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406 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1966
Z is a really good book. It leads you to think critically about the government and the people in it, especially the beaurocrats (not the politicians) and the power they weild over people. What does it mean to be righteous? What does it mean to do the right thing at any cost? There are several books that go through those dilemmas. Several classics, surely.
Z is another book that does that. What would you do if you were a poor carpenter, dependent on the police's grace for your license, if you saw a murder happen? Would you report it? Would you volunteer to reveal what you know? Would you stick to your story even when you know the consequences? It's hard to describe this book because there's so much going on. At the core of the story is the murder of Z. What follows, is a sometimes-comical, sometimes-Kafka-esque, mostly realistic game of shadows and mirrors as people try to mask their role in the murder.
In every man鈥攅specially in a porter鈥攖here are smoldering embers from a life never lived, a house never built, a pickup license never obtained. At the slightest breath, the embers flare up and the past comes to life.
Such things keep bobbing to the surface and there are left, unexamined forever, because no one can wrest the truth from those who don鈥檛 want to tell it.
P.S: If you have ever had to get a group of engineers to explain what their system does to you with a diagram and they were unable to explain it to you despite 4 hours of meetings over 2 weeks, you know what the author is talking about in this quote.
Every once in a while, you come across a movie so good, so intricate and subtle, so resonant with your own experiences around the system the movie is depicting, that you are stuck watching it in a never-ending loop. Shanghai (2012), a Hindi movie, was one of those movies for me. It perfectly portrayed everything that I had experienced and heard about from other people about the way the government really works, about how contracts are awarded, and how people talk to each other when they are the ultimate decision makers in their own little play-world.
I found out that the movie was actually adapted from a book on my n-th re-watch of the movie in the first few weeks of September this month. Once I realized that a book existed, I had to read it. And now, I have read it and I am very glad that I did!
Z is a really good book. There are several parallel narratives which go hand-in-hand as the story progresses:
In all these narratives, the common thread is often Z. The other common thread is the system that they live in. Implicitly, they understand their place in the system. The General knows that by being at the meeting, he has undermined the command of the Chief. The Chief knows that by being there, he's basically taken over control from the Assistant Chief. The Commissioner can't act when a "full-blown General" is at the scene. Yango wants people to see him having coffee with The Commissioner. Whether they like it or not, whether their interest is on the left or the right, whether they are Communist-Zionist or Hellenic-Christians, the system has kept them aprised of their place and their responsibilities. The Baron doesn't see a choice when he's asked to beat up people, he must do it. He has a stall and he would only be asking for trouble if he were to deny to perform an act that ensures his place in the system.
This book forced me to ask the question: What system are you a part of? What is your place in the system? Do you know your responsibilities? Are you performing them? Are you doing the right thing?
Hard questions, and half imagined, I am sure.
When he compared the number of patients he cured with the number of human beings the world over who could not buy even the most ordinary medicines, it was enough to make him shudder. The same with begging. What was the good of giving money to the poor? The balance of poverty on the planet remained unaltered. For the world to change, the system had to change.
-- Z on the importance of systemic change
His own pulse was calm. For the speech ahead, he鈥檇 merely made some notes. When you have something to say, it鈥檚 not difficult to say it. The difficulty comes when you have nothing to say and must talk anyway.
-- Z on oration
I imagine myself at a railway crossing and the guard has put up the chain between us, an endless train roars over the rails, with as many cars as the years I shall not see you. Only at fleeting moments, through the spaces between the cars, I catch a rare image of you waiting for me on the far side.
-- Mrs. Z on Z
What was politics anyway, Hatzis wondered. Did it hold nothing sacred? Or maybe there was no difference at all between the bourgeois parties? Sometimes the one rose, sometimes the other, like two peasants sharing the same mule, and the mule鈥攖he common people鈥攋ust went on carrying them one after the other upon its back, understanding the change only from the difference in weight.
-- The Tiger on Politics
The first chapter where Z narrates in first person is the best chapter in the book. I always wondered what that character was thinking and what his beliefs were whenever I saw the movie, this chapter was incredibly enlightening on that account.
P.S: This was also the first time that I was able to fit all my #quote Kindle notes into the review of a book!