Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre

Sartre is one of the most prominent names in existentialist philosophy. I have been reading Dostoyevsky for some time now, so the philosophy itself is not alien to me. But outside of the Russian, seldom have I ventured to other authors of the pedigree. A book by Camus (The Outsider), Kafka (The Metamorphosis), Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) are the few ventures. I did read Nietzsche but the existentialism in his work was shrouded in layers of hubris. In a dearth of better options and a search for something different, I went for "Nausea".

Sartre described existentialism as : the attempt to draw all the consequences from a position of consistent atheism; which is what he has attempted to do in this book. This book follows the thoughts and actions of a young man in a city. He is facing his existentialist crisis; his 'Nausea'. Through the protagonist, Roquentin, Sartre debates on the act of existing and the necessity of it. He calls the world and its population superfluous and absurd. To quote my favourite line from the book :

Every existent is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.

This line is representative of the philosophy expounded in the book. Sartre ridicules all 'bourgeois' sentiments and squashes them into a state of absurd. Art, travel, love, learning; all hold no meaning in a world that is random and beyond one's control. Even death would be nothing more than another random event.

Antoine Roquentin is a young man living in Bouville - a fictitious character in a fictitious setting. He has travelled far and wide and has settled down to write a book on a historical figure of the eighteenth century. As he struggles through his research and his life, he records his thoughts in a diary which is presented to us readers. His life is quite ordinary; he spends time in the library for research, goes to cafes for food, is physically intimate with the pattronne of the cafe, goes for walks. But his thoughts are anything but ordinary. He is constantly struggling with a 'nausea' that attacks him from time to time. In this nauseous state he finds himself questioning the existence of himself and everything around him. He has a friend of sorts, who he has nicknamed the Autodidact, who believes in humanity and then there is Anna, his old love and his only hope of salvation.

Sartre more than impressed; enough for me to want to read his more acclaimed work "Being and Nothingness". He excels in writing about abstracts. The long rants about meaningless and unreal things adorned his book immensely. His settings were not very thorough though. There was something amiss in every scene he created. Nevertheless, "Being and Nothingness" enters my list somewhere in the upper echelons. Would definitely want to read more of this one.

The Landlady - Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky

It was about time that I made progress with my list of Dostoyevsky's works. The list had only few novels left. Just one post-underground, which I will probably save for the last, and four pre-underground. I decided to take up 'The Landlady' next. With a seventeen hour flight coming up, the rather small novel found a very comfortable niche in my itinerary.

This was Dostoyevsky's third novel, after 'Poor Folks' and 'The Double'. Of the recurring themes that Dostoyevsky would use later in his writings, 'The Landlady' had glimpses of the "religious fool" and the delirious protagonist. Dostoyevsky has attempted to describe a complicated relation in this book. One that born of and ends in the fantastic. There is little that is rooted in realism, much that is obscure and in parts, it is downright difficult to follow. Of all the Dostoyevsky's I have read thus far, this is probably the least I appreciated. But it is possibly because I have read his later works. The contemporary audience to whom this novella was presented accused Dostoyevsky of plagiarism. But this book seems much in line with Dostoyevsky's later works. Not as polished and complete; perhaps missing a few chunks here and there; but it certainly has all the elements.

Vasily Ordynov, the protagonist, is an unemployed nobility who has dedicated his life to the obscurely described realm of science. He lives a solitary life and when his landlady moves out of Petersburg he is forced to look for new lodgings. While roams the outskirts of the city, he sees an old man and a young woman in a church. He is drawn to the woman and follows them to their quarters. The next day, he lands at their building and asks for lodgings. The woman accepts and then follows a series of delirious episodes where Ordynov lapses into sickness and is nursed by his landlady Katerina. They develop a relation and he tries to figure out her relation with the old man.

Yes, I continue to be awed by Dostoyevsky. And this has been a terrific journey thus far. Twelve down, four to go. I think I will pick up his unfinished work 'Netochka Nezvanova' next.

The Complete Maus - Art Spiegelman

'Maus' was a recommendation on goodreads. It had been a while since I had read a graphic novel and this book had really rave reviews. Although the Nazi holocaust was becoming redundant of recent, I decided to go ahead with this book. I ordered 'The Complete Maus' and picked it up after I was done with Murakami's short stories.

