My friend called my last post "laziness in public ..." ! Thanks buddy, I needed it, as always feedback matters :) Am hoping to come up with some meaningful post this time ...
Finished reading 2 books by Indian authors recently - 'The White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga,which gained a lot of popularity after it won the Man Booker prize and 'Three mistakes of my life' by Chetan Bhagat.
Talking of ' The White Tiger' , it left me with an empty feeling as I came to the last page ... what was the whole point of the book really ?
If Aravind Adiga's intention was to bring out the 'real India' ,with hundreds of villages in Darkness, yes ... that was a job well done. But if it was to evoke any sympathy, care or feeling for the downtrodden ...the book didnot succeed there, it only served as FYI, 'for your information'. The apathy was so overdone that it was suffocating, I wanted to get away, move on quickly to some brighter part of the story. There wasn't any though ... at one point when the main character said " the story gets darker from here" , I wondered how much more !. The whole premise of some self-styled entrepreneur writing to the Chinese Prime Minister and warning him about India was so far-fetched Mr. Adiga - for one who observes and writes about reality in minute detail, you donot seem to have got too many ideas in imagining a narrative situation. Anyway ... the difference lies here - Adiga won the Booker, this review will not. So there must be something good in that book am unable to figure.
Coming to 'Three Mistakes of my life' - not a WOW inducing book, but still a good read. It had the masala for a page-turner - friendship, passion, adventure, politics, cricket and love. It takes a small story and weaves it well with real events like 9/11, Godhra train burning incident, Gujarat earthquake ... the book is so Indian that I could almost hear the cheers of the crowd when India won the test match against Australia , could smell the Gujarati savouries, could feel the restlessness of its characters. But at places , the characters sounded too intellectual for their educational qualification - so was it 12th pass Businessman Govind or IIM-alumni Chetan Bhagat speaking?
Will leave you to ponder. Until I read another book , so long ...
2 comments:
I will never pick up 'White Tiger'. Thanks for the heads up! And you are a brave soul aren't you, to have tried two Indian authors in a row! :D Well, i think most of the Indian authors write to sell their work to the publishing company and not so much to the average reader.... chetan bagath is obviously smart... will definitely pick up his book. Good review BTW. Really got to know what to expect from the books....
Hey Preeths, thanks for reading my posts and leaving comments. Just finished another of Chetan Bhagat's - '2 States - the story of my marriage' , but no raving reviews this time ... i can only call it mediocre, as mediocre as any Bollywood script can get !
Post a Comment