So don’t let Rushdie fool you into thinking that “it is Moor/Zogoiby’s story and heck1st part of the review - /review/show...
So don’t let Rushdie fool you into thinking that “it is Moor/Zogoiby’s story and heck!, they’re somewhat flat, or Rushdie makes an allegory and fails on both counts � both the upperstory and understory are not well-developed � happens when you want to ride two horses at once.� But, oh, dear, it is one horse, not two.
*sigh* this review just doesn’t end. But Rushdie is a crazy fellow, maker of an atom bomb � large scale destruction squeezed into a bomb the size of a fist. But I should end now, though I have a lot more to babble-o-fy about, I know�
What all did I like in this Rushdie, let me sum up fast � the blasphemy, the profanity, the creativity, the chutneyfication of language, the masterly interweaving of fact and fiction, the literary references generously peppered all over the hot, spicy dish, the scathing political references that only a bold, fearless, audacious and blasphemous person can dare to make. (Dear Indian, do you have the guts to call Hindustan Dumpistan?)
I’m quite surprised, (not really, when the readers do not have EXTENSIVE knowledge of India) that the book is rated badly or averagely. Let me tell you, even if it sounds pompous. I’ve read this book the 10th time today in 5 years. I read it for the first time just after I read To Kill A Mockingbird for the first time. (How vastly different the tone, the manners, of the two books!) Then in two years, I read it 8 more times, until I got used to it. I’ve picked it up again after a gap of three years and am actually amazed by the fact that I’ve got a lot more out of this reading than any of those before. Simply because I am far better-armed with Indian History now than I was three years back. My recent obsession with Indian history, mythology and politics paid off today in very unexpected ways.
And yet, I still know I have failed to understand some points he made, and will need to read more history still. And much more of global popular and literary culture as well. I mean, I was introduced to the legendary Johnny Cash and his civil war songs only two years back � how could I have discerned the reference 4-5 years ago when Rushdie brings in a new character, a businessman-cum-charming musician/guitarist singing country songs about trains, named Jimmy Cash (Cashondeliveri)?
So I still don’t know who Kekoo Mody is in real life, or Justice Kachrawala is (the Bofors scandal judge, I think) This little book, didn’t I say, is a dynamite filled to the brim with everything Rushdie could squeeze in�?
If A Fine Balance, a book I love immensely, is one of the finest pictures of the contradictions of modern India, A Moor’s Last Sigh too shares the pedestal. While AFB is stoic, serious and mournful, MLS is loud-mouthed, comic and mocking. AFB is the incarnation of naked, unadulterated pain, but MLS is the incarnation of pain masquerading as comic, insincere blasphemy � the only way left to tell honestly one’s sordid saga without making someone flinch. AFB is the ultimate Indian tragedy. MLS is the ultimate Indian tragi-comedy. Take away from it what you will.
(The review has ended. Don’t roll-o-fy your biggie eyes at me, you chose to read it, Sir-or-Madam, I didn’t force-o-fy your decision. I’m not the impotent Jaw-Jaw all-bark-no-bite-bitch, I bite-o-fy real hard, and I won’t bite so fast, and like little 13-year old Aurora who bide-o-fied her time to kill her grandma Epifania, I will bide-o my time too, to bite-o you. I’m no sweet Mother India)....more
It's a pity I cannot rate it higher than the maximum allowed - it is astonishing that Tiptree, in this short story achieves so much. I liken her to6/5
It's a pity I cannot rate it higher than the maximum allowed - it is astonishing that Tiptree, in this short story achieves so much. I liken her to Vonnegut, who could pull your guts out in a matter of minutes with stories that take usually barely half-an-hour to read.
The present story is rich in terms of ideas - it anticipates cyberpunk, rather, feminist cyberpunk - the process of jacking in, and taking up the issues of representing women's bodies in a genre that was indifferent to anyone apart from white loner males. The undertones of the story are overwhelmingly dark and sharpened further by satire.
The thinly veiled attack on consumerist culture, driven by profits with little concern for humans, the ugly side of successful businesses and the ethical conflict presented by P. Burke and Delphi - what begins as emancipation for Burke ends in tragedy for Delphi, Burke and Paul - is so well-portrayed.
The narrative in present continuous is so hard-hitting, the author-as-narrator works so well at stabbing the reader at appropriate times, for instance, the references to Cinderella and the ugly duckling. It intensifies the grim, mocking, sharp tone of the story.
