Don’t Look Now by Daphne du Maurier

Reading is my only true escape from reality. This month I needed it more than ever, and yet every night I would be so exhausted with the thinking, writing, reading, analyzing I do in real life that I would go to bed, but stay awake wondering why I am not reading something just for fun. On a trip to the library, I decided to pick something besides literary theory – and I was reminded of this comment left by Seamus on the post regarding my favorite short stories. Don’t Look Now worked as the perfect in-between from theoretical reading and bedtime!

It’s been a while since I read a whole book of short stories, and although I really enjoyed Rebecca  when I first read it, I have not read anything else by du Maurier. After this book, I know I definitely will. I think I have another book of her’s somewhere in the house. But, I digress.

After reading the first short story, “Don’t Look Now,” I was surprised to find out that the story has been made into a full length feature film. Thank goodness I was completely unaware of this and more importantly, hadn’t seen the movie. This was by far my favorite story of the collection. Perhaps because it set the mood so perfectly and the characters were well-developed and likeable. Also, the length of the story was perfect, a little on the longer side, but not overwhelming.

“The Birds,” is perhaps most known for its film counterpart, and as much as I love Hitchcock, I am disappointed that the film had nothing to do with the story. The story is much simpler, yet so much more effective. It somehow reminded me of the post-apocalyptic world in Richard Matheson’s I am Legend. The hero of this story is similarly resourceful and more importantly, admirable. I simply loved Nat and wished he’d make a comeback in the collection. The writer creates an eerie, claustrophobic ambiance and spins it around creatures that we wouldn’t think of fearing. But, trust me, when you read this story and step out of the house, you’ll eye your regional bird with suspicion.

The other stories I liked were “Split Second,” “The Blue Lenses,” “Kiss me Again, Stranger” – in that order. I completely skipped Escort, and thought nothing of “La Sainte-Vierge” and “Indiscretion.” I am boggled, however, by the inclusion of “Monte Verita.” If someone is a du Maurier expert of some sort please tell me what redeemed this story. It was too long, too detailed, and didn’t do anything to excite my reading sensibilities. I kind of regret reading it at all!

That being said, this collection is worth reading for a majority of the stories. You can skip the ones you don’t like, but there are at least five that you will really enjoy. Now, let’s look for that du Maurier book hiding in my book-shelf!

Why you no talk English?

This recent New York Times article really hit a raw nerve. As a literature student and an Indian, I consider myself specifically close to Indian writing in English. I have always spoken about the quality (or the lack of it) of English novels in India that are currently being published and read by the 21st century generation. Does anyone know the internationally acclaimed writers? They probably do. Have they read anything by them? In most likelihood, no. Can a popular novel also be well written? I’d like to think so. I must say, I will come across as a bit of a hypocrite when I speak about this subject, but I will try my best not to be one. I readily accept the fact that barring one book by Chetan Bhagat, I have not read any of the newer ilk of writers that are popular in India. I wouldn’t want to waste my honest buck on them. But judging from the excerpts in the aforementioned article, I am pretty sure you get an idea of the kind of writing that is being sold as “fiction.”

One of the writers claims that he tries to write in “simple” English. Simple does not mean “poor.” Language can be simple yet lyrical and beautiful. Some of the best written books use the most common words, but weave them so magically that it sucks you into a different world. I can give you any number of examples of famous books written in the most basic language that are popular, classics, and well-written.

A big argument for the way these books are written, will be “Well, we write the way people speak.” But, this is in no way a valid justification for poorly written fiction. Yes, Indians often speak by mingling two or more different languages and it gives our spoken English a very typical flavor and cadence. However, the rest of the narrative need not be written in the same, lingo-filled words. I study comparative literature and the best example I can give is from African American Literature. Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God balances spoke-English with the written one beautifully. When her Southern Black characters speak, this is what they say:

“Hello, Janie, how you comin’?”

“Aw, pretty good, Ah’m tryin’ to soak some uh de tiredness and de dirt outa mah feet.” She laughed a little.

“Ah see you is. Gal, you sho looks good. You looks like youse yo’ own daughter. [...]“

“G’wan! G’wan! You must think Ah brought yuh somethin’. When Ah ain’t brought home a thing but mahself.”

