Is it fair to compare a book with a movie? Especially a book with such a strong narrative voice? I was a little put-off by the idea of Nick talking to the doctor. But then, that was one way of getting the narrative voice loud and clear, I guess. It was exactly like the book […]
The Life of Pi
I like to get involved when I watch a movie. I like to feel with the character, hold my breath during moments of anticipation and cry during moments of sadness and joy. That did not happen with The Life of Pi. Not because of the movie itself but because of the cinema hall. First of […]
Faerie Heart
Incredible. As a child, I did not like novels that were not divided into chapters. I have no idea why. The only exception was Mary Poppins. I somehow think this one would have been an exception too. What a visual treat! The imagination just blew me over. A coverlet and a bed made of insects’ […]
Désirée
Have you read Désirée by Anne-Marie Selinko? I read it when I was in school; I think it was the first really thick book I read.Yes, it came even before Gone with the Wind.I loved it so much that I read it again. And, I think, again.And then, I found an old, old copy of it […]
Oranges in No Man’s Land
I find that so may writers seem to have a compulsion to write long, complex, layered work. So many new books are thick paperbacks, full of things happening on every page. Oranges in No Man’s Land is not like that. Not at all. Elizabeth Laird manages to write a beautiful, heart-warming story in the course of […]
Book-Reading at Crossword, Mulund!
Blue Shoes and Happiness
A colleague of mine saw me reading the book and commented on how it looked like a children’s book. Many people don’t know yet that I spend more time reading children’s books than anything else – and am not ashamed of it. This one was delightful, as Alexander McCall Smith usually is. It’s the kind […]
A Doll’s House
I cannot believe that Ibsen changed the end of the end of A Doll’s House for its production in Germany! What happened to [t]hat slammed door [that] reverberated across the roof of the world? Ibsen agreed to make Nora go back to her children? Shocking! Almost as bad as Shaw making Eliza go to Mr. […]
Miss Julie
Outstanding. To create passion like this and alternate between expressed passion and subdued passion is incredible. Miss Julie – headstrong and confused – wavering between strength and weakness – is a work of art. You hate her and admire her. Above all, you pity her. Or maybe not above all. There’s no ‘above all’. It’s […]
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
Why does ‘easy to read’ somehow strike me as a slightly negative comment in the context of this book? Yet, I would not say I disliked the book. The gentle humour made me chuckle time and time again. The paradox of unbelievable believable characters was wonderful. Each character was more than just a character. The […]
Sylvie and the Songman
What a crazy book. And that’s a compliment. There were parts of the book that I read only because I wanted to finish the book. I pushed myself to read, page after page, completing each chapter before putting the book down. So I simply can’t give it those overused compliments – ‘page-turner’ and ‘unputdownable’. When […]
A Note of Music
Everything is made out of notes, vibrations. Many people think the universe started with a great big bang. What’s that if it isn’t a note, albeit a rather loud one? Somewhere there’s probably a note that brings the whole universe together… Goodness knows what will happen if anyone finds it… We’ll probably be blown up; […]
The Bluest Eye
Toni Morrison introduced me to the real horror of slavery. When I read Beloved, I simply could not get over the idea of black slaves being forced to wear the bit. I still cannot get over it. ‘Racism’, in the way it exists in the west, simply does not exist in India. Sure, we have […]
The Dictionary at School
The portion for the exams has been completed; students are fed up with revision. So, a colleague of mine decided to do something different – she read out a story from The Story-Catcher. I was thrilled! This reading went one step further than ‘I loved your story’ and ‘nice story’ and ‘I like the story […]
Non-Cooperation
Leela Samson, in her book Rukmini Devi writes: ‘Mrs Besant disagreed with Gandhi on the issue of non-cooperation. Her opinion was that mass civil disobedience was fraught with dangerous possibilities. She was apprehensive of the nation’s integrity being weakened as a result. She repeatedly warned that if and when India attained swaraj, it should be careful not […]
Mourning Achebe
So many people have written about Chinua Achebe so knowledgeably in the past few days; I can’t come close to that. I know next to nothing about him, but the sense of loss I felt when I read about his death was like a pit within me. I was introduced to Achebe when in college, […]
More Readers?
I, Varsha Seshan, author of The Story-Catcher and English teacher at your school… … donated two books to Vishwashanti Gurukul library. One for the primary school library and one for the whole school. I also spoke to the principal about the way I’ve done readings in the past at St. Mary’s, and she seemed interested. At the […]
Wide Sargasso Sea
Post-colonial literature frightens me. When I think of it, I wonder whether I have to read it closely and carefully, and then pretend to the whole world that I understood it perfectly. I have to talk about how good it was, and what I felt and thought. More than anything else, with great literature, it […]
Not Just a Witch
I sometimes feel that a book that is easily read and easily forgotten cannot be a great book. Easy to read is always an important factor, but when it’s also easy to forget, I begin to wonder… Not Just a Witch by Eva Ibbotson is simply charming. It’s old-fashioned in its ‘moral’ idea of doing good […]
Will I ever call it junk?
How do teachers throw away cards they receive? The children I read to gave me so many cards. Some were beautiful; some were thoughtful; some were sweet. How can I throw any away? Just a sample of those gems… THANK-YOU FOR SHARING SO MANY THINGS I LOVED […]