Friday, July 18, 2008

Summer in our backyard.....



Critique of some books I have read recently...

I have realized that books set in India have had a pull for me for obvious reasons of my ability to connect. In the past few years I have read quite a few novels written by the Indian diaspora, mostly, the NRI (non resident Indian) kind. They include, to name a few, The Hungry Tide (Amitav Ghosh), Suitable Boy (Vikram Seth), The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri), Mistress, The Better man (Anita Nair), Such a Long Journey, A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry), Twentieth Wife (Indu Sundaresan), The Inheritance of Loss (Kiran Desai), The Mango Season (Amulya Malladi), No End to the Journey (Shankar Subramaniam), Q&A (Vikas Swarup), Age of Shiva (Manil Suri), Transplanted Man (Sanjay Nigam), and a few more I can't recall the names of.

When I pick up a book to read, I read the synopsis to see if I connect, see reviews and make a decision. I am sure this is common practice by most readers looking for a new genre, or author. Let me say at the offset, I did not go with anybody's recommendations per say while choosing most of these books. After having gone through a plethora of authors, I am sad to say, I have had to title this blog 'Critique....' rather than 'Review....'. Except for a few works, I was predominantly disappointed.

I hate to generalize, but most of these writers, start off well, but just don't know how to finish. True, what do I know about the art and science of writing a book, but having read different authors and styles, I can see when one is done badly. For example, in Age of Shiva, the language is good and tight, the premise and story line are set well, but the author, just loses the reader somewhere half way through the book. And by the end of it, I was actually depressed for having given it my time and patience.

When I picked up Anita Nair's Mistress, I did so after thoroughly enjoying Ladies Coupe (which btw was a great recommendation, sis!). This book, I will say, I did not even look at the back cover, and just went with my previous experience with this author. It was so Mills and Boon-ish, and R was so upset with my choice in reading after going through the synopsis. He couldn't understand my preference for such 'trash' as he called it, over his constant recommendations of titles by Georgette Heyer. Those, though par excellence in language I tell him it is too Victorian romance for me. The review that took me to, A Better Man, by the same author was 'But fans of fiction from India, who crave passage into that exotic world, will find it highly rewarding. --Ellen Williams ' And it did not :( I don't even recollect how it ended!

In Twentieth Wife, Indu Sundaresan does a fantastic job of weaving in history and detail into her fiction, but the last couple chapters seemed to have been written in a rush. After all the hard work by the author, a good closure is what it missed.

Some of the books like Transplanted Man, Inheritance of Loss, No End to the Journey, I think I will be hard on these guys, and suggest they take (more) creative writing classes!

I know I will get skewered for saying this but what the heck! I will liken this inability to finish a book well, to the Harry Potter series. JKR, had me hold on to the edge of my seat through her series till she came to the last one, and I wondered, what went through her mind as she wrote this finale. Did she just want to be done with it, because she had made it public, or was it realization after all the adrenalin rush, that it was afterall a children's book, and it should finish that way? Things fell into place in that last book as like in a Bollywood movie! Hello? What was she thinking because it was such a let down!

A quick note on some of the books I did enjoy by the Indian diaspora. I will give them due credit in a different blog. These include recommended ones like Amitav Ghosh's Hungry Tide (awesome!), Malladi's The Mango Season (thank you, Pria, for this reco), Mistry's books (thanx to Rita) and pleasant surprises like Vikas Swarup's Q&A, and Seth's Suitable Boy (just picked off the shelf from the library). I liked Namesake, but really enjoyed it more in its movie form (surely the Tabu factor). I hope these writers continue to do what they do best!

Before I forget, I want to again pay an ode to my public library, which has a phenomenal collection of South Asian authors to chose from. I get my heart's content of variety. I don't like them, I just return them with no regrets. I am reading one now by Tony D'souza (The Konkans) and it is really good so far. Unfortunately I do own a few blunders that I picked up during travel. I am debating whether to 'donate' them or just save the world (sic) and send them to a different kind of 'recycle' bin).