fiction

‘Turtles All The Way Down’ by John Green (Book Review)

~ Madame Zenista ~ Leave a comment

'Turtles All The Way Down' by John Green

I seem to punctuate my reading spells every now and then with a good Young Adult genre that seem to awaken some leftover “YA emotions” hibernating in some corner of me and I time-travel. Interesting exercise that this is – to look back at one’s vulnerable time as a YA, now ensconced in the acquired wisdom (more or less) in a dear exchange of youth, hope and careless optimism – is to see life come a full circle.

The Book: is a first-person narrative by the highschooler protagonist Aza who keeps getting into an obsessive hypochondriacal cycle of over-thinking going down into an infinite and ever-tightening spiral, a condition she is very well aware of, but unable to extricate herself from. In other words, this book is primarily about how it feels to be trapped in mind of a mentally ill person. Yet, just like touching someone else’s body isn’t the same as having someone else’s body, reading about mental illness may not be even close to actually experiencing it, though it behooves us to educate ourselves and empathize. Other characters in the story are Aza’s mother, her friend Mychal, almost-boyfriend Davis and the psychotherapist, Dr. Singh. But the character I most enjoyed was Aza’s longtime best friend Daisy – a Star Wars fan fiction writer coming from a very modest family background with tons of practical wisdom, quick wit and humor that I loved!

One day, Aza tells Daisy about the struggle with competing “voices” in her head and to understand which one is the real her at its core (if there be one at all – which in itself is a pretty scary and defeating thought). And Daisy shares with her this little story about a conversation between a scientist and an old religious lady:
Having explained the Big Bang and how the earth and life came into being, the scientist asks his audience if they had any questions, and an old lady raises her hand and says, ‘That’s all fine and good, Mr. Scientist, but the truth is, the earth is a flat plane resting on the back of a giant turtle.’ The scientist decides to have a bit of fun with the woman and responds, ‘Well, but if that’s so, what is the giant turtle standing upon?’ And the woman says, ‘It is standing upon the shell of another giant turtle.’ And now the scientist is frustrated, and he says, ‘Well, then what is that turtle standing upon?’ And the old woman says, ‘Sir, you don’t understand. It’s turtles all the way down.’  Thats how the book gets its curious title, and aptly so because, in my opinion, this alludes to the eternal question that has haunted the thinking man: Who am I?

The philosophical conversations between Aza and Davis are intertwined with inspiring literary quotes. The climax of the book is not that Aza gets cured of her affliction and lives happily ever after; it is, instead, very realistic and makes you shed tears, it also hopeful believable and very beautiful. As I turned the pages to Acknowledgements, I was touched to find these last few lines, “It can be a long and difficult road, but mental illness is treatable. There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn’t” and a treatment referral helpline for SAMSHA 1-877-SAMSHA7. John Green’s writing is, as always, very engaging, clever and is in an honest voice. I give this book 4 stars on Goodreads.

 

Quote from ‘Turtles All The Way Down’ by John Green
Quote from ‘Turtles All The Way Down’ by John Green
Quote from ‘Turtles All The Way Down’ by John Green
Quote from ‘Turtles All The Way Down’ by John Green
Quote from ‘Turtles All The Way Down’ by John Green
Quote from ‘Turtles All The Way Down’ by John Green
Quote from ‘Turtles All The Way Down’ by John Green
Quote from ‘Turtles All The Way Down’ by John Green

Book Review: ‘The Secret Life Of Bees’ by Sue Monk Kidd

~ Madame Zenista ~ 6 Comments

'The Secret Life Of Bees' By Sue Monk KiddWhen I finally got around reading it amidst several projects (a family wedding, relocating to another state, getting back to work after years, to name a few),  maneuvering through digital / physical library copies, whenever available, (oh, and some other books I finished during that period), I eventually did finish The Secret Life of Bees. The point of sharing my eventful summer activities is not to demonstrate my utmost capability and managerial skills (which I kind of did), but to emphasize that notwithstanding, the book stayed with me. Some thoughts and some feelings from sporadic readings staked themselves up in my heart and nudged me like the annoyingly persistent inner voice to take it up and finish it.  To mentally pick up from exactly where I had left every time, without any loss of interest or motivation is, I think, quite remarkable. In my case, it was not as much about the story (which was also very good), as it was about how it was told.