When you read this dialog in that particular dialect, it makes the reading much more enjoyable. Just by using their way of talking, the writer conveys so much about the characters. Now compare the “spoken English” of the characters to the “written English” of the narrator:

Janie stood there where he left her for unmeasured time and thought. She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her. Then she went inside there to see what it was. It was her image of Jody tumbled down and shattered. [...] She was saving up feelings for some man she had never seen. She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.

The writer does not need to confuse that she is an educated, talented writer and a separate persona from the characters of the novel. For the sake of authenticity, quality need not be compromised. We don’t always read to educate ourselves. Sometimes we do read just for fun and entertainment. But why read something that’s dumbing things down on purpose? For the sake of popularity? Are we really that stupid? We are the consumers of these books, and even if they are self-proclaimed to be not “a literature,” frankly, they really are. Are we sure we want these  books to represent the canon of Indian Literature?

 

To be, perchance to express

I am not sure what to say when someone asks me what my first language is. Although the right answer is English, because that’s the language that’s mostly running through my mind, I do feel like I’m doing an injustice to Marathi – the language that is spoken in my family and the language I first spoke before I started school. And I would like to think that my Marathi is superior than most others of my age who grew up in Marathi homes but went to English schools. While I read English books from the local and school library, I also read Marathi books from home. I get my love for language from my parents and thanks to them, we spoke pure Marathi at home.

But the longer I stay in the US, the farther I find myself from my “mother tongue.” I grapple with certain words while talking to my mother, and I find myself wincing at myself when I use certain words incorrectly, or especially when I intersperse my conversation with a lot of “ummms” and “errs” because I can’t find the right word. I cannot stand that! I love languages. And I fluently speak three of them – or at least I am supposed to. Sure, a lot of Delhi-ites will gag at my Hindi, but I can manage very well. But how heart-breaking is it that I can’t speak the language that I uttered my first words in! And I know it will only get worse. After all, I don’t celebrate any of the festivals that my family does in India, how long before I forget my language?

While chatting on the phone with my mother today, I realized that the word to express a feeling is called “vyakta” (or व्यक्त) in Marathi. The word for a person is “vyakti” (or व्यक्ती). How beautiful is language? The root word for “person” is the word that means “to express.” And so, being human… being itself is all about expressing. So maybe that’s all that matters – an ability to express. Whether it be in broken, or pure Marathi. Or grammatical-error-ridden English. Say it, write it – let people you care about know what you think, before it’s too late.

The Ghost Writer by John Hardwood

A few weeks ago, I was gripped by a reckless desire to read horror fiction. The last time I read and enjoyed this genre was when I read The Exorcist , but since then, I have only read short stories that could be described as scary, and I wanted to read a full-length book. While browsing through Half-Price Books, I chanced upon this book by John Harwood – an unknown writer, and an unknown book, for me. A quick search on Amazon’s reviews showed me that it had decent star rating and I bought the book.

The beginning seemed a little slow, but it soon picked up the pace and began to take surprising turns. Gerard Freeman, a young boy, leads a boring, insipid life in a small Australian town, when he happens to make a penfriend in England. She’s a beautiful young girl who has been in an accident that killed her parents and left her paralyzed and unable to walk. Alice, the penfriend, and Gerard write to each other for years, slowly falling in love and planning to meet. In the meantime, Gerard and his mother have a falling-out because she doesn’t like his involvement with Alice, and in spite of constant requests, Gerard’s mother refuses to talk to him about her past, something she did when they were on better terms. But Gerard has a link to his mother’s past – short stories written by her grandmother – which are interspersed throughout the novel. The narrative only gets more complicated from here on.

One of the most striking things about this book, is Harwood’s capacity to write in different genres – there’s the novel we’re reading from Gerard’s perspective, letters from Alice, and there are short stories written by Viola, Gerard’s great-grandmother. That in itself is a feat that makes me admire the writer and the book. And here’s when I inject the dreaded “but.” But, the problem with this book, as it is with many debut works is its length and its ambitiousness. The novel is 100 pages too long. (I know I’ve complained about this before, but why do writers think that “long” translates to “awesome”?) Moreover, towards the end it begins to get heavily descriptive and the story refuses to move along. Here, skipping pages is your friend, and that’s exactly what I did.

