Selective Amnesia There was a point to this. But I forgot.

Two more videos, and a self-indulgent look at IR

I was born in the year 1982. By then, IR was well on his way to being the legend he is. As a kid, I didn’t go to the movies much. About 3 – 5 times a year at best, if one was on one’s best behaviour. We had a Black&White Keltron TV at home – 14” of bad (at the time best) DD terrestrial broadcast. And we listened. To ஒளியும், ஒலியும் (Light & Sound. Fantastic branding) on Fridays, DD1.

Two videos, two brilliant songs

tamil | tamil film music | Illayaraaja |

On books

Hesse’s Siddhartha is so banal, I don’t understand the hype it got.
Nabokov’s Lolita. Classic (Yet to finish, though – got about 100 pages to go…)
Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Erm, so what? (A few more pages to go on this one too.)
Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Small Island. Is there a BB fan club?
Roald Dahl’s Collected stories. Can I kiss the guy? I mean, seriously.
P.G.Wodehouse’s Inimitable Jeeves, Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, Pigs have wings, Lord Emsworth’s girl friend – Borrowing Cho’s words: PGW is as funny as those who intend to be otherwise.
—In the pipeline – Lolita
Collected stories of Kafka
Five Families (I’m looking forward to this one.)
SteppenWolf
The Myth of the Sisyphus
Mouniyin Kadhaigal (Tamil)

Mozhi

A great movie. Simple, clean. No convoluted script, no hammy acting, no dudes, no wtfs. I suggest you folks watch it.

Orhan Pamuk on his father

Zigzackly saar sends me a mail of Pamuk’s Nobel speech. I haven’t read any of Pamuk’s books yet, but reading this one speech, I am left with an image of a quiet man who will laugh with you when you mock him. Brilliant words. One particular paragraph of that speech caught my attention:

My father had a good library – 1 500 volumes in all – more than enough for a writer. By the age of 22, I had perhaps not read them all, but I was familiar with each book – I knew which were important, which were light but easy to read, which were classics, which an essential part of any education, which were forgettable but amusing accounts of local history, and which French authors my father rated very highly. Sometimes I would look at this library from a distance and imagine that one day, in a different house, I would build my own library, an even better library – build myself a world.

My father too had a library, though I am not sure how many books it did have. My father travelled a lot, when I was much younger. And he would always come back with a book or two. Robert Ludlums and Sidney Sheldons and PG Wodehouses and the like. Sadly, I don’t remember seeing any French author. I too thought of building a bigger, better library one day. And I am. Slowly, with much hesitation, a library is forming in my cupboard. 30 books strong, and almost as many genres.

But, my father was, and is, a generous man. Cousins and uncles and friends would come over, and borrow a book. Never to return. I am sure there are about 300-400* books out somewhere, all bearing my father’s initials. I don’t think I will see them again. Which is why, I am a bit selfish about these books I’ve bought. They are never out of my cupboard for more than 2 days at a stretch, and when friends borrow it, they prepare themselves for reminder-calls every 24 hours.

In spite of which, 4 of my PG Wodehouse signature editions are missing.

(That reminds me: I need to return Anand’s Bach)

*Yes, I agree 300 is an exaggeration. But…

More books

www.literaturecollection.com

By the river Piedra, I sat down and wept

I began reading this book when the clock showed 11.20 PM. I finished it when it read 1.53 PM. In between, I took a break for 15 minutes to finish a piece of writing I had started earlier. Later, I took a smaller break, 4-5 minutes I reckon, for no reason whatsoever.
And as I read the first half of the book, I began composing this post – with phrases like ‘Alchemist meets Ayn Rand meets Da Vinci Code’ and ‘By the river Cooum, I sat and wept for the time I spent on the book’. And as I read the second half of the book, I didn’t forget the phrases I came up with during the first half, except I didn’t think the book deserved the latter description.

As to the story, it is quite riveting. But, you don’t need me to tell you that, do you? You would have already read the book, or at-least, Chenthil’s review of it. In the very rare case you haven’t done either, (shame on you, for not doing the second) here’s my own interpretation of a rather preachy, but naïve book.

I am not sure if it is just I, but of-late, no book to me has been un-naïve. The naivety manifests itself in the book’s premise, in its characters, in the language and the style or as (rare circumstance) the very reason for the book.

Take Contact – It’s a book I’ve read twice already. And now, a third. And each time I pick it up again, I hope I was mistaken about the premise of the book, of the language and the principals. But no. The language in the Contact is newspaper-y, sometimes, plain-jane others. The overall idea of the book – benevolent message from a sentient being not on earth, the Message, the almost childish innocence of Ellie and Vaygay and the others, the (very Indian) cinematic cut to a different scene when Ellie and Ken get it on – reeks of naivety. It got so thick, you could cut it with a pen-knife. A blunt one. (Ah, somebody tells me that was the intention of the book. In which case, uber cool book. Sorry I was so rude about it)

Oh, sorry. You didn’t want to know about the Contact, did you. You wanted to know about the book with the long title.

Here it is – Naïve. To The Core. If I wanted to read about a woman fighting for her man, I would any day pick up a Mills & Boon, (half-decent sex scenes in it) or re-read Sathyavan Saavithri (except, well, it gets boring after a point of time. Especially after Roja)
Also, the book under advisement is much to preachy. ‘Find love. Find God. Seek that which you need. You shall find it, if you trust yourself.’ This was one of the reasons why I couldn’t stand the Alchemist – and why I almost threw up on the BtRPISDaW
I still will, on subsequent readings. But for the first time, the book holds well. A good romance, some nice bits of prose, a bit of history if one wanted to believe it and a reason for a blog-post. Even if everything in the post ends up wrong.