Rashmi bookmarks “White Noise”

It's so difficult to coherently express my thoughts when I am in two minds about a book. Don DeLillo starts with an innocent picture of contemporary family life, with snippets of incidents at school, at home, amongst parents, teachers and friends; continues through an unnerving event involving a chemical spill and a black noxious cloud; and ends with the story of modern society's obsession with death as much as chemical cures. So. Did I like this post-modern snapshot of a degrading society or did I not? Hm. Ok, here goes...

I liked the basic concept of a society that is slowly breaking down into all-pervading white noise. However, this would probably have been more appreciated in the 80's when the book was published and social media was not as "obvious" a presence as it is today. I think every age of mankind has had its demons and its dependencies, and the current age is not a special case that calls for an especially negative depiction of it.

Added to that, the fact that (to match the theme of breakdown in society, I suppose) the narrative style was a random, broken down one - it drew my attention away from the story, to its telling, where I was tripping over the style, which was just that - stylistic, and nothing more.

That said, there were some concepts that did make me pause and think for a moment. Greatest amongst these was the section on the German nuns who talk about how they do not believe in god or heaven or angels, but feel the need to keep up the pretense for the sake of the non believers. Their contention that that's how non believers feel safe - that as long as someone was keeping up the faith, as a human race we are okay - that was such a brilliant concept.

I also really liked the character of Heinrich. His constant questioning and his stubborn refusal to accept such common truths as whether it was raining or not, opened up such a refreshing line of thought. At one point he asks, of what use is all our knowledge / how are we any better than cave man, when we can't even make fire or even recognize lint if we saw it; that when it comes down to it, all our knowledge just passes from computer to computer … Heinrich really made me think!

Overall though, all this talk of Hitler Studies, people marrying multiple times, people getting lost in mundane things such as the sights and sounds of the TV, chemical spills, modern society's dependence on drugs ... all this incessant pounding into the reader's head, of the message of a breakdown of society ... no, I just couldn't get into it.

Rashmi bookmarks “Expedition to Earth”

I was introduced to the fantastic world of Arthur C. Clarke very early on in life (with "2001: A Space Odyssey"), and till date I find myself going back to him whenever I feel the need to escape the dreariness and closed-mindedness of the world around me ... This collection of short stories took me on yet another memorable journey across space and time.

In "Second Dawn", I loved the perspective of a race so far advanced mentally, they have forgotten what to do with their hands. "If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth" has a touch of such sorrow and hope in a world where Armageddon has come and even gone long ago. "History Lesson" combines so beautifully a snapshot of the end of the world, a desperate attempt at recreating a civilization long gone - and the unforeseen comedy that can arise from the meeting of cultures too far apart. "Loophole" was a unique story about realistic events of politics and power play in an imagined future and "Inheritance" actually gave me goose bumps with its surreal tale twisting in and out of time.

The two stories that really stayed in my head for a very long time were: "Exile of the Eons" and "Expedition to Earth". The former is the fantastic story of The Master, the defeated military leader who escapes the end of the world; and Trevindor, the Philosopher, who is exiled for daring to challenge accepted norms - and their shocking meeting at the end of time. Expedition to Earth forms the basis of the opening sections of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is the story of a very superior race meeting a very, very young one and leaving behind that small seed of civilization which would go to someday form the incredible culture of Babylon.

I will end this blog with a special tip of the hat to "The Sentinel". I know I have talked about this one before, as it was part of another collection I read. But this story is so brilliant, it calls for numerous reads and endless discussions! This tale perfectly combines the excitement and the fear of unknown life forms and brings forth such strong passions of awe and terror all at once.

Clarke remains, in my opinion, truly the untouched master of science fiction.

Rashmi bookmarks “Santa Responds”

Oh dear. Another one of those books which has such an interesting premise, but fails so completely to deliver. "Santa Responds: He's Had Enough...and He's Writing Back!" When I read the tagline of this book - by Santa Claus - I really thought this was such a unique concept, and couldn't wait to get started.

