City of Djinns by William Darlymple

My rating: ***

I was immediately reminded of Khushwant Singh’s Delhi as I finished City of Djinns recently and considering the former was written by an Indian and the latter by a Scotsman, City Of Djinns still holds itself quite strongly against Singh’s book. Being an Indian myself, I found Dalrymple’s descriptions and research behind each of the city’s buildings, forts, ruins, landmarks and milestones thoroughly honest and written in a genuinely enjoyable prose. In fact the author’s awe for the vast metropolis’ history and people touches a chord with the reader very early on.

Its written with a lot of passion, maturity (none of that prudishness or overtly judgemental tone that most travel authors adopt) and is edited brilliantly— which, despite its otherwise offbeat theme, makes it a page-turner. There were innumerable instances where, as the author walked through the ruins and tried to place the resplendent castle which once existed where the present ruin is, one gets nostalgic. Ditto for the times when he compares the now-predominantly Punjabi society with the pre-Partition Muslim society of the city.

Its certainly not the most comprehensive or exhaustive account of Delhi’s history (in fact by this yardstick, it even falls below Khushwant Singh’s book), but with his natural command for language and his ability to lend colours to parts of Delhi long forgotten or abused (esp Delhi’s connection to Mahabharata, Nizamuddin and Old Delhi), the author gives you a genuinely enjoyable, unpretentious, unindulgent memoir.

So for an uninhibited view of Delhi’s history– don’t look beyond Khushwant Singh’s Delhi AND City of Djinns.

In case I forgot to add, the cover of the paperback is a million times better than the shoddy and tacky one that goes with the hardcover (hell, even primary schoolbooks have better artist impressions of Taj Mahal!). Surely a book this good needed a better cover… to impress those millions of readers who still judge books by covers and I am glad the publishers have given the paperback just that.

State of Fear by Michael Crichton

~~State of Fear by Michael Crichton~~

My rating: ***

It doesn’t take much effort on anyone’s part to do a bit of browsing and come up with solid proof from top scientific journals, coalitions and organisations that almost everything said about global warming is nothing other than hyped-up-for-monetary benefits speculation. Or, as Crichton puts it, its a politico-media-legal conspiracy to create an unceasing State of Fear in the general public.

Since I was completely sold out to the basic premise, this 700 page long romp turned out to be both entertaining, incisive and informative as the author rolled his concerns and facts in an extremely believable adventure-thriller format. Contrary to a very common criticism that’s slapped on every thriller’s face–to State of Fear even more relentlessly– is the “caricature-like”, “co-incidental”, “cardboard” characters but to me its outright hilarious to even imagine some detailed character study amidst the frenetic, tension-filled, fast paced, plot-driven narrative that SOF boasts of. Yes, they can be larger than life and vanish into thin air towards the end, but clearly if you want pages of dialogues of self-doubt or “inner” feelings, you clearly have picked a book from a wrong genre.

As the story of a philanthrophist who suddenly becomes suspicious whether his good intentioned and generous donations are being actually used for welfare or baselessly elaborate lawsuits, Crichton’s tried to experiment with the structure a lot in the first 200 pages, and the results, I daresay, aren’t always pleasant.

As stated out in the blurb, the first few chapters chronicling detached transactions of colossal machinery, cables and equipment are highly uninvolving and having a barrage of these freestanding sequences right at the start is indeed a big put-off. I am clueless as to why Crichton didn’t think of interspersing these static information-heavy chunks with the main storyline as that really would have gone a long way in making this otherwise fantastic book accessible to thousands of unforgiving readers who slam the book shut if they haven’t warmed up to the characters enough in the first 100 pages.

Even more frustrating is the constant putting-off of the actual conflict in the dialogue (e.g.”You’ll see”, “Just wait and watch”, “I’ll make you understand later… now just do as I say”)in these first 200 pages which make you wince and cringe, and which also means that the book takes longer-than-expected to take off. But once it does, it goes into such a freewheeling, wholesomely enjoyable mode that it leaves you wanting for more.

