Reading Short stories

I first came to appreciate short stories back in class 10. Both English and Hindi literature course curriculum had the most eclectic collection of short stories encompassing the varied literary styles and voices.

I came to understand the mood of the story when they opened with a ‘gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard’. I came to understand the ironic endings à la ‘sting in the tail’.  I came to see the generosity of our English teacher when she doled out dismal rock-bottom grades for our entire batch. She was this high priestess of literature and it was sheer joy to sit in her class and soak in all the metaphors and allegorical references. She is the only teacher who taught both me and my brother and after carefully comparing notes we conferred her with a title- take a bow 'Ninja warrior'!

Hindi literature was a different revelation- one could easily see the parallels between the plot/language/literary devices used by the writer and the people/society/times he was portraying. There is always a social context to writing and with Hindi writers there is a certain familiarity with the externalities of the story. You can really sit down and appreciate the details/perspectives that the writes chooses to bring to focus, the set pieces he picks.

Irrespective of the language, short stories have a technique. Poe’s golden dictum-a short story should be readable in a single sitting is a good starting point. The majority of stories that I read back in class 10 were tightly wound. O. Henry-‘The last leaf’, ‘The gift of the Magi’ instantaneously come to mind. They read like a fable, I can describe these stories during a dinner conversation in between tearing a piece of bread and using it to mop up the hearty soup.
There were other stories that left an indelible impression with their realism-the true life like portrayal of human nature and condition- Anton Chekhov, Premchand.
Some stories you remember for their characters, often the ones who stand out not for their virtues but for their all too understandable flaws. Stephen King stories/novellas are often tales of such twisted characters.

I am currently reading a collection of O. Henry Prize Stories 2013, and it is interesting to sample the work of different writers from a somewhat recent era. It’s a mixed bag so far, some to my taste and some that leave me cold. Also I have to confess that in most modern stories “nothing happens”, sometimes its just a mood or a dense psychological degustation palette. However I am keeping an open mind.

“The summer people” by Kelly Link was the one that I enjoyed reading the most. It’s the kind that you start reading and nothing else matters until you finish it- the mister waited for me to finish the story before we headed out for our morning hike. I guess I am a sucker for books with magic, (reliving my Harry Potter days) this one served a dollop and then some-magical realism.
George McCormick, “The Mexican” was short, had a beginning that I liked and an ending that I loved. Nalini Jones, “Tiger” felt endearing and realistic. “Where Do you Go” by Samar Fitzgerald had my rapt attention for a while. I thought I really understood the couple, especially the women she was writing about until a point.
I still have a couple more to read in this collection before I go a decade back in time and read another O. henry collection i picked from the library. Just the right way to spend a lazy December weekend!

Coincidentally while I'm stargazing the short story universe, little online birdie tells me that a short story just went viral(Cat person-The New Yorker). Its a slice of life which is eerily relatable(primarily women's perspective) and much like everything else in twitter-verse, its evoked sharp reactions..

Storytelling- celebration of different forms!

What happens when you go to sleep watching the show ‘The Get Down’ on Netflix and wake up to listen to Mukesh’s Ramayana while doing your 30minute Yoga and exercise set? You begin to see the parallels between the two. At the completely bare bone level, stripped of all externalities of technique and divorced from the emotional, the form of both Hip-hop and Ramayana shares an uncanny resemblance-the story being told.... The story, the subject that moves you could be personal or mythological but the angst, emotion or the ‘bhakti’ is real.
I know I am underselling the rhythm/musical component of hip-hop to make my case but for me it is the spoken word, the story that makes a great hip-hop song. I bet Grandmaster Flash will also agree with me, you need the wordsmith before you get to the ‘Get down’..

Next I was in the theatre watching ‘Kubo and the two string’, I guess the movie had already won me over when I saw the trailer-the shamisen rendition of ‘while my guitar gently weeps’ literally cutting through the big ocean wave under the ominous sky. The movie is more about the form, execution and technique that keeps you spellbound but slightly lighter on character development and genuine humor..
However I found sufficient to cheer in the movie-the Japanese folklore elements have been skillfully incorporated and the execution seems sincere. There was magic in the story but no special concocted super powers, and the hero didn’t slay his nemesis but rather brings him back to humanity. These elements of the movie were quite refreshing for me since they eschewed the common themes currently being spawned by major film studios.