As it turned out however, this collection of replies from Santa Claus to letters received from children across the world, is really nothing more than the kind of "jokes" you and I would make when we rant about our stupid jobs, or the stupid people around us, or those stupid politicians, or...

Sure, some parts were funny - from putting annoying, selfish, bratty kids firmly in place to taking (quite a few!) pot shots at America (everything from science becoming increasingly irrelevant in that country, to the fact that some people believe any stupid thing like the Iraq war not being about oil or petty revenge). Overall however, this was a one-joke book and that one joke got tiresome pretty quickly.

Rashmi bookmarks “N0S4A2”

Nurse Thornton walks in to her regular job at the hospital and checks in on her regular comatose patients; and as she passes by one of the regulars, Charles Manx grabs her violently and tells her her son would be much happier in Christmasland. And right there we know that nothing is what it seems!

N0S4A2 (Nosferatu) is the second Joe Hill novel that I have picked up, and it has been a really enjoyable read. Travelling back and forth between the 1980s and the 2000s, and told mainly through the perspectives of Charles Talent Manx and Victoria "Vic" McQueen, this is a story that bridges together the real and the imagined, the physical world and an "inscape" in a very interesting manner. A manner, I must add, heightened by the unique narrative style whereby most chapters end mid-sentence, with the remainder of the sentence continuing as the title of the following chapter.

A 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith journeys to "Christmasland". A Raleigh Tuff Burner bikes across the "Shorter Way Bridge" to reach faraway places within moments ... and all the while Margaret (Maggie) Leigh, the librarian, uses her Scrabble tiles to race alongside and interpret events as they occur, in a desperate attempt to finally solve the multiple disappearing and murders that have been going on for years.

Given the events that occur, this could have easily settled comfortably into a generic horror story, but I liked how it was primarily crime / mystery. That said, there are certainly some horrific parts, mainly, the inhabitants of Charlie Manx' Sleigh House, the events at Bing Partridge's House of Sleep, and of course the final showdown at Christmasland (dead children can be so creepy, isn't it?!)

While every character in the story was truly memorable, I especially liked Louis "Lou" Carmody a lot. Till the very end he was "the kid on the motorcycle again, hauling skinny Vic McQueen up on to the seat behind him." He combines the likeability of a regular guy with that fierce loyalty and bravery that makes him an awesome person to know.

In one of the final scenes Maggie, explaining to Vic how Manx has remade children into his idea of perfect innocence, says, "Innocence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be ... Innocent little kids rip the wings off flies, because they don't know any better. That's innocence". It really made me think.

Rashmi bookmarks “Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall”

I quite liked this collection of short stories by Kazuo Ishiguro, all based on the theme of music and musicians. I especially liked the way how - within the confines of one evening or one weekend - an entire slice of life with all its hopes and regrets is presented. A fading singer serenades his wife in a gondola ... to mark a dying marriage. A young guitarist runs away from life ... and meets an old couple wistfully reminiscing the passing of youth, of life, and the slow onset of the end.

My absolute favourite of this collection was the title story, “Nocturnes”. It is the story of a saxophonist who cannot get famous, not for any lack of talent, but because - as both his manager and his wife tell him constantly - he is too ugly. Tired of being called a 'loser' by both, he finally gives in to the pressure and accepts a donation by his wife's rich lover.

I was expecting this story to run the usual course of social pressures, and become yet another generic moral lesson on outer versus inner beauty. But, as the artist recuperates in a room next to a very rich and famous socialite out on a routine face lift, what Ishiguro presents in this story is a very unique relationship between two people who have absolutely nothing in common other than - ironically - faces hidden under bandages the entire time they are together. With each passing moment, a little bit more of a hitherto buried characteristic reveals itself in this off-key note of music, that lasts but for a short while.

