House Of The Dead - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Another Dostoyevsky. For some reason I do not tire of his writing. My last was "The Brothers Karamazov" which proved to be (perhaps) the best Dostoyevsky I have read till date. His story was very free flowing and encapsulated all the scandalous trills that Dostoyevsky is known for. I started "House Of The Dead", forgot it at a friend's place during a visit, read a few books in the mean time, regained possession and restarted the book. The entire sequence of events somehow managed to mellow down the eagerness I had picked up the book initially with.

"House Of The Dead" is mostly a set of personal recollections that Dostoyevsky makes from his time spent in prison for his involvement in the Petrashevsky Circle. He was utterly disgusted by the dilapidated condition of the prison and the disdain that the "common" prisoners treated the "noblemen" criminals with filled him with horror and rancor. The recollections are meant to provide a view into the life of a section of Russians that most people are unaware or. Dostoyevsky manages to put across a very grim picture of the Siberian prisons, which was probably what he intended to do with this book. He focuses on the astounding difference between the common and the noble people and also describes how and why the difference is un-amendable. He delves in the discrimination that the legal system produces by dealing with criminals indiscriminately.

The story is introduced as the writings of an anti-social and meek Siberian "settler" (people who have served their time in the Siberian prisons are not allowed their initial status in the society. Rather, they are required to settle down in the villages and live out the rest of their days.) who dies leaving behind a register full of notes about his time in prison. He details out the character of his fellow prisoners and (ridiculously) describes them all to be "good of heart". He also describes the condition of the barracks and the management; the god complexes of the wardens; the illegal activities within the prison and their necessity for the prison's smooth functioning; the various kinds of labour that the prisoners are made to do. He probes deeply into the psychology of the imprisoned and the romantic notions they hold.

It is a totally different world that Dostoyevsky takes you to. One that is tough to identify with. But the writer does not even expect you to understand his situation. Just puts it forth as an amusing matter worth knowing. Dostoyevsky still holds the charm he did when I read his work first. I have a collection of short stories lined up next. I am sure he will not disappoint.

India : A History - John Keay

This was perhaps one of the most anticipated books I have ever read. The anticipation owes itself to the fact that this was the fourth time that I had flipped the cover of this book and started reading it. Long ago, when I was in class 10th or so, I was gifted this book as a read by a man who has had much to do with my current reading habits. I used to enjoy history quite a bit in those days. But somehow, I never got around to finishing the book, or even reading the first quarter of it, until eventually it went travelling through hands in Roorkee and ultimately became untraceable. Sometime back, I remembered the book and as luck would have it, flipkart had a new edition to offer. The order was placed without hesitation.

The book is a marvelous piece of general study. For anyone who has ever had a fascination for Indian history of any age, there is more in here to fuel the spell-bind. Keay's love for the subcontinent and its history is evident and so is his research and the travel he has undertook to personally visit some of the sites described.

The book starts at the earliest of ages known to belong to the subcontinent. The Harappans are scrutinized as the enigma that they are. Then the ages move onwards to the Aryans,  Mauryas, Guptas, and eventually to the Mughals, the Raj and independent India. There is no story to be told. Just history as the historians documented it and as others perceive it.

Keay's effort in compiling this piece of historical study is apparent. The most remarkable feature of Keay's writing is that he keeps his opinions to himself. The history shown is largely unbiased (or at least not blatantly biased). The author provides quite a few contradicting opinions prevalent on a debated historical topic (and there are numerous such topics), with a slight tilt towards his personal belief, but leaves the reader free to do his own research and form his own opinion. This in itself increases the enthusiasm in reading by manifold.

This book re-lit the love for history I used to have as a boy. The fact that I read the entire modern history of India without much strain is a testimony to Keay's writing skills, for nothing bored me as much as modern Indian history. I will try to find comparable historical readings, failing which I will revert to something more conventional.

In The Meantime ...

No, I have not been sitting idle since my last post. Just too fed up with life. Did not write anything as such. Had things to do. However, here is a list of the books that I did read in the meantime. I will not be writing comprehensive reviews for the same though. Maybe I will take them up later.

