#11 A book written by a male author

Bookless in Baghdad by Sashi Tharoor

This category was very vague – a book written by a male author, doesn’t help narrow down that easily. So, I decided to forge a connection between this and another book I will be reading soon (under the condition – a book written by a female author). The book I intend to read as a parallel is Reading Lolita in Tehran. Now, what connects these two books?

Both are exemplars of a new literary genre on the block – the bibliomemoir.  Defined by Joyce Carol Oates in her 2014 New York Times article as “a subspecies of literature combining criticism and biography with the intimate, confessional tone of autobiography.” Basically, a book on books! Belonging to the world of non-fiction, but essentially about fiction, this is a genre bending genre which I thought would be interesting to juxtapose between a male author and a female author. So, let’s look at this particular bibliomemoir.

 Sashi Tharoor is no stranger to the public – equally prominent as a charming diplomat, eloquent speaker, best-selling author as well as a politician. In this collection of essays (one was a speech he delivered), all on literary topics, Tharoor discusses the many books, authors, global issues, literary trends etc. that he has taken a personal interest in. The book is divided into five sections, intriguingly termed; inspirations, reconsiderations, the literary life, appropriations and interrogations. He begins with his affirmation on his life-long love of books which started at a very young age. Providing glimpses into his private life and treasured memories at times, recalls how he used to read voraciously as a child.  As he recalls,

“One year I kept a list of the volumes I'd finished (comics didn't count), hoping to reach 365 before the calendar did. I made it before Christmas.”

This sets the tone for his later life where he has gone on to become one of the most erudite and creative artist of the English language as we know it.

Tharoor through his essays pays tribute to a number of writers who have influenced him – his ode to P.G.Wodehouse is delightful as well as an eye-opener. Apparently India is the only place where there seems to be cult following of Wodehouse. It shocked Tharoor when he found out the trifling manner in which Wodehouse was viewed in a literary festival he was a part of. His experiences on reading other authors are also very insightful. He talks in length about one writer in particular though – whom he calls the “head of his profession”. It is none other than Salman Rushdie. Tharoor has great admiration for the work of Rushdie and that is visible through the many ways in which he professes his solidarity for Rushdie. 

He also talks about V.S. Naipaul, R.K. Narayan, Pablo Neruda, Le Carré, Pushkin among others. Being a bit autobiographical in nature , this book also delves into certain personal moments where he discusses his own books , mainly – The Great Indian Novel, Show Business and Riot. He brings in reviews of his books by others, justifies what he wrote, why he wrote it and how he wrote it. This would be interesting if you have read all these works by him, and even otherwise it provides a glimpse into the mind of an author and his role in both the writing of his novels as well as its aftermath.

Tharoor comments on his direct experiences with the functional illiteracy he finds in many American cities, his observations on how France pays tribute to writers and artists and how India has a rich literary depository of talent that is mind-boggling in its sheer diversity. He effectively argues how writing in English , the language of our once upon a time colonizers, is the only way he knows to unite the experiences of India. In short he offers a complete world view of the literary scene.

At times his references to his St. Stephen college days are a bit tedious and uninteresting, but he is trying to bring up what has mattered the most to him, and how his undergraduate years spent there has shaped him into what he is today. 

My favourite essay would have to be the title essay ‘Bookless in Baghdad’ which comes in the final section. In it, he describes what he sees in Baghdad on a trip as part of his job as a UN Ambassador. He visits a book bazaar there and is immediately saddened by the reality of what he comes to understand. Crippled with US sanctions and with their greatly diminished currency, many Iraqi families were selling off their precious books,  thousands of books at unbelievably low prices. It also showed how Iraqis are great bibliophiles and very highly literate (quite shocking, considering the condition of the country at the moment). As a bystander, and a book lover himself, he understands how much pain the owners of these books would have in parting with their precious copies.