It is absolutely befuddling to believe this story was written so many years ago, yet it refuses to become outdated. And it is infinitely better written than most of the so-called SF/cyberpunk today is churned out.
This is not only SF - it is classic literature, and it is a serious loss to English literature that Tiptree is remembered only as an indispensable SF writer....more
Kurt Vonnegut is perhaps the most under-rated author of our literary history. This tiny short story (only 12 pages) is filled with so much satire, angst and anger that one tends to forget it is sci-fi. Although, this is the first story where the SF aspect is so well forgotten as the story develops, that even those repelled by SF would love this.
The title 2 B R 0 T B is an acronym for the eternal conflict in humanity - To Be Or Not To Be (RIP Shakespeare) - and this is exactly the theme of the story, in a world where aging is stopped, births and deaths are controlled to keep the population stagnant. But the science part ends there - and the trials of humans begin.
Good stories are moving and sad. Exceptional stories, like this one, leave us frustrated, angry and disturbed, And Vonnegut does that in exactly 12 pages. Forget your aversion to SF - this one's a classic....more
A wonderful collection of short stories, depicting the classic Russian leanings for tragedy and an unnameable pain. The stories are not to be read to A wonderful collection of short stories, depicting the classic Russian leanings for tragedy and an unnameable pain. The stories are not to be read to children though - they are too poignant, too tragic and pensive - especially the title story. These are stories featuring children to be read by adults.
Brilliant, and truly a hidden gem in Russian literature. Recommended to anyone who likes classic Russian literature....more
ENGLISH TITLE: DIVAN-E-GHALIB (The World of Ghalib)
One of my favorite poets ever, and a treasured Urdu collection since long. Ghalib's sensual poetry ENGLISH TITLE: DIVAN-E-GHALIB (The World of Ghalib)
One of my favorite poets ever, and a treasured Urdu collection since long. Ghalib's sensual poetry made sharper by wit and peppered by sarcasm make it a memorable, cherished read. Devoid of melodrama, he is still capable of making the reader pine - and ah, so flawless his execution, so heart-rending his poetry!
Ghalib's own words sum up better his place in history than any reviewer can ever hope to -
है� और भी दुनिया मे� सुख़नव� बोहो� अच्छ� कहते है� के ग़ालिब का है अंदाज़-�-बयाँ और
Club reading his poetry with Gulzar's beautiful teleseries on Ghalib's life, Naseeruddin Shah capturing Ghalib amazingly well in the role - and Jagjit Singh's mellifluous voice rendering the heart-rending lines of my favorite Ghalib-ghazal ever -
Aah ko chahiye ek umr asar hone tak, kaun jeeta hai teri zulf ke sar hone tak..."
I simply love this rendition -
Why the hell don't people write so well, compose so well, and sing so well now?
A plus point of this collection is that it has a poem-by-poem glossary of the Farsi words used, now unintelligible to most of us.
This collection is a sheer delight. A must-read for anyone who loves good poetry. ...more
This anthology provides excerpts from important feminist works along with a brief account of their authors. These historical writings, some of them noThis anthology provides excerpts from important feminist works along with a brief account of their authors. These historical writings, some of them now brought out of obscurity, span the period from the 18th century to the 20th century � beginning with figures like Abigail Adams (who exhorted her influential husband John Adams to include laws proclaiming freedom and equality for women while he was one among the many legendary figures drafting The Declaration of Independence in 1776) and Mary Wollstonecraft (who penned the important The Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792), proceeding with strong but lone rebel figures in the 18th century such as the controversial trio of Fanny Wright, George Sand and Sarah Grimke amongst others to the 19th century era when slowly American women were becoming more aware of their subjugated status and were beginning to form an affinity amongst themselves under the influence of feminists like Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, also mentioning in brief the results of these movements � the legal fruits that their patience and resistance bore.
Equally important were eminent men in the 19th and 20th century who were strong advocates of freedom and equality for women � John Stuart Mill, Henrik Ibsen, the Marxist Friedrich Engels, August Bebel and Thorstein Veblen who were remarkable supporters and enthusiasts for social reform in favor of women.