It is 1964 country deep in South Carolina  and the Civil Rights Act has just been passed (in theory), but the country has still to catch up (in practice). The story revolves around a 14 year old Lily Owens with no mother and a tyrant for a father. In a series of events, she and her black caretaker Rosaleen find themselves in another town, where Lily is trying hard to find clues about her deceased mother. There she meets the black beekeeper Boatwright sisters, especially the eldest (and my very favorite) August, and her life changes.
[On a side note, talking of bees, how often do you see the subject of a catchy book title carry over to the content (like that book with really no hedgehogs) I mean, who does that? This one actually has several bee references; now ain’t that funny, honey!]

To sum it up, The Secret Life of Bees has the prowess to cut through all the noise around you and suck you in and hold you there. How Lily talks to herself (and to the readers) about her emotions and stuff seems so deep and so believable. There were times I found myself letting out a cathartic weeping spell that seemed to wash my soul clean. Oh boy- did it feel good or what! This book is a coming-of-age drama, Steel Magnolias, Oprah kinda feeling all rolled into one. If the honesty and candor in the expression grips your heart, the alluring imagery makes it soar. I recommend this short book just for the experience of it. Four Stars on my Goodreads.

Extras:
The paragraph below conjured up images of bright sun, summer, humming bees and insects, and all the charm of country living and olden times (when life was different, quieter and, perhaps, simpler):
The woman moved along a row of white boxes that bordered the woods beside the pink house, a house so pink it remained a scorched shock on the back of my eyelids after I looked away. She was tall, dressed in white, wearing a pith helmet with veils that floated across her face, settled around her shoulders, and trailed down her back. She looked like an African bride. Lifting the tops off the boxes, she peered inside, swinging a tin bucket of smoke back and forth. Clouds of bees rose up and flew wreaths around her head. Twice she disappeared in the fogged billows, then gradually reemerged like a dream rising up from the bottom of the night. We stood on the porch in the pink light shining off the house. June bugs flickered all around, and music notes floated from inside, sounding like a violin, only a lot sadder.

The movie trailer (that I have not watched yet):

Book Review: ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ by C. S. Lewis

~ Madame Zenista ~ 4 Comments

img_2882Book Dedication by C. S. Lewis to his goddaughter Lucy Barfield:

My Dear Lucy,
I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be 

your affectionate Godfather,
C.S. Lewis

Even before reading the first word of the first chapter, the above dedication threw me into whirlwind of emotions, waking me up from a stupor that I must have fallen into as I grew out of girlhood, and greatly moved me with the timing that C. S. Lewis talks about when one is old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

Leaving behind the cozy make-believe one with fairy tales, as we dip our toes into the real world, waters get increasingly rough and life gets progressively complicated, leaving us disillusioned long before we realize. It is then, defeated and despondent, that we return to these very “fairy tales” for hope and happiness to get through the real world.

Life comes a full circle.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the first book written and published in a series of seven books under a collective title The Chronicles of Narnia (though the reading order is controversial). It is about four siblings who are sent to live with an old professor in a very big and a very old house to be safe from the dangers of World War II. There they discover a wardrobe in one of the rooms that leads into the magical realm of the world of Narnia. Here there are mythical characters, animal talk and a life in their cozy homes, (which by the way was my favorite part making me feel so warm, happy and secure.) Nothing like escaping into such a world, and having tea and cakes by the fire in one such cottage, be it in your imagination. The kids and some of their jungle friends fight against the evil White Witch and her army of wicked creatures with the help of the mighty king of beasts, the royal Lion Aslan.

The popular novelist Stephen King believes story is the boss of everything in a novel, and this book is all about the great story told in an uncomplicated manner. I loved the book and was happy that I interjected my regular reading with it. A classic in children’s literature, it is a refreshing re/read for those who have grown tired of being grown-ups. Five stars on my Goodreads.