In the end, I’d say that to solve all the mysteries that the writer presents, it is worthwhile to finish the book. There’s a decent enough suspense and the book does get creepy at certain points, but not outright scary. I actually enjoyed the short stories a little more than I did the book in its entirety. But because the stories are intertwined so well and also overlap with the larger story, the book gets interesting too.

Update: I’m going through other readers’ reviews and I see a lot of frustration with regard to the ending. If anyone who has read the book happens to stop by here, please let’s discuss the end – because I was not confused at all!

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is one of those books that I’ve had for so long that I made myself believe that I had already read it. In truth, I’d picked it up a few times and never got beyond the first chapter, thanks to one distraction or the other. Then a few months ago, I came across this list of 10 Novels That Will Disturb Even the Coldest of Hearts, and I was immediately intrigued. Most of the books were ones that I’d only heard of, except two, one of which was Atwood’s.

A heart numbing book is a good reason to get yourself back to the activity of reading. I’ve been a slacker as far as reading is concerned, taking shelter in other, less arduous things like watching all the seasons of Dexter.

Atwood is a wonderful writer, and I knew that because I really liked her Alias Grace when I read it in the ’90′s. She is also the writer of one of my most favorite poems. So once I got past the first few chapters of The Handmaid’s Tale, I was hooked. The book is deceptively long, but the short, curt chapters keep the pace moving. The story is set in the recent future when most women have become sterile, and religion has taken a grip over the people and the government. The protagonist, Offred, is one of the few women who can still get pregnant and works as a handmaid at the Commander’s house. Her sole purpose is to reproduce.

The story is, as expected, rather bleak and hopeless; but it’s worth reading just for Atwood’s writing prowess. There are moments of such profundity in her writing: observations, thoughts on love, tricks of narration. The story might be one that we’ve kinda, sorta seen in movies, TV shows – a bleak future, people trying to rebel, etc.; but Atwood’s genius is worth reading. Though I was a little underwhelmed with the end, I can at least tick off a classic from my list!

My Most Favorite Short Stories

For me, the literary genre of the short story has always held a special place. It could perhaps be because they are so easy to read, and one can really get to know a writer in the space of a few pages. It could also be because if I ever were to become a writer, I’d mostly write short stories. That’s why I decided to dedicate a post to some of my favorite short stories of all time. They are randomly selected based on their memorability, entertainment value, and their re-readability.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Although this is chronologically the oldest written story, it is one that I read most recently in a graduate class and I was instantly drawn to it because of the Gothic feel. The story is of a woman who has just moved into a big house with her doctor husband, as a temporary accommodation. The narrative unfolds as the woman writes entries into her journal, and we find out that she’s suffering from a nervous breakdown (possibly postpartum depression). The narrator becomes obsessed with the wallpaper in her room, as she is subjected to rest and not do anything until she “feels better.” She imagines things crawling underneath the surface and creeping out at night. The more time she spends locked inside the room, the deeper her neurosis becomes. Written, surprisingly, in first person, this breakdown seems even more horrific. “The Yellow Wallpaper” is quite a trailblazer in its own right, creating awareness about mental disorders and the strange methods that were used by physicians to treat it.

Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”

While Hemingway is well-known for his longer fiction, I prefer him in shorter bursts. The dynamic of relationships between men and women is a cornerstone in Hemingway’s works, and this story is no exception. This short piece is mostly a conversation between a man and a woman who wait for a train somewhere in Spain (it rhymes!). The remarkable thing about the story is the dialog that is almost theatrical and sounds like stichomythia. It takes a while to figure out who’s saying what; and in a matter of a few pages, we know much more about the troubled relationship that the couple shares.

Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to the Slaughter”

If I could write like Roald Dahl, I would be a happy person! He’s one of my most favorite short story writers. Many of his stories could have made it to this list, but this one stands out probably because it was one of the first Roald Dahl stories I read. The story is simple – a man returns home to his pregnant wife and tells her that he’s leaving her (we don’t know why). She loses it for a second, and kills him with what she was going to cook for dinner – a leg of lamb. It’s a short story, so there’s no point in me telling you more. But if you’ve read Dahl, you know it’s going to be strange and unbelievable.