20th century themes feature next with excerpts from Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Emily James Putnam, the immensely controversial and significant women � Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger, followed by Clara Zetkin’s interview with Lenin during the socialist USSR movement, Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own and the conclusion of the book with an excerpt from Mary Ritter Beard’s writing.
What is notable about this anthology is that it is simultaneously a historical account and analysis of the women’s movement both from a literary/cultural as well as political point-of-view. Unlike other histories that focus brightly on political movements in the public eye that brought about changes while pushing important speeches/public addresses and literary/written works in the margins, this anthology traces the roots of the feminist movements, both in its written as well as performed forms � in essays, books, speeches as well as the confrontational movements such as militant feminism, which often entailed prison terms for women and forced feeding sanctioned by the state during fasts (civil disobedience covements) in protest and subsequent arrests, as also labor strikes in factories where women participated along with men for their rights.
These works of protestations bring to light not only the deplorable social circumstances that women faced at the times these works were written, but also the narrow legal frameworks to which women were subjected � frameworks that had dire economic and marital consequences for women and which were the same as those in rigidly patriarchal societies that we see in some nations today � and this history is barely a hundred years old, and reformed only through the dedicated efforts of women who cared not what the world thought of them, nor what their families would have to endure in social circles for the blasphemies they would be committing � indeed, these women were brazen in their quest for legal, social, individual and financial freedom � and equality as equal as imparted to the males. But for them, there would have been scarcely any difference between them and patriarchal frameworks in some countries in the present times.
It is not just a book chronicling the triumph of free-spirited women seeking equality with men in historical terms � but a tribute to the undying spirit of women who believe that conformation to the self’s conceptions of respect and freedom, to the conscience’s call for a radical upheaval in one’s own life is greater than the upholding of the social codes of morality and ethics � that personal ethics are a higher calling than social ethics � and that a woman’s duty to please herself are as important, and in fact, more important the her duty of pleasing her family and the society she lives in.
Far from providing a theoretical framework for the field of Women’s Studies, the anthology inspires women to stand up for their own beliefs for their own respect on their own terms in the light of these magnificent women’s struggles who cared neither for reputation nor approval save that came from their own consciences....more
Contains 5 short stories from Asia: The Broken Wing - a Korean tale The Angry King - a tale from Philippines The Widow's Donkeys - a Chinese folktale The Contains 5 short stories from Asia: The Broken Wing - a Korean tale The Angry King - a tale from Philippines The Widow's Donkeys - a Chinese folktale The Wooden Elephant - a Sri Lankan folktale The Vanishing Rice-Straw Coat - a Japanese fairytale
Loved every single story. Especially the first, the third and the last ones. ...more
A very short political tract by Swift in a lashing, satirical vein, the complete title of this tract is 'A Modest Proposal for Preventing the ChildrenA very short political tract by Swift in a lashing, satirical vein, the complete title of this tract is 'A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public'.
Published in 1729, an era when the British and the Irish were sworn enemies and when Ireland was reeling under a severe drought, Swift wrote this as an attempt to criticize heavily the British authorities who did nothing to stave off the plight of the Irish.
The essay exhorts the Irish to give birth to as many kids as possible, feed them properly and then, when they are at their juiciest best, to eat them - since there is no other way to survive the fatal dearth of food. Mistaken by the readers as a genuine suggestion, the tract was heavily criticized. Only later did people see its extreme satire directed at the British, that suggested that very soon, the Irish would have no way but to eat their own children to survive the famine.
A very rare piece of unmitigated, perhaps even venomous criticism, yet hilarious political-satire tract.
'The Modest Proposal' is anything but modest. And here's a few lines from it:
'I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust.' ...more
Before the man lost his sight, he read this story in a magazine: a group of explorers came upon a community of parrots speaking the langua
New Review:
Before the man lost his sight, he read this story in a magazine: a group of explorers came upon a community of parrots speaking the language of a society that had been wiped out in a recent catastrophe. Astonished by their discovery, they put the parrots in cages and sent them home so that linguists could record what remained of the lost language. But the parrots, already traumatized by the devastation they had recently witnessed, died on the way.
The man feels a great fraternity with those birds. He feels he carries, like them, a shredded inheritance, and he is too concussed to pass anything on.
How does a broken man pass on his broken, fragile legacy? What adverse times has he witnessed, that torment him so? As he strives to unravel the century of life he has seen, how does he relate that massive history in tune with his own tale? Or is the tale not solely his own?