Located within each essay are interesting insights and impeccable language that will leave you with newly learned facts, words as well as ideas on what you would like to read next. Though it isn’t entirely fiction nor non-fiction, this is a literary chronicle that could inspire both the writer and reader in you.   

[P.S. Do check out this list of bibliomemoirs if you are interested in reading one - click here] 

#10 A funny book

Carry On, Jeeves ­– P.G. Wodehouse (Who else?! ;)

Well, this review took some time since I decided to give another writer a chance. I looked up various book recommendations and finally settled in on reading David Sedaris’s comic memoir-cum-random-essays titled Me Talk Pretty One Day. Turns out he isn’t as funny as I thought he would be and I fail to see the hype constructed around him. If one book jacket is to be believed, this book by Sedaris  “[…]makes Oscar Wilde seem dull” (What?!!!!)  I was wishing that Wilde was alive and kicking to give an apt reply to that. Wilde is not dull, not ever. And Sedaris is not funny. Maybe a different kind of self-deprecating, misanthropic funny – but not my tumbler of filter kaapi.  

So, to cut a short story shorter, I had to read to restore my spirits. And I turned to the trusted P.G. Wodehouse. Wodehouse is utterly, properly and perfectly funny. I can’t really think of how I could do justice in a review, but I will try my best.

Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881—1975), English-born comic novelist, short-story writer, lyricist, and playwright, best known as the creator of bumbling Bertram (Bertie) Wooster and his genius of a gentleman's gentleman, Jeeves. These two form one of the funniest, and wittiest partnerships in the whole of English Literature. Admittedly there is a strong ‘Englishness’ about it, not a drop of real life simulation that many would rather like. It is the humorous adventure (or rather misadventures) of a gentleman, who lives in sufficient luxury with his trusted, loyal, highly efficient valet Jeeves, who can get him out of any tricky situation, which he gets into all the time. How the deuce can it be funny? (You may ask.) I don’t know myself. But, once you get into the Wodehouseisms, there is really no looking back.

Wooster and Jeeves

The stories in this book all follow a simple premise – Wooster , or one of his friends, gets themselves into an indescribably ludicrous situation from which there seems no probable escape. Until of course, Jeeves, steps in with a brainy scheme and all the problems are snozzled. Jeeves is simply a “one-man-chain-gang”, as Bertie puts it.  Wodehouse has mastered the technique of adhering to a formula without letting it go stale. My favourite part of Wodehouse’s writing is the slang that comes out of Wooster’s mouth. You probably wouldn’t recognize the exact meanings of these terms as such, but there is such zeal and enterprise in his sparkling wit that you will be thoroughly pipped  by it (see what I did there? ;)

This comic compilation of ten short stories of these two are peppered with usual assortment of charming characters like Aunt Dahlia, her French chef Anatole, Aunt Agatha, Sir Roderick Glossop and Richard P. Little a.k.a 'Bingo Little ', and is an easy to read volume.

Let me try and completely ruin the humour by attempting to recount at least one story here, so that one gets an idea of the ‘formula’ that we are speaking of. I will absolutely ruin it, I know, and you may think, "what exactly is it that she finds funny in this story?"….but really just read the actual thing – the magic lies in the pages itself.

So, let me proceed with my attempt -  in the first tale, we have Jeeves being engaged by Wooster, the man’s “a genius” as Bertie starts to tell us, he goes back to the time when after having recently employed “my man” Jeeves, he had gotten him out of a strange pickle. At the time, Bertie was engaged to Miss. Florence Craye, who was trying to improve Bertie by having him read Types of Ethical Theory – turns out ,it wasn’t really improving him.  And then it gets rummy. He receives a telegram from her asking him to get to Easeby immediately, which was his Uncle Willoughby’s residence. When he gets there she tells him that his Uncle is all set to publish his memoirs which includes a fair bit of ghastly details including many unpraiseworthy tales of her father as well. Since she was to be away from the place for a while, she asks, no……commands……. Bertie to make sure that the book never reaches the publisher’s hands. In short, he would have to steal it from right under his uncle’s watchful nose. Things get complicated when he does succeed in doing that, almost getting caught by his uncle at one point. Jeeves as usual glides in at the most appropriate time and gets the package hidden at first and later even sends it to the publisher with unexpected yet comic results. Miss Florence Craye promptly breaks off her engagement with Bertie which he comes to understand is not a bad thing after all, since she was going to make him read Nietzsche next. And as Jeeves not so subtly puts it, “you would not enjoy Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.”   

