A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

A Thousand Splendid Suns will touch your heart.

This seems like too simple a statement for such a profound book, but then, the author himself using very simple and subtle language to convey these same profound ideas. Even when he talks about brutal violence and heart-breaking sadness in the midst of the turmoil in Afghanistan, he uses a tone that seems distant and even indifferent to the plight of his characters. Far from detracting from the book, however, this tone adds to the beauty of the book by touching the reader even more. This book - a documentary of the plight of Afghani women - is even more touching than Hosseini's wildly famous Kite Runner, and has the capacity to make even the sternest of hearts sympathize, and the more sympathetic ones cry. No matter who you are - young, or old, male or female, Indian or Afghani - this book cannot fail to move you.

This book is the story of two powerful women - Mariam, a plain illegitimate child who is married off to the cruel Rasheed at the tender age of 15 (when he is nearly 50), and Laila, a beautiful, vivacious, intelligent girl who dreams of becoming a teacher but eventually ends up married to Rasheed as well by a cruel twist of circumstances. The characters in this story are extremely well-etched. They are real, easy to identify with, and have beautiful interpersonal relations. As such, the dynamic interaction between these two characters, the unlikely bond that forms between Laila and Mariam, and the affection which they have for each other and their children, and finally the amazing sacrifices they make for each other, forms my favourite part of this book. Supporting characters like Tariq and Rasheed are also wonderfully portrayed and really support the story, but Laila and Mariam steal away the show.

Though a story about the cruelty and brutality of Afghan, the book does not fail to also emphasise the beauty of the place and what it means to those who live there. Even as they talk of the oppression by the Taliban (and the cruel, barbaric list of laws that they draw up for women, which I found ludicrous but which forms the reality of life for these women), the book is also about the culture in Kabul, and what damage has been done to it, and also about how it still survives after this. There is one line in particular in the book, a line by 17th-century Iranian poet Saib-e-Tabrizi about Kabul, which incidentally also serves the basis for the title of the book, "One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls" - that haunts the reader not only till the last page of the book, but till a long time afterwards.

Final thoughts: A brilliant, beautiful, heart-breaking book on the struggle of Afghani women against the oppression of the Taliban and domestic oppression. A must-read for the subtle imagery, beautiful characterization, and well-written narrative.

Brighter than the Sun by Julia Quinn

Brighter than the Sun is your regular aimed-at-teenage-girls book.

All the elements of the typical romance are there - the regency era; cool, hunky, rakish hero; the prim and proper but secretly naughty good-girl heroine; a marriage of convenience; loads of drama; loads of love; and the happily ever after. The question here is whether Brighter than the Sun rises above the cliches of the genre into something new and inspiring and different to read. It was with a hope of something along these lines from highly acclaimed author Julia Quinn that I picked up this book. I was hoping that Quinn would write something new out of this done-to-death story.

I was unfortunately disappointed.

Lets make this clear. This book is not bad for its target audience. To the girl who adores sappy love stories (and I will admit here that I can be a bit like that too, only its a guilty pleasure), this story will no doubt deliver. Quinn mixes enough humor, beauty and gaiety into her story to make it both entertaining and readable, weaves a narrative interesting enough to amuse, and creates characters that are just about complex enough to actually care about. There is a lot of love. There is a lot of adoration. There is the perfect-marriage-under-imperfect-circumstances fantasy that a lot of the target audience will really enjoy. The writing quality is actually quite good and it comes across that Quinn has studied her craft well. As a package, the book is not dull enough to be disliked, and there is a lot in it for someone actually looking for this kind of book.

But for the more serious reader, there are some serious pit-falls. The plot hinges too deeply on coincidence (starting with the hero falling from a tree right into the arms of the heroine). Moreover, the plot is quite transparently lacking in suspense. You know exactly what is happening even when the author goes out of her way to hide it. The characters are really mono-dimensional, character traits seem to be added in convenience and some of them are really cheesy. There is little or no depth and little or no growth in the character arcs. The romance is totally unbelievable, and seems to rely mostly on physical attraction even though the author goes out of her way to claim it is not. And as a package, the whole thing is a mess that will make most discerning readers drop the book.

