Review - The Hungry

Found Titus Andronicus in complete works of Shakespeare

Just watched a movie called The Hungry. It has Naseeruddin Shah, Tisca Chopra as its main leads. It is directed by Bornila Chatterjee. Did not know anything about the movie, just stumbled across it on YouTube. In the movie everybody gave a low key performance, everybody underacted. And that created a slow horror. When we used to prepare notes in our university days we used to use a line very often in our answers, "an impending doom lurking large on the horizon". This movie is that. Towards the end I felt I know the story, felt an itch you know! Then found out that the movie is based on Titus Andronicus.

Who could have written about such horror, brutality other than "the man" himself. Wanted to write "the bard", but thought "bard" is more relevant to  his sonnets and comedies. Titus Andronicus is Shakespeare's first tragedy, and probably his most brutal one. I read somewhere that Titus Andronicus foretold what to come in terms of his later tragedies, but I think those are mellower compared to this one. Yes, the blackness of hearts became darker and blacker, hatred became thicker mixed with malice in his later tragedies but something about Titus Andronicus makes you forget to breath for few seconds.

Nowadays every thriller-murder-mystery writer is strive to create a more brutal world, right now I am reading a Jo Nesbo where the murderer super glued a victim to the floor of a bathtub and then slowly turned on the tap. Recently, I saw 2 movies, Siccin 1 & 2. Got very scared, but realized everything has already been written by Shakespeare long long ago. And now do not say that no no all are written by Bacon or Marlowe or Blake or Queen Elizabeth herself! And tomorrow some eager aspirant of PhD is going to say that they were actually written by Queen Elizabeth's footman!

Shakespeare got this capability to create a world filled with flowers and fairies and beautifully scented forest and he also created this black hatred that made people embark on  such a journey of revenge. 

At the end I was more appalled by witnessing pure impossible hatred that can possibly reside in people's heart than by the sheer brutality of it.

Everybody is thinking I am a ghoul who takes pleasure from only gory stories, much like Raj's girlfriend Emily, but it is not true. But romantic comedies, sweet love stories often make me too much aware of its absence in the world, and as a result makes me sad. Philosophical bildungsroman makes me aware of the fact that I am not writing one, but reading one! End result...sad. But after watching an adaptation of Titus Andronicus, not to mention a much mellower version than originally how Shakespeare wrote, I feel so restless that now I am about to take refuge in cute cuddly cat videos!                                                     

Poor Man's Purple Passage

What the fudge they mean when people write this type things with lots of periods and exclamation marks and hiphens?

The quintessential existence of the harbinger.....melodious soul is lurking at horizon.......listening to the harmonious predicament of the övre for the pulchritude........the horizon where sky and azure ocean meet ------ in the midst of it the fey thinking man of Michelangelo and the vitriolic man of Da Vinci pondering over in their otium?!?! The insouciance of the black hole creating chasm over the flora and fauna.....the id...ego...super ego....in the fjord like a faberge egg...the encrusted bitter-sweet surrealism of paleolithic age coming on the top of a pyramid in city of dead's having a tête-à-tête with Anubis and Ra...the voyage from Tesla to Elon Musk...the Lincoln in the Bardo or A Little Life...who killed Versace...it seems devil most of the time wears flip-flops... tweaking with Chaucer's Wife of Bath in front of Coriolanus seems not so a distant dream now....through all these meaning of life and of depression unveil itself.

Yes, what do they mean? Actually it is the most clever and convenient way to portray oneself as an knowledgeable intellectual! But this passage is just a silly write up that can not even be termed as a "purple passage". See what I did there!? I told you very shrewdly and I think quite subtly that I know the term "purple passage" of Horace. And did it again! Peace out!!

Sylvia Plath Wanted to Live

Sylvia Plath wanted to live. She gave hints in her writings, through her words, through her actions. Nobody took that hint. Nobody read her words, I mean "read" read! She wrote about resurrection in Lady Lazarus, she talked about Phoenix, Lazarus. If all she wanted to do was to die, then why she kept talking about rebirth that only means life! 

She tried to kill herself several times. Once when she was not able to meet poet Dylan Thomas, around that time she slashed her legs to see whether she had the courage to kill herself. Next in 1953 August 24th she took her mother's sleeping pills and crawled in the cellar. She was found later and survived but admitted of having an oblivion that could only be compared to death. Then in 1962 June she drove off a road into the river but was rescued and told it was her intention to kill herself. Then came 11th February, 1963, Plath put her head into the gas oven and finally succeeded. 

The responsible mother in her did not forget to put tapes, clothes, towels between her suicide zone and her kids' room, unlike Assia Wevill, Plath's husband Ted Hughes, the Noble Laureate's mistress who killed herself and her daughter Shura. I bet during their togetherness Hughes accused Plath of being irresponsible. He had to, because all husbands of this world accuse their wives who are depressed and have the tendency of self-harm to be irresponsible because during chronic clinical depression people lose the desire, the ability to perform the simplest of thing like brushing their teeth or combing their hair or the desire to go to work. In depression people do not even feel like having a job. Sylvia Plath was a brilliant student, a Fulbright Scholar with a high IQ of 160 and she worked as a receptionist for god's sake! But she proved herself to be a good mother and a good writer. That was enough for me. 