Whacky, wonderful, light, and fruity , it was a relief to turn to Wodehouse after my attempt to give another humourist a try. I realize that even Wodehouse may not be everyone’s cup of kaapi, but thankfully for me he has written enough books to last a lifetime. What ho! :D

#9 A non-fiction book

Korma, Kheer and Kismet – Five Seasons in Old Delhi by Patricia Timms 

Just as the seasons here were undergoing a subtle tug of war between staying in summer and moving to monsoon, I discovered this delightful sunshiny butter coloured hardback little book which is part memoir of the author’s stay in Delhi, part her culinary adventures through the five seasons she spent in the ancient city. 

In the twelve chapters , Patricia Timms writes lovingly and with an addictive enthusiasm of her culinary explorations around Old Delhi, focusing on the street food legacies that this modern day metropolis has inherited from its ancestors – the Mughals being a chief influence.

Leaving the comfort of modern day malls and air-conditioned restaurants, it was heartening to see how the author gently guides us to the heart and soul of a vibrant city with life and its mysteries pulsating in every street corner. Beginning with the enticingly titled chapter ‘The Mutton Korma Mysteries’ , Patricia Timms unfolds how she decides to explore the authentic tastes of Old Delhi in the only manner that it can truly be done – by actually going out onto the crowded streets in the blistering heat and eat and experience at first-hand the culinary delights of the city. 

Also included in each chapter is a recipe which is personally experimented and verified by her, which in addition to her dedication to bringing us as close to the authentic experience as possible, truthfully admits to whatever lack the final result it may hold – mainly because, as she asks us to keep in mind, these culinary delicacies have been made by the experts, the street vendors for generations, they have been doing the same thing thousands of times and getting it just right, moreover, however well we may recreate it we will still miss the “actual experience of eating it on the street.”

Single-handedly this book has rekindled my desire to walk around my own city and explore dishes and experience the authenticity that every city will invariably offer to those who seek it. Hopefully as they say – when you change the way you look at things, the thing you look at changes. It would be wonderful to be properly acquainted with the pulse of my homeland by experiencing its legacy – just like how Patricia Timms’ glorious ode to Old Delhi has shown us.

'Daulat ki chaat', a winter highlight in Old Delhi is probably the most intriguing of all the dishes. The author describes this ambrosial delight as "small, perfectly formed clouds have dropped from the sky." Heavenly!

Just like a true explorer,  the author simply doesn’t just list out what she has tasted but instead she connects Delhi's street food to its history, its climate (she explains the different seasonal foods available), its geography etc. Her inquiries to get the actual recipes from the owners themselves don’t result in any success but her descriptions and effortless evocation of the preparation of the food as she watches it being made is drool-worthy.

The stories of each dish are all incredibly interesting. The description of the mutton korma made by Ashok and Ashok Meat Dhaba , located in a nondescript street in Sadar Bazaar, will leave you desperately craving for some. Though the shop opens only at 1 pm, it is a testament to the popularity of their korma that everything is sold out within an hour!

Feeling desperate in her new kitchen after relocating to Delhi with her family, Patricia Timms takes us past her initial days of  disappointment and her gradual immersion in the sights and sounds of Old Delhi. She befriends the owners who are happy to elaborate on how they cook, and the legacy that has been passed on to them. Many of the people that she had interviewed seems to be third generation owners, explaining how they find it hard to let go of what they believe to be a par of their core identity.