Final thoughts: If you like sappy romances, read the book. Otherwise (and perhaps even if), this book is avoidable thanks the forgettable plot, flat characters and cheesy romance. Quinn fails to deliver.

Other thoughts: I'm a little behind on the reviewing as opposed to the reading - and therefore I have loads of books lined up to review, from The Namesake to the Thousand Splendid Suns, Wedding Season and then of course The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that I've just picked up, and The Color of Magic which I just found. Expect a lot of reviews in the next week.

Blue Moon Rising by Simon R. Green

Blue Moon Rising is an awesome, fun book.

The story begins with Rupert, the book's amazingly endearing hero, out on a quest to kill a dragon at the end of the darkwood. His noble steed is a unicorn. Hes out to be a hero. Until this point, most readers will think, 'Wow. Stupid cliche fantasy plot #901123'.' And then the world explodes. You get to know that the unicorn is an awesome guy with a biting sense of humor and without a smidge of respect for his owner. (In fact, the Rupert-Unicorn equation is quite similar to the Loiosh-Vlad relationship in Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books, which are also some of my favourite fantasy books ever.) And the book goes on to kill another list of fantasy cliches. The dragon hoards butterflies instead of gold, the second son is sent on the quest to save the kingdom from financial trouble, and the finally rescued princess couldn't be more of a mess. And the fabulous fix-it-all magic swords: well, lets just put it this way, even the worst human in this book wouldn't hold on to them. If you're sick and tired of the regular fantasy mush that novelists seem to serve up - well, pick up Blue Moon Rising right now.

The good parts of this book don't require a lot of explanation. The plot is interesting and complex, the characters are really well-fleshed out (except for the main villians, the 'demons', and even among them the Demon Prince is someone I'd really like to read more about), the suspense is quite hard to guess, and honestly the inter-personal relations of the characters, especially with respect to the choices they all have to make under pressure in this book are beyond description. One has to read this book to accept the enormity of the decisions that these characters make. The kind of books and authors who manage to make this work are really rare, and this book definitely works.

Final thoughts: A fun, and yet at the same time really deep book on how heroes are sometimes made from the most unlikely situations. Definitely a must-read for anyone who has read a lot of fantasy (and its cliches) and almost anyone with a sense of humor.

Other thoughts: Unfortunately, I didn't have internet for nearly a week. In the meantime I've finished reading Julia Quinn's Brighter than the Sun, finished about a quarter of A Thousand Splendid Suns, and acquired some more books to read this diwali. Look forward for a lot of reviews.

New York: A Novel by Edward Rutherford

New York, by Edward Rutherford, was a phenomenally interesting book.

I guess one of the things that makes it so is that the basic premise of the story is so interesting. This book is a novel telling the story of New York, right from its conception to the 9/11 attacks that shook the city, and New York itself is such a fascinating topic that this book could not have been dull. However, the way the author handles the topic is superb. Rather than giving you a dry historical narrative, the author tells this story in the form of a novel by picking one major family, the Masters, and telling you the fortune of not only their family but also the various diverse families whose lives intertwine with those of the Masters. And the end result is definitely a masterpiece.

New York is a city full of many different cultures with their own complex histories, and I think the author tries and succeeds in showing a fairly human glimpse of many of the major cultures. One gets a feel of the big city and the people who make it what it is in this novel. And by showing you the points of view of many small people in the big web, and showing you how, knowingly or unknowingly, their lives meet, the author makes a narrative which is both interesting and enjoyable to read it. Certain objects, like the wampum belt (the inclusion of which made the book so much better) bind the entire narrative together (which I think works well in a novel of this scale, size and scope) and somehow the author manages to remain coherent even when many different storylines overlap.