But she was not good at being alive. She wanted somebody to take care of her. Her poems, her only novel Bell Jar told people she was in pain, she was unhappy. Why people did not try to ease her pain? Why people did not try to make her happy? Isn't it that simple? Isn't it supposed to be that simple? If someone tells me she is thirsty, I give her a glass of water, if somebody says he fell down and scratched his knees I give him a band-aid. Yes, it was that simple. If somebody on regular interval try to kill herself I will see to that that she do not do that again. Simple. But people are generally callous. People are so engrossed with little problems of life like the favorite newspaper changed its font size, yesterday's milk got sour, sound of loud crying hampers family's reputation, friends are going to Italy for vacation, they have a better car, better make of a juice maker, stock market is crashing, diamond is not a Solitaire, anxiety of showing happiness of being in love in front of the single friends or brothers or an itchy scalp that they forget once a life is gone, its Gone. "Gone", the implication, the true meaning of this word nobody gets. If they did Sylvia Plath would have lived a full happy life with few more Pulitzer's or may be a Nobel in her pocket!

Sometimes depressed people cling to a person, if they find someone they think they like or love, they get very attached to them. This unnatural attachment or one can call it love seems to others as a sick desperation, an unhealthy clinginess, a ridiculous neediness. Plath's agitation and anger for not being able to meet Dylan Thomas whom she loved "more than life itself" as some said proves the intensity of her character. Soon after she slashed her legs. Later when she met and fell in love with Ted Hughes, she described him as "a singer, story-teller, lion and world-wanderer" with "a voice like the thunder of God". This comparison with God proves her intensity of emotion, the depth of her attachment. Having all these emotions for him, giving the ultimate compliment to the man and putting him on dais to worship is a typical tendency of someone who has no hope, no desire but suddenly getting a rope in turbulent sea to hold tightly, the saviour is here. But sometimes the grip on that rope gets so tight that the supposedly knight in shining armour feels suffocated and runs to Assia Wevill. Even a free single unthwarted man goes to so many, and here I am talking about the husband of probably the most depressed woman of the literary world desperately seeking love and care. Sylvia Plath's father left her, okay he died, and she interpreted it as abandonment. So when she loved someone, she demanded the whole. She thought this man will take away her sorrows, will fill her soul with saturated overflowing care and love. Did she get it? Who has the time to cater to an insomniac, suicidal, temperamental, generally sad person! 

Plath's son hanged himself. So it is easy to say it was genetic. Insanity, depression run in the family. If the women are depressed during pregnancy, there is a fair chance her children would be depressed too. But here one must note one thing, Ted Hughes' wife, mistress and his son committed suicide. Okay, I know Sylvia Plath have contemplated suicide years before meeting Hughes. Maybe it was her, she turned everything blue she came in contact with. But her daughter who looks like her is the lover of life. She once told a journalist that the death of her loved ones made her embrace life all the more. Okay, I get it, she got this beautiful positive demeanor from her father maybe. So, when I asked who to blame for the death of Sylvia Plath, some said nobody to blame, she was mentally unwell, she was bound to kill herself sooner or later. Maybe. But why cannot I come to terms with this fact! Why I feel that all she needed was over the top melodramatic stupid romantic love, I will bring the moon for you to see you smile like devotion, for each of your tears I will give you a pearl like care!

The Ministry of Utmost Happiness - A Review

I read God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy when I was in high school. I was bewitched and speechless. In the mean time gallons of dirty water passed through my city's drains, and during my travel through the decades I forgot her. She came in conversations from time to time, but she became a distant memory. Then bam! it came, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. So I read it. It was in the Man Booker Prize nomination. People were asking me whether it's going to win, I said "yes", and then "no", okay I could not decide. Then George Saunders won Man Booker for "Lincoln in the Bardo".

I "liked" the book, it made me remember why I "loved" God of Small Things. That fluid poetic music of sadness glides by so smoothly in GoST,  one cannot stop it, can just experience it. The feeling I had in GoST is exactly like the one I once had in my uncle's house. I was looking at the palm tree from the 2nd floor room lying in bed. Windows were open, a breeze was coming that comes only just before the winter, somewhere the sun was setting. And that twilight aura engulping my mind. You want to look away as you do not want to cry, but you cannot move. That's the feeling I got from GoST.  Ministry... was preparing to do the same to me, it even did for few hours, and then came politics. 

The story started with Anjum. Sorry. The story started with how the use of Diclofenac in cattle is killing vulturs in India. And cattle is a recurrent motif in this novel. The very description of the dying vultures was a direct punch in the stomach. At least one drop of tear will fall uncontrollably, and you will realize you are crying when the tear will hit your jawbone, yes just like a very runny nose is runny your realize when it touches your lips! So in that prologue Arundhati Roy announced she is back, like the Terminator she kept her promise. I had goosebumps, oh by the way did I tell you how much I was moved by GoST! 

So Anjum was born, she was an eunuch. The time she was born in India, an eunuch could not do anything except be a "hijra", they could not be a makeup artist or a college professor, just a "hijra". There was a place near Lal Qilla where since Mughals, eunuchs were living. Once upon a time in India eunuchs always had a free roaming card to roam about in andarmahal or interior parts of castles where queens and princesses resided. That place near Lal Qila was called Kwabgah. Such a beautiful name this Khwabgah, almost like Elysium in As You Like It! But here lived the "hijras", the unwanted, the despicable them. Anjum started her life there, she went to a quack to chop off her ashamed male genitals, and never had an orgasm ever. But here the question was which situation was better, she having a male sexual organ and having a night fall but her heart, her mind felt ashamed of the fact that being a girl it was unnatural to have a fall? Or that to sooth her wounded mind, to unveil and acquire her true femininity she was to never have the happiness that is sometimes compared to being once again born or to meet god, a word that Roland Barthes used to describe the pleasure of reading? 

