Disgrace – Coetzee

The heart of the matter – Greene

12 Red Herrings – Archer

Case of exploding mangoes – Haneef

The dare – Boyne

That long silence – Deshpande

A night in london – Abbas

Noon – Taseer

Gambler – Doestovsky

Songs of achilles – Miller

Heat and dust – Jhabvala

While coming down we found some people climbing up with telescope and other gears to spend the night on top of the hill. Wow! The very idea of lying down under the starlit sky and locating different constellations with no urban noise in the background – what would i not give to be part of such a setting! Not to forget waking up to birds’ chirping and first rays of the sun. Some day.

14-Dec-2011

The flow is good. One can go on reading the tales of growing up of these two characters Achilles and Patroclus with the mention of divine intervention thrown here and there. It appears as if Madeline has written the book in her own time. There is no urgency. Nothing is fast paced.

I think this is a good way of reading. Read few books of one genre then move to another. This way one can avoid a feeling of staleness which results due to reading one type of writings/author esp Indian fiction.

This time i’ll try to write a little bit more about this book so that this blog does not remain merely informative.

6 Dec 2011

Finished reading The Gambler. One thing that distinguishes a classic from rest of them is its pace. Slow, relaxed almost like a beautiful sunset . And it is these classics which make you fall in love with the beautiful work of words.

Coming back to the book, it’s a reflection of Dostoyevsky’s passionate involvement with roulette. You win, you continue to win but yet you don’t go away till you have lost it all. The girl lets you express your love for her, she remains indifferent to it but still she insists that you talk about it – nothing is more pitiful than this.

p.s. Read an interview of this writer here.

11-11-11

Finished reading it. Didn’t like it at all. For the better part of the book, he talks about his life in Delhi. Then, we are taken to PbQ where he talks about troubles that are there in his brother’s life. It might as well be called his autobiography.

Currently reading ‘A night in London’ by Sajjad Zaheer. With due regard to the translator Hashmi, i feel a translator could never do justice to the writer.

29 Oct 2011

Finished reading it. Not a great read. May be i would enjoy the original version (in Urdu). However, it was one of its kind in terms of timing (India under British), language chosen (Urdu unlike writers like Mulk Raj Anand) etc.

The book has an abrupt ending (so does this blog).