Rashmi bookmarks “Notre-Dame de Paris”

Set in and around the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris of 1482, this 1830 novel by Victor Hugo (history within history indeed!) is a beautiful picture of the life and times of 15th Century France. The most beautiful part about this book (I read the translation by Isabel F. Hapgood) was the way the scenery shifts, changes and reveals, as we follow the characters around. We begin our journey on Epiphany, the day of the Feast of Fools in Paris, where Quasimodo is crowned the Pope of Fools. We follow the poet Gringoire to the Cour des Miracles which reveals the dark underworld of fake beggars and lepers, the blind and the lame. We dance along with Esmeralda and get a glimpse into the world of the rich and the royal. (While I did think that there were some sections dedicated to the architectural history of Paris, that I could have had a little less of) there is no denying the grand mural that Hugo paints in this book.

As fascinating as the Parisian landscape is the varied presentation of characters in this story; from Clopin Trouillefou ("Charity Please") the King of Truands, to Jehan Frollo an over-indulged younger sibling and a troublemaker, to the less than moral and rather weak Phoebus de Chateaupers, Captain of the King's Archers, to the beautiful young gypsy street dancer Esmeralda, to Quasimodo, the bell-ringer of Notre Dame, the novel's protagonist and Claude Frollo, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame, the novel's antagonist. (What an absolutely insane character, by the way)! I do have to make a very special mention of the poet Pierre Gringoire. Whether pleading not to be hung in front of the "king" of the court of miracles or in front of King Louis XI, this failed starving poet still has an immensely positive outlook and still talks about having a thousand reasons to live... the sky, the air, the mountains of Paris.

Through the inclusion of small incidents Hugo also shines a very deep light into the heart of this society: the court cases of Quasimodo in front of an equally deaf Master Florian Barbedienne; that of Esmeralda accused of killing Captain Phoebus; and even that of Gringoire at the Court of Miracles, all reflect a deep-seated bias for pretty facades no matter how shameful the secrets behind them.

Adding tragic dimension to this tale is of course the story of Quasimodo and Esmeralda; a story of a relation that never could have been, but also, sadly and paradoxically, the only one that was - a story that was always fated to doom, riding as it was, on that other doomed relationship - that of Claude Frollo and Quasimodo, parent and child, Magician and Demon.

One observation in conclusion; I am not sure why the title has been translated - and the book come to be known - as "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame"; while Quasimodo is certainly one of the main characters of this story, to say that this is his story alone, would be to demean the rich and wide, almost epic, scope of the novel.

Rashmi bookmarks “A Scanner Darkly”

"Once a guy stood all day shaking bugs from his hair. The doctor told him there were no bugs in his hair."

I started 2014 with a collection of short stories by Philip K. Dick and had mentioned in my blog that this could be the year I declare him to be among my top favourite writers of all time. Yes, with this semi-autobiographical story by PKD I have reached that point.

A Scanner Darkly is the story of Robert Arctor, an undercover narcotics agent assigned to spy on Arctor's household. Living in his scramble suit as "Fred", out to catch high-level dealers of Substance D, this is the story of the slow and surreal breakdown of a human into the two co-existing yet conflicting hemispheres of the brain. Under the influence of the very drug he set out to catch users and dealers of, he undergoes increasing confusion about reality. His progressive meltdown and the final stages of identity shift made for absolutely fascinating reading. When the surveillance cameras are set up and we see Bob/Fred's degeneration as his consciousness weaves in reality and out films - those sections were absolutely brilliant.

From the comedy of trying to figure out where all the 10 gears on a 10-speed bike are, to the tragedy of the addict whose mother kept injecting him with heroin as a baby so he wouldn't cry and she could sleep ... from the horror of the teenage girl whose brother introduced drugs into her system so he could rape her, to the sadness of Fred thinking of Hendrix and Joplin and how they ended up, while ‘All is Loneliness’ plays in the background ... the final recognition of everyone as "a lump of flesh grinding along, eating, drinking, sleeping, working, crapping", makes this is a heartbreaking fantasy film that keeps rolling not just in the characters' but also the readers' heads. From Bob to Fred to Bruce, this is the story of - as PKD mentions in his Author's Note - "some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did." And one is left wondering if Fred hoped in vain that - unlike himself who could see only darkness when he looked into himself - the scanners at least would see clearly and not darkly, or all would be lost with no knowledge gained.