I started it in the dead of the night right after I came back from watching 'Fury', another story from the second world war. The first few pages were quite catchy and I had read three chapters by the time I decided to doze off. The following day, I picked it up as soon as I was back from work and put it down late in the night after having completed it. The book really was un-put-down-able! It was not so much the story. It was how it was written. Art Spiegelman had not limited the book to just the holocaust and survival. He had written the book depicting him asking his father for the story. The book uses animal analogies to depict races. The Jews were mouses, the Germans cats, Poles were pigs and Americans dogs. There were the caricatures of his father, his second wife, himself and his wife in the book. It is this personal aspect of the book that sets it apart from the other holocaust stories. It speaks of Spiegelman's father and how he was as a person before and after the war; Spiegelman's own complex relation with his father; his memories of his mother and rivalry with a ghost-brother. In short, the personal touch that Spiegelman adds to the redundant holocaust story makes it different and captivating.

The book tells the story of Spiegelman asking his father Vladek to tell him the story of his survival. Vladek and Anja, Art's mother, had survived the holocaust. Vladek tells him of his life before the war. His life when he met Anja and they married. His successful business and of Richieu, their first born. Then the war struck and they slowly lost their families. The story is of Vladek's survival. He and Anja somehow managed to be together throughout. Through luck and wit he managed to stay alive in every camp and ghetto. Eventually in Auschwitz as well, they somehow stayed clear of the chambers and survived long enough to see the war end. Vladek also talks about how others whom he knew survived the war. He tells about the conditions they were forced to live in, the tricks they had to resort to, the sacrifices they had to make. As he puts it, there were no family or friends in those days; it was every man for himself. Interspersed in between is Vladek's character as a part of the storytelling. He is the typical miser Jew who is pained whenever he has to part with any money. This leads everyone around him to anguish. Whether his character is a result of his survival or vice versa is left unclear.

The book was very captivating. The animal analogies were interesting but wore off rather quickly. It was the Vladek's caricature and simultaneous narration that held the book together. There was no boring rant about the hardships in the camp. It was a personal story, a subjective point of view of two people, the one writing the story and the one narrating it. Though I really liked it, I have not been looking at Spiegelman's other works. And I have had enough of the second world war for some time.

The Elephant Vanishes - Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami; I had read the name on my facebook wall one day. Intrigued, I had looked him up. Seemed like an interesting author to start reading. But I had left it there until my last visit to the local Crossword store. I was looking for Neil Gaiman but instead returned with this collection of short stories; the back cover had a compelling teaser. And although I had planned a short break from reading books, I found myself looking at a twenty hour train journey to Chennai. So I packed the book in my backpack and started flipping the pages as the train started it's slow journey.

I like reading short stories. They make for interesting fast paced story telling. The author is not bothered with filling up spaces between episodes and thus spares the reader of potentially drag stretches. Murakami is another case. At times there were no defined episodes to his stories. At times they were taken up rapidly. And most of the times, he danced about the bush to his heart's content. Surprisingly, I liked almost all of them. For very soon it was evident that Murakami is not trying to relay stories. He is trying to communicate thoughts and personalities. Stories were secondary. Rather, this book was a collection of short sketches of people who Murakami drew and detailed with evident pleasure.

There were some stories that stood out for me. The Last Lawn of the Afternoon was probably the best of the lot. Then there were Family Affair and Barn Burning. All these stories (and the others as well) present a very believable narration. At times it is evidently fantastic and strays from the realms of normalcy. But it is still believable : incredibly credible. One could imagine a sibling's hatred for his sister's fiance. One could imagine a quality assurance manager develop a fancy for a complaining customer based on her letter. And a hunger stricken couple holding up a Mc Donald's for burgers? Or a woman divorcing her husband for a pair of shorts? Murakami writes in a way that makes it all a possibility.

I really liked this collection of stories. More for the way they were written than the stories themselves. Murakami will resurface in my reading list soon. I will reserve more comments on his writing till a later date, when I have read more of him. These seventeen short stories were not enough.

The Little Prince - Antonie de Saint-Exupery

I saw "The Little Prince" mentioned in the list of top books by a close friend in one of those facebook chain posts (it is interesting how some things never seem to die!). There were a quite a few in her list of ten that I had not read. Some did not interest me much, others did. This one lied in the latter. Co-incidentally she had borrowed the book from a colleague and I borrowed it from her before it was eventually returned.