Moving on let’s talk about books, since we are talking about story telling. Over the last few years, I have found a reliable genre of books that naturally holds my attention-‘the Mountain books’. I picked up my first copy from the legendary Narain book store in Nainital-The Nanda Devi Affair by Bill Aitken. While travelling I prefer to get a book that can effectively block out the passage of time-the interminable wait at the railway station and the airport, and this book just did the trick for me. It is either the lofty inner desire to go on one such trek or the guilt of not exploring my own backyard (Uttarakhand) that always attracts me to these books.
Next I picked up ‘Into thin air’ by Jon Krakauer. Without indulging into the controversy regarding the accurate portrayal of individual characters of the book, I felt I was deeply invested in the book because it presented a vivid physical and challenging view of the snowy mountains and an incisive understanding of psychological motivations of different people attempting to conquer the highest peak.
I am looking forward to starting another mountain yarn tonight-‘Becoming a Mountain’-by Stephen Alter..

In between there was Stranger Things on Netflix and enough Donald Trump stories to keep you entertained and shocked in equal measure! 

This August has been rich.. :)

Why read

A to B: Why do you read?
B to A: What do you do in your free time?

Books are one medium, you can have your own preference ‘if you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run’ all is well in the kingdom of god!

Reading is about the joy of discovery; discovering people, places, cultures, histories, emotions and so on. Human understanding is at two levels one at the physical level and the other at the intellectual level. In terms of simple physics it is about picking up the actual physical signals, processing them and the light bulb in the end. Travelling, conversations, reading books are just facilitators of the signals, the processing /discovery is a completely individual process. My mantra is better get the ‘signal’ than fret about the purity of the signal. Slowly with time you hone your skills to really eliminate the noise and embark on your own journey of discovery.

Reading is about the joy of making a connection. Sometimes a written sentence is like someone just read your mind and wrote it down succinctly for you to read with your own eyes and touch with your hands. This kind of connection is very rare, how much effort we invest on real people so that they can understand us but to no avail.
I may know 10 people in the physical world and 5 characters in the literary world. You may not know the 10 people I know but we could be acquaintances in the literary world(small world). What do people do when they meet; they talk about (gossip about) the people they know in common. Carrying forth the analogy what does book man/woman do? They talk about their literary hero’s and the literary geniuses who created them. Sometimes these conversations and connections can define years of relationship.
I have a friend with whom I could only talk about books (and only some children fiction books in particular) because we had our differences over everything else. I would call this some real connection!

Reading is about learning to become more tolerant in the real world. The more you see people who are not like you the more you learn to accept them. The first human reaction is to ignore if something doesn't directly affect us, but a humane society entails empathy not ignorance.
Our relationships encompass people who are in some way like us, how do we seek out people who have nothing in common with me? There are always two sides of a story, we always know our version, and how do we see the other version?
Books provide that window to peer and look, the more you try to seek you might actually be able to put together the pieces of the elephant that baffled the blind men(blind men who went to inspect an elephant, each one came back with a different version, none closer to truth individually)

Circling back to the foremost point made earlier, reading or any other interest is all about having a good time.
On a rainy day, take a glass of wine, sit by the window, dig into a comfortable lounger with a snug throw and read a book till you doze off peacefully at the same spot. Books are a simple romance and a worthy pursuit..

Fluff!

'Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.'- The Catcher in the Rye

Recently I read two books-'The Invisible Man' and 'The Catcher in the Rye'. The central theme in both the novels explores the feeling of alienation, the search for an identity and a certain disillusionment with human behavior. But it is a different alienation in both the novels- one deals with the racial alienation of an individual and the other explorers the physiological alienation of a teenager.