She went on living in Khwabgah, found a foundling, started raising her, that girl fell sick, here comes again a very striking situation when Anjum blames another Khwabgah mate for her daughter's illness as well as 9/11 in America. Now that is there a fine example of microcosm to macrocosm, mixing superstition with the huge  technology that involves a mass destruction, the ridiculous with the grave, the Fool with the Kings. 

Anjum's story involved the Godhra riot. Here Roy made her presence felt with her powerful pen, all the folding and unfolding of the men and women, not the eunuchs, thank god, or is it? Anjum was changed after this, started living in a graveyard, built the Jannat guesthouse and various people started to flock there. 

Tilo would come there too with a child, but that was to happen later. Tilo was another part of the story, she is clearly based on the author herself including her JNU connection and her hair to her nose pin et cetera et cetera. And with the author's shadow came all the other shadows, politics, a leading protester with her salt and pepper plait, gummy smile, big chested chaste man, the shivering national leader, heaven on earth turning into hell with their peach and cream complexion, the tribe with their black hue, and everything in between! And here starts my problem with the book. My views go with Pater, "art's for art's sake". If a novel becomes an agenda, it falls down in my eyes. Here in this novel there are pages that looks like essays that Roy was writing for last 20 years on various burning topics, some pages clarifies some of her actions and denies some allegations. These paragraphs even looked like what sometimes we write randomly with tremendous speed because we are angry. I truly believe because of Tilo's story the book sometimes lost its integrity as a novel. Still the delineation of Tilo's psychology is well observed and very personal, one can feel it. But trying to touch all the on going problems in the world in one book that ultimately intends to tell a "story" is too much. Even the dog they found had to be the runaway lab dog with all the pipes coming out of every holes of its body. Animal testing is a cruel ugly truth that needs its own novel and a revolution. But why I felt as if the author was running out of time, she was in a hurry so she put everything she thought of in one book? Is there no such thing as editing of thoughts? If Roy had written only Anjum's story it would have been great in itself. Tilo's story seemed an intrusion into the beautiful narrative of Anjum. It seemed Anjum and Tilo were written by two different authors. And there lies Arundhati Roy's ability actually. So as a reader I'm looking forward to more stories like Anjum's in future. Please. 

Lastly, the title of the book, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, bound to make one ponder over its origin.

Dead Joker - More a Story of Life than a Murder Mystery

Dead Joker by Anne Holt was published in 1999, but it was translated in English by Anne Bruce in 2015. This is one Hanne Wilhelmsen book that shook me gravely, and the reason is not the murder mystery of the story, but Hanne's own life, to be precise her partner Cecile's life, again to be precise - her death. 

The mystery is like this, chief public prosecutor's wife is murdered, he is found in the room with the dead wife, she was killed with a souvenir like Samurai sword. When Hanne is struggling to solve the mystery, a journalist is also killed. During the investigation Hanne told herself this case will be solved in 3 weeks and on March 29, 1999 at 3 o'clock she realised the deadline she gave herself was up that day. But it was only 3 o'clock! That evening Hanne and Cecile would go to Karen Borg and Hakon's house to stay. Hakon's son Hans Wilhelm, named after Hanne would tell her there was secret. And soon Hanne would ride that secret alone late in the evening, a Yamaha Diversion 900cc. While riding lost in thought she would come across a country road with mailboxes, there was a particular name that would attract her mind, Eivind Torsvik. It was a name from Billy T's report, the ear less writer/murderer. She would meet him, and yes, he is the one who would give the ultimate clue to Hanne to solve these bizarre murders. So in a way Hanne was right!

In the midst of all these Cecile was dying. She had cancer and she told that to Hanne the day before her operation. Now why she told her then and not early, why a life partner missed the fact that one of them is ebbing away? Enters conjugal life that has been lived long.

Hanne always had her demons. She kept her being a lesbian a secret for a long time from his colleagues, she kept her Cecile a secret, she is someone who experienced neglect, lovelessness, exclusion from her family, and that didn't make her a strong rebel who couldn't care less, the problem is she cared, and that is why over the 20 years of their conjugal life only a feast full people from her life came across Cecile. But Cecile wanted recognition of love, the appreciation from her partner that she is glad to have her in her life. But what Hanne gave Cecile was a name plate with their initial HW & CV. Hanne was scared that if people saw their names-2 girls' names on the door they will know Hanne and Cecile a couple. Hanne couldn't bear that. Or was it that Hanne didn't love Cecile enough to give her the recognition, the status of her life partner! Because last time what my romantic googly misty eyes read somewhere, "love conquers all". When one day Hanne was coming back home, Cecile was still in hospital after the surgery, recovering, Hanne seeing their incomplete declaration of love as HW & CV on the door realised how much it hurt Cecile! So only when the other half is dying another half realises her worth? When everything is super good, A-Ok, she is happy and smiling, why cant you love her then? Why to get the love and care and the recognition one has to die always?