I am not too sure whether this book is for children or adults. But then that is probably what distinguishes a great book from the lot. Every age that you read it, you have a different understanding of it. There are layers that you unravel with time and experience. "The Little Prince" is one of those books that I wish I had read as a kid. In the book, de Saint-Exupery shows the world through a child's eyes. The world of adults and what they (we) hold dear and how pointless and funny it seems to a child. He also talks about love, its pangs, and death which give an eeire dark side to the otherwise light story.

The narrator finds the little prince in the desert while fixing his crashed aircraft. The little prince asks a lot of questions but answers very few. The narrator manages to reconstruct the little prince's story from the bits and pieces he gathers during their conversations. The prince lives on a planet with two active volcanoes and a dead one, and a flower which is the most beautiful in the universe. He loves to see sunsets and keeps his planet free of baobabs. The flower's vanity and demanding nature make the prince leave his planet to explore the universe. He visits six other 'small planets', each inhabited by ridiculous 'adults' and finally ends up on Earth where he meets the fox which teaches him the meaning and importance of love, and the snake which promises him a passage back to his planet and his beloved flower.

This book can easily be finished in a single sitting, but 'we adults' are in such a haste to complete! I imagine it as a bedtime story that one could read to a child. Though I did not mind it much, the book seemed a little random in the way it is structured and I liked almost everything about this book, especially the paintings that accompanied the story. It was an extremely delectable read.

The Trouble With Physics - Lee Smolin

This one came up during a discussion with a colleague about random things during the night on the train to Goa. I think we were talking about thinking out of the box and perspectives. He had said that this one offered a fresh perspective on Physics. I have always been passively interested in Physics; it used to be my favourite subject of study in school. It is now, many years later, that I fully grasp why it was so. Anyway, I ordered the book upon return and took it up a few months later.

"The Trouble With Physics" is a brief recap of what has happened in Physics since Einstein. More specifically, it is an analysis of the biggest fad that Physics saw in this period, the 'string theory'. Smolin recaps how 'string theory' promised a revolution (or the end of it) in the 1980's and how a quarter of a century later, there was still no inkling of that revolution. The book is written in a language fit for an enthusiast. The language does get technical at times but mostly it is something that a layman can easily follow. There were two things that I specially liked about this book. One was that it introduced a lot of ideas that have been worked on or that came up and failed. Writings of this kind tend to trigger one's brain in directions that one does not think in usually. It makes the reading slow and interesting, propelling you in tangential directions. The second was the bit where Smolin explores what science is and how it should be done. Ensuing was a general discussion about what is wrong with the way power is distributed within the academia. This brought me back to my university applications a few years back and reminded me how the entire process had made very little sense to me. As another tangential offshoot, it resulted in this.

Smolin begins with Einstein and the 'revolution' that he had triggered with his relativity theories. The quantum theory was advancing in its own right but a unification was lacking. This unification was the primary target for this revolution to end. Enter 'string theory', a promising and enchanting young candidate. Smolin does a quick tour of the more important ideas that arose as a result of the academic world jumping into 'string theory'. He then tells us of the problems that have ensued, like poor distribution of resources, cult formation, etc. Towards the end, Smolin expresses what he feels to be wrong in the academic community; how and why such problems arise and how they can be averted or rectified. He says that there are more than one kind of scientists : the ones who bring a revolutionary idea and the ones who progress it. He talks about a few of such revolutionaries in the making and tells us that all is not lost.

The book was extremely well written for a book on Physics. Moreover, it presented an objective point of view on the subjects that the author touched. The author presented a few facts, his opinion on the matter and left it on the audience to decide what they would. There was no definitive judgement, which is what I like in books of science. By the end of the book I had a list of three topics that would interest me ("The Fabric of Reality", "The End of Time" and quantum computing). However, I don't think I would like to read this much of Physics at a go. I will leave those for sometime later.

Batman : The Dark Knight Returns - Frank Miller

I had been browsing online lists for graphic novels. I stumbled upon a list that dealt with Batman specifically. Of the top three on that list, I already had the number two (Killing Joke) and had zeroed in on the number three (Year One). So after much deliberation, I decided to order the top rated (The Dark Knight Returns) along with 'Year One'.

This one is Batman's omega. Miller has tried to look into the head of a retired vigilante. 'The Dark Knight Returns' plays around the psychologies of the main characters. There is a retiring Commissioner James Gordon handing over the baton to a lady officer half his age; Harvey Dent has been treated of his physical and mental ailments; Bruce Wayne is facing a middle age crisis and his alter ego has never truly subsided; The Joker is facing ennui at the lack of a worthy opponent; Clark Kent is trying to survive despite all his super powers. The city is still on its knees but not all hope is lost. The Dark Knight returns to save the day and to take an alternate mode of retirement.