Katy Hayes’s “Politico”

This one is probably the most obscure of choices, but keeping in tune with my “I-love-all-things-Irish” mentality. I read this story almost a decade ago in a collection called Phoenix: Irish Short Stories 1996 and it has remained with me ever since. The story is about two class-mates who hate each other so much, they eventually start dating. Seems right out of a Hindi movie, doesn’t it? Well, hardly. Jeananne and Cormac do unspeakable things to each other when they are alone, due to a  strange, mutual hatred that stems out of attraction. The relationship is completely masochistic, for both; and one never really understands the angst that this young couple feels. One phrase that’s remained with me through the years, “They didn’t make love. They made hate.”

Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif”

Trust a writer like Morrison to give you a story where you have to run to a dictionary just when you’ve only read the title. I’ll let you find the meaning and apply it to the text if you decide to read the story. “Recitatif” is about two girls, Twyla and Roberta, who meet when they are eight at a youth shelter and then keep bumping into each other as they grow older, are married, and have children. They sometimes have difficulty getting along as well as they did when they were children, and are sometimes on opposite sides of a protest, but they keep meeting, nonetheless. Morrison tells us that one of them is black and the other white, but never really tells us for sure which is which. The text purposely gives hints that confuse the reader, and the guessing game, which often makes you aware of your racist stereotypes, is what makes this story unique.

What are some of your favorite short stories? Tell me.

The Demon Trapper’s Daughter by Jana Oliver

I used to believe that I’m the only person who doesn’t like to watch Superbowl. So when I decided to take myself out for the evening, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were many people spending time outdoors on Superbowl Sunday. For some reason, I was concerned that the whole city would be shut down, so I googled “What to do during Superbowl” and on a generic website came across the suggestion to read The Demon Trapper’s Daughter. A quick google of the book itself showed that it’s a recently published book that has received good reviews.

These past few years have seen a sudden increase in fantasy fiction. Just look at the popularity of the Harry Potter or Twilight series, or for that matter the Sookie Stackhouse books. What I liked at first glance about Oliver’s book is that it was not about vampires! Oliver creates a world in 2018 where demons from the underworld run free on earth. This has resulted in the Guild of Demon Trappers, a group of people who trap demons and sell them to the Church. In this imagined world, obviously, there is Hell and Heaven – the demons are minions of Lucifer and sometimes angels appear as messengers of God. The protagonist of the book is Riley Blackthorne, whose father is a Master demon trapper. When Riley’s first solo mission to trap a grade three demon goes awry, it’s just an indication of how her life is going to be a falling house of cards.

Like most fantasy fiction, Demon Trapper’s Daughter isn’t particularly brilliant in its writing. The 17 year old protagonist is impetuous and borderline annoying. But at the same time, her age could be considered a reason why she acts the way she does. Most of Riley’s friends are boys, and that she is in the Demon Trapper’s Guild, a majorly male profession, indicates that she is lonely in her girlhood. I wish the writer had introduced a female friend character for Riley, to balance out the testosterone flying around! But Riley’s relations with each of the major male characters she interacts with are interesting and well-developed, especially the one with Denver Beck, who is her father’s apprentice and closest friend. The on-going tension and head-butting between these two characters is what keeps the story interesting. I think Oliver does a decent job of creating a new world and casting enough light on the characters and their complex lives. Since this book is a part of a series, there’s room left for more creativity in the next books.

On a final note, I must admit that one of the biggest reasons I wanted to read the book is because it was set in Atlanta. It was fun to read about Piedmont Park, Five Points Station, Underground Atlanta, MARTA, and other famous locations of the city, although it was in the context of a dreadful future where demons might be lurking in the dark. It’s always fun to read about places you’ve seen yourself, and so if you’ve ever lived or been to Atlanta, you might enjoy reading this book.