Evil Under the Sun vs Triangle at Rhodes

Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun and Triangle at Rhodes are eerily similar. A feeling of deja vu will bound to happen, either one is reading or watching. Evil Under the Sun has two movie adaptation, in one Poirot is portrayed by Peter Ustinov in 1982 and in the other Poirot is, who else, David Suchet in 2001. Evil Under the Sun is a full length mystery and Triangle at Rhodes is a short story and it was in the collection of Murder in the Mews. In Evil under the Sun Arlena Marshall is visiting this seaside hotel Jolly Rogers in Smuggler's Island on the coast Devon and Cornwall. She is there with her husband Kenneth Marshall and a teenage stepdaughter Linda who loathes her. Arlena is self aware beautiful lady who never shy away from the company of the opposite sex. So, here in the island she is enticed by this man Patrick Redfern. Patrick is holidaying with his awkward wife Christine who cannot even bathe or go out in the sun without getting terrible sun burns. 

So Arlena is dead and everybody's alibi is ready and there were suspects too. When you are reading it you will suspect Arlena's husband Kenneth Marshall, a jealous frustrated husband. Also the presence of his former fiancee Rosamund Darnley is going to make you suspicious. Did Kenneth Marshall killed Arlena out of jealousy or to be with his ex? Or the presence of his ex made him realise how he so not deserve his present wife? And just here comes the plot of Triangle at Rhodes. In Triangle at Rhodes Valentine Chantry/Arlena is attracted to Douglas Gold. Marjorie Gold/Christine is his awkward wife. Tony Chantry/Kenneth is the unfortunate jealous husband. In Triangle at Rhodes there is no Rosamund Darnley, not blatantly overtly! It was revealed that it was Tony Chantry who killed his wife Valentine, and he was having an affair with Marjorie. So yes Marjorie is loosely a Rosamund. Poirot says there is a Triangle at Rhodes alright, but it was not the obvious one! Fun fact, if two married man woman get involved with each other is it right to call it a "triangle"? Isn't it always a quadruple? But obviously here who is concerned about right and wrong!

I tried my extreme best not to totally give away both plots, I just sacrificed one and the short! 

Why the author crafted two stories so similar, because when one weaves a murder mystery there are suspects, and the author already has everybody's backstory. So in one story she decides to go with one murderer, but she cannot help but thinking if someone else from all the characters present in the story was the murderer, what motive and method would she have given him/her then? That is how Evil Under the Sun and Triangle at Rhodes are created.

In Evil Under the Sun Poirot so famously says the beach reminds him of the morgue in Paris, the reclining sunbathers are like meat on butcher's slab. And how it came true! Here so accurately and wisely he said that men were not attracted to Arlena but she was attracted to them. But the thing is whether the man is attracted to or just simply attracts the woman, the end is the suffering of the left wife and the husband. But there again Agatha Christie surprised the obvious and left us flabbergasted. 

Agatha Christie is so good in portraying the adultery, the unfaithfulness, is it because once she was the sad shareholder of a triangle herself? Who cares, she got her husband Mr. Max Mallowan as the winning prize. When I was young my mother used to tell me do you know how much her husband used to love her? That is why she could have written so much and so good, she had her peace of mind. What I didn't know then is Mr. Max Mallowan was her second husband through whom she found true love. I guess to be an author you need to experience everything.

It All Happened 1222 mts. Above Sea

I first discovered Norwegian crime thriller writer Anne Holt in our hometown's newly opened book store. It was in the only shopping complex of the town. On one greater half of the building there was this chain super market sprawled in 4 floors, it first introduced to us the idea of having cups, cloths, cosmetics, cucumber to bread, bed, broccoli, briefs under one roof. Till then saw these only in Hollywood movies. So no doubt we felt very proud, important, and successful.  On the other half of that building were individual shops and restaurants and a chain multiplex (the proud smirk lingered long after the end titles). 

To ward off boredom, I went first to the super market, then lazily roamed the other half with the intention of catching a movie at 5.30. One day I suddenly came across this new bookshop. With all the happiness in the world I entered. On the rack found two books that I never heard of,  the first was "Buried Prey" and the 2nd one was "1222". Through "Buried Prey" John Sandford introduced himself to me, and obviously he was honoured to meet such an avid, dedicated perusalist who he knew at first meeting going to read the entire Prey series within few months. And "1222" opened a Scandinavian country to me. Before that my peek into Scandinavia was through "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo". 

The very name "1222" drew me to it and just after reading the blurb, I felt like shouting,  "where was this book, this author all this time"! It was like you were just roaming in the forest and accidentally found El Dorado!  I knew then and there I am seriously going to love everything Anne Holt has ever written. To use a hackneyed expression, it was love at first sight.

The detective of Anne Holt is Hanne Wilhelmsen. The story opens with Hanne travelling by train from Oslo to Bergen to consult a doctor for her quadriplegia. How she became quadriplegic? Read "Beyond the Truth". In this story Hanne is already in wheelchair. The train with its 269 passengers collide with the snow wall in front of a tunnel at the foot of The mountain Finsenut near the beatific lake Finseven and the utter confusion and chaos follow. Nearby town people come to the rescue. The extreme weather goes with the whole lot into a nearby hotel sans the driver, the only fatality of the accident. At least that is what seems initially but soon other deaths/murders follow suit. Now imagine the scene, a hotel where 269 passengers are staying, every exit is blocked by accumulated snow and outside world is totally cut off by a horrific brutal blizzard country hasn't seen for years. 