'The Dark Knight Returns' shows a Gotham that is still over run with crime. Despite Batman having put all the major criminals behind bars before his retirement ten years ago, the city has not been able to overcome its disease. Bruce Wayne is having issues coping with his retired life. And he has still not been able to overcome the memory of the night his parents were killed on the streets of Gotham. Wayne decides to come out of his retirement and takes to his caped crusade again. The city is spurred into the never ending debate again : Batman - good or evil. Batman's old foes rejoice at his return. But Commissioner James Gordon does not find his views on Batman echoed in his successor, Ellen Yindel. So Batman must fight for his cause again. He must fight the crime in the city. He must also face Superman in a battle to death. And he has a thirteen year old girl for his aide in arms - Robin.

Miller's storytelling is very comprehensive. He creates exceptional plots and adds action to them. I will not compare him to Moore, both have their strengths in very different domains. But if I am to read more action comics, Miller is definitely a preferred name. The pages of this book were intricately designed and packed with action and words. It has been a pleasure reading and rereading the pages. The art work is not really exceptional though. Frank Miller is better at story telling. I think I will give Batman a rest for some time now. But then there is 'The Long Halloween'...

Batman : Year One - Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli

Since I had read 'A Killing Joke' by Alan Moore, I had started looking at more from the Batman series. Recently I had read Mazzucchelli's 'Asterios Polyp' and, looking at his other works, I noticed a cross with my interest. 'Batman : Year One' with Frank Miller. It was hailed as one of the greatest Batman novels ever. The next time I felt like reading a graphic novel, the choice was obvious.

In 1986, Frank Miller had recently finished work on 'Batman : The Dark Knight Returns' when DC entrusted him with reworking Batman's original story. Batman was to stop being a comic character since. Miller turned Batman into the dark character that most of my generation associates it with. But this was before Nolan had come up with the Batman trilogy that would be etched into our brains. But the book stands out over the movies for one simple reason : James Gordon. Miller creates Gordon as a man while the movies treated him flippantly. Miller's storytelling needs to be appreciated here. Wayne's initial struggle as a vigilante and roots of his immense will power that keeps him from killing even the worst of Gotham's villains. How a Lieutenant made a name for himself despite all the disapproval from his colleagues and city's bureaucracy. Gordon's turbulent personal life. Batman bringing James Gordon around to accepting him and relying on him to do the dirty work.

'Year One' traces the lives of two individuals who come to a city run amok and a decaying society. Lieutenant James Gordon and the heir of Wayne Enterprises, Bruce Wayne. It traces the beginnings of Wayne's vigilante activities, how and why he finally picks up a cape and a mask. It traces Gordon's struggle within a corrupt police institution and his initial stance against Batman. It tells us the story of how two individuals with conflicting opinions join hands to fight a city full of criminals. 'Year One' also briefly talks about the origins of the Catwoman. But most of the story is about Wayne's transformation into the Batman and Gordon's acceptance of the crusader as a necessary force in the city.

Miller really outshone with his story telling. And Mazzucchelli's art work was aptly dark for the kind of character they were trying to bring to life. It was a well done book with some superb moments. Of course I will read more Miller. And Batman.

The Iliad - Homer / Robert Fagles

This book has had one of the longest shelf lives so far. I picked it up in the international book fair 6-7 years back. Since then it has sat on my shelves for more reasons than one. Ere I read the other Greek tragedies, my mind kept prodding me to pick 'The Iliad' up. But it somehow never happened till my last visit home. I finished Dr. Sacks' fascinating case stories and before I had a chance to pick anything new up, I was looking at the dust covered books in the shelves back home. 'The Iliad'! Finally!

I would like to think that I am no stranger to Greek tragedies. I have read Euripides and Sophocles, though I am yet to read Aeschylus. I had thoroughly enjoyed the plays and the 'deus ex machina's. I have even read Virgil. But never had I enjoyed anything as much as when I read Homer's 'The Odyssey'. The story was more complete than the shorter plays and much more gripping. So I expected the same from 'The Iliad'. And it exceeded all expectations. I finished the book faster than any other work of similar nature or length. The poetry was fabulous. And so was the story. Fagles had done an amazing job with the translation as well. At times I read it out loud to myself. Such was the joy of reading this one. My biggest regret is that I should have started my foray into the Greek works with this one. It is now that the characters of the other plays are falling into place. Most of the other works have been written around this epic. It is here that the primary characters make their mark. The great Agamemnon; pitiable Hecuba; Aeneas, beloved by Gods; god-like Diomedes; the cunning Odysseus. But this book is about swift Achilles. Him and his rage. Him and his inescapable hands.

