Friday 22 September 2017

#26 A book of poetry



The World’s Wife by Carol Ann Duffy  



As the old adage goes, “behind every successful man, there is a woman.” But we rarely get a glimpse of the woman behind most of our famous figures in mythology, fairy-tales, and legends. So, Carol Ann Duffy sets about to change that in a most fascinating collection of poems in The World’s Wife.
In her fine, expressive, rhyming verse, she brings voices from the wives of familiar names in literature – Queen Herod, Mrs. Midas, Mrs. Tiresias, Mrs. Darwin, Mrs. Faust, Queen Kong, Frau Freud etc…

As our language is essentially patriarchal, women behind the scenes, behind history, behind the crowns, often lay forgotten and even remembered as the titles suggest in the name of their better halves. The poems give us an alternative perspective when the female spouse takes over the storytelling, and they all have something thought-provoking to say.

All of them are in a ballad form with a lyrical and rhythmic tone to  them, with each of the female persona telling her-story. In the case of Mrs. Midas, she has to take care to lock the cat in the cellar, and close her bedroom door and jam it, while her husband continues to turn everything he touches into gold. She misses his touch, the one thing she can never have.

Mrs. Faust, on the other hand, is married to the heartless Faust who sells his soul to the Devil. But even as he brings in riches and luxury, she is more than happy to spend it. But they lack any marital bliss.
I grew to love the lifestyle,
not the life.
He grew to love the kudos,
not the wife. 

Anne Hathaway is the only sonnet in the book, which is quite appropriate since she is none other than Shakespeare’s wife. He had very famously bequeathed to her the “second best bed”. The sonnet contemplates their relationship and questions the reason for him leaving her the second-best bed. 

The style of writing is bold and brutal, and even violent in places. This is also part of the hard-hitting truth that Carol Ann Duffy wishes to contemplate upon. At times, she is unexpectedly hilarious. For instance, in the myth of Orpheus goes to the Underworld to fetch his dead wife, Eurydice – a faithful and loving husband in our eyes. But when we hear Eurydice in this poem, we may change our mind. For as she confesses:

In fact, girls, I’d rather be dead.
But the Gods are like publishers,
Usually male,
And what you doubtless know of my tale
Is the deal.       

These poems are interesting to read and mull over – one will end up finding a perspective which hadn’t been amplified previously. These poems celebrate the creative ability and power of words to bring to life a new way of looking at a familiar story. It doesn’t in any way take away the beauty of the older tales, it just adds to it.


Thursday 21 September 2017

#25 A book with a number in the title

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Days by Salman Rushdie


With an obvious reference in the title to the Arabian Nights, which can be decoded by the curious, if not, slightly mathematically bent, Salman Rushdie’s novel Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights published in 2015, concocts a fantastic fable about the clash of two worlds.

Sometime in the near future, a storm reopens the slits between the Earth and Peristan, a jinni-filled realm above. A war with familiar stakes begins. It pits reason against fear-based religious fervour, and wreaks havoc for 1,001 nights.

Princess Scheherazade in the original tale of Arabian Nights, had spent 1001 nights telling stories to her husband/king in order to avoid being sentenced to death. A desperate act, at a desperate time. Perhaps that is why she has become one of the most skilled storytellers that we know of in literature. Rushdie has long been enchanted by the tales Scheherazade told night after night to King Shahryar to keep herself from death; images from the Arabian Nights can be found woven into much of Rushdie’s fiction.

Jinns are creatures made of smokeless fire
This tale on the other hand is a fantasy filled love story that begins with the life of the rational Muslim philosopher Ibn Rushd, known as Averroes in the West who lived and taught in Arab Spain at the end of the 12th century. Apparently it seems that Rushdie’s father had changed the family name to honour this same philosopher, hence ‘Rushdie’!