In Search of Catharsis

Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, had something to say about everything. It’s no wonder then that he laid down the rules for what makes an effective (Greek) tragedy. Because life was so uncomplicated and easy-going in ancient Greece, they needed to go to the theater to live life vicariously. The stories of these tragedies were perhaps ones that are too scandalous to remake in today’s world – there were murdering mothers seeking revenge against cheating husbands, sons who killed their fathers and married their mothers, or of sisters who bravely fought to give their brothers a proper burial. The idea behind these tragedies was simple – the audience who led a cushy, problem-free life would come to see the lives of these rich, heroic individuals, and in their fall and doom would weep, and purge themselves from all the vile feelings that otherwise had no outlet. They would, in other words, obtain catharsis.

In the day and age that we live, it is probably not that difficult to cry over things. I cry every time I check my credit card bill. It’s easy. However, catharsis is innately related to art, and how often do we cry when we see something creative? Photographs might make you cry… but does a painting? When was the last time you saw a play and cried? I cried once, but that’s because I was laughing too much.*

That’s when people like me, seeking catharsis, turn to the movies. I’m happy to report, that when I am alone and when in need of a good, hearty cry, I switch on a sap-fest and let the tears flow, unabashedly. Here’s a quick list of movies that made me bawl:

#5 Boys Don’t Cry: Girl with gender issues dresses as a boy and gets away with it until some assholes find out and rape her? That doesn’t make you cry? What’s wrong with you?

#4 Kuch Kuch Hota Hai: Ok, stop, don’t close the window! I am not a fan of Karan Johar movies. I’ve not ever seen this movie from start to finish! I swear on Sophocles! But there’s this one scene, where Kajol discovers SRK’s love for the Rani Mukherjee character, and she runs (in the rain!) back to her home and cries her hear out, and wishes for her mother to be there. I cry with Kajol, because I just can’t let her do it alone…

#3 Taare Zameen Par: Speaking of missing mothers, I tried so hard to hold back my tears while watching the scene in Taare when the parents leave Ishaan at the boarding school! I still can’t listen to the song “Maa” because it breaks me down.

#2 Masoom: This movie, surprisingly enough, gets me every single time! I just need little Jugal Hansraj to say “Sorry, Aunty!” and pout, and I am reaching for the tissue-box. I only need to listen to “Tujhse naraaz nahin zindagi…” and I feel my heart welling up. By the end of the movie, I am hiccuping on my tears and ready to start the movie all over again.

# Waltz with Bashir: Ok, this is a strange one, I know. Let me explain. If you’ve not seen the movie, I’m going to try not to spoil it. Bashir is an animated movie about a man trying to put the pieces together after the war in Lebanon. Since it was animated, and in another language, for most of the movie I was confused, trying hard to concentrate, etc. It might be because of this, that the last few seconds of the movie were completely unexpected and hit me hard! Suffice to say, I dug my head into the pillow, wailed for a good 15 minutes after the movie was over and couldn’t let go of it for the rest of the day. This movie has traumatized me!

*It was the scene in The Vagina Monologues where the woman enacts various orgasms. What a hoot!

Reflections on Botticelli

I discovered the fancy Midtown area of Houston this weekend with my dear friend Jina and her hubby. I toted my camera along, because most of Houston is freeways and electric wires, and Midtown promised to be a little different. But this inconspicuous sign in a restaurant window took me back nearly a decade to my college years.

In the last year of our Bachelors, as students of English Literature, we had to either perform, write, or review a play. Melodramatic as we were, my best friend Laccho and I decided to perform a play. Ever heard of a play that has just two female characters? No, neither had we!* I have no recollection how, but I came across an Off Broadway play by Terrence McNally called Botticelli in our library and I showed it to Laccho. She liked it too, and we decided to perform it. The problem was that the play had two male characters… who were soldiers. But what is a play if not suspension of disbelief? Not worrying about how we would look or sound, we got to the task of rehearsing the play, which was a nearly 10 page banter between two soldiers, in Vietnam, crouching in the woods, waiting for a young man to show up because they are to kill him. While they wait, they play a guessing game (like 20 questions, perhaps). Wayne is pretending to be “a dead European male in the arts beginning with P“; Stu is trying to guess who he is. Laccho was Wayne and I was Stu. At one point of time, we debated about who had the more difficult part to play. Laccho argued that she had to remember names like Pushkin, Pasternak, Pinero, Pirandello. While I said, would you rather remember the names, or their descriptions, for ex: “Were you an Italian sculptor working with Giotto on the campanile in Florence?” We decided it was a tie.

