In which I read a few.
Here's a list of a few new entrants into ye olde bookshelfe:
1. Neil Gaiman's Stardust and Stephen King's On Writing (try getting this anywhere in India; if you succeed, tell me how.*muuahhh*), both hardbound collector's editions, snagged for, surprise surprise, 150 bucks each, at a rare Landmark sale in Chennai, the destination of our (read tandavdancer, silverreflects and Udups) latest trip in our new avatars as traveling quizmen.
2. U.R. Ananthamurthy's Samskara, bought at Prism off coupons manfully collected by the yunga brudda during the course of his loitering in the junior quizzing circuit. Hyuk, family matters. *snicker*
3. Premier Loot (As always, KQA playing Christo Redentor) : The Penguin Book of Indian Journeys edited by Dom Moraes (one of those stuck-up Anglo-Indian types who think of India as 'that' country and in my opinion, one of the most conceited shitheads to put pen to paper), Jamyang Norbu's The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes and Pico Iyer's Falling Off the Map
Recent reading has been truly satisfying, starting off with an excellent translated version of Saradindu Bandopadhyay's Byomkesh Bakshi stories in one single paperback volume. Repeated promptings by tandavdancer induced a cursory detour into Alan Moore's From Hell, a daunting 580 page graphic magnum opus. Which then promptly became an obsession, Moore's hypnotic power refusing to let me take my eyes off my screen for 6 continuous hours, as I delved deeper and deeper into the murky miasma of Victorian England. Two chapters in particular (Nos. 4 and 14) reinforced my belief that Moore sometimes writes with a sort of divine (or Demoniacal, if you will have it that way) possession, almost assisted by paranormal genius in putting together seemingly random bits of disconnected trivia and thoughts into one thundering tour-de-force of a finisher, all within the space of a few tens of pages. Whew, talk about power.
Attention was then dutifully diverted to Moore's Watchmen. Four hours of suppressed smiles, chuckles and quiet moments of awed appreciation followed. Comparisons were naturally made with his earlier V for Vendetta, and after much mental wrestling, V for Vendetta took the winner's belt. Of course, From Hell was above all this. *quiet giggle*. My comic-thirsty self now cast its roving eye on an assorted collection of old Indrajal comics downloaded off the LAN just a few hours before I departed from my room for 10 days of R & R. After curdling some Wambesi blood and kicking some butt in Jaigarh, I logged off comixworld for a while and focused attention on my massive backlog of books.
I then waded into the Indian Journeys compilation with gusto, only to realise it had been callously edited by Senor Moraes (if he actually edited it, that is. For chrissakes, there's not much of it visible). Brilliant takes on the Great Indian Bazaar by the likes of Amit Chaudhuri, Allen Ginsberg, Vijay Nambisan, William Dalrymple and RK Narayan, among other worthies, very nastily share stepping space with some pedestrian mongrel-piss peddled by the likes of Abraham Verghese, Khushwant Singh (whose essay on Phoolan Devi reeks with the stink of his you-know-what for her) and non-entities like Anees Jung and Seeme Qasim who don't deserve any space in this volume at all. Hmm, still, quantity preserved quality for the most part and made the purchase well worth its while.
Pico Iyer's Falling Off the Map, however, more than made up for the lameness of some of the writing in the previous book by serving up delicious dollops on some of the world's loneliest (check his foreword on the definition of the word 'lonely') places. North Korea is brilliant and quixotically funny; he then grabs a hammer and couple of nails and proceeds to drive them into exactly the right spots to nail the Argentinian psyche. His essay on Paraguay is the only damp spot on an otherwise superb collection of travel-prose. Dibs on this book, anyone?
Noble Term-2 Resolution:
The Book backlog shall somehow be cut down, aided in the main by some bits of strategic before-crashing reading in the wee hours. At around 30 pages a day, I can somehow hope to finish 3 books a month, assuming the average book clocks in at 300 pages. Come PPTs or assignments or readings for the next day, literature cannot wait. And that's that.
