The dilemma of what to read!

*Lousy post warning!*

Of late I have become so fussy about buying a book, that I am actually quite amazed that there was a time when I was mad about fiction. But seriously what do you pick? Almost everything has a sense of deja vu attached to it. Enter any WHSmiths store and you have fiction easily classifiable into these catgories:

1. The wannabe Da Vinci Codes: This phenomenon has been on the book shelves since early last year, and it sucks. And I am referring to the Grail which the whole publishing world is frigging mad about . The plot–A murder mystery that spirals into some weird kind of historically revealing quest. Give or take a few changes, the basic story is a mere means to an end of some bizarre revelation about some sect or some secret society. I mean why would I read 600 pages of something that’s no-way as controversial or relevant and tries to be as smart as the Code. Some worthy new examples:

2. The chick-lits: Terribly sexist I know, but I just won’t pay up to read a good 500 pages just to find out how a certain Kathryn reacted when her friend slept with her fiance. And no I don’t care if a certain Ms Darcy Rhone starts to think that there’s more to life than just getting inside a size 6. Worthy new examples:

3. Hey! Look I am quirky: Now these are the sort of books which have plotlines not complicated just because they should be, but because they can be. Bizarre covers and blurbs add to the shock value but its the same old family yarn/scandal from the first page. Give me one good reason why I should spend my £10 and 5 hours on these and not watch another episode of EastEnders or Hollyoaks. Yes, you won’t find me holding any of these:

4. Yet another generic thriller: These are vomited out in dizzyingly rapid succession by the supposed thespians of the genre but are indeed so minimalistic and rushed (that, and shamefully spaced out and margined by publishers), it only takes reading one or two to know that you have just been ripped off for reading something that CSI on Channel 5 (which is free) would have shown you with far more speed and audio-visual razzmatazz. So no I am not reading any of these:

5. Read my sob story: Blame Dave Pelzer and his “A Child Called It” for this depressing stream of books where everyone seems to be kicked, bruised, strangled and made to drink Baygon in their childhood. It happens-yes. Do I want to spend my leisure time reading every such account of abuse in graphic detail? Hell no. So, these are out as well:

And no, I am not into classics, biographies, autobiographies, Terry Pratchetts or any of the fantasy world ilk, tired and I am past the age of getting any fun from Stephen Kings, Dean Koontzes, Robin Cooks, John Grishams and Michael Palmers. And yes, I have had enough of Jeremy Clarkson’s wisecracks too. So I won’t be reading all of this as well:

Yea, you can accuse me all you want for my shallow comments and my stinginess on books-to-be-picked, but seriously nothing on the bookshelves catches my fancy nowadays.

And no I just can’t trust a newspaper critic’s opinion on something I am going to spend much of my week with. Yes, I have seen some very ghastly and truly horrible pieces of writing applauded and awarded for being the best writing ever, and so I have stopped following newspaper reviews altogether.

So where does that leave me? With my gut instinct. I finally I left it to sheer luck to fetch me a book that’s fresh, intelligent, dense, incisive, sharp, honest, funny, inventive and above all has the ability to hook me all through and is worth my time. Did I find it? Oh YES.

And its called… All Fun and Games Until Someone Loses An Eye.

I am halfway through the book and I can’t believe how good it is. To sum it up, its more of a Dan Brown meets Ian McEwan (just what I wanted!). Yup, its got the speed, the thrill, the menace and its a brilliant character study. Atleast in my reasonably credible (so much for modesty hehe) reading vocation, I have seldom come across a thriller which treats the characters with as much respect as the plot. And what language! I have never read a book in this genre that’s this quotable or that actually feels as if some thought really has gone into sentence construction. Plus its fiendishly inventive. It doesn’t feel like a story crafted to get the sales and the bucks. Its real. its funny. Its just downright fantastic.

For those interested, here’s a synopsis:

“As a teenager Jane Bell had dreamt of playing in the casinos of Monte Carlo in the company of James Bond, but in her punk phase she’d got herself pregnant and by the time she reaches forty-six she’s a grandmother, her dreams as dry as the dust her Dyson sucks up from her hall carpet every day. Then her son Ross, a researcher working for an arms manufacturer in Switzerland, is forced to disappear before some characters cut from the same cloth as Blofeld persuade him to part with the secrets of his research. But they are not the only ones desperate to locate him. A team of security experts is hired by Ross’s firm: headed by the enigmatic Bett, his staff have little in common apart from total professionalism and a thorough disregard for the law. Bett believes the key to Ross’s whereabouts is his mother, and in one respect he is right, but even he is taken aback by the verve underlying her determination to secure her son’s safety as she learns the black arts of quiet subterfuge and violent attack. The teenage dreams of fast cars, high-tech firepower and extreme action had always promised to be fun and games, but in real life it’s likely someone is going to lose an eye … “

I am just glad I waited a good four months after McEwan to finally finish this book. I am already your fan Mr. Brookmyre, and going by the list of books you have written, I look forward to be entertained for the rest of the year. Yoohoo!

Stiff by Mary Roach (dead bodies anyone?)

