The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Two young heiresses of a sizable but fast depleting - Iris and Laura grow up isolated in rural Canada separated from the rest of the world but not immune from tragedy. Iris is the narrates the story several decades after in unfolds. she looses her mother at a tender age and raised by one of the most endearing characters in the novel - Reenie.At 18 her dads button factory goes bust and she is talked into an arranged marriage with real TOOL by the name of Richard Griffen (an industrialist with political ambitions). she also endures an equally rancid sis-in-law Winifred. Three, possibly four suicides ( Dad ODs on rationed booze, sister drives off a bridge in a BENTLEY! A BENTLEY, husband is found dead on a yacht and  daughter dies of a broken neck. BOY these rich people certainly know how to kick the bucket in style !) and several decades later she decides to clear the  air and come clean to her estranged granddaughter.

                    To this add a parallel sci-fi story about a planet with 5 moons,warring clans with dubious morality, tongueless virgins and blind weavers turned hired hitmen. GOT THAT? Add some history - WWI,Great Depression, left wing uprising, Spanish Civil War and WWII. A particularly disturbing  event at Iris's honeymoon in Berlin on the eve of WWII occurs when there is an unprecedented demand for shovels in Germany because there was a lot of digging going on.( So it isn't exactly what you call light reading). D.Y.I : there is also a flapper in the story - Callista Fitzsimmons. Did anyone else think of Zelda Fitzgerald? :) 

                               It took me nearly 3 weeks (Dec-Jan so technically 2 years). I breezed through Handmaid's tale and Alias Grace. I blame myself as a reader for not enjoying it. I just couldn't sit down and listen to old Iris while she struggles to bite into a doughnut and finish her coffee. So live fast and die young like Laura who still got anonymous fans leaving flowers by her grave while Iris takes her walks all alone ignored by the rest of the world.

Cool lingo I learnt from this book: 

Pinko: as Richard calls Alex Thomas (Iris's lover) is a communist or a someone with communist sympathies. 'Red' sounds like a dubious character from a graphic novel or conjures up images of rugged, bearded  Che Guevaraesque  Latin hotties . 'Pinko' on the other hand sounds like speedy Gonzales's fabulous little brother. I'm definitely gonna use that more often. 

So Pinko or not this book comes highly recommended. Two thumbs up!!

Alias Grace

I got hold of this book from my college library and usually i want to finish them soon so possible but i wanted this one to go on forever. 
Didn't really care if Grace was innocent or guilty, sane or mad just fascinated by the effect she had on everyone else in the book. had a feeling this was really about the class conflict at the time and how one poor little girl could capture the imagination of the chattering classes. Really wanted to see Dr Jordan hook up with her though.(wink) 

Quilt pattern chapters were really cool, I might even take up quilt making (maybe when I'm like 90 or something). Seriously this book made sewing sound so cool! And for once most of the epigraphs before the chapters made sense to me.

The bell jar

I didn't realize that a book could be funny and depressing at at the same time. The first few chapters read like a piece of chick-lit & the author spends a lot of time describing trinkets, food, clothes & fabrics ( its like reading a fashion magazine) but it doesn't take too long to get to the crux of the story which makes it a classic cult read. Esther falls hard and fast to hit rock bottom. 

In a way it's about society's unwillingness to take a woman's ambition seriously. To me it seemed more about Esther's coming of age and rebirth. This is in no way is a 'girly' little book i thought it would be- it deals with some pretty gruesome issues. Esther's ordeals are horrifying - especially the 20 odd pages where she ponders about and tries out various techniques of suicide( apart from sticking her head in an oven ). 

Two things that stick out for me: 
1. The metaphor of the bell jar suffocating someone suffering from depression. 
2. " There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends." - so true.

A billion mutinies now ?

                     V.S Naipaul is probabling still dodging feminist bullets after his comments on female writers in july this year. Its not hard to see why so many 'intellectuals' and public figures find his non fiction a little unsettling. his eassays are sharp , witty and intensly personal. In ' A million mutinies now' he Chronicles pre -liberalized  India. the book is a memoir of his travels between 1988 and 1990. born in 1991, I was curious about the not so distant history which was more or less the gestational period for the 'New India' - result of economic reforms and rapid socio-political mood swings.