A beautiful excerpt:
There was no trace of the fog now. The sky became bluer and bluer, and now there were white clouds hurrying across it from time to time. In the wide glades there were primroses. A light breeze sprang up which scattered drops of moisture from the swaying branches and carried cool, delicious scents against the faces of the travelers. The trees began to come fully alive. The larches and birches were covered with green, the laburnums with gold. Soon the beech trees had put forth their delicate, transparent leaves. As the travelers walked under them the light also became green. A bee buzzed across their path.

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Book Review: Exit West by Mohsin Hamid

~ Madame Zenista ~ 4 Comments

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. Book ReviewI was quite taken by the conversation Terry Gross was having with a Pakistani author on Fresh Air on NPR. His composed and very sensible views made me listen more closely. And that is how I picked up Exit West by Mohsin Hamid.

Characters: Set in an unnamed city (resembling Lahore in Pakistan), the story is about two main, very dissimilar characters, a young man Saeed- who lives in a very close knit family with his parents and who has a strong spiritual side, and Nadia – a young woman who has left her family to live on her own (terms) and who is not particularly religious. They develop a friendship that leads them to be together for a large part of the novel. Interestingly, Nadia always wears a long flowing black robe covering her body from neck to toe that might make her seem religious/ traditional, but she has very independent ideas about living and loving and sexual freedom, which only  goes to make a point that despite ‘conservative’ appearances, people could actually be different/ modern/ progressive in their thinking.

Storyline: The ‘normal’ things like surfing the net or freedom of movement or being able to hang out in restaurants or listening to music- things we take for granted- begin to get obstructed in Saeed and Nadia’s city by extremist militant activities, causing increasing bombings and destruction and killings and curfews. After Saeed’s mother is killed, he and Nadia, like many others in their city, decide to flee their country, reluctantly leaving behind his father who is firm on living (and dying) where his late wife’s memories still lived. The father making his son leave for the latter’s safety, knowing well that he might never see him again and agony of the son leaving his father in peril must describe only mildly the pain of refugees and, to some extent, of the immigrants.

This migration happens through these “magical doors” that are opening here and there around the world, as the reader gathers from short independent scenes from other countries interjecting within the main story. What it also does is it expands the canvas and context of the story from two characters to “everywhere”. Hamid used these “magical doors” to simplify the logistics of movement, ‘a relatively minor thing’, compared to the major issues of what makes people leave their country where they have belonged their entire lives, and what happens when they find themselves in another country among the natives. Saeed and Nadia secretly buy access to one such door through an agent. Against the ever changing backdrop of life with large groups of other refugees in foreign lands they go to, of meagre resources, and of hostility and conflict with the natives, Saeed and Nadia’s relationship also morphs in a way that I thought was very realistic.

Dystopia: The story is set in our present world with internet and smart phones and such, juxtaposed with the elements of wars and unrest in most parts of the world causing migration of large populations, the refugee crisis that develops as a result of such masses taking over other stabler regions /countries of the world, and the hardships of such an existence. It reminded me of the dystopian novels I had read, those cautionary tales set in some future time. But wait a minute! Terrorist activities and wars in vulnerable parts of the world and refugee crisis and hostility towards immigrants – it is all happening now. Are we actually living in a dystopian world? This thought was so unsettling!

Narrative: The flow of the novel is beautiful, and sentences long, as if building a crescendo. Some of the insights and sentences in the book are remarkable and make you think. Besides, it is relatively a short read. (230 pages paperback). I gave it four starts on my Goodreads.

Quotes:

“..an old woman who had lived in the same house her entire life…she had never moved, and she barely recognized the town that existed outside her property…and when she went out it seemed to her that she too had migrated, that everyone migrates, even if we stay in the same houses our whole lives, because we cant help it.
We are all migrants through time.”

“He prayed fundamentally as a gesture of love for what had gone and would go and could be loved in no other way. When he prayed he touched his parents, who could not otherwise be touched, and he touched a feeling that we are all children who lose our parents… and we too will all be lost by those who come after us and love us, and this loss unites humanity, unites every human being, the temporary nature of our being-ness, and our shared sorrow, the heartache we each carry and yet too often refuse to acknowledge in one another, and out of this Saeed felt it might be possible, in the face of death, to believe in humanity’s potential for building a better world.”