The book begins in the ninth year of Troy's siege. The city has not yet been taken. In the opening scene Achilles and Agamemnon have a fall out when Agamemnon takes the beautiful Briseis from Achilles. Achilles swears to no longer fight for a king who does not respect his captains. So while Achilles holds off from the battle, the Trojan forces advance till the Achean ships. All this by the will of Zeus of course, for nothing happens without the will of the son of Cronus. Now as the Gods fight on either sides, man-eating Hector pushes forward and the Achean captains are injured and disabled from battle one by one. But Zeus would not relent. He wishes to give Achilles the glory for his mother, Thetis, had held his knee and asked him the favour. But Achilles rage would not be doused, not by gifts from Agamemnon. But he yearns for the glory that war brings. Despite knowing well that that glory would come at the cost of his life before the city is taken. So as the Trojans keep advancing, he sends Patroclus, his beloved aide in arms, to the war on his behalf instead. Patroclus shines in battle, but is taken down by Trojans and Hector claims the glory. Achilles sees blood. He forgets his rage at Agamemnon and instead rages at Hector now. He needs Hector's blood. His mother gets him armour made by Hephaestus and once Achilles dons the armour and picks up his legendary shield, he is an unstoppable force. He tears through the Trojan ranks. He pushes them back behind their walls and Hector, who dares to face him, is humiliated and killed and humiliated again. The book ends after funeral games for Patroclus and Priam's ransoming of Hector's body.

The above story is beautifully portrayed in twenty four parts. There are adjectives abundant and the introduction provided a good reason for them. It is one of those introductions that are as important (perhaps even more) than the book itself. To sum it all up, the book was a joy all through. Right from the original story by Homer to the beautiful translation and the introduction to top it all off. I have already read Odysseus's tale, so I guess there is nothing more that I can get from Homer. But I have a revived interest in the Greek tragedies again and I have Aeschylus' Oresteia lying in my shelves.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks

Another of the belated birthday gift that I chose for it's name. Of the few choices given to me, this one had the most interesting title. So I read the description and decided that it was worth reading. The reviews were good and one can consider experimenting with gifts.

Dr. Sacks is a renowned neurologist who worked in America and Britain. His fascination with Luria and his work led him to adopt the romantic style of writing that Luria professed. The clinical tales are more than facts recorded as statistics. It is history and emotions which, as Dr. Sacks believes, forms an equally important part of the story, or case. Thus his stories have a rather personal touch to them. He empathises (rather too much I believe) with his patients and sees them not as dilapidated items in need of repair, but as individuals struggling to maintain their identity in the midst of a chaotic mental tempest. A fascinating TED talk by Dr. Sacks will give a picture of him and his way of connecting.

The book recounts twenty four tales of his erstwhile patients who suffered from some neurological problem. The cases are divided into four sections : Losses : dealing with the classical problem of loss of some brain function; Excesses : dealing with the excess of a brain function; Transports : dealing with visions and hallucinations; and the World of the Simple : dealing with autistic patients and their enhanced skills. The book presents a number of interesting brain irregularities like loss of the ability of identify people and things, phantom limbs, loss of control over one's own body, religious visions, enhanced smelling ability, identifying primes and mnemonic memory. Sacks raises existentialist and moralist questions on how the patients are and ought to be treated by the society as well as the doctors and nurses. The last section, dealing with the autistic and 'morons' was much more personal than the earlier ones, perhaps because of the elongated period of association with the patients, for unlike in the other cases, the patients suffering from autism did not "get better".

Dr. Sacks' vivid portraits of his patients was extremely fascinating. Leads one to question how and why the brain is treated as a model that has a "normalcy". At times though, Dr. Sacks' empathy and appreciation for the patients was a bit too redundant and drag. He has more interesting books but I will come back to him later.

myth=mithya - Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik

It was at Chennai Airport, while I was waiting for a flight back to Pune that I entered the airport bookstore. Weirdly, after all this time I am somehow naive enough (or stupid enough) to believe that I will just look around and not buy anything from a bookstore because of the big stack of pending books. Yes, I see you pointing a finger at me and laughing your head off, but that was my intention. For real! So as you must have already gathered, I bought this book and stowed it away for a not so distant future.