Rana Dasgupta said in an interview:"I have lived in the US and India for a long time and they are such big countries and so obsessed with themselves and think they are the whole world. I found it interesting to write about a small country."
“It’s had fascism, it’s had communism, it’s had empire � and I wanted to look at the effect it has on an individual’s life when their country is ripped apart and they must to put themselves back together for a new regime.�
Woven through the narrative is the turbulent history of Bulgaria and its imminent impact on its people � the Crimean wars, the internal struggles between the Communist government and capitalist factions, the antagonism with Germany when ‘the Fatherland� started murdering the Jews at the height of the World Wars. It is the story of Bulgaria as it is forced to suddenly discard the old and come to terms with a new world order; a world where overnight loyalties changed, and with it did the fortunes of many. A world where now even language become paralyzed, unable to keep its meanings stable in that implosion of culture; where the patriot suddenly became a traitor, and a musician a vagrant. The country and the people become entwined with each other’s fates, and thus begins the journey of Ulrich in a turbulent period of Bulgarian history.
A history that not only brought economic ruin for Ulrich, but also drew a chasm between the older and the newer generation, exemplified by Ulrich and his father, the former wishing to usher in a new time, untouched by brutality, giving his life to old-world music, the latter clutching at the old world to hold it together by discarding the old and embracing the new world-order. It is a story of idealism and disillusionment, of a solo movement in music and in life, of an existence far removed from the rest of humanity by its willing and unwilling breaks with Time and Circumstances; of the unseen disturbances that goes on beneath the soothing, calm surfaces.
We follow Ulrich as he discards his first love, Music at his father’s disapproval, replacing it with a love for Chemistry, that “struck him that the two have this thing in common: that an infinite range of expressions can be generated from a finite number of elements�, his return to a civil-war torn Sofia when his family is too broke to fund his studies in Berlin, the execution of his closest revolutionary friend Boris and his wife’s desertion of him.
We witness the disintegration of a whole civilization, a whole nation, an entire city known for its cultural fecundity, a whole family, an entire life; their destinies interwoven with the threads of music, chemistry and bloodshed. A hundred years� history.
But then, Ulrich begins day-dreaming in the second movement of the novel, whose first movement was yet only Chemistry, the external world of Ulrich, and of Bulgaria. But Ulrich is no longer bound by the past. He is free to imagine the world that might have been, if he had a new century to live in. A life that might have been, but which never happened. Reality and day-dreams, one merging into the other, so you cannot know the difference.
In a sense, it is as much an anti-Communist novel as Animal Farm � the pictures of the physical and moral destruction of everything Sofia represented is still vivid, as the novel overflows with corruption, violence and persecution for as little as a lone voice of dissent or possessing a piece of non-Bulgarian, and therefore, bourgeoisie music. But then, it is subtly critical of Capitalism as well.
Music and Science, considered some of the hallmarks of human advancement, are viewed through this spectacle of socio-political chaos; or rather, the disintegration of civilization is silently observed by what it does to music and science.
Dasgupta said:“I was very attracted to Bulgaria through its music. The country has an amazing musical tradition. There is a vibrant folk music, but, having been part of the Ottoman Empire, there has also been Turkish, Arabic and Gypsy music. And the story of how the Communist state banned all this other music, banned jazz, and created an enormous silence around music � all this is a very Bulgarian story, and it’s a big part of the story I wanted to tell.�
Similarly, for science as a creative field pursued for the betterment of life, Dasgupta said,“People followed Einstein’s theories and the newspapers explained those theories, and there was this connection between public culture and science. Then [when the Nazis began to persecute Jewish scientists], this scene was completely destroyed. I mean it was an amazing handover of Europe to America.�
The disillusionment with science is complete, for Ulrich in the wake of Hiroshima after the burning light of progress has shown its dangerous side: “What happened to those beautiful scientists when they got to America?�, he wonders.
The second movement captures life in the 21st century Georgia � what would it be like for Boris the musician, and Ulrich to have had their youth in a world so different from the one they had lived? Ulrich’s daydreams takes us to the post-Twin Towers-collapse Georgia where Khatuna rises abruptly in her career as a business-woman when she catches the attention of Kakha, a millionaire, while her brother Irakli writes poetry and fiercely abhors the Բٱ’s company his sister enjoys. Where Boris signs contracts with Universal Studios and gives concerts in New York. Where Ulrich no longer falls from aristocracy to poverty. Is life any better? Have we really made our lives better, with all the money and smart businesses? With illegal crime replacing the atrocities of an approved monarchy, has the world moved on to become a better place?