                                   
                        During the late 80's , my mother was just settling into her new home in a tiny bank staff quaters in  Lokanwala Mumbai. Around the same time Naipaul lands in the city on the eve of Ambedkar's birth anniversay. In then Bombay (now ofcourse Mumbai, don't want to upset the MNS) he explores the politics of the Shiv Sena . the underworld, the ghettos and the Dallal street businessmen with sobriety rarely seen among contemporary opinion leaders. Down south he gives the reader in depth insights on Dravidian politics, the Periyar 'rationalist' movement and (much to my delight) a birds eye view of yesteryear Madras (now Chennai, again no offence) . In another chapter titled ' The end of time' ,Naipaul narrates the story of a Shia Muslim man from a Lucknowi royal family, his enthusiasm for a moderate Islamic state of Pakistan and the subsequent dissapointment. My favorite chapter is ' Women's era' ,about the popular women's periodical targeted at middle class women.Naipaul painstakingly gathers opinions from different women from various walks of life. This is especially juicy now considering the sticky situation he finds himself in now.
                   
                             Naipaul's writing seems incredibly slick and charming. There is something distinctly unpretentious about it without a trace of  the stereotypical patronizing western observations  usually dished out. He is critical yet  compassionate in his observations with a steady supply of  wit. In 'Shadow of Guru' and 'A house on the lake' he explores the militant movements in Punjab and Kashmir. When he finds a picture of the Golden temple hanging in the reception of Kashmiri man's lobby he senses a ideological comradery between the two separatist movements while a contemporary left wing leaning critic would point to a symbol of  unity and defiance against the common enemy ( i'm only guessing after enduring numerous editorials of our day and age).
At several points in the book i wondered how Naipaul would have written about the current situation and i guess not much has changed but many other issues have come to light and conflicts have multiplied. But one thing's for sure if he writes another one i'd queue up for it. facebook page says "LIKE" !
           

PERSEPOLIS

Persepolis was an ancient Iranian city , which in it's hay day was a thriving center for culture and the arts. It was the jewel of the Iranian civilization which withstood numerous invasions to preserve it's essential 'Iranianess'. It is perhaps this glorious past Marjane Satrapi eludes to in her autobiographical graphic novels PERSEPOLIS :  the story of a childhood and the story of a return.

THE STORY OF A CHILDHOOD
 The author is a spirited 10 yr old whose wise beyond her years . Raised by dotting yet outspoken ( radical Marxist) parents , it is clear that her up bring is very different to that of an average Iranian child. This makes her view the political upheaval  and volatile public mood in her country during the Islamic revolution with a unique and independent lens. we live through all the horrors of war, civil unrest and personal loss with the tender fragility of a little girl. In the end Marji's parents feel it would be safer for her to leave her homeland and  move to Austria where she has the opportunity to getting a better education. Little Marji bids a teary farewell to her beloved parents and steps out into the wide world.

THE STORY OF A RETURN
Marjane relishes her new freedoms but soon begins to feel lonely and homesick. she makes friends with an eccentric group of hippies and dabbles with drugs as she  navigates the stormy seas of puberty and early adolescence. It's fascinating to see her deal with racism and isolation without any help from grown ups. when her boyfriend Markus cheats on her she slips into depression and spend following cold winter months roaming around the tram networks and parks of Vienna until she falls sick and is treated for pneumonia. After her health scare her parents bring her back to Tehran which is now reeling under the authoritarian Islamic regime. Marji tries to pick the pieces of her former resolute self while she enrolls into university to study visual arts, falls in love and gets married .Her demons come back to haunt her as her marriage collapses but she crawls back with a little help from her mom and dad. The Satrapi family finally decides that the only way their now mature young daughter can be happy is if she is not burdened with the injustices and stifling social norms that weigh down many Iranian teenagers.Marjane moves to France to create a new life for herself.

Persepolis is a brilliantly constructed novel in which the narrative transitions seamlessly from the innocence of a young child to a mature women take on the world around her. the readers are a part of Marjane pain and her growth. Visually the illustrations are bewitching and take the reader into another realm but still remains firmly grounded in reality. Though the pictures are merely in black ans white, the experience of Persepolis explores every color  in the prism's spectrum.

Getting Started ! !

 Have you ever felt so lost , that you forgot about the things that brought you joy? Well I have. After years of going through the same routine in school, I was pretty clueless about my future and didn't have any semblance of a plan for my career. Fast forward two turbulent years of college - I'm still nowhere close to finding out what I really want to do but atleast i know that the worst is behind me.

YES I can officially declare that ( fingers crossed ! ) there won't be anymore 'one meal days' , 'crying myself to sleep', 'tear soaked pillows' and locking myself up in a room. The clouds seem to have passed  and the weather system is to remain quiet stable in the days ahead ( phew .....!) . The thing  I'm most relived about, is that I'm beginning to sense some 'normalcy' setting in. This prospect seemed impossible a few months ago.

I suspect that this seemingly unimportant but potentially massive emotional turnaround was the result of me starting to read again.

XOXO