I had heard of this book earlier but never given it a serious thought. But a recent argument about the Hindu religious philosophy with a colleague and the pending Basham's "The Wonder that was India" drew me to the book. I flipped through randomly and saw a lot of small sections of stories, a page at most, and many crudely drawn sketches of the various Hindu deities. I was to find out later that the book was full of such drawings, tables and flowcharts. I found the pedantic efforts of Dr. Pattanaik extremely cute. The work did not seem half baked and incomplete. The research was well done. At no point of the book did it seem that the author was fleeting through the topics, despite the concise nature of the work. Also, the work is not theistic in nature like religious texts tend to get. Pattanaik does not impose his opinions anywhere. Rather he states in the preface that religion is a matter of faith and can be rationalised only till a point. He recommends seeing it as a way of understanding human life rather than an explanation for it.

The book revolves around the three primary Gods of the Hindu mythology (Bramha, Vishnu, Shiva) and their counterparts (Saraswati, Laxmi, Shakti). It seeks to explain the Hindu religious beliefs in the light of modern concerns. Dr. Pattanaik comes up with an extremely persuasive way to present what we currently know as Hinduism. Scattered throughout the books are the various small stories from the Puranas and Vedas describing the conflict between the devas and asuras. The author brings this strife to a new light by deeming every section of the mythological league as essential in the Hindu culture. The asuras are as important as the devas. He interprets the Hindu culture as non-judgmental, saying there is room for every type of culture, but each has its place and time.

The read was an interesting one, to say the least. There were aspects of the Hindu culture that I was unaware of (at least the aspects as Devdutt Pattanaik sees them). There were also many stories that I did not know of, and many lesser deities that I knew no more than the name of. I am very impressed by Dr. Pattanaik, though I doubt I would reach out for another such work of his any time soon.

Humiliated and Insulted - Fyodor M. Dostoyevsky

It had been long since I picked up a Dostoyevsky. For eight long months I had given my Dostoyevsky fever a rest and picked up other books; other genres. But it was time to return to my quest regarding Dostoyevsky's works. I have gone through most of his works in a rather random fashion. So I randomly picked 'Humiliated and Insulted' to be the next in this crooked line.

This book was Dostoyevsky's attempt at re-establishing himself in the St. Petersburg literary circle after his years of absence due to imprisonment. It was him breaking free from the influences of Gogol and finding a style of his own. This book highlights all that I love about Dostoyevsky's writing. His later works were rather too well done for me. This one was cooked just right. There is a balance in the realism and fever in this book that Dostoyevsky loses in his later works in favour of the latter. It is this balance and the gripping plot that define this novel for me. As usual, the author explores the darker and the dingier recesses of the Russian society to come up with a story that is allegedly auto-biographical in nature. The book, like many others of his, were published it parts. Probably the three short breaks between the four exciting parts were the only time I could put down the book with a certain ease of mind. Otherwise the book was nothing short of an addiction!

The plot features Vanya, a young author, at it's heart as he struggles to help out the woman that he loves, Natasha. She has run away from her family to be with her lover, Alyosha, a young prince who was close to her family once. The family has disowned their daughter for the shame that she put them through. Alyosha's father, Prince Alexey, is a money grubber of the worst kind and wants his puerile son to marry a rich, young heiress - Katya. The plot is further thickened by Nelly, the granddaughter of an old man who used to occupy Vanya's quarters before he died in the opening scenes of the book. The book twists and turns slowing, weaving an intricate web over all the characters and binding them together in one fascinating and thrilling story as Vanya and Natasha fight their way through the humiliation that they face. As the story progresses, Nelly too grows as a character as her past is slowly uncovered by her benefactor, Vanya, who rescues her from the clutches of the evil harlot of a landlady. The story speaks of life in a section of the society that suffers insults with little to retaliate with, but a pride to bear it.

This was eleventh of the sixteen novels listed under Dostoyevsky's name that I have completed. Needless to say what I think of the author, but I will say it none the less. He is a genius at creating characters and scenes which, despite their fantastic nature, reek of a realism that appeals to you. It is a feeling beyond words when you see his plot unravel and reach a fervent peak and gratifies you. Dostoyevsky sucks big time at keep a mystery. But then the beauty of it is that the mysteries rarely account for more than extraneous adornments in his stories. Five more to go. Whatever shall I do when I expire that number!