It so happens that a jinnia, a great princess in the jinn world, also known as Dunia (a.k.a. Aasmaan Peri, SkyFairy, Lightning Princess) falls in love with him and comes in the disguise of a beautiful girl and lives with him and has his children, who are given her name instead of his– Duniazat, that is, Dunia’s tribe, the race of the Dunians, which is roughly translated as “the people of the world”.  These descendants of the jinnia spread far and wide, but all have an interesting feature – they all lack earlobes and are very tall - their legacy.

And so, a little less than 1,000 years later, the descendants of the philosopher and the jinnia will find themselves called on to rise up in battle against the dark jinns  who would otherwise have destroyed the earthly world. It is a battle that will last two years, eight months and 28 nights . It begins with a great storm which causes “strangenesses” to happen like people being lifted off the ground, floating a few feet above the earth.  




The resulting sequence is an  interwoven narrative of several unlikely human heroes, a gardener called Geronimo Manezes, a would-be graphic novelist called Jimmy Kapoor,  a vengeful Teresa  Saca,  who will all take on the dark jinns or Ifrits (Zumurrud, Zabardast and Ra’im) with help from the gorgeous Dunia, who returns to help the humans she so loves.
Rene Magritte's Golconda is mentioned in the book - when the 'strangenesses' begin 

Rushdie’s obsession with history and that of identity runs through the story and expresses some of these conflicts in very fine statements:

“History is unkind to those it abandons, and can be equally unkind to those who make it.” (14)

 “A person like yourself, uprooted, not yet re-rooted is what my favourite, Thorstein V. , called an alien of the uneasy feet…..does that sound like you to you?”(32)

"Just as we are created anew by what we love, so we are reduced and unmade by what we hate." (278) 

Combining philosophy, religion, myth, history and magic, Rushdie creates a hypnotic rhythm of a fascinating story, and even with its occasional demerits makes for a highly original and ambitious tale.


Thursday 14 September 2017

#24 A Victorian novel


Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen


Initially titled Susan , Austen had it revised.

Even though this was the first major work of Jane Austen which she sold to a publisher, this novel however was published only after Austen’s death . It is probably fitting then that I read this one last. Also intriguing is the fact that this is a novel about novels and novel-readers. Coming from Austen I expected it be as witty a commentary as any, and it didn’t disappoint!

Written by a youthful Austen, she parodies what she found to be distasteful in the contemporary literature of her time. Gothic literature was enjoying a raging popularity during the close of the neo-classical age and thereby a shift occurred from moralistic novels to sentimental novels.  The absurdities she found in the dramatic and sensational Gothic fiction was given a thorough satirical treatment in this light and delightful read. I will miss reading Austen for the ‘first time’ ever again, since I have now read all her major works. But future unhappiness at the thought vanishes when I realize what a memorable journey it has been with Jane Austen (future re-reads are not out of the picture either!)   

Now, on to the story itself.

Catherine Morland , the young heroine (she is merely seventeen at the start) is a rather ordinary looking girl with none of the qualities that would raise her to the status of a heroine. With the first line of the novel begins our young author’s not so veiled criticism against conventions that had become almost a formula for producing best-sellers.

"No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be a heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her."

Our young heroine doesn’t have a “situation” which could classify her as a possible heroine.  Her father is a financially secure clergyman, her mother well-tempered and still alive after the birth of ten children. Do you hear the hint of satire right there? 

Between fifteen and seventeen she indulges in reading of a certain kind. The novels that she reads belong to the genre of gothic fiction, or the sentimental novel. Most of these fictions included heroines who demonstrate their weakness by “erupting into a flood of tears or collapsing in swoons of distress” from where the virtuous heroes would rescue them. So, with her head full of such stories, Catherine Morland begins her training to become a heroine.

Regrettably, there are no interesting suitors in the neighbourhood. Friends of the family Mr. and Mrs. Allen invite Catherine to Bath, which is a most promising opportunity for young Catherine. The narrator wittily observes:   

“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.”

And so, she arrives in Bath, fresh and naïve, with her head full of expectations and fanciful imaginations and is obviously delighted with the place. It is here during the social gatherings that future events will begin to unfold.