Karan Quma And The Meluha Tree - Matthew Panamkat
Theories Of Everything - John Barrow
The Aeneid - Virgil
Silas Marner - George Eliot
The Outsider - Albert Camus
The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka
The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Three Men In A Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Those are all I recall at the moment. Maybe there were more. That was the reason why I started writing reviews in the first place.

Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Even though my last Dostoyevsky did not live up to the expectations I had for it, I still explored the services of flipkart with this Dostoyevskian. For what else could have been apter? And upon its reception I immediately took it up because it was just a hundred and some pages thick! By now I have got accustomed to voluptuous Russian novels. Ones that intimidate even before you flip the cover to read the publishing credits. So it was with surprise and wonder that I plunged into this new novel by, if I may dare to revere him, my most revered author of late.

"Notes From Underground" was unlike anything I have ever read. The "Notes" were probably written during Dostoyevsky's most trying phase of life (as I read in a blog : "... his finances were disappearing fast, his wife was dying, and his reputation, which had at one time enjoyed the backing of Russia’s liberal reading public, was fading"). Anyhow, the writing is a deplorable story, invoking sentiments and empathy for the anti-hero, but at the same time filling one with a resent for him that borders on hatred. The narrator degrades himself relentlessly. Dostoyevsky flirts with the banes of an intelligent mind in this story. The narration uses the general philosophies of the materialists and there is a strong existentialist disdain for that philosophy. Dostoyevsky also explores the socialist issue through the un-named narrator.

The story starts with the narrator explaining himself to the readers (and at the same time maintaining that he did not intend his writing to be read; that he was writing for himself). The narrator describes the reasons why the truly intellectual fail to act. He also attempts a description of the conflict between the instinct and intelligence in such men. The narrator is depicted as a man withdrawn from the society, mostly due to spite and partly due to his failure to cope. Finally, the narrator goes on to describe an event of his life that occoured 'on the occasion of wet snow'. The occasion centres on a day when he particularly longed for human companionship (as was opposed to his usual desires). He describes his eventful meeting at a school friend's farewell, his obnoxious behaviour during the katzenjammer and then his following them to a brothel. There he meets Liza and stirs emotions in her, all the time pretending to care when he did not. And when his bookish fantasy is realised and Liza comes to him out of love and reverence, he fails to live up to his own dream and drives her away in the most callous way. He ends by justifying his ugly acts as just an extremity of what everyone else does and asks the readers (though he never intended to have any) to take a closer look at themselves.

I did sympathise with the narrator at times. Understanding why and how he was capable of those acts. But at other times, the narrator's deliberate condescension for himself was too fantastic for me. However, no! I am not even close to being done with Dostoyevsky. Despite the philosophies becoming a little idiosyncratic, his style of writing is still binds me to his books. 

The introduction was a drag. It was one of those introductions that do not introduce, but relay the story on their own. Utterly insufferable! But it educated me in a certain aspect. Existentialism, the philosophy that Dostoyevsky held. I intend to look deeper into it, Kafka and Camus being two names I have come across till now.

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

The movie has been one of the biggest influences on me since my days in college. Stanley Kubrik was to me the revealer of pure art. But I do not intend to write about the movie or the artistic demi-god director here. The book was borrowed from the table of a friend who had not as yet read it. And I, having had forgotten most of the film (though not the fact that Kubrik hacked at my imagination) decided I could do with a revision of the storyline. And what better way to do it than read the story that inspired such a fascinating movie.