The graph reaches its crescendo not once or twice, but thrice as the protagonists (in particular, the philanthropist’s lawyer and secretary) and their side-kicks valiantly try to muffle three elaborate attempts by the eco-terrorists–melting icebergs, generating hurricanes and a tsunami. Each of these three missions are so crisply written and the sense of place, time, action, urgency and anxiety are evoked so accurately, I was gasping for breath on all three occasions.

But of course, to convey his concern and seriousness towards the whole issue of this “state of fear” we live in everyday, there are some very serious and plausible arguments between the characters, insightful footnotes, references, graphs appendices (especially Appendix 1–which takes a stab at the eugenics phenomenon in the last century, and a very effective one at that) — all conveying the utmost sobreity and genuine intentions of the author this time around.

The undercurrents of not following conventional wisom blindfolded, not believing everything that the tabloids and news channels throw at us everyday, the desperate need for an honest science and the dire consequences of amalgamating it with politics are all strong ones and if one can look beyond the narrative hiccups of the first few pages, adjust one’s biorhythms just a tad bit more and stick to it, I am sure this book will leave one feeling entertained and to some extent, educated.

So stop reading those unnecessary sensationalist Deception Points and godawful Atlantis Founds and rush to buy this mature and topical adventure thriller NOW.

The Hungry Tide

~~The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh~~

My rating: **

Though “it” isn’t anything quite a mystery for any avid book-reader, but still “it” has to be mentioned here. And by “it” I am referring to a section of books which are praised eloquently by the critics, have review stars or bestseller tags covering their jackets like badges of gallantry and yet when you read them–you keep feeling all through if there’s something wrong with you, if you are really missing a point. And then it finally dawns— the actual culprit is the book. That same godawful thing you have been holding for days wondering when exactly would you start enjoying it.

The Hungry Tide is just that–an overhyped, pretentious, unbelievable and terribly boring book.

My grouse with the book is that there isn’t a single thing that works in its favour. To start off, the book fails in the very genre it tries so valiantly to achieve–that of a mixture of character study and the adventure novel. To achieve anything in the former category, the characters have to be atleast believable enough. And to make them believable, I personally feel there isn’t a better tool than effective dialogue.

Sadly, that’s nowhere to be seen in this book–except for some stilted and decidedly boring pieces of conversations, there are reams and reams of flashbacks which read like some character-theses one writes to pass English Lit exams. And then, to fulfil any yardstick in the adventure category, the narrative needs to both be gripping and believable and though in the latter parts, there are some instances (like a sequence chronicling a rainstorm and tide-inflow) that can be termed as interesting, they are too few and far between to offset the flatness of the rest of the book.

Its grossly over-written too and the first part of the book (titled “The Ebb”) which stretches for a good 170 pages are definitely one of the most unexciting pieces of fiction-writing I have ever read (I mean how exciting is it to read a girl sitting at a boat’s perimeter and observing every movement in the scenery waiting for some bottle-nosed dolphin to surface or a boy reading some childish folk-tales left as notes by his grandfather for that long) .

Of course, I kept reading for I was curious to try out Ghosh (being a fan of Indian writing in English, he was one of the few authors I hadn’t read), but I don’t see any reason why anyone else should. Ghosh’s writing has got this “constructed” tone all through and not for a moment I got sucked into the conflicts or drama in this book (something that isn’t even remotely present in writings of Rohinton Mistry or Vikram Seth). Sure he can pen good English and has a knack for static descriptions but Hungry Tide’s a woefully bad way to put even that sole point across.

Overall, a thoroughly unreadable and uninteresting piece of writing with a pathetically cliched climax. Stay away at all costs!

PS: please don’t even compare this to a gem that Life of Pi was. I would have recommended this book highly if this was even a patch of what Martell’s work was.

Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller

Notes on a Scandal: ***

As a reading experience, Notes on a Scandal can well boast to be one of the better written works in contemporary fiction, but beyond that its little else. Which is a pity because the wit and the sheer intelligence of Heller as an author which keeps you rivetted bigtime for most of the book, suddenly fades in the last few pages.