1. Neil Gaiman's Stardust and Stephen King's On Writing (try getting this anywhere in India; if you succeed, tell me how.*muuahhh*), both hardbound collector's editions, snagged for, surprise surprise, 150 bucks each, at a rare Landmark sale in Chennai, the destination of our (read tandavdancer, silverreflects and Udups) latest trip in our new avatars as traveling quizmen.
2. U.R. Ananthamurthy's Samskara, bought at Prism off coupons manfully collected by the yunga brudda during the course of his loitering in the junior quizzing circuit. Hyuk, family matters. *snicker*
3. Premier Loot (As always, KQA playing Christo Redentor) : The Penguin Book of Indian Journeys edited by Dom Moraes (one of those stuck-up Anglo-Indian types who think of India as 'that' country and in my opinion, one of the most conceited shitheads to put pen to paper), Jamyang Norbu's The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes and Pico Iyer's Falling Off the Map
Recent reading has been truly satisfying, starting off with an excellent translated version of Saradindu Bandopadhyay's Byomkesh Bakshi stories in one single paperback volume. Repeated promptings by tandavdancer induced a cursory detour into Alan Moore's From Hell, a daunting 580 page graphic magnum opus. Which then promptly became an obsession, Moore's hypnotic power refusing to let me take my eyes off my screen for 6 continuous hours, as I delved deeper and deeper into the murky miasma of Victorian England. Two chapters in particular (Nos. 4 and 14) reinforced my belief that Moore sometimes writes with a sort of divine (or Demoniacal, if you will have it that way) possession, almost assisted by paranormal genius in putting together seemingly random bits of disconnected trivia and thoughts into one thundering tour-de-force of a finisher, all within the space of a few tens of pages. Whew, talk about power.
Attention was then dutifully diverted to Moore's Watchmen. Four hours of suppressed smiles, chuckles and quiet moments of awed appreciation followed. Comparisons were naturally made with his earlier V for Vendetta, and after much mental wrestling, V for Vendetta took the winner's belt. Of course, From Hell was above all this. *quiet giggle*. My comic-thirsty self now cast its roving eye on an assorted collection of old Indrajal comics downloaded off the LAN just a few hours before I departed from my room for 10 days of R & R. After curdling some Wambesi blood and kicking some butt in Jaigarh, I logged off comixworld for a while and focused attention on my massive backlog of books.
I then waded into the Indian Journeys compilation with gusto, only to realise it had been callously edited by Senor Moraes (if he actually edited it, that is. For chrissakes, there's not much of it visible). Brilliant takes on the Great Indian Bazaar by the likes of Amit Chaudhuri, Allen Ginsberg, Vijay Nambisan, William Dalrymple and RK Narayan, among other worthies, very nastily share stepping space with some pedestrian mongrel-piss peddled by the likes of Abraham Verghese, Khushwant Singh (whose essay on Phoolan Devi reeks with the stink of his you-know-what for her) and non-entities like Anees Jung and Seeme Qasim who don't deserve any space in this volume at all. Hmm, still, quantity preserved quality for the most part and made the purchase well worth its while.
Pico Iyer's Falling Off the Map, however, more than made up for the lameness of some of the writing in the previous book by serving up delicious dollops on some of the world's loneliest (check his foreword on the definition of the word 'lonely') places. North Korea is brilliant and quixotically funny; he then grabs a hammer and couple of nails and proceeds to drive them into exactly the right spots to nail the Argentinian psyche. His essay on Paraguay is the only damp spot on an otherwise superb collection of travel-prose. Dibs on this book, anyone?
Noble Term-2 Resolution:
The Book backlog shall somehow be cut down, aided in the main by some bits of strategic before-crashing reading in the wee hours. At around 30 pages a day, I can somehow hope to finish 3 books a month, assuming the average book clocks in at 300 pages. Come PPTs or assignments or readings for the next day, literature cannot wait. And that's that.