Trust only a prolific columnist like Mary Roach to embark upon a science-n-history-laden world of dead bodies and turn it into something of an un-put-down-able page turner. Non-fiction with a dose of journalism seldom got this readable.The book, as Roach so excellently puts it in her introduction is, about “behind-the-scenes dead”–the cadavers. Right from a brilliant introduction (Roach’s conviction for the subject alongwith her experience with the first cadaver–that of her mum’s sets the ball rolling!), one is introduced to the worlds of surgery, anatomy crimes, body decay, cadavers in crash tests, injury analysis in catastrophes such as air-crashes, ballistic and weapon testing, organ transplantation, decapitation, medicinal cannibalism, freeze-drying funerals, tissue digestion, plastination in reasonable detail. It doesn’t set out to be some exhaustive illustrated guide to the world of cadavers but ends up being a fairly comprehensive and updated account on the subject.

Each of the topics above finds itself seeped in some history, some science (the research by Roach is marvellous– just a look at the number and diversity of sources she extracts the information from is proof enough) and some first-hand personal experience (with Roach herself probing at crematoriums, labs, dead-body fields, surgeons, scientists, analysts–each of them equally insightful). Having said that, let the book not lull you into a false feeling of having known everything about cadavers after reading it– I see it more as a corridor to the curious lives of cadavers.

As said earlier, Roach’s a masterful writer who can elicit a chuckle or make you ponder without too many words or preaching. There’s nuggets of sarcasm and wit providing the required relief and there are some very passionate and thought-provoking critique of the procedures dead bodies have had to go through over the years. If you have got hilarious footnotes, you also get some wonderful ending words at each chapter’s climax (e.g. “We are biology. We are reminded of this at the beginning and the end, at birth and at death. In between we do what we can to forget.”)

Dealing with the world of dead bodies, the book talks about the subject in such colloquial and matter-of-factly language that nowhere does the tone make you feel like some medical student or its details make you switch off your night-lamp.

The wow factor remains very high throughout, most possibly because of the unconventionality of the “lives of dead bodies”. Though its tough to decide what for me was the best chapter, the ones on human decay and injury analysis are superbly penned. The crucifixation experiments and the medicinal cannibalism are perhaps the most graphic and gory chapters of the book (squeamish, sensitive readers-watch out!) while the one on whole body transplant isn’t quite as well written as the others. And yes, the one on freeze-drying funeral where the body ends up as compost is indeed one helluva practical idea and something worth discussing.

But all said and done, I’ll probably always remember this book and author for lending me some knowledge about this elusive world of cadavers in such a witty and passionate manner, and for making me ponder over the fact of “What shall be done to my body once I die?” In author’s words, I’ll leave it for my parents to decide (with an exception for organ donation). No strict wills, no after-death wishes and no post-death offending.

Strange what some books do to you! Highly recommended!

Saturday by Ian McEwan

–Saturday by Ian McEwan–

My rating: **** and 1/2

Of late I have found myself ebbing away from critiquing books and movies. Blame that on the academia hell that medicine is. But off and on, comes a book so breathtakingly fresh–it gives this whole new lease of life to my hobby of reading. Ian McEwan and his latest book, Saturday is precisely that.

Spanning just a single day (yup, its the Saturday that gives the book its name), the novel sees Henry Perowne, a neurosurgeon waking up in the middle of a Feb 2003 night and drifting about near his window overlooking a posh central London street. A comet flashes him by just that very instant but as he’s about to wake up his asleep wife, he hears the loud rumble of the aircraft. What he thought was a comet is in fact a plane coming down in flames. As it happens in such moments, he starts off on a thinking frenzy… contemplating whether he should sign in at his hospital (negates that as the plane’s going towards Heathrow direction–far removed from his own borough), fixates himself on the plane, its state of passengers… with one thought leading to another, Perowne starts introspecting bigtime. On everything. His wife Rosalind, his two kids–the blues rocker Theo and the poet daughter, Daisy; his job, his friends, sick mother, father-in-law, life, present political state of affairs–the impending Iraq war. But of course, all this doesn’t stop the actual Saturday to dawn. And with this new day comes a host of incidents–Perowne shopping for his family reunion, his visit to Lily, his mentally demented mother and on his way to a Saturday squash match, his brush with a ruffian called Baxter. Later that day, the re-intrusion of Baxter in his life brings probably his worst fears alive.

Saturday boasts of probably the most liveliest of first person monologues I have had the chance to read in contemporary literature besides Zoe Heller’s Notes on a Scandal and Neil Cross’s Always the Sun. The characterisation is par excellence. With only one character–Henry–allowed to lay open his psyche in 300 pages, this is one amazing and thoroughly entertaining character study. Right from his constant blabbering to himself and his analysis on almost everything his eyes fall on to his introspection on family, age, politics, literature, children, God, fate–I saw eye to eye on almost every sentence of him. Every word rung a knowing bell, so its no understatement that for me even the tiniest of movements that Henry made, made me hold my breath. I could almost feel his fears, vulnerabilities, triumphs… seldom have I found a connection so astutely made by an author with his reader.

