Yes, its been a while now. I should start with a formal apology for keeping myself away from blogging. I had been busy with work and quite a lot of reading too whenever I found time. Had a couple of weddings to attend and a lot of socializing to do which I hold responsible for my short lived self-imposed exile from the online world.
After I finished reading Umberto Eco, I immediately started off with Orphan Pamuk's Museum of Innocence. A slow read which seemed like a never ending saga of Kemal Bey and Fusun, which finally came to an end after 2 months of tireless reading. The book excites you in the beginning, bores you in the middle and makes you feel sad and drop a tear or two at the end. A wonderful read if you have patience and a thing for melodrama.
After two months of continuous romance, I was skeptical to choose Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. Another romantic tale. But the memories from my childhood trying to read it and not understanding head or tail of it, continued to haunt me day and night that I finally opened the book which my Dad had had bought in the year 1991. Marquez's magic kept me alive and eternally romantic in the days that followed that I started writing romantic one liners and sent those to whom i loved. But while reading, I was never aware that my most favourite author is going to say goodbye to us in a few days time. The guy who gifted us the bliss of one hundred years of solitude and also taught us the memory of the melancholy whores is the best you can ever have is not anymore to tell any new tale. Adios Marquez..!
Later on, I was intrigued by the psychological changes which went on inside Unni Chacko's mind. As my mind wandered through the locked doors searching for the reason for his sudden, unexpected suicide, Manu Joseph, the malayalee writer came up with a new twist in his tale "The Illicit Happiness of Other People". The book dealt with the unspoken mysteries of mind and of delusions. A fast paced read which will never bore you with unnecessary prose.
The artist of Kazuo Ishiguro's An Artist of the Floating World, took me around Japan during its glorious and post war days. A beautiful simple story, told in the most simplest of manner that you feel like rereading it. Teaches you the essence of family life and how to tackle its complexities.
I started reading Mario Vargas Llosa's The Bad Girl few days after I was done with Ishiguro. Though the starting tranquilized me with the typical Latin American explanations with lot of imagery and soothing language, it became a boring and irritating read as I turned the pages. Llosa seemed to be writing things just to made the book look humongous. But the message which he wanted to convey made a sense philosophically, though it took a long time for me to realize it. But lets not dwell too deep into it, its not worth that much. So if you wanna read a book so melodramatic that it doesn't make any apparent sense or render any kind of use, I recommend you this one. You can still read it for the fun of reading, its Latin American after all..!!
Reading Arundhati Roy these days. The God Of Small Things. I miss the Indian at times and this is what i do to cure that nostalgic sickness. Read Indian.. So that's all for now. Have to get back to work. Stay tuned.
Happy Reading...
- Nisanth Thomas
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