Catherine meets Mr. Henry Tilney at one such gathering. He is a charmer! Well, how could he not be when he is kind, witty, considerate, and knows the price and quality of good muslin! He is probably the first of the Jane Austen heroes (maybe the only one too) to show a remarkable skill in shopping for dress materials (which he confesses he does for his sister, Eleanor).

The book that Catherine reads in Northanger Abbey
In the meantime, Mrs. Allen recognizes an old school fellow Mrs. Thorpe, and Catherine is introduced to her daughter Isabella Thorpe and their friendship continues to grow as they read Gothic novels together. The main book that keeps Catherine enthralled is The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, which was an actual successful work of Gothic fiction at the time.

As said earlier, something that effectively stands out in this Austen novel is that as much as it satirizes the conventions of fiction at the time, it being a work of fiction itself aims to simultaneously  defend the art of fiction. The author thus defends the act of reading novels, and points out, the novel is, “[..].the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”

Catherine Morland, our romance book addict, eventually falls in love with the charming and flirtatious Mr. Tilney and is invited by his father and sister to stay with them for a while at Northanger Abbey.  The possibility of living in an old castle, with locked rooms, dungeons, mysterious crooks and corners fascinates our heroine. Even before she reaches the Abbey has imagined it to be the perfect place for horrific incidents inhabited by a ruthless tyrant.  

As can be predicted her fanciful imagination carries her too far and leads her to a major misunderstanding which causes her heavy embarrassment when Mr. Tilney confronts her with the absurdity if it all. There are some twists and turns in the relationship between her and Isabella Thorpe which leads her to finally understand that she had been too naïve and neck-deep in absurd fancy up till this point.

However, as always tings all turn out well. No worries there. But it may have ended too soon. We almost get a feeling that everything was tied up too quickly in the last chapter. But even then, it remains one of the sassiest Austen novels among the whole lot.

Go gothic and give Austen a chance to convince you to the timelessness of her fiction!


  

Saturday 9 September 2017

#23 A book with a name in the title



The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar  by Roald Dahl


This is a collection of short stories that Dahl wrote for older children and was published in 1977. There are six tales in all and they all touch upon some eccentricity of human nature, often with a deeper hint of malice and/or goodness.

Though we love Roald Dahl for his wonderful fantastical tales like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach , The BFG etc. it is a well-known fact that he did write more ‘serious’ stories as well. In fact, he wrote children’s stories only after he had children of his own apparently.

So in this collection of tales we come across seven short and quirky tales (one is a recollection of how he became a writer). The opening tale of ‘The Boy Who Talked With Animals’ narrates the strange tale of a young boy who reacts strongly against the islanders who have captured a gigantic turtle and pleads with them to set it free. He has an uncanny ability to talk with animals and cannot stand watching it being tortured.  There is a fantastical end to this tale when the same boy goes missing but is found in a peculiar situation.

The second tale ‘The Hitchhiker’ is an amusing anecdote about a British hitchhiker who reveals himself to be a "fingersmith", a master classman of the pickpocketing profession.  It was my second favourite story among these.

The next one, titled ‘The Mildenhall Treasure’ is based on a true story of how one plowman, Gordon Butcher happens to stumble upon one of the most amazing treasures while he ploughs a field. Not realizing the worth of the Roman silverware utensils that he digs up, he even lets his boss walk away with it. But fate comes back and plays her card in the end. This is one of the few non-fiction writings he has done (if I am not wrong, he has only written two non-fiction stories).

The most disturbing tale of all would be ‘The Swan’, which is about a couple of sadist bullies torturing another kid who becomes their target for getting over their “boredom”. The way they go about tying him to the railway tracks and later cutting off a swan’s wings to tie it to the boy was shocking in terms of violent cruelty.