All in all the book is really well-written. The characters are sometimes confusing (there are many people from the same family) but because the author writes each character so distinctly it isn't very hard to keep them straight in your head. And as each generation faces a new set of problems (and a new set of supporting characters) you are able to get a comprehensive view of a beautiful city - and its dirty underbelly.

Final thoughts: Beautifully written, well researched and extremely interesting. Definitely a must-read.

Other thoughts: As I suspected, all the books are ending now. I just finished Blue Moon Rising, too. Review tomorrow.

The Prodigal Daughter by Jeffrey Archer

The Prodigal Daughter is my favourite Archer book.

It is odd that of all the books I'm reading right now (I'm currently reading 4 at once, which explains the lack of book reviews here - and which also means I'm probably going to finish them all together and have a lot of reviews by the end of the month) the one I finished first was the one I'd already read. (I read it an awfully long time ago, though. It struck me while re-reading the book that there is a scene in the book where Florentyna, the main character, doesn't know what a virgin is - and when I read the book for the first time, I didn't really know what it meant either.) Anyway, I recently borrowed this book from the school library and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it even after so many years.

The Prodigal Daughter may be described as a sequel to Archer's wildly famous Kane and Abel, and is essentially the story of Florentyna Rosnovski - the daughter of Baron Abel Rosnovski of the original novel. Florentyna is an amazing character. She's intelligent, witty and kind - except when she rolls her fingers into a fist, which is when you have to watch out. And as it happens, she falls in love with one Richard Kane (son of William Kane in the original book) who just happens to be the son of her father's worst enemy. This book details everything that happens in her life - from her formative years to her years in college, to finally her affair with Richard and the subsequent drama that follows, and finally ends with her campaign to be the first female president of the united states of america.

The book, like every other Archer book, is extremely well-written. There is not a single dull moment, the dialogues are memorable, and the writing is very clean and masterful. The cast of characters is large (since this details the past and future of two families) but since each character is so unique (though not often very uniquely named) that is quite easy to keep them straight. Archer does not fall into the trap of having children with the exact characteristics of either parents and practically the same life, and therefore the book has a touch of realism that is really very useful. All in all, this book is masterfully plotted, the story is very interesting, and despite the large scale of the events the book is so delightfully human (and here the role of Florentyna as a character cannot be denied) that one cannot help but feel like the book is very human.

Final Thoughts: Excellently plotted, well-written, and with some of the most wonderful characters ever written - a book that no one should miss, though I recommend reading Archer's Kane and Abel first.

Other thoughts: Sorry for the long delay guys. But I'm almost through with New York, half-way through The Color of Magic, and also simultaneously reading some other books, so you can expect a lot of reviews in the near future. Until then, happy reading. :)

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The Life of Pi's best feature is the basic premise.

I mean, most writers claim that 'all writing is based on other writing.' That there is no such thing as a 'new plot' because nearly every plot in the world has been done to death. Not this one. Its actually a story about a guy stuck on a lifeboat with a hyena, orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg and - wait for it - a 450 pound royal bengal tiger. (Of course, to make it more believable, in the end its just him and one other animal on the boat - guess which one...) I first took this book on the recommendation of a friend, but the second part of what made me borrow this book from the library was, of course, the back cover. I don't particularly like castaway stories, or animal stories, but seriously - I just had to read this one to know what Martel could possibly do with it.

Moving on to the technical aspects of the story - the writing was good. I liked how the story was narrated by the main character, I like how there are interludes in the writing where the author shows the present-day scenario of the same man (I particularly love a heart-warming scene where Pi hugs his daughter and the author steps in to say, 'This story has a happy ending.' This is particularly fun as the next page begins with Pi being assailed by sharks). I enjoyed the end portion (the only part of the book I found laugh out loud funny is the conversation of the Japanese officials with Pi) and in general the writing is crisp and the book moves along smoothly. The characterization is impeccable (of the humans and animals) and I particularly liked the description of the religion and the other larger themes within the book. The story begins with a glimpse into Pi's childhood as a zookeeper's son that really helps you understand where he is coming from.