Its surprising too, for the book’s got everything working in its favour–a superbly etched out, thoroughly believable protagonist; a creative writing style which attempts to view at a “forbidden” teacher-student affair from a fresh angle and a pace which can leave many thrillers panting for breath. And yet, it fizzles out completely towards the climax.

Sans this decidedly underwhelming conclusion, the rest of the book is genuinely addictive and just as a proof of the author’s proficience–she manages to hook us with the first person narration. Any lesser author, and this would have been one unreadable monologue which I wouldn’t have read beyond the 10th page.

I won’t get overtly indulgent here and start quoting any lines from the book because that would really take away almost all the entertainment value for any prospective readers. All I’d say is that its a subtle study of the psychology of an obsessive individual and charters the graph of her relationships (particularly with one teacher whose “scandal” gives the book its name) with style and speed, and though it doesn’t quite end up as bold or sinister as the blurb or the title might suggest, its candidness does warrant one read.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: **** 

As you struggle to hold this decidedly heavy hardback between your fingers, try a different reading position for the nth time, reading every word as Harry and Dumbledore wait for a boat to emerge from murky waters of an accursed cave, you chuckle to yourself the way you enjoy these childlike thrills. The book reminds you of your early teenage years when Goosebumps, Star Wars and other umpteen alien-invasion books when every page held your breath, when you wished you didn’t have to read the next page and yet couldn’t sleep reading it, and the next, and then one more. Undiluted, unadulterated thrill, with zero indulgence and hundred percent action. In a world of verbosity and prolixity, its just this skill of Rowling—her ability to entertain continuously for the six or so hours—that makes every Potter-maniac above 18 years defend the series with “Its not a kids book.” With the Half Blood Prince, Rowling makes a comeback and shows why she deserves every penny of the 24 million pounds she earned on the book’s first day of release.

Chronicling Potter’s sixth year in the magical world and Hogwarts, the book starts off on a very strange note—the British Prime Minister worrying over improbable, untimely catastrophes in his country till the Ministry of Magic Apparates and informs that it’s the magic world interfering with the real world—A chilling premise which is left like that as the spotlight moves to Harry, who is being fetched by Dumbledore from his Privet Drive to convince a new teacher, Slughorn to commence teaching again at Hogwarts. Of course, the atmosphere is darker than ever at the Wizarding School what with children getting randomly cursed by touching necklaces, drinking potions and Draco Malfoy disappearing for most of the term time into the Unknowable Room. Harry’s got lessons with Dumbledore, and to keep him even more occupied are Ron-Hermoine cock fights, his new captaincy of Gryffindor’s Quidditch Team, his dilemma over his fresh crush on Ron’s sister Ginny and an unknown male calling himself the “Half-Blood Prince” whose scribbles and notes on an old Potions book have escalated Harry’s knowledge of jinxes, hexes and curses like never before. Exactly who is he? Is Malfoy really upto something big or is it Harry imagining? Will Voldemort strike this year? Read the book to find out

Arguably, what makes the Half Blood Prince the most momentous and important book in the whole series is the amount of talk that takes place between Dumbledore and Harry in the numerous lessons that Harry has with the Headmaster. Everytime Dumbledore empties a memory into his Pensieve and everytime both him and Harry jump headlong into this memory sink, we get a breathtaking account of the book’s main antagonist, Voldemort’s past and the book’s graph soars to an all-time high. Right from his innate magical skills, his ancestory, his naming, the troubled times of his parents and most of all his time as a student of (hold your breath) Dumbledore are to be read to be believed. Layer by layer, as Rowling’s crisp writing and gripping narrative peels off the hitherto well-shielded Voldemort’s past, the whole series gets a newfound depth and understanding.