In that closed place deaths start to occur amidst the array of ridiculously diverse people coming from all the echelons of society. Now here is our Hanne, egged with her own personal problems both emotional and physical, using the capabilities of her original, ultimate comfortable identity of a brilliant detective. 

While going through the book everyone will find similarities with Agatha Christie's "Mousetrap". Even Anne Holt herself mention it in "1222". The thing is every crime writer will eventually give an Agatha Christie allusion in their books, sometimes overt and sometimes subtle, it is really hard not to! But I find the similarities with the "Murder on the Orient Express" too. That sudden halt due to snow reminds me of Poirot's journey from Istanbul to London by Orient Express, when at night the train was stopped near Vinkovci in Slavonia due to a snowdrift. So "1222" is like a tribute to Agatha Christie. And every crime writer find solace in doing so. 

I read, re-read "1222", because it was the first Holt I found. And I love Hanne Wilhelmsen. I am following her life for a considerable time and she intrigues me. She doesn't fit any norm of the society, no it is not because she is a lesbian (for the blockheads it is explained), it is just that she is on surface level rude, arrogant, sometimes even it seems she is so just for the sake of it. But no, she uses it to shield herself. But she is surrounded by people who always see past her armour, and know she is a great human being. They love her. She is surrounded by intelligent compassionate people. It is not always the case with everybody. Here Holt has given a glimpse of her personal life. Hanne has a partner Nefis and a daughter Ida and a house keeper Mary. Now if you want to know how she met Nefis, how she acquired Mary, why Hanne has this sadness that creates a fog around her, who is Hakon, Billy T, how Hanne end up in wheelchair, hit the bookstore, or hit your computer, whatever! Just read.

The Agony of a Sequel Writer - Sophie Hannah, David Lagercrantz, Tilly Bagshawe

How do we feel when we learn that our favourite author is no more? How do we feel when we realised that we are rapidly running out of our favourite author’s books or our favourite series? We feel sad. And then suddenly there is an announcement. A new Poirot mystery is coming. A new Lisbeth Salander book is coming. There is another Sydney Sheldon mystery is there. When I came to know about this, I was happy. But the aftermath of a new Poirot mystery made me believe that, not everybody was happy like me. Sophie Hannah the author to whom the responsibility was given to further the Poirot mysteries was vehemently attacked as was Agatha Christie’s great grandson James Prichard. Okay, so let me go into details. There is an institute that manages Agatha Christie legacy. The head of that management is Agatha Christie’s great grandson. So that trust or management chose Sophie Hannah to write another Poirot mystery. She just did not wake up one morning and published a Poirot. Nobody can do that, there is a thing called “copyright”, remember? People approached her, and she wrote. Now about people criticising James Prichard, Agatha Christie’s great grandson, I do not know whether he did it to make profit. I do not know his ulterior motive, I am not Poirot! What I know is I was happy when I learned that there was a Poirot mystery coming, and I have not read it yet. That was enough for me. I am an insomniac, and at night I read. Just few months before the “Monogram Murders” publication I had finished the entire series of Poirot. So I got hold of “Monogram Murders” as soon as possible. I read it, and I loved it. To be honest it was evident quite blatantly that it was not written by Agatha Christie. But there were few places where Sophie Hannah was almost there. As an avowed Agatha Christie fan, I know that that is a big deal. Both in “Monogram Murders” and “Closed Cascade” Sophie Hannah tried to create the familiar ambience of Agatha Christie. So in “Monogram Murders” there is the description of hotel, London street and in addition to that the walks and the investigation in countryside. In “Closed Cascade” on the other hand there is that all too familiar a grand house, staircases, detailed description of all the guests and the position of their respective rooms. And Sophie Hannah was able to put all the measurements so well. The distance from one place to another, from the upper floor room to the ground floor library always played a vital role in Agatha Christie mystery. In this book Hannah explored a side of human nature that interests and annoys me at the same time. I do not want to give away the ending, but it was the main trait of the murderer. Now I am not going to say more. Just that no one can surpass Agatha Christie. But anything that even resembles Agatha Christie gives me immense happiness. But then anything written after Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple or Poirot is always going to have a resemblance, a shadow of its predecessors.

Something very unusual happened with “The Girl with Dragon Tattoo” series. I watched the movies first, the Noomi Rapace Michael Nyqvist ones, the Swedish ones. And then I read the books. It was not a conscious decision, it just happened that I came across the movies first and then found the books. At a stretch read all three and thoroughly enjoyed them. Then I thought it would be great to have a few more of Lisbeth’s ventures. Then discovered the author Steig Larsson has died in 2004. I was disheartened. It was, I thought in every possible way, an untimely death. I dug deeper, as I always do, and came to know about the whole uproar about the Steig Larsson legacy that was garnered after “The Girl with Dragon Tattoo” fame and the feud about it between Larsson family and his partner of 30 years Eva Grabrielsson. I think it was unfortunate that such ugly thing had to happen around that great writer. He could not even see his literary and monetary success. And I do not think that he was bothered about money. All he probably wanted to do was to write. Only after the greats leave, the petty commoners fight about his fruits of labour. But let’s not concentrate on this unpleasant issue anymore. Let’s talk about the 4^th instalment of the series, “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” by David Lagarcrantz. It was published in 2015. I liked it, because again I was happy to read another Lisbeth thriller. The author kept the essence alive. There is internet, hacking, cyber-crime, dark web, malware, an inter-continental conspiracy, complicated relationships. Lagarcrantz loyally kept situations also the same and why not, if the characters are the same! So in “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” also Lisbeth spends time looking at Gamla Stan in the evening, alone. But what is intriguing is that the 4^th book ends with Lisbeth at Blomkvist’s door as in the 3^rd book ends with Blomkvist at Lisbeth’s door. In spite these similarities, I would say Lagarcrantz was already protected from criticism because the story was so infused with technical details, that it was quite difficult to find loopholes regarding trueness of Steig Larsson.