“…for personalities are not a single immutable color, like white or blue, but rather illuminated screens, and the shades we reflect depend much on what is around us.”

“Thus in the end their relationship did in some senses come to resemble that of siblings, in that friendship was its strongest element, and unlike many passions, theirs managed to cool slowly, without curdling into its reverse, anger, except intermittently… that if they had but waited and watched their relationship would have flowered again, and so their memories took on potential, which is of course how our greatest nostalgias are born.”

Book Review: A Man Called Ove

~ Madame Zenista ~ 11 Comments

img_0709Intrigued by all the hype, I downloaded  the book on Overdrive (the great app that lets you borrow books online-all you need is a Library Card). I was finishing up other books and somehow could read just a few and it got auto-returned in 3 weeks. As I placed another hold to get the book back, I downloaded the audiobook from Hoopla as well. Part book and part audiobook, I eventually did finish A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

The story: is set in Sweden. It is about a 59-year old (though the character actually sounds more like a 70-ish) fastidious and grouchy man called Ove (oo-veh) who has just lost his job to someone of the younger tech savvy generation, and lost his wife of several years, to cancer. He is an old-school, black-and-white kind of guy, who lives to follow rules. A handyman who loves to use his tools, he believes very firmly that Saab made the best cars on earth. The other characters in the story are Ove’s neighbors, including a young Iranian immigrant, Parvaneh, who is pregnant mother of two little girls,  the old couple Rune and Anita, a few other neighbors, and a stray cat. Ove tries to commit suicide (to join his departed wife) several times, but some matter concerning either a neighbor or someone breaking a rule or the stray cat keep him from his matter-of-fact important project of dying successfully. Interjected with backstories from his childhood and about his late wife Sonja, the main story develops with Ove’s increased interaction and involvement with his neighbors and their lives in a series of tragic-comic events.

Good things about the book:
Backman’s has a peculiar way of bringing out humor that Ove’s strong opinions evoke. And that runs throughout the book. Ove, in spite of appearing to be angry with his “rule-breaking” neighbors (and the whole world in general), has a soft heart. How this lonely aging man develops a bond with the two little neighbor girls (like a grandfather to them) is very endearing (As a side-note, and this is as funny as it is cultural, but in India, we address almost all elders or elderly- including those we don’t know, like the vegetable vendors or shop keepers- as either uncle/aunty or grandpa/grandma: less alienating and giving respect that comes with age). However, the most important aspect, I think, that makes this book so popular, despite it not being particularly “exciting” or “deep”, is that it gives the reader a sense of community and togetherness, especially when (or because) it seems to be waning so swiftly from our lives. I digress- but since the time of cavemen, the human race increased its odds of survival against the stronger wild predators and elements of Nature being in groups and communities. It is so basic to our evolution and must be part of our DNA. That the readers all over the world who loved it and felt so good about these basic qualities bears testimony it.

If it is a simple story that is a relatively light read, A Man Called Ove is also funny, feel-good and very heartwarming. As I progressed towards the final chapters, warm tears were streaming down my cheeks and it just felt so good at the same time (I seem to love shedding tears watching movies or reading, and strangely not at all ashamed of it).

So I’d say, give the book a shot.
Check out: the Movie Trailer here, and the entire audiobook here (not sure how long before its taken down!)

SOME QUOTES:

“To love someone is like moving into a house,” Sonja used to say. “At first you fall in love in everything new, you wonder every morning that this is one’s own, as if they are afraid that someone will suddenly come tumbling through the door and say that there has been a serious mistake and that it simply was not meant to would live so fine. But as the years go by, the facade worn, the wood cracks here and there, and you start to love this house not so much for all the ways it is perfect in that for all the ways it is not. You become familiar with all its nooks and crannies. How to avoid that the key gets stuck in the lock if it is cold outside. Which floorboards have some give when you step on them, and exactly how to open the doors for them not to creak. That’s it, all the little secrets that make it your home“

“Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it’s often one of the great motivations for the living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.”