The setting couldn’t get more contemporary and topical than it is–watching Henry reacting to the whole plane incident and the media coverage of the incident the following day is a telling account of how deeply politics and national concern have permeated our everyday lives. Though I do doubt if the general people found the neurosurgical procedures almost as much a delight as I did, it was indeed a pleasant surprise to see an author incorporating these in the most unpretentious way (Robin Cook, please read this). But of course the moments one does get illusioned into believing that this is indeed an autobiography of a surgeon is when we find Henry suddenly and randomly introspecting “scientifically”. Then be it people walking down the street described in a fit down to their neurotransmitters or Henry deducing the neurological disorder of a ruffian who’s about to give him a second punch. Numerous tiny touches like these coupled with those in which Henry checks himself from his thoughts, trying to focus in on the present (dunno how many times that’s happened with me) and yet finding it difficult to hold back a dam of thoughts–you almost feel sitting next to Henry. Hearing him speak about life. Which makes it sometimes a bit too shocking and difficult to read (the whole sequence of Baxter’s re-intrusion and the turn of events thereafter sends chills down the spine–its that real). But since the book culminates at a feel-good, safe juncture (again, entirely plausible in context of the main character), it does make one think about the importance of a family–our natural confidantes, in events of tragedy and humiliation.

I guess just for evoking such a deep interest and empathy from his reader in a seemingly anonymous life of a human being in a remote corner of a metropolis and how his life, his opinions, his expectations from others get their shape from experiences big and small, pleasant and unpleasant, McEwan deserves a pat on the back. It might seem a banal and futile exercise in fiction as I clinically dissect it here, but trust McEwan to rope all that self-analysis, all those perceptions of a single human in the classiest, richest, most enjoyable and possibly the most quotable prose ever. Its like amidst all those larger-than-life thrillers, convenient A to B adventure fiction and hyper-intellectual magic realism and fantasy fiction is this beautiful book that chronicles a life of one of us.

There’s something McEwan does fundamentally right in this book and that is, he writes about a layman, breathes life into him and takes us on a roller-coaster ride with him as he experiences the weakest and strongest moments in a single day, a Saturday. I am touched by how thoughtful and ultimately humane it is.

PS: Can’t wait to read McEwan’s other works. If critics are to be believed, this isn’t even his best. God, what is this guy!

Deception Point by Dan Brown: Book Review

My rating: * and 1/2

This book’s a mess. And quite a big one at that. Just like his much-undeservingly-hyped Da Vinci Code, Deception Point takes a astrophysic-geographical premise and botches it up bigtime. Yes, like before, the author’s USP is his reliance on reader’s ignorance and appetite for thrills. He delivers amazingly on the latter account but the moment you question one “fact” and stop ingesting and believing every bit of tosh the author throws with a calculately asssured tone, everything falls apart–the facts about NASA, the facts about American elections, campaigning, country’s issues. Clearly, Brown’s promise at appearing to present us a well-researched book is, for yet another time, a big farce.

Yes, I do have to admit that the book’s extremely well-written for the first 200-250 pages (that is, when we haven’t had a full glimpse of his laughable premise). Sadly, once the cat’s out of the bag the graph follows that of any C-grade hollywood action flick and the kind of saved-by-whisker escapades we readers are made to gulp (not one, not two but hundreds–one after another) makes you first stop caring about the characters and ultimately, despise the book absolutely. In fact, the last 50 pages are so over-written and so unbelievable, that I had to glimpse at the first and the last line of every para to just finish this godawful book.

I just wish Mr.Brown stops being such a pseudo and uses his decidely well-honed thriller writing skills to better use. He has the potential to write truly fantastic thrillers if only he brings a little plausibility and stops being so over-sensationalist in every book of his. With his dimwit theories and imaginative conspiracies–he has done precious little above brainwashing ignorant readers.

Clear by Nicola Barker

My rating: *

This is one mammoth excuse for a book. The writing is downright atrocious– the writer makes a big pretence of being humorous by injecting side-comments in brackets in every damn line, which after a point of time makes reading absolutely impossible and really gives the impression that Ms Barker simply couldn’t be bothered. And in an attempt to be this central nutcase of a character– one gets to swallow lots of layman slang and swear words.

What really kills the whole book is the absolute lack of direction or motivation in the book. I picked it up thinking it would be a joyride peeking into the lives of thousands of spectators enjoying the David Blaine spectacle… but the observations by the author are so downright routine and so below-mediocre in sentiment, that I felt like tearing this book apart after 2 hours of reading. And don’t even get me started on the nitwitted, boring characters (esp a pseudo-philosopher called Solomon) and the pointless interactions between them–pages on pages are wasted on rudderless conversations. The book’s so outrageously and unnecessarily over-written, one simply doesn’t fathom exactly what is the author’s point?

Its really a shame that cr*p like this actually gets published and some critics actually deem this superficial piece of writing as innovative!

My take– don’t fall for the enticing blurb and cover. This is one of the most uninteresting, pretentious, senseless, shoddily-written books I’ve read EVER. An advice for Ms Barker–you desperately need a break!