The title could not have reflected the story better! "As queer as a clockwork orange",  the book in no way lacks the creativity that Kubrik so well shows. I compared the book to the movie throughout my reading (as I tend to do here) simply for the fact that "A Clockwork Orange" had, in my mind's eye, been the epitome of the realisation of ingenuity! What I fail to remember about the movie though is whether the nadsat language that Burgess creates has been used in the movie. And even if it has been used, I seemingly failed to appreciate it back then. The book has been very truly criticised to be a straining read as it must be for all those who would rather follow the known and the mundane rather that rapture with delight at a rare spark of novelty. Anthony Burgess creates the slang seamlessly. So much so that I was forced to look up the dictionary disdaining him as an exhibitionist of a writer, flaunting his vocabulary blatantly for the world to awe at! But I couldn't have been more wrong! Apart from the language in general, there is the pseudo prophetic character of the story (a sneak peek at the hallucinogenic culture of late 60's and the "Anarchy in the UK" (if I may use the Sex Pistols' song title)). The story also has a lot of subtle satirical content in it (regarding music, civilisation, politics, etc.).

The story revolves around Alex, a fifteen year old protagonist. Set in a futuristic society, he and his gang (a total of four droogs) go about abusing drugs, stealing, gang wars, rapes and break-ins as a way to "live life". However, Alex is betrayed by his gang at a crime scene and arrested by the police. Sent to a prison, he learns the worldly ways of agreeing to the authorities on the face and the fact that kissing up to the right people could win him favours in the right places. However, blamed for another murder in the prison, he is set or a government reform programme that brainwashes him to be good. Reformed and let out in society, he finds himself unnecessary and decides to kill himself but is caught up in politics. Finally when he does manage to jump out of a window and still fails to die, he is re-brainwashed to his former violent ways. Time however has had an effect of its own on the anti-hero. He finally has the epiphany that it was his animalistic immaturity that led him to find pleasure in the old violent ways. He now longs for a family and a civilised life.

Burgess was astounding in multiple ways. The foremost being the slang that he created so impeccably. However, the ridiculing of the machinisation of humans to make them do good is the crux of the debate. Burgess (like Kesey) argues that a man should choose to be good rather than be forced against socially unacceptable character. Going back to the comparison with the movie, I agree with Kubrik (and the American publishers who dropped the last epiphanic chapter) that showing Alex as having a moral turn over is too strict a conclusion. That however is for an author to decide and though a little binding, it never-the-less ends a novel that has rightly been immortalised in a number of ways; notorious being the primary. Burgess evidently wrote quite a lot and I do intend to read a bit more of him. He has certainly managed to clutch my attention in the sincerest.

Buy A Clockwork Orange from Flipkart.com

The Devils - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My third Dostoyevsky was picked up at random. I even forget where it was that I picked this one. It had been lying for quite some time on my shelf but being humongous, as is characteristic of Russian novels, I decided to let it be until I felt I was ready for another voluminous piece of writing.

This Dostoyevsky was for some reason less interesting than my last few. Perhaps because of the issue that it explored. Or maybe it is because at times Dostoyevsky fails to live up to the drama and thrill that he creates. Or maybe it was the irrelevant connections made between events in this story. The book delves into the rising socialistic views of the time and shows how the concept was misused by nihilists. There was all the usual drama : scandals, murder, angry mobs, eccentric individuals and even a shocking and disturbing confession. The style of writing has been commented upon enough by me in the previous posts.

The story starts as the narration of the life of a particular Stephan Verhovensky, a retired professor. The story describes his last days of life and the sequences of events that created a big riot in his town. The reason of this entire pandemonium is the arrival of a few young people into the town. Pyotor Verhovensky, son of Stephan, and Nikolay Stravrogin, son of Varvara Petrovna who is an old friend and love of Stephan and has also taken care of him for the past years. Pyotor is running an underground quintet of socialists and nihilists who are distributing manifestos and creating upsets in town. Then follow a series of abstruse events : Pyotor's ego-centric usage of the quintet, Shatov's (a former member of the socialist group) betrayal and murder, Nikolay's confessions, a town ball full of scandals. In the end we return to the travelling Stephan and watch him die like the eccentric he was.

What I perhaps found lacking in this book was a connection that I had previously established with Dostoyevsky's narrators. Here he is a simple narrator with little to do with the story. A bystander who observes and logs. And also I somehow found the series of scandals less scandalising than the behaviours of his central characters, which in my opinion should have been stressed upon a bit more. Either way, the philosophy behind the book was well conveyed and though a bit too drag on the whole, the book was interesting in bursts.