Take a protagonist you identify with strongly. Add a handful of your favourite ingredients: duality, fantasy, escapism, stereotypes, Italy, writing, literary pastiche, and black humour. Shake together viciously, and serve cold. Lady Oracle was a fabulously good read, one I finished barely minutes after the Sheilaroos' tragic exit from the World Cup.
Lessons learned:
1. Book sales are wonderful, if only to remind you of writers you'd always meant to read more of, but forgot.
2. Feel like writing again, and it's a good feeling.
3. Time to renew my membership at Bangalore's one and only online library.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Monday, June 19, 2006
She's an extraordinary girl/ In an ordinary world.
LADY ORACLE
MARGARET ATWOOD
Needed to read something dramatically different from Pamuk. Normally a situation in which I immediately reach for a cheap-and-cheerful trashy bestseller. Except none was at hand.
What I did find, though, was an early Atwood that I've been meaning to read for a while.
Less than halfway through (so sue me, the World Cup only comes around once in five years!), and I'm struck by the lightness of her tone. There's also a certain familiarity to the way she writes, a sort of literary deja vu. Maybe I'm identifying too closely with her protagonist, but I can't help but wonder if it'll last through the book.
And, more importantly, if it does, will it shed any light on the plotline of my life? Hmmm.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Needed to read something dramatically different from Pamuk. Normally a situation in which I immediately reach for a cheap-and-cheerful trashy bestseller. Except none was at hand.
What I did find, though, was an early Atwood that I've been meaning to read for a while.
Less than halfway through (so sue me, the World Cup only comes around once in five years!), and I'm struck by the lightness of her tone. There's also a certain familiarity to the way she writes, a sort of literary deja vu. Maybe I'm identifying too closely with her protagonist, but I can't help but wonder if it'll last through the book.
And, more importantly, if it does, will it shed any light on the plotline of my life? Hmmm.
Did I ask too much?/ More than a lot?
Spoke too soon. Barely 24 hours after my last post, I abandoned My Name is Red. Too darn convoluted for my little mind.
Lessons learned:
1. Second chances are good. (And safer in literature, than in life.) But if you were right the first time, it doesn't mean you have to be wrong the next. Or vice versa.
2. No more Pamuk, no matter how earnestly brilliant he looks in author photographs.
3. How I love first-person narratives. Even when the narrator switches with every chapter.
Lessons learned:
1. Second chances are good. (And safer in literature, than in life.) But if you were right the first time, it doesn't mean you have to be wrong the next. Or vice versa.
2. No more Pamuk, no matter how earnestly brilliant he looks in author photographs.
3. How I love first-person narratives. Even when the narrator switches with every chapter.
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Slip inside/ The eye of your mind.
MY NAME IS RED
ORHAN PAMUK
The first Pamuk book I read was Snow. Read halfway, and then, sheepishly gave up, is a more accurate description.
You know the feeling, when you put down a book to answer the phone, and find yourself fixing a cup of cocoa, or turning on the telly. Basically, anything besides returning to it immediately. In my mind, it's like falling out of love. Happens to all of us, but practising with books makes it a little easier to accept.
Not that it wasn't beautiful, or intriguing, or lush with sensory detail. Nor that it wasn't a distinctly unique voice. (Aside: This is what I love about blogging. In a post about one of the best writers of our time, I can still use a double negative and get away with it. Absolute power does corrupt absolutely.) It just got to a point where I tired of all the lush, evocative description, and wondered what the heck would actually happen to the protagonist.
From the very first word, I knew this one would be different. And it is. Hypnotic, and lyrical, of course. But also less self-indulgent, I think. For starters, it's something of a murder mystery, rather than a somewhat self-absorbed personal journey. Second, it's told fascinatingly. I loathe literary devices that take precedence over narrative, and I'm pleased to say that isn't the case with this novel. It's clever, yes, but rather effortlessly so. Its characters belong to a time and place far, far removed from this one: the Istanbul of the world's most skilled miniaturists.
And I can't wait to get back to it.
ORHAN PAMUK
The first Pamuk book I read was Snow. Read halfway, and then, sheepishly gave up, is a more accurate description.
You know the feeling, when you put down a book to answer the phone, and find yourself fixing a cup of cocoa, or turning on the telly. Basically, anything besides returning to it immediately. In my mind, it's like falling out of love. Happens to all of us, but practising with books makes it a little easier to accept.
Not that it wasn't beautiful, or intriguing, or lush with sensory detail. Nor that it wasn't a distinctly unique voice. (Aside: This is what I love about blogging. In a post about one of the best writers of our time, I can still use a double negative and get away with it. Absolute power does corrupt absolutely.) It just got to a point where I tired of all the lush, evocative description, and wondered what the heck would actually happen to the protagonist.
From the very first word, I knew this one would be different. And it is. Hypnotic, and lyrical, of course. But also less self-indulgent, I think. For starters, it's something of a murder mystery, rather than a somewhat self-absorbed personal journey. Second, it's told fascinatingly. I loathe literary devices that take precedence over narrative, and I'm pleased to say that isn't the case with this novel. It's clever, yes, but rather effortlessly so. Its characters belong to a time and place far, far removed from this one: the Istanbul of the world's most skilled miniaturists.
And I can't wait to get back to it.
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