Book Review: The Help by Katherine Stockett

The Help by Kathryn Stockett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
My grandmother, M.S. Kamakalshyamma is the best story teller I've ever come across. Better than Tolstoy, I'd say. She used to lie down next to me when I was younger and tell me all kinds of stories. About her childhood, about Ramayana, about Hansel and Gretel.. . I must've heard those stories a hundred times. And I still miss them. I miss them so much I want to cry.
Kathryn Stockett, here, our dear author of this beautiful beautiful book, reminds me of her as she talks about a society "where white women trust coloured maids with their children but not their silver". It is outstanding, funny, heart touching and it has a purpose. As the protagonist thinks aloud to herself, "Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realise, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought." Kathryn derives this book from her life. As you go through the final chapter of the book describing her own help growing up, Demitrie, you realise, that the feisty Minny, the wise Aibelleen, the forgiving Louvenia are all Demitrie and this is Kathryn's eulogy for her the woman who taught her life. The women she talks about are well characterised and deep and strong and inspiring.
I'd say don't think twice. Just get yourself the book and thanks to my buddy Anirudh for lending me this gem! 

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Book Review: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. "

Digustingly brilliant. Pure perversion. One of the best books in modern literature. These are a few descriptions you'd find for the book by Russian - American novelist Vladimir Nabokov, a book that can never let you lay back in peace, but rather have you cringing at the edge of your seat, worried if you're sinning against the "nymphet" Lolita or Dolores, 12 years, by lending ears to Humbert Humbert, an English professor cum pedophile cum stepfather to the aforesaid. "Humbert is every man who is driven by desire, wanting his Lolita so badly that it never occurs to him to consider her as a human being, or as anything but a dream figment made aflesh. "
Elizabeth Janeway, The New York Times.

Yes. Lolita is not human. Lolita is not Dolores. Lolita is Humbert's desire, his obsession, his vulnerability, his inhumane, passion, his excuses. Lolita is an explanation, I feel, that the protagonist offers not to the reader but ultimately himself, desperately trying to untangle himself of his supreme crime of destroying a childhood and thereby, person.

Humbert, the narrator, overtly uses quite a few tools in the process, including a long dead childhood love he could never possess, his vehement attempts in conveying to the reader his good looks, which he believes was a reason his Lo, fell in love with him just as he did for her. Above all, he believes he was in love.

Lo isn't portrayed as a child, but a rather glossy remnant of the pedophile's memory. But once in a while, the narrator cannot but help look at Dolores as a child wronged. From where he quickly tries to shake it off as her moodswing, a tease, Lolita used, to torture him. His little monster.

If you aren't easily rattled, get yourself a copy, by all means, a goodread.


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Book Review: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I watched two movies based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice before I actually read the book. "Bride and Prejudice" was shitty while "Pride and Prejudice" unhooking, though well attempted. And before I began the book, Goodreads threw at me reviews from a mix of readers who either hated it or absolutely loved it. But, being the only book available in my reading app, I started the book and thank god, I did.
It is not addictive. It isn't fast. it isn't the literary masterpiece I was expecting it to be. At least not to me. As a fellow #goodreader commented, "language that could be beautiful ends up difficult to decipher and I find myself going back to those paragraphs again and again, to be left unsatisfied. " But one thing it is is, it is intriguing and subtly witty. And there are these terrific one liners that lights you up. For that, I now pronounce, Pride of Mr. Darcy and Prejudice of Ms. Bennet, who gave meaning to the wonderfully chosen title, a good read.


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Book Review: Chronicles of a Corpse bearer by Cyrus Mistry

Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer by Cyrus Mistry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Phiroze Elchidana is the second son of Famroze Elchidana, the well respected head priest of an agiary in Bombay. When he meets Sepideh one fine evening in the Doongerwadi, the Parsi funeral ground that houses the much famous tower of silence, he falls irrevocably in love, ready to marry into the sub community of the Khandias, aka the corpse bearers - the ones who "clean and swaddle (corpses) for the banquet of the birds" because of the "squeamishness and ingratitude" of the community, that in turn unfairly treats them like a disease, which if not kept well away, might spread. Outcast by his family and soon after left widowed with a three year old daughter, the book is put out as a collection of scribbles Phiroze leaves on empty pages. About his life and the meaning that the death towers provided to it. About his true love for the woman of his life and the gift she left behind. About how the world around him changed as he put on a few extra years. With writing so beautiful and touching, a good read, definitely.


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