It is a dreamy, tragic, melancholic and strange story wound around music and chemistry, spanning the whole twentieth century and a little of twenty-first century. A tragedy so subtle, it leaves no traces of its wounds. There are no scars to show; the wounds are concealed beneath. And there's nothing so overwhelming as an underscored tragedy.
Where has humanity failed itself? From evolving into a harmonic orchestra, has it been reduced to every artist playing a solo, lonely and consumed by the self?
Told from the sightless eyes of the hundred year old Ulrich, it is a haunting story of the ultimate failure of humanity in saving itself. Not from an alien attack, but from its own implosion. For every genius it brings forth, it thwarts back a few more. For every melody it sings, it deafens a life with its cries. For every new invention it prides itself on, it marks its own body with destruction. For every publicized glittering success, it withholds a million failures that paid the price.
It is not Ulrich we see in the two movements, but the possibilities that could have been. And the impossibility of true peace. Wherever Ulrich might have been, he would be denied harmony. He is destined to play solo. And so are we.
That was when the ones who smiled, Were the dead, glad to be at rest.
It was an impossible feat - a feat likened in importance to the first ascent of the Everest. Crossing the length of the notorious Taklamakan desert inIt was an impossible feat - a feat likened in importance to the first ascent of the Everest. Crossing the length of the notorious Taklamakan desert in China - the worst desert on Earth, whose name means in the local Uighur language - "Go in and you won't come out" - The Desert of Death. The desert had lived up to its reputation - so far.
Before Charles Blackmore and his team achieved this feat, no explorer who had gone in had ever come back alive fulfilling his travel plans. They either never came back, or turned back early.
But Blackmore and his team crossed the desert, alive. And discovered traces of a dead civilization that no one had ever seen before, at least for 17 centuries. How did the team defeat this monster of a desert?
Read on to relish vicariously "the true spirit of adventure that only ever touches a handful people in life."...more
Rather than an objective evaluation of this novel as a work of literary fiction, this rating and review is more a reflection of how deeply it has contRather than an objective evaluation of this novel as a work of literary fiction, this rating and review is more a reflection of how deeply it has continued to affect me over the years. Despite the differences of time and place, customs and traditions, exposure and beliefs, there is something very primitive about the bonds I share with Eliza Sommers. And to some extent, to the English colony in Valparaiso, Chile, where this story is set, in the first half of the 19th century. I am too strongly affected by my affiliation to Eliza to condemn this novel to what it truly is, though I will deal with that part too. It has struck too deep a chord in my heart, so consider this as much a disclaimer for what is to come as an admission of my deviation from objectivity.
I read this first in 2007, and though, with repeated readings I almost know it by heart, I keep on revisiting it in my quest to draw strength from obscure, invisible, intangible sources. It is about a girl growing wings in a cage that is supposed to keep them clipped. Some birds are simply not meant to fly, in others� eyes. The bird will sing in its native tongue, perhaps a song of anguish, which its captors will take for one of joy. For the bird is supposed to entertain, not to be entertained. To comfort, not to be comforted. But people forget, that a clipped bird no longer sings. It only croons. Or refuses to sing at all.
We enter Valparaiso, a British Colony on the Chilean coast in the early 1800s, where women went about in stiff corsets, learning piano and housekeeping, straining their lungs out to be sweet, capable, subservient. Men, as Mama Fresia, the Mapucho cook of the Sommers family warned Eliza, “did what they pleased to women�, so that the honor of the women was solely at the discretion of her own self. While Eliza, an orphan brought up by the Sommers, begins to grow invisible wings, defiant of the stifling customs in her own silent, stubborn way, it falls to Rose, the sole woman in the family, to keep an eye on her, following her own indiscretion at the age of 18 with a German composer that had sentenced her to singlehood in a foreign country, where she secretly mourned the consequences of stepping out of the line of decency.