The first Sidney Sheldon book I read was “If Tomorrow Comes”. I think I was in my early twenties. So for obvious reason I was enthralled. The female protagonist Tracy Whitney was a character who was bound to be appealing to girls. A girl who was initially mild and polite, but after going through an ordeal she emerges as this strong person who avenges all the wrong doings. The hero Jeff Stevens was a perfect foil to her. Sidney Sheldon was often criticised for his graphic sexual description. But I noticed something else, suppose in one page you are reading about a graphic description, but on the next page there will be a twist that can just blow the reader’s mind. I also read his autobiographical memoir “The Other Side of Me”. Only two things I can still remember from that book, firstly how his family used to cut the toothpaste tube so they did not waste anything and secondly he suffered from bi-polar disorder. I do not know why I remember these two things. By the way his most famous novel is “Rage of Angels”; the female protagonist is Jennifer Parker. It is an unusual novel. And the ending is… No, nothing! So the publisher of Sheldon’s books Hachette Book Group wanted more Seldonesque books and they decided that this British author Tilly Bagshawe has a similar writing style, and so came Tracy’s “Chasing Tomorrow”, “Reckless”. There was “Mistress of the Game”, sequel to “Master of the Game” which was my favourite Sidney Sheldon book. I read Tilly Bagshawe’s other books too. What can I say; you should read her books if you do not want to put any strain on your brain. See, it was like you are on a diet, but sometimes you eat few packets of chips and coke. Her books are like that. So my reaction to Tilly’s Sidney Sheldon’s sequels is lukewarm, because those could be Tilly Bagshawe novels without few names that have appeared already in Sidney Sheldon.

So the point i am trying to make through this long article is these sequel writers did not snatch the torch but was given to carry it further.

 *Hey, do not forget to post your comments!

Writers' Guide to Creativity

To write according to Virginia Woolf, one needs only pen and paper. Jeffrey Archer said in a book launch in Bangalore, India, writing needs talent and perseverance. Even if one does not have talent, it will do, but it certainly needs perseverance. Maya Angelou used to check into a hotel at 6.30 in the morning with a bottle of sherry, a deck of cards and a bible and wrote 10-12 pages until 2 in the afternoon. In the evening she edited them down to 2-4 pages. Victor Hugo wrote without cloths, Mark Twain, Proust, Capote wrote lying in bed or couch, Hemingway wrote standing upright. There are authors like Faulkner, Joyce, Poe, Tennessee Williams, Dylan Thomas who had the reputation of being alcoholic but did they write while intoxicated?! If someone has the reputation of loving the booze, isn't it quite obvious in some ways that maybe they wrote a few great works while inebriated! Who cares, we at least have those great works to read at night when the whole world sleeps, dreams or procreates! 

So what does one need to write? Virginia Woolf was right, one needs pen & paper, but one needs time too. And yes, Angel of the House always comes to make one feel guilty, if one is a woman.

Jeffrey Archer was right, it needs talent and perseverance, without discipline nothing is possible to achieve. But one cannot totally pooh poohed talent and only rely on perseverance and discipline. 

Maya Angelou's method is very unique but observed by other authors too. In a hotel room far far away from your known habitat gives one a "tabula rasa" one will feel to write is the only thing she has to do. And if one is a woman, then there is no fear of the constant reminder of her domestic chores, wifely and motherly duties. A hotel room helps to disengage oneself from everything. There he or she is left with just one identity, an author. 

Twain, Proust, Capote wrote lying down, maybe because it gave them the ultimate relaxed mind, and only then they could have able to think. People think best, people let their imagination fly only when they are lying in bed, sometime when one just about to drift into sleep, best thought pops up, so why not! 

Victor Hugo wrote without cloths so that he couldn't leave house, or maybe because he wanted to be stripped down off his other identities and to be left with just one true one. 

Hemingway wrote standing upright. Maybe he didn't want to be relaxed. It gave him a strong grip on his creation. When some people watch a great movie or get close to a great incident in a book they stand, they sit up. Maybe that was his reason. Or maybe he was just an upright person all together!

Authors who write while drunk, are giving me real headache to find out reason for them to do so. Maybe they wanted to be uninhibited. Also under influence one actually feel like his or her real self, finds their true identity. Somebody somewhere said always have a glass of wine before going to a job interview, that is the only way to feel like your true self. Also there is again that relaxed angle. And who doesn't know when you are drunk you say or do things that are otherwise unimaginable. In other twisted words, your imagination run wild. And imagination is the key ingredient in writing, unless one is writing an autobiography, biography or a semi autobiography or loosely based on real events...okay you get the gist!