The chole bhature from Diwan Chand’s shop, sutli kebabs from Mian Sa’ab’s shop, Kuremal’s kulfi, sheer kurma made annually by Mr. Nassem (a good friend), the sweet fruit sandwiches served at Jain Coffee House (in Raghu Ganj), the comforting shakarkandi (roasted sweet potato), Karachi halwa of Chaina Ram   – all this and lot more will have you hoping that you could take a trip down these very streets of Old Delhi and savour it yourself.

Be warned – this book will have you feeling hungry ALL the time! 

Patricia Timms also happens to chronicle her Indian food adventures on her blog called ‘eat and dust’ which is definitely something one can dig into for a delicious bite now and then.

Until I do get to visit this honestly original and mysteriously beautiful city, I will endeavour to try my own culinary adventures on my home turf and hope to find joy and comfort in what it has to offer, as Pamela Timms has shown us how. 

#8 A scary book

The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson

Published in 1959, this book is definitely THE haunted house story for those who love that genre.  It can be said to be a template for the classic haunted house tale. Belonging to the sub-category of the psychological ghost story, The Haunting of Hill House  is easily the eeriest books one may ever read – all the more so since there is no ghost in it.

This book has one of the most unnerving opening lines:

“[…]Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.”

This is the same line that ends the book as well. *creepy*

The story begins with Dr. Montague, a psychic researcher, wanting to rent Hill House for three months and conduct a study on the causes and effects of psychic disturbances in a house commonly known as “haunted”. He searches for and invites a few people, who have had certain psychic experiences in the past to join him at Hill House to conduct the study. Though he sent out a dozen letters – only two people finally come. 

One is Eleanor Vance (Nell), thirty-two years old, socially awkward, silent and shy with a dark past. The other being Theodora or “Theo” as she is called, self-confident and bold, she has an uncanny ability to sense things. Though poles apart both Nell and Theo, become very close to each while they stay at Hill House. The other participant of this ‘group study’ is Luke Sanderson who happens to be the heir apparent of this mansion and is forced by his aunt to stay here under the watchful eye of Dr. Montague, since she wants him to stay out of trouble.

The mansion itself is particularly haunting, from the start it exerts an unnerving influence on the readers through the pages.  The mood that prevails this books is one that of physical and psychic claustrophobia – a near perfect gothic dwelling.Creepy things have happened at Hill House. Its history is narrated by Dr. Montague to the collected group during their first evening there.

“Hill House has a reputation for insistent hospitality; it seemingly dislikes letting its guests get away. The last person who tried to leave Hill House in darkness – it was eighteen years ago, I grant you – was killed at the turn in the driveway.”

The background story of Hill House is filled with untimely deaths, insanity and suicide. The house does seem to be alive in a diseased way. A ‘deranged’ house, filled with unnatural noises, ghostly visitations and unnerving disturbances. It seems like the house is evil itself.

“It has enchained and destroyed its people and their lives, it is a place of contained ill will…..[the house] watches every move you make.”

Believe me when I say that just looking at houses will creep you out for some time after you read this.

Several terrifying occurrences start happening at Hill house, one such moment is when at night Eleanor holds out for Theo’s hand while their door is being relentlessly pounded by someone or something outside. She feels Theo is holding her hand too tight and keeps asking her to relax her hold. When the noise finally ends and she looks towards Theo, she realizes she wasn’t holding Theo’s hand at all – but then whose hand was she holding?

“Good God,” Eleanor said, flinging herself out of bed and across the room to stand shuddering in a corner, “good God – whose hands was I holding?”

 And many other such unexplained occurrences continue to happen.

[*Spoiler Alert – I can’t really guarantee how much of the climax I will give out after this point – so be warned! *]

Eleanor Vance is the key character in this story since we experience the novel from within her consciousness. Shirley Jackson, the author, apparently often wrote about solitary, fragile, lonely girls but who carry within them a daring alter-ego (Case in point, her other works like We Have Always Lived in the Castle and Hangsaman).