With Eliza unwittingly following the same course in the throes of young, passionate love and her lover Joaquin Andieta, a poor man fired with the ideas of revolution and a poet at heart, leaving Chile for California to try his luck in the Gold Rush, Rose descends into her own memories of her first wild love. Determined to pull Eliza out, she realizes it is too late, for Eliza has disappeared, and is most probably following her lover.
It is Eliza’s four-year long journey in an inhospitable, unruly, wild but free land that shapes her, and makes her fully aware of what she is. Dressed as a mute boy, with Tao Chi’en, the Chinese healer mourning for his dead, beloved wife Lin, Eliza heads out to find in the anonymous masses her lover, embarking on a journey that will not take her to him in the way she had wished. The journey of the search for her love transforms gradually into a journey of self-discovery, of little-by-little, discarding the vestiges and bondages of the cage that constrained her. Her quest for reuniting with her man leads her to him, but in ways she had never imagined when she started out pregnant with his baby at the age of sixteen. She finds her love, but it turns out to be very different from that of her dreams.
What interested me most were the quick pace of the work, the historical fiction aspect of it and the feminist slant to it. Although I don’t dislike Austen, I’m not particularly fond of her either (she writes way better than Allende), because I cannot relate to any of her heroines � they come across as stereotypes to me, which I’m not very sympathetic to. Allende’s writing is modest � I surely do not consider it her strong point. But it is for the most part simple but adequate in its pace, and devoid of lofty pretensions. Or maybe, it is just the translation which makes it a bit bland for my liking - maybe the original in Spanish is far better. So I'm inclined to give it the benefit of doubt.
She ties the strands expertly, not allowing for logical lapses, which are another pet peeve of mine � I prefer stories that do not flag rationally. The characterization, I thought, was the best part � to me Eliza hadn’t changed at all, though she had changed a lot � it happened so slowly by degrees, it didn’t feel artificial, though at some points it did seem a bit rushed.
But there were some pointed observations that resonate with me even now. Oh, her words haunt me day and night, even before I’d read them, because I live with them from day-to-day, straining to break free. They are my invisible cages that I beat and break my wings against. Even if they sound so ordinary.
“It is man’s nature to be savage; it is woman’s destiny to preserve moral values and good conduct,� Jeremy Sommers pontificated. “Really, brother. You and I both know that my nature is more savage than yours,� Rose would joke.
“People are beginning to ask questions and Eliza surely imagines a future that does not befit her. Nothing as perilous, you know, as the demon of fantasy embedded in every female heart.�
Technically, there are quite a lot flaws � there is hardly any sub-text to decipher and enjoy, nor a lyrical, captivating narration. And yet, it captivated me, because Eliza mirrored me. I found myself when I stared into her eyes.
Eliza Sommers, I open your pages when I find myself blank. And I’d almost wept at the recognition when Rose told you
“I would happily give half my life to have the freedom a man has, Eliza. But we are women, and that is our cross. All we can do is try to get the best from the little we have.�
But I don’t intend to be a Rose, Eliza. I’d rather be you. ...more
I’d read The Caretaker more than three years ago, and though I had loved it, I kept The Dumb Waiter for another time, for some stupid reason. Finally I’d read The Caretaker more than three years ago, and though I had loved it, I kept The Dumb Waiter for another time, for some stupid reason. Finally I took it up today, and wondered why I dithered so long. I adore modern drama, and Pinter is one of my favorite playwrights.
For quite some time, Pinter had been considered a different kind of absurdist dramatist. Less dark than Beckett, but just as effective. And perhaps much more lucid. While Beckett alludes to the bleakness and meaninglessness of life, Pinter’s lines are portentous of concealed, violent meanings in even the simplest, seemingly inconsequential chatter. Quite appropriately, Pinter is now considered a writer in the Comedy of Menace mode. In his hand, the commonplace does not become really absurd � but it reveals daily violence that eludes our numbed senses. Under the garb of comedy, it is silently menacing.
In ‘The Caretaker�, we encounter two brothers, Mick and Aston, who take in a poor tramp Davies. What struck me most was the uneasy, yet strong rapport these brothers shared. Aston’s insecurity, and his eagerness to prove himself useful, afraid that he might be sent back to the institution, coupled with Davies� malicious about-turn to manipulate them and create a rift between them, all the while covered in the thin veil of comedy brings out one of the themes that runs clear through both these works � the theme of dominance and submission.
