed Jonathan Safran Foer and Ian McEwan – even watched the movies – but that’s pretty much where the sidewalk ended. Murakami has come strongly recommended to me, but he and I seem not to have crossed paths yet. Hanif Qureishi is another name that has stuck in the recesses of my brain. On the way to the media library at the university I graduated from, there was a poster for the film My Beautiful Laundrette. I used to see it everytime I went up and down those stairs, and tell myself I was going to watch the film and read the book. Didn’t ever happen. I only read The Kite Runner a couple of months ago, way after the hullaballoo had died down.
Here’s the question, then. How important is it that I stay on top of the literary developments as religiously as I want to? Is is merely a fear of being left behind that makes me shudder to think that I haven’t read nearly enough? I like to tell myself that if I don’t know what’s being written out there now, I will not be able to write in a manner fit for present-day consumption. But I’m not sure if that’s really what it’s all about.
It all boils down to this: there is too much literature out there, good and bad, for me to sit on my haunches and not read it. Never mind that I am a medical student with very little time for reading. And never mind that thanks to the conspicuous absence of a viable library, I don’t really have access to good books unless if I buy them. And if I buy them, I have no space to put them and end up in a clutter, after which I can no longer study, which leaves me back in the original mess.
I try deriving some sort of vicarious pleasure through reading literary blogs and listening to podcasts, but maybe I would just be better off finding the time to read a good book.

Up now: 100 years of solitude by Marquez. I know it’s not contemporary, but it’s what’s on hand. Wish me luck.

Chekhov’s mistress is now mine

I find it quite amusing that I began this blog more than a year ago, with the sincere and true intention of reading and reflecting. I truly wanted to create erudite, crafted essays on the inherent essence of literature and critical thinking. It really is very funny. It’s been over a year now, and I’ve written exactly nothing. I’ve taken many pages of notes and I’ve begun many entries. But I have not yet managed to actually write a piece. Today I thought to ask myself why that may be. Perhaps it is that I am “too busy”, as too many of us like to claim. I do a lot of things, yes. I dabble in many unnecessary and necessary endeavors, yes. But is it really true that I am “too busy” to pay attention to that which I claim to love? I think not. I think the truth is, that as Chekhov once said, literature is my mistress, in a manner of speaking, and I have forgotten her. The pleasure that I can find entwined in her arms, after a difficult and trying day with work, my wife, (once again stealing from Chekhov), has escaped my memory. I now seek her forgiveness, her alluring fragrance reeling me in without my permission. Mistress mine, my illicit pleasure, you seductive witch, allow me back into your embrace and let me lose myself in your unfathomable depths. And you, my readers, encourage me and frighten me, I beg of you. Remind me of what I lose when I forget my lover. And perhaps this time I shall not falter.

a mission statement of sorts

Most of you who choose to read this are readers, i imagine. Readers of novels, journals, poetry, short fiction, nonfiction – at least the news, i would hope. So what is it about the written word that drives the reader to devour as much of it as he can? Is it the way the words look on the page, like small black insects crawling across a great white expanse, somehow creating meaning? Is it a voyeuristic desire to possibly catch a glimpse into the author’s dark and dirty life? Or maybe it is a manner of escape, to run away to Narnia or Middle Earth or Hogwarts for lack of an ordered world of our own?
Whatever reason each of us chooses, we claim rights to this inheritance that our forebears have left for us. And through our choices for reading material, to what we decide to give our attention in this ADHD time, we leave our own legacy for those to come.

Edmund Wilson said that “no two persons ever read the same book,” which strikes me as a remarkable thought on the nature of literature. It would seem that when any of us reads a book, we are reading the same book that so many thousands, even millions, have read before us. But the fact of the matter is that whatever we read, whenever we read, we bring to the table our own personal histories, our views and wishes, prejudices and perversions.

Here, in this particular discussion, I would like to bring to the table what I deduce from various texts, whether they are novels or nonfiction or the news. My experiences and my history shape my understanding of what I read, and this will be my forum for discussion of those ideas.

I request you all to read, digest, and comment. Enjoy!