Given the material, we weren’t sure whether our audience would enjoy the play. But to our surprise, it was a hit! It may just be that the audience thought it was a hoot that two 20 year old girls were playing male soldiers. Or maybe the constant back-and-forth was just as funny as we thought it was. Stu finally doesn’t win and has to give up. The final few dialogs, as we walked off the stage, are stuck in my head, and to this day make me grin:

STU: Okay, I give up. Who are you?
WAYNE: Pollaiolo
STU: Who?
WAYNE: Pollaiolo. Antonio Pollaiolo [...]Italian painter, sculptor and goldsmith. 1432 to 1498.
STU: Well, I never heard of him.
WAYNE: Famous for his landscapes and the movement he put into the human body.
STU: Never heard of him.
WAYNE: He influenced Durer Signorelli and Verrocchio.
[They are offstage. Just voices now.]

STU: Them I’ve heard of.
WAYNE: ‘Portrait of a Man’? ‘The Labors of Hercules’? ‘David’? ‘The Martyrdom of St Sebastian’?
‘Tobias and the Angel’?
STU: Never heard of him.
WAYNE: The tomb of Sixtus IV?
STU: Never heard of him.
WAYNE: Good God, he was a contemporary of Botticelli!
STU: Never heard of him.
WAYNE: You are dumb. JESUS CHRIST!
STU: I NEVER HEARD OF HIM.
[...There is a slow fade.]

I have a picture somewhere of Laccho and I dressed as soldiers. If you get me drunk enough, I might just share it with you.

*I later read Marsha Norman’s ‘Night, Mother and thought of us. But it is too long and too intense.

When Will Our Authors “Die”?

Google a book you just read, and chances are you might reach the author’s website, which has details about the author’s life, their achievements and even contact details. If that is not enough, authors can be found on Facebook and Twitter. Have a question about the plot of your favorite book? Why not just leave a message on the author’s FB page? They might even answer. If you leave a comment praising their work, there’s an even better chance of them responding. Authors, after all, are human, and they are suckers for compliments. Get too close for comfort, hurt their feelings, and they will cut you out of their life in a second.

For avid readers, authors are like celebrities. And in this age, these authors, like celebrities, are in our faces – all the time. If it isn’t enough that one sees a leading actor in a movie, hosting a television show, and selling laundry detergent in the commercial breaks, he is also giving interviews in magazines, doing a guest appearance on a show, and has a Twitter page where we keep track of each and every of their moves and giving you pictorial proof. One word screams in my ears – overexposed! And if there’s one difference between writers and actors, I might be so bold as to say that the former are a part of the cultural intelligentsia. And as the smarter part of society, shouldn’t these authors know better than expose themselves more than is required?

Say Arundhati Roy and the word “Kashmir” comes to mind; say Shashi Tharoor, and you think of “Cattle class.” Let me not even get into what comes to mind when one says Chetan Bhagat (ok, unimportant is one word, but never mind my personal taste). Why are writers like Roy and Tharoor more important to us for their political points of view rather than The God of Small Things and The Great Indian Novel? Here’s a screen capture of the suggestions when you Google Tharoor.

When I was a child, I didn’t know whether my favorite writer was male or female. I had no idea what Amitav Ghosh looked like for a long time after I read his Shadow
Lines. When a friend borrowed a book from a library that had a picture of him on the jacket, we ogled at it hungrily. If the publishers were kind enough to put an informational blurb about the writer, you’d know whether they were alive and where they lived. In this, there was magic. Who the writer was, was something that was left to your imagination. But more importantly, the book existed on its own. There was no one attached to it. It was only the words and you.

Roland Barthes in his legendary essay “The Death of the Author” insists that after the book is written, the author must die. This allows the book (and its language) to create an identity of its own. He believes that “writing is the destruction of every voice, of every point of origin” and when the writer indulges in the activity of writing, he “enters into his own death.” Unfortunately, we, as readers, are curious. And if we see our favorite writer on Twitter, we will get in touch with them. But I wish, that these writers would die figuratively; disappear from our lives and allow us the space to imagine who they are. It might be too late to hope to reinstate some of that magic into our lives, but it’s not too late to hope that our authors become mysteries to us once again.