Eleanor Vance is a remarkable narrator for this story since she is a person who is constantly drifting in and out of a dream state even before she reaches Hill House. She endlessly imagines her fantasies of life as she wishes to live in eventually. We wouldn’t realize it at first but Eleanor Vance is a classic example of an unreliable narrator.

Authors often employ unreliable narrators whose lack of trustworthiness is crucial to the construction of both novels’ mystery. Often in books like these the reader starts out trusting the narrator and only as the story goes on realizes that something is amiss. The unreliable narrator is particularly useful for horror and supernatural fiction writers who want readers to question the line between fantasy and reality.  It is the unreliability of the narrator’s authority that leads the story to its climatic end. 

“Eleanor thought childishly; I will never be able to sleep again with all this noise coming from inside my head; how can these others hear the noise when it is coming from inside my head? I am disappearing inch by inch into this house, I am going apart a little bit at a time because all this noise is breaking me.” 

In its 1963 film adaptation (The Haunting) Julie Harris plays the role of Eleanor Vance, through whose conscience we are told the story. It was a tough role to portray since a lot of the thoughts of the character is essential to the story but she did bring out the fragile and unsettled mind of the character to life. 

She had lived her entire adult life caring for her sick and demanding mother, who had died two months earlier. She was living with her sister and brother-in-law whom she despised when she got a call from Dr. Montague. For Eleanor, coming to Hill House was something she had been hoping for all her life – a sense of belonging. In the end, even as they attempt to send her away for her own safety, she drives her car into a tree in the driveway and dies – since she never wanted to leave Hill House, her wish had come true in a way. 

“ ..[Hill House] wanted to consume us, take us into itself, make us a part of the house…..No ghost in the long histories of ghosts has ever hurt anyone physically. The only damage done is by the victim to himself.”

This book is definitely eerie (not scary), but the dialogues between the characters will leave you feeling irritated and wondering what exactly are they talking about. But probably it is because of the unreliable narration that this happened because while reading there were certain gaps which didn’t make much sense, and it is not a book that will give you all the answers either. Apparently it does seem to be her style of writing. Try reading this, her first published short story – The Lottery – it will give you a hint of her style, and if intrigued you can try and read more of her writing. She is a relatively unexplored writer, but interest in her works are gaining ground in the 21^st century. 

The spooky happenings at Hill House are modeled on actual events from real life haunted mansions – like that of the Ballechin House (most haunted mansion in Scotland) and Borley Rectory (most haunted house in England).

This book establishes how an intensely eerie atmosphere can contribute to the workings of a human mind. Moving at a moderate pace, The Haunting of Hill House is as much as a tale of a haunted house and at the same time a tale about the dark corridors and locked rooms in the unconscious mind.

  

#7 A book published in the last year (2016)

When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi

THE book that caught the year 2016 by storm would have to be Paul Kalanithi’s  chronicle on how he undergoes a painful transition from an exceptionally gifted neurosurgeon to that of a patient struggling to live. 

At the age of thirty-six, just as he was about to complete his training and residency as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV inoperable lung cancer which affects less than 2% of adults younger than 45. But, non-smoker, hiking enthusiast, young and brilliant Paul Kalanithi is diagnosed with it. 

“The lung cancer diagnosis was confirmed. My carefully planned and hardwon future no longer existed. Death, so familiar to me in my work, was now paying a personal visit….nothing about it seemed recognizable.” 

In the face of imminent mortality he begins to write down his life’s quest which is encompassed in this profound question - What makes life worth living in the face of death?

As he explains in his posthumously published memoir, he had been a literature enthusiast as a teenager and had even completed his Master’s from Stanford (he has degrees in biology, philosophy and history as well) when he realized that medicine was his true passion.  Though he felt literature did provide the best account for the life of the mind, neuroscience helped him practice it in life. Laying aside his ambition to become a writer, he had embarked on a path to put his exquisite knowledge and skill into helping people sustain lives. But it is indeed a testament for his lifelong love of literature and the power of words that, in the end he comes back to it for sustenance and meaning.