However, I do believe that the end of this book fell flat. The whole 'island scenario' is both unbelievable and odd, I don't understand either why it has to be put into the story or what it was doing it. As such, (despite the apparent correctness of the biological facts), this story is a little hard to swallow - but you manage if you suspend your disbelief a little bit - but the end just becomes incredulous and absurd and that is not the best of all experiences. Personally, according to me, the ending let-down the book. I could believe everything else but that was a little hard to swallow.

Final thoughts: A good book - great premise, well written, well narrated, well characterized. A bit of an unbelievable book requiring some belief, with a highly absurd ending. Borrow it from the library, I wouldn't buy it.

Other thoughts: I have got my hands on a LOT of books right now - The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, New York by Edward Rutherfurd, The Color of Magic by Terry Prachett (described as the P.G. Woodhouse of fantasy) and Blue Moon Rising by Simon Green. Expect a lot of reviews in the predictable future.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

The White Tiger is an important book.

I've heard a lot about this book, good and bad, but the most important things were as follows - that Balram Halwai (aka "The White Tiger") is a thoroughly unlikeable protagonist, that the story mostly works on selling India's poverty (like, according to me, Slumdog Millionaire did) and that is very badly written. From the other side of the table were people who said that it was one of the best books ever written in India, that it was thought-provoking, it was enlightening, and most of all that it was a book that I should read. It was with all of this in mind (along with a lot of heavy expectations) that I read this book, and one must assume that my reading of the book as well as my review is colored by the same.

My verdict? A lot of of this is true.

It is a thought-provoking and intelligent book - a statement on India and why we are the way we are. Even extremely patriotic Indians cannot be so ostrich-like that they ignore all that is wrong with India, and it requires a certain amount of hard-heartedness to ignore the plight of the poor people of India - the rickshaw pullers, the servants, the farmers. One cannot pretend that everything is alright with India, but with that in mind I don't think this book went out and targeted that group of Indians and foreigners who like to read about how India is a dirty country with nothing good about it (quite on the contrary). Also, it was different from Slumdog Millionaire in the sense that it actually had a story, and one that was not based completely on that elusive thing called luck but rather by extreme hard work and courage on the part of the hero.

According to me, Balram Halwai is not an unlikeable main character. Sure there were times when I really hated him and when I was disgusted by his thoughts, but there was no time when the writing became so slack that I did not want to know what happened further in his life. You see Balram from his childhood - you see him make some horrible choices and do some horrible things - but you also see the things that shaped him and made him the way he ended up to be and in the end I don't blame him. The secondary characters are also genius, sometimes slightly two-dimensional and not really multi-faceted, but some of them like Ashok come out from the page as real human beings - leaving you unsure on whether you like them or hate them or really on what is right and wrong.

The book is well-written. It is written in the form of letters to a visiting Chinese delegate, with frequent intervals and interludes from Balram Halwai. The writing is clear and crisp and the descriptions (like the chicken coop) are quite brilliant. Technically, I'm sure that no one can refute that Adiga is a very good writer, who has the talent of drawing interesting characters, a reasonable plot, well-described settings, and a good use of language.

Final thoughts: In the end, I found the book very interesting. I'm not old (or really, experienced) enough to know if all of what is written in there is true. I certainly do know that some of it is. The book is depressing, but its also about courage in the face of unbelievable odds, about taking difficult decisions and living through them, and about being a white tiger - someone who comes along just once in a generation. It is a book about change, and progress at its core - in a very uplifting way - and a book that I think all Indians should read.

Other thoughts: Expect a lot of reviews this week and next, because I've been reading a lot (currently reading The Life of Pi by Yann Martel) and have loads of plans for reviews, as well as some time.