The utterly banal exchanges between Ben and Gus in the other play, The Dumb Waiter too are rife with this same chilling theme, this time Gus submitting to Ben, afraid of the latter’s temper. When ultimately we discover who the intended victim is of the hit job that Ben and Gus are to carry out, it is even more underscored by our realization that it is not just Gus, but also Ben who has become submissive.
He raises his head and looks at Ben. A long silence. They stare at each other.
This Pinteresque enjoyment of the plays makes it a delightful, yet unsettling read. Instead of being convinced of the meaningless nature of even the most profound acts, it kicks in a paranoia surrounding even the most mundane conversations and glances. Every word and every silence, in Pinter, carries auguries of menace.
When Pinter referred to his famous “two silences� in his works, he clarified that the underlying violence in the silences between and beneath his dialogues was not an indication of the assumed “failure of communication�, but signified that intuitively, those locked in the situation immediately conveyed to each other the threat that lingers over his works, and these two plays as well.
The way the essay ”The Silence of the Subaltern� holds that the silence of marginalized, subaltern groups is not empty, but rather, pregnant with unspoken, unspeakable meaning, the kind of characters chosen by Pinter is important in the sense that it presents the violence of a subaltern life that our civilized tendencies tend to overlook as “uncouth�, instead of recognizing the subaltern status that makes things and people unpredictable and more wary of civilized pretenses of kindness and trust. Both these plays employ characters that survive on the fringes � economically and socially. While Davies is a tramp, Aston a seemingly a psychological patient and Mick, though neither, is impoverished, in the second play, Ben and Gus are both poor, and hit-men.
I have only read his plays � never seen them performed. And plays are written to be played out, rather than be read. I can only imagine what a live play of these would look like. Initially, I’d thought of them as four-star plays. Brilliant, but still lacking in something. But having attempted (and half-way aborted) an amateur rendering of ‘The Caretaker�, I am convinced it wouldn’t be wrong to rate it in full.
The everyday threat implied in these seemingly pointless acts becomes clearer when played out. Although the reading was an enjoyable experience, the amateur acting out made it incredible. I can only wonder what seeing it played out would do to me. ...more
Peter Ilyich Tchaikowsky was a legendary Russian composer living in the 1800s Soviet Russia - Nadejda von Meck, many years his senior and a widow, wasPeter Ilyich Tchaikowsky was a legendary Russian composer living in the 1800s Soviet Russia - Nadejda von Meck, many years his senior and a widow, was immensely rich (one of her estates was 12000 acres in size) and with an exquisite taste in music. Living in the same era as Tolstoy (they were acquainted), he was born in an era where Russian music had no reputation in the world (then confined to Europe for the Russians), and Russian music had no recognition in Russia itself. His mentors, the Rubenstein brothers established formally the Russian school for music, and introduced him to Madame von Meck, who becomes his patron and then his confidante, as they begin to exchange intimate letters, deciding never to meet in real life.
The letters explore the lives of Tchaikowsky, Madame von Meck, the Rubensteins, and other people that significantly affected their lives.
Their lives, as revealed by the letters, were traumatic. Like Dostoevsky's books, truly tragic. If you like Dostoevsky, you will definitely love this book. These letters were willed by von Meck to her favorite grandson Vladimir (Volichka), and his wife Barbara von Meck corresponded with Bower to publish these letters interspersed with biographical information.
Both of them hid one crucial fact from each other, which invariably colored their whole lives and also their interactions with each other. And yet, they were united by bonds of very touching friendship which long ago became such a habit that they couldn't live apart.
Their deaths too were intriguing - von Meck died three months after Tchaikowsky's death. Thus ended one of the strangest intimacies in all history, and its end was as inexplicable as its course. Seven months before his death, deep in depression and darkness, he had written a work now known as 'The Sixth Symphony', and his brother and confidante Modeste Tchaikowsky referred to it as Peter having written his own requiem.
The best book I read since January this year.
Since the basis of their unusual relationship lay on their taste in music and von Meck's great appreciation for him as a composer, there are often technical details about music they share in their letters. Also, since both of them were frequent travelers to Europe, for recreation as well as for the sake of promoting music, the book also throws light on the global trends in music, and much on the nature of Europeans in the 1800s, especially Germany, Italy and France, which had an immense impact on Russian music.
Dostoevsky was fiction - but you cannot escape the tragedy in this case because it was all true....more
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