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 The narrator is depicted as a man withdrawn from the society, mostly due to spite and partly due to his failure to cope.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.

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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.

The Prophet - Khalil Gibran

Khalil Gibran was recommended to me by my senior. I had heard the author's name in passing but had never actually planned on reading him. It so happened that upon coming to Hyderabad, despite my humongous list of books that were pending to be read, I borrowed "The Prophet" from my senior.

It turned out to be a good decision after all. The book is a olio of philosophies regarding life, work, love, God and possibly any other topic than one could imagine. It feebly defines a way of life and the manner in which one can be happy while going through the motions in general. It is inspiring and written in a simple and poetic language. Plus it is a very thin book, which makes the philosophy all the more bearable and appreciable.

There was not much of a story in the book. It speaks of a prophet, exiled on an island, awaiting the ships on the day of his return to his land. As the ships come in sight, he feels the pain of parting from the people of Orphalese and even they come to him and impetrate him to advice them on the ways of life. Hence he philosophises the answers to their questions. He finally departs, tristful and with the promise that he would return some day, in one body or the other. The ending also hints of romance between Almustafa, the prophet and Almitra, the priestess.

The book contains the usual social norms and the conventional philosophies. But what was originally attractive about "The Prophet" was the author's poetic way of writing. The lines flow into each other; contiguous and smoothly. And Gibran never exaggerated a point to boredom. He was crisp and eloquent, unlike most philosophers. I would like to read more of him, though he will not be on the top of my list.

This Side Of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald was an unknown name to me when I picked this random book in a bookshop. Owing to the name and the cheap price, the book persevered to the cashier and thence to my library. I read the book with a rather speculative interest. Having finished Ghosh's disappointing work I had picked up Hesse's "Steppenwolf". But the book seemed too beyond my age for appreciation. So a few pages down the man-wolf's life, I swapped it for "This Side Of Paradise".

Fitzgerald was rather young when this work of his was put into print. Inspiring is his story as is his book impressive. "This Side Of Paradise" was his first novel with bits and pieces written in between wartime skirmishes and parts constructed in romantic depressions. The eloquence is rather abrupt. But it was the story that gripped my interest and rather haunted me.

The novel plots the life of a certain Amory Blaine from his childhood to his youth and ends at a mere age of twenty-three (Fitzgerald's own age at the time) in an abstract that was, in a frail sense, disappointing for me. Amory Blaine is shown as a 'romantic egoist' who considers himself in a league above others. His life in Princeton and the ongoing evolution in him is described. His ambitions; his loss of ambitions; his romantic ventures; his poetic heartbreaks; his occupational disasters and more form the story line while his reactions to all these situations and his view on certain issues grease it. The story told is the story of the generation of the Americans lost in the tempest of the Great War. The story is a simply a story; without a plot lying in the ulterior recesses. It simply tells of the mental growth of a boy to a man, a 'personage'.

The sequence of events created an uneasy interest for the book in me. The story seemed to progress much like my own (hence the disappointment at its premature end). Albeit I found the thoughts described in the book disagreeable most of the time, there were a few cases where I could understand and symapthise with Amory's point of view. All this gave a rather pleasant flavour to the story.

Fitzgerald certainly thrilled. But I believe it was more due to the story than his way of writing. Though there was nothing wrong with his style, there was nothing dazzling about it either. This book being a rather random assortment of writings rather than a single fluent work, I will delay my opinion on Fitzgerald as an author till I happen to read another of his work.

The Calcutta Chromosome - Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh's work was introduced to me in the days of my convalescence from typhoid. Apart from the few other interesting books that I had managed to finish in my monotonic surroundings of the days, Ghosh's "In An Antique Land" was one that impressed me in ways more than one. So on my last visit to the bookstore, I picked up "The Calcutta Chromosome" with an intent to read more of the man who had benevolently helped me kill some cumbersome time.

"The Calcutta Chromosome" turned out to be a surprise. I had expected something on the similar lines as "In An Ancient Land". But it was far from the theme. Ghosh made a very disheartening attempt at science fiction. The plot was perhaps the only saving grace. The choice of words and the style of writing were so bleak that I found myself thinking that I could have done a better job than him! And then there was the very sudden and abrupt mention of sex in the story. Ill fitted and much inconvenient to the plot, it only went to show the outrageous fixation of the contemporary readership with the explicitness of sex.

The plot revolves around a malarial research and the history involved in it. It moves in the past, present and the future, with bits and pieces of the stories unfurling simultaneously. Though not very gripping in the beginning, it turns out well towards the middle. It was a bitter disappointment that the plot turned to the supernatural and sex as a resort for covering up a weak ending.

Ghosh surely deserves credit for the vast research that must have accompanied the project (I am assuming that he has his facts straight), but it seems that the story was written in a hurry with little review. Although I hate ridiculing the author like this (he did help me against boredom), I could never gather the courage to pick up another book that has "Amitav Ghosh" imprinted on its covers. I still recommend "In An Antique Land", but the phantom of it is lost in the abyss that "The Calcutta Chromosome" created. Ironically I had forgot about reading this book completely until I was recently reminded by my friend. I intended to be laconic in the review but the disappointment is overwhelming.

Animal Farm - George Orwell

The book's fame preceded it. And hence my surprise at finding it a short story. A hundred pages or so. I was amazed at the concept of such a small story being so famous. Not that I was naive enough to reject the thought of short stories being famous, but I had fancied Orwell to be a novelist, much due to having seen the motion picture based on his book "1984", which , I will add in parentheses, was an utter disappointment.

George Orwell was famous for his anti-imperialist views. And in "Animal Farm" he seems to be mocking the socialist system. Or rather, any system in general. The story takes to a fantasy where animals organise a revolution against the human masters, or at least plan to. A revolt breaks out in a particular farm. The animals drive out their masters and run the farm by themselves. But of course, where there is a system, there are hierarchies. The story beautifully associates the various animal characters with the variety of people we meet every day. There are the leaders, the propagandists, the intelligentsia, the labour, etc.

The symbolism is shockingly real. One never feels out of context while reading the story. The way Orwell has described the human psychology (rather, the mass psychology) is worthy of many appraises, as it has already had. George Orwell delivers a smack on the faces of all the socio-political systems with a panache and mockery that is rarely as complete.

The concept was very entertaining; the story amusing. But I did not find his style of writing anything special. I do intend to read "1984" sometime in the future. But George Orwell is not as yet close to being on my list of authors who compel you to pick another book of theirs as soon as you put one down.