Asterios Polyp - David Mazzucchelli

I first saw 'Asterios Polyp' in a haze at a friend's friend's place. I took to adjusting the cover mindlessly and put it down without a read. It seemed heavy and I was more interested in Moore's 'Promethea' series on display in the shelves, which too I did not read. Anyhow, this is what I got, or rather chose as a belated birthday gift.

It took me two sittings to swallow the novel; will probably take me a few iterations to digest it. It was quite engrossing. It was truly graphic in the sense that the visuals were equally responsible for portraying the story as were the words used. Mazzucchelli deserves a thumping pat on the back for pulling it off by himself. 'Asterios Polyp' is an experience that he takes us through. It is more than a story; it is more than just art. One is left free to roam in his pages and understand the references that he leaves around. Reading this book was interactive and I think that is the real beauty of it. The plot was a little weak but then those weaknesses were easily overlooked in favour of the exceptional design.

The story is of a successful architect whom we meet on a rather unfortunate day of his. He has turned fifty and his house catches fire as a lightning crashes into his building. The narration takes turns to tell of his life thence and his life until. His past is narrated by his twin brother who died at birth and who dominates his thoughts. From the very beginning the reader is presented with a lot of contradictory aspects of Asterios' nature. Asterios leaves his messy apartment with three tokens of his past and leaves on a greyhound bus to a place as far as the money in his wallet could take him, Apogee. Here he takes up work as a car mechanic and lives with his employer's family. In the background his past life and troubled but happy marriage are slowly brought to light. We see Asterios gradually lose his hubris and reform himself into a much more agreeable person over this "Odyssey" that he undertakes.

I really liked reading 'Asterios Polyp'. I have not diverged much from Moore in the graphic novel world but this one was quite worth it. I will return to the point of movie like experience that Mazzucchelli takes you through. His work is very fluent and has a depth that can be uncovered in parts; specially the references to the Greek tragedies. Mazzucchelli has written another graphic novel but I am thinking that I would go for one of his more hailed works next. 'Batman : Year One' with Frank Miller.

Fictions - Jorge Luis Borges

A friend's ping suggested I read "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". The name sounded unusual. I looked it up and it was a short story by an Argentine author. Since the recommender was usually good with suggestions, I decided to try it out. Hence I ordered "Fictions" which contained this particular story. Not much later, I picked it up.

I lapped up Borges like a thirsty dog. I had been wanting to read something interesting for some time and all I had managed to pick up were Nietzsche and Woolf. After the tiresome descriptive readings that were laden with philosophies, Borges seemed unnaturally succinct and extremely gripping. It took me a while to get used to his style; the mild humour, the puns. At times I doubted whether what I was reading was fiction but the author made it evidently clear eventually.

There were a total of seventeen stories split up in two parts : "The Garden of Forking Paths" and "Artifices". The stories were altogether fantastic. Imaginary planets, impeccable memory, fateful lotteries; all these and more made up for some of the most pleasant reading that I have done till date. Moreover, the content was stimulating to an extent that I often put down the book to think how the author must have come up with such an incredible plot or how I might have gone about building on the same theme.

JLB was, in a word, awesome. He is a keeper for sure. One can pick him up between books or when does not have the time for bigger novels. A story roughly takes ten to twenty minutes to complete and leaves you slightly perplexed, slightly stimulated but mostly entertained and satisfied. Will look for more of his works for sure. But as of now, I will take a short break from reading.

Basic Writings of Nietzsche - Friedrich Nietzsche / Walter Kaufmann

Nietzsche is a well known name. But I had little idea what I was getting into when I had chosen this book in the flipkart liquidation sale. Since I had heard the name quite a few times and since the book was coming dirt cheap, I decided to go ahead with it. Picked it up more than a year later, though.

Nietzsche's works are probably the second blatantly philosophical work that I have read; the first being Aurelius' "Meditations". Nietzsche's proved to be an agitating philosophy. He is possibly more of a psychologist than a philosopher. He tends to explain things based on human psychology rather than come up with pleasant sounding irrational theorems. And his philosophy is indeed too far from pleasant. Also, it is easy to see why he is so widely misunderstood. He proclaims quite a few offending things without meaning offence, or so interprets Walter Kaufmann. But as far as I can see, Nietzsche is all about interpretation. If you like him, you will interpret his words differently from what you would if you dislike him. Nietzsche, as per his own writing, does not give a damn for those who do not understand him. The topics he touched upon seemed very personal to him as well as current for his time. In parts, it became unnecessarily verbose for the modern reader who does not share his perspective. Again, I doubt Nietzsche cared a lot about being 'eternal', though he did believe himself to be 'the destiny'.