“Literature not only illuminated another’s experience, it provided, I believed, the richest material for moral reflection.”

His memoir has a profound impact on the lives of others, even after he has gone.

Paul Kalanithi has written the memoir in two parts, the first half taking us through his growing up and coming to terms with his choice of following a career in medicine like his Dad and elder brother, Suman. He writes honestly about what made him choose a profession that would entail nearly a decade’s worth of further study and research. He goes through his initial days of cadaver dissection, the enormity of the moral mission of medicine being what truly guides him. He takes us along through his first experiences as intern and then his residency as a neurosurgeon. 

He witnesses birth, death, miracles and life-altering decisions made by the doctors close at hand. He himself would be taking such decisions as he gains more experience. A very poignant scene during his initial days is when Mari, a fellow med student crying in the hallway since she had prayed that the patient had metastases( a sign of wide-spread cancer)  so that the complicated surgery in which she had to assist would be cancelled. She cannot bear the guilt of having wished something as devastating as that only because she had a spent a sleepless night and couldn’t stand a nine hour straight operation.

The ethical question of medicine is also never far away from his daily encounters with death. As he observes, a doctor needs to help his patients understand and guide them through the process. He/she has a heavy moral responsibility in preserving not just the health of the patient but also their identity. 

“Technical excellence was not enough. As a resident, my highest ideal was not saving lives – everyone dies eventually – but guiding a patient or family to an understanding of death or illness.”

As a neurosurgeon he understood that many decisions will have to be taken by him knowing that he has to confront directly with meaning, identity and death. Technical excellence was a moral requirement for a doctor, but there was more to it than just that. For instance there is the case of a 22 year old who was brought in fatally injured in a bike accident, the best he could do would have left the boy in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. He chooses to let him die. Many cases like these are brought forward in his recollection of his time as a training neurosurgeon, but the irony is that the moment he was ready to start a new life, with his wife Lucy, nearing the end of his decade-long training – he had to learn, how to die.

As part two begins we are brought face-to-face with what has come to be his reality – he was diagnosed with lung cancer and it had already become quite severe. Being doctors, both he and his wife realize what this means – time would cease to make sense anymore. His future which looked bright (fellowships and job offers were pouring in) would all go unrealized.  They decide however to start the family they had been always planning to before he starts his treatment. This unrelenting belief that life continues despite you is what makes his story worth reading.

Paul Kalanithi, his wife Lucy and daughter Elizabeth "Cady"

After both medicines and chemotherapy fails, Paul Kalanithi has to relinquish his neurosurgeon duties – his last day at work is heart-breaking for us to read. He has settled in for an experimental therapy but he is sinking fast and spends as much time as possible with his new-born daughter Cady. “The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.” Paul Kalanithi doesn’t finish his memoir. The afterword written by his wife Lucy Kalanithi informs us how he passed away on 9th March 2015 surrounded by all his family and closest friends.


His memoir was his attempt to find “a vocabulary with which to make sense of death”, and in doing so will make the readers question what gives meaning to their lives. What kind of life is worth living? His book published after his death has become a worldwide bestseller. His book is a memoir, chronicling his evolving relationship with medicine – first as a doctor and then as a patient. We also see his philosophical side in the way we are led to ask questions that each one of us can only find answers to.

This kind of writing, though was a first for me, apparently isn’t as uncommon as one would think There are other works by doctors and medical practitioners who contemplate the meaning of existence and value of life. The names I came across which I fully intend to read up are the following – Atul Gawande , Oliver Sacks, Jerome Groopman and Sherwin B. Nuland. 

Do read this opinion piece which Paul Kalanithi wrote for the New York Times titled How Long Have  I Got Left? – this had elicited a huge response at the time. It is also something that seems to have prompted him to continue to write as he went through his illness. And he did leave a significant amount of life lived in these pages. 

It is funny that people listen to you after you are dead. Why wait so long?