To sum it up, one needs pen, paper, time, talent, perseverance, discipline, no distraction, feeling absolutely him/herself or do not at all feeling him/herself, a bed or a table, alcoholism or sobriety. But problem with me is lack of motivation and pure lethargy. I'm very good at thinking. But feel if only instantly my thoughts were written down somewhere automatically, it would have been so good. Only one thing can motivate me to write like a writer (in the conventional sense!) is if already one of my books is published. I know it will give me the necessary impetus to write. Is there anybody there who thinks like this? 

Galway - J.M. Synge to Ed Sheeran

With the Shape of You, i have started to listened to Ed Sheeran. It happens to me all the time, I hear there is a singer who is taking the world by storm. I don't pay any attention and in the mean time that singer gets all the awards and accolades and becomes a household name. And then one day comes Shape of You and I start to listen. I liked the song solely for the purpose of dancing. It will make anybody dance, and the lyrics are cute, "...last night you were in my room, and now my bed sheets smell like you". There are so many Shape of You dance video on youtube, even Indian classical dances like Odissi and Katthak, it is just unthinkable. Okay I get it, it is called "viral", right? 

So just few days ago when I just finished practising some moves to Shape of You, I came across Galway Girl, " played the fiddle in an Irish band", best lyrics so far by Ed Sheeran and the music is that happy melancholic Irish folk tune which takes you long back to some forgotten "mind palace" that you so desperately want to capture, but cannot. It stars Saoirse Ronan. I saw her first in Hanna. Good movie. Different. I have a soft spot for Eric Bana after Hulk and Munich. This Saoirse Ronan is Irish and always annoyed that nobody pronounces her name correctly. She sometime come across as a rude young girl, but I am also very particular about my name, so if I judge her, it will be seer hypocrisy! Didn't see her Brooklyn, but mean to. So the song Galway Girl, really really loved it. Made me so nostalgic. Riders to the Sea came to my mind right away. Riders to the Sea by J.M. Synge, the Irish playwright. We had it in our graduation syllabus. I believe I was a different person before reading Riders to the Sea. I think everybody changes after reading Riders to the Sea. It had a great impact on me. Maurya and her true premonitions, Nora and Cathleen as the Greek chorus, and how Bartley is going to go to Galway fare to sell horses. The gloom, the doom, the cold, the death, the grey horse, they engulfed me for a considerable time. There was a map of Ireland in the beginning of the book. So yes, I know Galway, I will always remember Galway. But what Ed Sheeran's song can do is to lighten my thoughts about Galway because to me Galway is a place where people want to go but always die in the process.

Sherlock to Surrealism

Few weeks ago watched Dr. Strange Love. Loved it. After Sherlock, I am an avowed Benedict Cumberbatch  fan. In one of his interview he said his fans are calling themselves cumberbitches. He told them to have respect for themselves and is not feminism back! I can proudly say I am a cumberbitch. What is this with British men! I sometimes ask myself (yes, I have lots time in my hand) why I love Benedict Cumberbatch so much, is it because he plays Sherlock, the ultimate greatest detective in the world and I am a sucker for Sherlock? By the way here I must mention that I was also a little bit of in love with Jeremy Brett. He was the first Sherlock I saw on screen. I was so happy; I could not believe I was seeing something so fascinating. For the first time I watched Sherlock Holmes was at one of my relatives’ house. It was, “The Adventure of Sussex Vampire” from the casebook of Sherlock Holmes. I was speechless, I could not believe such story, and that such show could exist on earth. Now when I look back I think that was a turning point of my life. At home we did not have cable. So next time when I watched Sherlock Holmes by Jeremy Brett was in high school. This time I watched every single episode to my heart’s content. I was in awe for that person, but again I think it was because he played Sherlock. So now I am head over heels in love with Benedict Cumberbatch, I think it is also because he portrays my favorite character on screen. Here I must mention something that may seem a digression. Few days back I was watching “My Fair Lady”. Last time I watched it was many years ago, and totally missed Jeremy Brett who played Freddy Eynsford-Hill, a possible suitor for Eliza Doolittle.

My liking for Sherlock was a bit different than my liking for Poirot or Miss Marple. I want to be Poirot or Ms. Marple, hell, I think I am Poirot or Ms. Marple but Sherlock is someone I want to make fall in love with me. Oh that troubled soul, that coke addiction, that unworldly intelligence, that soulful music of his violin, that superior attitude. But then I realised in some ways I am like him. I sometimes think I am surrounded with people who are not getting something that is absolute obvious or just in front of them. I realised things that others don’t, and that sometimes give me a supercilious attitude. People around me find it irritating, I am not blaming them. I forgive them! But the problem is others have accepted Sherlock’s depth of understanding and perspective but not mine! What can you do! Oh wait so I want be Sherlock’s girlfriend and I myself is (I think!) a bit like Sherlock that means I am in love with me! I am a narcissus! What a surprise (severe eye rolling)!

Now about Doctor Strangelove, I did not start talking about the movie just because of Benedict Cumberbatch, but something else intrigued me, in the movie the characters have this power to fold, unfold matters or things around them. When it was happening I realised it has a strong resemblance to surrealism. In surrealistic paintings one can see a staircase is going nowhere, a man walking on the roof, a building is dividing itself in parts and those parts falling down and then rebuilding another building. So yes, Doctor Strangelove has peculiar similarities with the works of Salvador Dali, M. C Escher, Picasso. My question is was the director did this knowingly or not! Okay, let me ponder over the strangeness of the world a little bit more with a fresh cup of tea.

Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell, Val Mcdermid

I’m a thriller/murder mystery junky. I tell people Agatha Christie is my god. There was a book in our home I saw lying here and there since I was a child, that book was “A Murder Is Announced”. I used to write my name on the pages of “A Murder Is Announced”. Actually I practiced writing my name after learning how to write my name, and used “A Murder Is Announced” as a copybook! Now I go through that book, see my unsteady name on its pages and feel stupid.

I have the entire collection of Agatha Christie, but I don’t write my name on its pages anymore.  I’m a grownup now and I write my name with a steady hand, I write it, sign it on official forms and also like everybody else have developed a personalized style. Ahem…ahem! I have read “A Murder Is Announced”, obviously. The second Agatha Christie or to be more exact Ms. Marple book I read was “Nemesis”.  I was speechless. The story was so unique. I don’t want to reveal the story, because there are still people in the world who haven’t read Christie yet. God bless them! See here I’m trying to be sarcastic but I know I dare not because there are zillions of books I myself haven’t read yet.

We were talking about “Nemesis”, yes. The way this story starts slowly in St. Mary Mead with Ms. Marple reading her morning paper and then takes up pace and ends with head whirling outcome. That subtle hint of homosexuality presented by Christie is well crafted. It was like out of curtsy Christie could not openly citing it but giving enough reasons for reader to decide the obvious. When Ms. Marple was given that poisoned milk because she got too close to the murderer, I was biting my nails; I sat up on my bed in tension and finished rest of the novel. The gloom and sad terror of that house engulfed me. I guess you have to read it to know it.

With Agatha Christie I fell in love with English countryside. It gives me a sense of calm, a sense of peace, and a sense of belonging, and why do I of all people feel a sense belonging to English countryside I don’t  know, it’s a mystery!  Just now while actually writing the last sentence I realized that what these books gave me was an escape. After a while I came across Ruth Rendell and Val Mcdermid. But how did I come across Rendell and Mcdermid? When I was sadly realizing with unnatural restlessness that Ms. Marple and Poirot cases were rapidly being solved because of my devouring them at an alarming pace, I started looking for other similar types of books. I blatantly and very crudely googled “other authors like Agatha Christie” and found and liked Rendell.  First Ruth Rendell book that I read was “From Doon with Death”. It was also Rendell’s first Wexford mystery. It also had something very similar to “Nemesis”. Truth to be told I was re-reading “Nemesis” last week and realized that “”Nemesis” and “From Doon with Death” have a subtle similarity. But it is not a surprise because Rendell is often times called modern Christie. And I hope she did not mind, but then who would! Through Rendell’s Wexford mysteries I got the chance to again walk through English countryside. Rendell and Christie’s countryside, the society, people are quite similar. In the first book there was nothing about Reginald Wexford, the detective’s personal life, but as I read more his entire life unveiled in front of me. No, he does not have a life of an adventurer. He is quite domesticated with wife and two daughters. Entire Wexford series covers his life when his daughters are in their teens to when his grandchildren are off to college. What makes him a hero of a story is his extra ordinary detection skill and what makes him a human is his momentary lapse when he cannot help but feeling attracted to a beautiful girl though he loves his wife Dora to death. In “The Monster in the Box”, there is a description of Wexford-Dora love story and the subsequent marriage. There is aloso Wexford’s trusty associate Mike with whom he always go to some new restaurant that has opened in the town. Their venture into these new theme based restaurants is always hilarious.

I found Val Mcdermid through Steig Larson. In “Girl with Dragon Tattoo” Blomkvist would go to that cabin in Hedeby Island and to fight off loneliness he would buy few books of Val Mcdermid. Mcdermid’s England is a contemporary and modern England. Her Detective duo is DCI Carol Jordan and Dr. Tony Hill. Carol Jordan is a strong woman who runs her own team. While handling a case she will come in contact with Dr. Tony Hill, a psychiatrist. There will be a mutual attraction but it will soon come to the light that Dr. Hill is impotent. I was shocked because I have never seen a detective who has such fallibility, but it has only made Tony Hill a human just like Wexford but for reasons that are poles apart. And the mysteries! Yes, they were worth my time, my mind and my nights. It was in one of Mcdermid’s book “The Mermaid Singing” that for the first time I came across few pages that I actually skipped for its brutality. And I read John Sandford and Pierre l’ Maitre for god’s sake!

As I told earlier in Tony Hill-Carol Jordan books the England is the present England. Here various characters frequently frequent curry houses meaning Indian restaurants. There are often mentions of poppadum, onion pakora, butter chicken, nans. I like these detailed descriptions. In any novel detail description of a house, rooms, dresses, food help me connect with the story and characters more. I want to know what was there on the table by the window; I want to know the colours of the curtains, the upholstery. I want novels to be like pre-Raphaelite poetry where they paint with their words and wrote with colours.

Be it Christie, Rendell or Mcdermid, the  mornings, the evenings, love, hate, crimes, twisted  human minds and adamant intelligent detectives with their tenacious continuous effort to bring justice is always the same.  But whatever thriller I read, at the end I find they are just another story of people.