I have to admit that I cannot write an intelligent literary review for 'The Invisible Man' now (its been a while since i finished reading it). However I have a favorite quote from the book which sums up the essence of the book for me : "I did not become alive until I discovered my invisibility." This is the sad truth of existence for a lot of people in the world and the book is a voice for them.

I choose not to write a literary review for 'The Catcher in the Rye', but I would attempt to create a version of the protagonist post the ending of the novel using some imagery from the novel. Here it goes:

I stand at the edge of this crazy cliff..
It’s all silent here except for the wind having a little tiff-
With the waters below and the Rye fields above-it’s a crazy riff!

It’s all silent here except for Phoebe and her gang
She is Killing me with her old hag act as she runs to tag
I’m thinking again about the Ducks that disappear when winter plays tag
I am sure they all hide somewhere cozily under a bag!

I think about the ducks sometimes when I guard the cliff
It’s reassuring to know they’re safe somewhere in bliss

In my mind I keep going over stuff
It’s like Snowballs that roll around and gather fluff!

The last two lines almost describe my mental process.. and the last word helped me give the blog a name..
I hope I did justice to the title of the post :) The lofty goal to write an intelligent book review will have to wait for a while!

(tag- a playground game that involves one or more players chasing other players in an attempt to "tag" or touch them)

Take Flight..

These images so remind me of Jonathan Livingston Seagull...

The flight of ideas could possibly be as real as the flight of wind and feather...
We can be free..
We can learn to fly!

Photo credit :sr

Not Lost.

"Not all who wander are lost .."

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

I may not be a fan of the Lord of the Rings(gasp of horror!) but I absolutely love these lines. I like to believe that I am not a lost soul even when I wander apparently lost in both land and in water .
I listen intently to people who have a plan in life, know where they want to go and how they want to go there but I am not sure if I believe them. I appreciate their way of life, wish them well but I choose to take refuge in the above line again.
To each his own!

The benefits of boredom..

I can think of no better way to write this post than to use the words and images of people I took refuge in when I was really bored and aimlessly scouting for just anything under the sun and hidden somewhere in thin air .. Although technically that wouldn't qualify as being bored because i was reading interesting stuff and not really doing 'nothing'. 

(source:The heady thrill of having nothing to do)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903454504576486412642177904.html

For me the '2003' milieu extended till 2008 (maybe) because I read the following article on a boring lazy winter Sunday morning in Kolkata. I don't remember if it was TOI or Telegraph because we got either depending on the newspaper dada's whim. I couldn't agree less with the article so i took my pen and diary and wrote the damn thing down. Reproducing it here so that I have a electronic version with me (Google didn't show up anything when i tried searching) and sharing it across with the few loyal readers I have!

'Boredom's doldrums are unavoidable, yet also a primordial soup for some of life's most quintessentially human moments..

 A long drive home after a frustrating day could force ruminations. A pang of homesickness at the start of a plane ride might put a journey in perspective. Increasingly these empty moments are being saturated with productivity, communication and the digital distractions offered by an ever-expanding array of slick mobile devices.

We are most human when we feel dull. Lolling around in a state of restlessness is one of life's greatest luxuries- one not available to creatures that spend all their time pursuing something (can't figure out the actual word). To be bored is to stop reacting to the external world and to explore the internal one. It is in these times of reflection that people often discover something new, whether it is an epiphany about a relationship or a new theory about the way the universe works. Granted many people emerge from boredom feeling that they have accomplished nothing. But is accomplishment really the point of life?

There is a strong argument that boredom-so often parodied as a glass-eyed drooling state of nothingness is an essential human emotion that underlies art, literature, philosophy, science and even love...'

This breezy read was followed by a philosophical entry from a book, 'The unbearable lightness of being' that I read in Hyderabad, 2010. The book did not talk of commonplace boredom that we experience in short spells of idleness. It talked about a chronic aimlessness, emptiness, ‘lightness’. I felt that the following extract beautifully captures the whole essence of the book 

“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”-Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness Of Being.

This is the thing with philosophers they can use dense arguments in the opening and the middle only to leave it open ended in the end... I love to do the same sometimes when I post a blog at 1:39 am.