Even otherwise, the way the book keeps developing the already-established characters, especially Potter himself, is amazing. The slow but definite growth that Harry shows with his uninhibited spouting Voldemort’s name, uttering curses, understanding his relationship with Ron and Hermoine and most of all, an understanding of himself as the prime hero is a welcome relief from the peckish and confused teenager he’s been for the last 2-3 books. Meanwhile, the author knows that the only way Ron can be different is by being dumb and the only way Hermoine can still be distinguished from a barrage of similar aged females like Luna Lovegood, Ginny, Lavender Brown, Katie Bell, Parvati Patil is how much time she spends in the library and how quickly she raises her hand everytime a question is asked in a lesson. Predictable though it might be, the camaraderie between the lead triplet still retains its ingenuity and spontaneity that’s been synonymous with it in the past. Joining the feel-good brigade are the Weasley brothers and surprisingly Hagrid, whose “summat” and “yer” and “ter” and concern for Magical Creatures is nowhere as boring as his obnoxious tale in the last book.

With every new installation comes the expectation of new characters and newer magic and though this talk-heavy book gives us precious little in terms of both, whatever little that makes it to the pages lingers long after you have read the last line—namely the Felix Felicis (luck-enhancing) potion, Horcruxes (the darkest of all curses) and the numerous other ones which Harry has fun trying thanks to the scribbles of the Half Blood Prince. For a change, there’s blood too—the curses slash skin deep, the maledicted doorways require even the most able of wizards to slit through their wrists and let the blood spurt to open them and a fair amount of peril too with not-so-subtle references to soul-splitting, exorcism, dead bodies wringing to life, women being physically abused and Rowling’s penchant to make the series darker is alone enough to give it an above 12 certificate.

Of course there are some hiccoughs too in the narrative and the most audible one is that the series has aged. And however much Rowling hides it in the thrills and chills, there are sections where you really wish to be over soon. Like Harry’s stay at the Dursleys, or his customary visit to the Burrow, or him boarding the Hogwarts Express and having a duel or an argument with Draco—it gives a strong feeling of having been-there-seen-that and it irritates you even more when you are aching to complete the book within a day and these “regular” chapters keep popping up and dividing your attention span. Though Quidditch matches have been reasonably truncated now to brief 3-4 page affairs with fairly entertaining commentaries, the book does hit a low every time Professor Slughorn throws a party for his favourites or everytime Neville Longbottom gets a charm wrong.

From the plot’s point of view, the assassination of one of the most lovable characters of the book is rather implausible considering his ace intelligence and ultra fine tuned perception. Also, the consequent climactic duel proves that the “good” namely the Hogwarts’ Professors and the Ministry are so woefully weak that a mere group of Death eaters leave them all tattered, battered and decidedly defeated. Its only now that one wonders whether the “increased” security, the school’s highly charmed outer shield, the Secrecy Sensors and most of all, the exceptionally well trained and learned Professors are anything more than useless twaddle.

Of course one tends to overlook the flaws when the book’s so written. Free of the unnecessary fat that so plagued the Order of the Phoenix, the writing is sharp, incisive, very British (for proof count the craps and innits and summats) and thoroughly enjoyable. From jinxing to teenage crushes, from Potter Apparating to Potter mourning, from the confines of Harry’s room at Dursleys to the vastness of the accursed caves and towers—the words, the expressions and the descriptions seldom miss their effect. There’s less effort gone into creating an atmosphere, and understandably so—being sixth in the series the book’s teeming with the outlandish-comic magical terminology its so easily inherited from its five predecessors which Rowling doesn’t have time to explain, and besides this reason, the fact that there are some crucial points which link to The Chamber of Secrets and Goblet of Fire, make sure you have read both of them before coming anywhere near this one.

With this rather dark and dispiriting, not ultimately gratifying (being the penultimate) yet excellent sixth book, Rowling makes sure that her bizarre “created” world of wizards loses none of its believability and to an extent, originality. The book shouts for a sequel—so much so that it makes you wonder why she didn’t just stick 300 more pages to it and finish it for once. Hence, the need of the hour is a quick release of the series finale lest she wants us, Pottermaniacs, to still love and feel for the Scarhead as we have been doing for years.

To all those still sitting there, gaping at the screen wondering what I have been talking about-just get your lazy ass up and read the series NOW!