This book five of his writings : "The Birth of Tragedy", "Beyond Good and Evil", "On the Genealogy of Morals", "The Case of Wagner", "Ecce Homo"; and a collection of aphorisms from his various essays. The compilation was quite beautiful in itself, showcasing a wide variety of Nietzsche's works throughout his 'career' as a writer. Walter Kaufmann seemed in total agreement with Nietzsche's philosophy and did a rather tedious job of pointing out every instance of disagreeable meaning or criticism that certain pieces of texts had received. But often, it seemed like a publicity for his other works regarding Nietzsche.

I will reserve my views regarding Nietzsche's philosophy for another post in Phantasmagoria. However, they rang with a certain degree of understanding and easily explained why intelligent brains over the years have read him time and again. Towards the end I started finding him tedious and pompous, though the arrogance and self importance had showed in every single work of his. "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" is another of his book that I will read. But not now. I have had enough of philosophy for quite some time, thank you.

The Waves - Virginia Woolf

Another one of those books that I picked up while idling in a book store. After "To The Lighthouse" I had not dared to pick up another Woolf. But I had read nothing challenging for a while and thought myself up to the task. But this was before Nietzsche.

Woolf did not surprise me this time. For the first few pages, I was utterly lost. Was this a play? A dialogue? People talking to each other? Playing games? What was this? Turned out, while I was reading the introduction later (one of those few that do not strive to show the introducer's intellect but actually introduces the content of the book) that they were, what Woolf called, soliloquies.So it was akin to a play after all. But not quite a play. Woolf has tried to do something different by representing characters as threads of individual thoughts rather than build them up through plot.

The book is more of character building than a story. The story is sparse and widely spread out. It centres around six individuals : Bernard, Neville, Louis, Susan, Jinny and Rhoda. Each has his or her own individuality that they speak out loud as a stream of thoughts. The story follows them from their childhood through to their waning ages. There is a seventh "silent" character of Percival whom everyone adores. Bernard is somewhat more central than the others and finishes the book with an existential piece that revisits the life of all his friends.

 I was expecting nothing different of Woolf. Despite all the difficulties that it posed, the book was something of a delight to read. No one uses words like Woolf does. They are a piece of art by themselves. But then I strongly hold her conscious disregard for a plot against her. It was as if I had jumped from one Nietzsche to another, only, the original was far easier to read.

The Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson

Nietzsche had me by my balls. I decided to make him more of a background read (like I did with Tolstoy) and pick up something more akin to fiction as a foreground read. The problem was, I did not want to go back to the classics and the 1800's just yet. I wanted to taste something more present; I wanted something contemporary. Award winning novels would not be bad I supposed. So I picked up a random one from a wikipedia list suggested an interesting name. Looked it up on flipkart; ordered; done.

Adam Johnson has picked an extremely daring topic for his fiction : the North Korean dystopia. It is hard to classify the novel into one category though; as the author himself agrees, he was not working towards a specific genre. Thriller is the best broad classification I have for this work. It was utterly un-put-down-able. The story moves leisurely without any bogging stretches. There are no fillers. It is just a long string of disconnected events taking place in the life of a singular character. The story in itself seems incredible but it is the protagonist who holds your attention. It is he who makes everything incredible about the story seem vaguely possible.

Jun Do is this protagonist who has been brought up in an orphanage. Orphans in the DPRK are considered a separate social strata and are treated as such. The totalitarian regime that looks to oppress by means of threats probably finds nothing to threaten orphans by. Jun Do lives through the Arduous March and grows up to be a tunnel rat, an off shore kidnapper and a radio transmission reader. His life is extremely adventurous and he finds himself aspiring without any real emotions against the regime. He, in his own words, outlives every one of his friends. In a society where the story is more important than the individual, he lives his story, and another's, and another's. He finds the love of his life and makes her fall in love with him. And then he is damned to the dungeons of the North Korean secret police.

Adam Johnson has written a very interesting story. One that thrills all the way, grips you till the very end. However, there is that naked contempt for socialist societies and the glorification of the USA and it's concept of freedom that cakes the pages. Other than this irritating angle, the book is an extremely good read. It is easy in it's pace and it's demands. And the imaginations of the author deserve applause.