He has created some of the most memorable characters of children's fiction - Willy Wonka, Matilda and the BFG to name a few
The story I enjoyed the most would be the title tale – ‘The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’. Dahl brings alive the amazing story of a wealthy and initially aimless soul called Henry Sugar who after reading about a man in India who had trained himself to see things without using his eyes, embarks on a strange mission. First he practices for over three years to achieve a similar level of expertise – he also is able to see through objects, like playing cards or words on a closed book. He also realizes how he can now win millions if he uses this talent of his. But what does he do with the money? Think of a modern day Robin Hood and Henry Sugar would fit the bill. You get the picture right? :)


Besides these tales there are two more which are of personal importance to Roald Dahl in his journey towards becoming a writer. In ‘Lucky Break’ , he confides in us the true story of how he became a writer. ‘A Piece of Cake’ which is the last tale in this, is in fact a copy of the very first nonfiction story he wrote for The Saturday Evening Post.

An entirely new set of words to describe entirely new and imagined things !
Somehow, this isn’t the Roald Dahl I was expecting to read, but surprisingly I ended up getting a glimpse of how he became a writer and became familiar with the other side of his writing as well.  Henry Sugar was definitely the most lovingly told tale with a generous and big-hearted millionaire with the strange and uncanny ability to read through cards. His explanation on how to become a good fiction writer was unexpected in a collection of short stories but makes us believe in the impossible – somehow he always manages to do that!

This month – September – happens to be the birth month of this scrumdiddlyumptious storyteller, who used his imagination to come up with such colourful characters that we loved growing up with. He even went ahead and made his own fantastical, albeit nonsensical language called Gooblefunk :D  which we absolutely enjoy in his popular children’s tales. There is even an Oxford Roald Dahl dictionary compiling all the words he brought to life like – frizzlecrump, swogswalloed, phizzwizards, trogglehumper and snozzcumber, to name a few.  If you would like to be more fluent in gobblefunk, check out this article here which provides a quick intro to the magical,  and hilarious words that make up Gobblefunk. Have a gloriumptious time reading!! (that's gobblefunk for 'glorious and wonderful) :)  







Thursday 7 September 2017

#22 An epic poem

Paradise Lost  - John Milton


It took John Milton seven years to write this epic – his masterpiece.  He was a solitary yet dedicated literary genius in England during the 17thcentury. He was well aware of his genius even at a  young age and had long wanted to write an epic. Literary epics hitherto didn’t boast of any English epic until Milton changed that with Paradise Lost.
Gustave Dore's dramatic illustrations of the scenes from the epic have a magnificent beauty of its own.
The story by itself isn’t a new one but is taken from the Biblical book of Genesis – of the creation of man and his disobedience which leads him to be exiled from Eden. But these few lines from the Bible are transformed into a powerful tale of power, loyalty, betrayal, rebellion, treachery, wickedness and redemption in the hands of the master craftsman Milton.

Due to unprecedented circumstances in the history of English politics, the then ruling monarch Charles I is deposed and beheaded (the only monarch to have had this fate, and hence the current Prince Charles dislike for his title of Charles I). So, it was that in the year 1649 began a seventeen years long experiment in a Commonwealth (as opposed to a monarchy). John Milton, being the dedicated servant he was, answered his call for duties as a citizen, responding to the need of the hour and takes up the anti-royalist side of the Parliamentarians. He supports them with his prose writings, as he termed it “the writings of his left hand”. The poet in him lies dormant for the next seventeen years.      

The word ‘pandemonium’ was coined by John Milton as the name for the capital of Hell in Paradise Lost. It means ‘all demons’.
When the “merry monarch” Charles II finally brings back monarchy to England, Milton finds all his political efforts have turned against him. All his works were publicly burned and he himself would have been put to death hadn’t it been for the fact that he had by then become completely blind.
Being blind would have effectively ended any other writer’s art , but it wouldn’t be so for Milton. In fact it was then, after he lost everything he had – his shattered dreams for a new and reformed England, the death of his second wife, his own blindness, his public humiliation - that he returns to the epic which he had long since wanted to have authored.

Amazingly he published the epic in 10 books in the year  1667. He later revises it to 12 books – a standard number for epics (Homer’s Illiad  and Odyssey runs to 24 books …..each)John Milton, the blind poet,  brings together his immense knowledge and learning, synthesizing biblical, classical, medieval and modern knowledge to  describe the fall of man, the first ever Civil War – the battle between the angels led by Satan and God, the promise of Christ’s sacrifice and future redemption of mankind.

It goes without saying that this is not a light read. It pay rich dividends though to those who labour to understand the nuances of Milton’s grand style.

Here is a quick overview of the 12 books:

Book I -> shows us the fallen angels in Hell beginning to recover and Satan’s first speech
"Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”(I.263) 
Book II -> Satan and his followers discuss possible ways to take revenge. It is decided that Satan will fly to Eden and corrupt the newly formed creatures.
Book III -> God openly admits his foreknowledge of the angels’ rebellion and also of Man’s inevitable Fall. Christ, his son, offers himself as redemption for the future of mankind.
Book IV -> Satan’s arrival in Eden – his soliloquies. Our first view of Adam and Eve. Satan’s plan for their destruction.
Book V-> Archangel Raphael is sent to counsel and advice Adam of the pitfalls of disobedience to God
Book VI -> Raphael narrates the war in Heaven carried out by Satan and his followers for Adam to know and understand the evil that was banished from Heaven
Book VII -> Raphael also explains how God created Eden and Man
Book VIII -> Adam tells Raphael what his first experiences were after he was created.
Book IX -> (Probably, along with Book IV the most famous of the twelve) the temptation of Eve by Satan in the disguise of a serpent and the Fall of Man
Book X - > Explains the change that takes place on earth and Hell as a result of the Fall – and the final degradation of Satan – his eternal punishment to live as a base, crawling creature, who was once a supreme archangel.
Book XI -> Archangel Michael is sent to inform Adam that they would have to leave Eden (Paradise) forever and also tells him what the future of mankind looks like.
Book XII -> Archangel Michael predicts the redemption of mankind with the coming of the “second Adam” (Christ) and then guides both Eve and Adam out of the gates of Paradise, which has been lost to them.

Literary epics are highly conventional compositions and will have certain marked characteristics, so a few features to keep note of if you pick up this epic:

1)     The hero is a figure of national or even cosmic importance -> though there are debates  between who the actual hero of the epic could be – Christ , Satan or Adam – it clearly is of cosmic importance.
2)      Setting of an epic would be one on a grand scale – in the case of Paradise Lost  - the entire universe.
3)      The action involves extraordinary deeds. The epic battle of the angels, the creation of Pandemonium, the journey of Satan over Chaos to reach Eden, the fall of the angels, the building of a path between Hell and Earth by Sin and Death (hideous creatures both)
4)      Gods and other supernatural beings take an active part in the whole epic (God, Christ, Archangels, Satan and his entire army, Cherubims, Seraphs, Sin, Death, Spirits, and all of God’s creations)
5)      And most important of all – the elevated and grand style of poetry. This is probably the highlight of the entire epic for me.

With lines that have become proverbial and epic in themselves , there are numerable lines in these books that highlight the despairing emotions, the conflicted passions and the acceptance of the inevitable fate.  

And noticeably Milton does give a fair share of some of these masterly lines to none other than the fallen angel Lucifer a.k.a. Satan. Some critics believe that he did so because he understood the pain of the fall from grace. Others believe he wanted to represent the wonderful ability of Satan to use the art of persuasion to his advantage.  It is interesting to note his lines and speeches he delivers for the power and charm it creates in his audience.

This is perhaps the longest review I have done so far, and I feel only a slight tip of the iceberg has been unveiled. But, there you go, that’s an epic for you.

P.S. Did you know? This epic has inspired the series title for Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Also there is a hilarious but infinitely diminished ‘Twitterature’ story of Paradise Lost as well . And I am sure many many more inspirations have risen from this one epic tale.

P.P.S Milton has used a staggering number of grand words to create the elevated mood of an epic – I have marked  a minimum of ten words at least per book – mellifluous, perfidious, obsequious, pernicious, transpicuous, sapience, opprobrious……it goes on and on!