Orphanage for Words (2015), Shinie Antony

This book has very impressive word play and structure that attracted to me immediately. Heard the author reading it out in the Pune Literary Fesitval 2015 and loved the stories she read out. Particularly the first one - Girlfriend it was called.

Slowly as the stories went by, I could get glimpses of a strong associative mind. She works well with ideas and words. This was very close to home; for she thought of things I think, said things the way I do, and was as random as me. And I saw myself as a writer in many of her works.

Towards the end, the stories seemed to drag. There wasn't much change. But that is something that is bound to happen I guess. I found myself skipping through the entire chapter 'Words'. And I also found myself guessing the storyline of a number of short stories.

The theme is brilliant. An orphanage for words that nobody wants. And she gives due credit and respect to all of those words.

But the entire book is worth a read. It's a brilliant way to tease your mind. And give definition to a number of thoughts that you had already thought, but were too afraid to put it in words.

Heart to Heart: Remembering Nainaji . Vidya Rao (2011)

I read this book in a particular frame of mind -- one that I could rely on when I read as a young girl. This young girl would read the story of Manimekhala and King Shiba and the very many stories of Indian folklore. To read Vidya Rao's book, I needed to go back to the value systems of that world.

Rao inks her worship in the book. But no, the guru is not infallible. Vidya Rao is aware of her guru's flaws - she wishes many of them away. And yet, more than the reverence, what caught me to this book was a sensitivity for other lives. She looks with equal reverence, if not more, towards Naina Devi's sister. Rao brings in her readers to this secret understanding - a club of women whose lives may not have been successful, but are documented and listened to. Naina devi too, in her own respects, caring for musicians who can't fend for themselves... opening her home to music of all kinds...

These ideas shook my usual cynical take, made me give my heart to the book. Maybe yes, I am over reacting. But the sentiment of listening to lives that slowly fade away tugs at me. Combining that with the above mentioned reverential frame of mind, I can't but look at this book with fondness despite its many flaws. I am as biased as Vidya Rao.

Maybe another day when I read it again, I might not be as smitten. And maybe then I would tear the ligaments apart and say how the book really was.

Silas Marner (1861), George Eliot

Silas Marner: the Weaver of Raveloe.

For synopsis, click here

The title is a bit dramatic. After reading Felix Holt the Radical, this book seems a bit undernourished in its political/religious stand. Eliot spins this book around morality (and intrinsic goodness). But this seems a bit fatalistic. Agreed, the main character Silas Marner does go through religious crisis and becomes a social outcast; but even in his darkest times, the man is moral in his own way. His self-imposed seclusion is the safest course of action a man who has lost everything can take. Nevertheless, he still remains sensitive to the people around him. And that saves him, makes him dearer to fate, as she rewards him for his patience.

The novel is one that shows how things could have gone wrong, but didn't. Up until the last hour, the reader imagines Dunstan Cass to come along and ruin the happiness. And that Silas would be left by his daughter. When none of the horrible possibilities materialize, one wonders what the purpose of this novel was. Was it merely to show that being good has its rewards?

A large chunk of the narrative goes in description of the land (and society), description of conversations (primarily female conversations, something that I had not seen in Felix Holt), and a lot of background information. The plot unfolds in a rather matter-of-fact manner. It is as if Eliot is in a hurry to finish off with the plots to show the readers something far more important than technicalities of who did what to whom. 

A few things that struck me odd:

1. the ease with which Squire Cass says he could disinherit all his sons, get them thrown out of his estate and marry again. Children are dispensable. They do not necessarily mean progeny. They can be replaced
2. The happy ending. Everything about this novel hinted at a dystopia. Instead, it reassures us that sometimes, good deeds are rewarded. Yet, there is this nagging suspicion in my head that this best possible scenario means something else altogether.

And this nagging suspicion is relieved only when Silas Marner goes to his native village to find everything changed there. And the Godmother (of perhaps the novel itself) Dolly says something to the effect of - perhaps not everything needs to be known.

The bliss of ignorance is the larger virtue in this book. If Godfrey had been more honest, if the villagers knew Dunstan had died, if Silas knew who Eppie's father was, all a bit too earlier, the plot would have fallen apart. Through half-truths and ignorance, people remain happy. Perhaps this can be read as an attempt against the knowledge drive of the 19th century. Maybe to fall back to rustic life and just be.

I think this is what this book is clever at doing - setting things so perfect that you immediately wonder 'what if'. Had Silas not been deemed guilty, had he not come to Raveloe, had he not been a miser, had he not lost his gold, had he not been restless each night, had he not found the girl at his doorstep, had he not taken her in, had he not given her and received love, this would be a tale of Marner living happily with his wife, Dunstan and Godfrey being thrown out of the estate, Nancy becoming an old maid, and so on and so forth. You are free to choose your own what-ifs.

Anna Karenina (1873 to 1877), Leo Tolstoy

For the plot, click here.

With this cherished project, I needed to ensure that the start was at the right time.
Anna Karenina took more than a week for me to complete.

I started reading the book once I got back to Pune after my academic stint at Hyderabad. It was important for me to read the right book, for coming after what we finally decided can be termed 'academic disillusionment induced depression', what I read could either make or break me. I am glad I chose Anna Karenina. Since I really loved this book, and felt like I needed to document my wonder at the artistic genius of Leo Tolstoy, I thought I should start here.

The first few pages of the book was different from my experience of classics so far. It opens up right into Stiva's and Dolly's drama. The domestic tussles and how to deal with an adulterer of a husband immediately makes you wonder how it would have been if the gender role had been reversed. And here begins Tolstoy's genius. He provides you with answers to the very questions you were about to ask to the text. Anna's affair with Vronsky is the answer to that question.

Stiva's affair comfortably nestles in Dolly's pardon. Anna's affair spirals into multiple tragedies, destructing the people with her - naming the ruin of two perfectly good gentlemen, as Vronsky's mother says. The only difference in these affairs is that Stiva loves Dolly, while Anna can't imagine loving Karenin. It is this passionate love that later Dolly also covets when she visits Anna. Interestingly, Dolly cannot pardon her husband wholeheartedly, but longs for the excitement that Anna's scandalous life offers. This novel speaks of inadequacies and the primal human trait - to want something more. These lives are all about trying to make their situation better.

Things that make this rendition of domestic drama magnificent:

1. Tolstoy's narration: the book speaks of Russia, its life, the people, class struggles, the grass and the sky. The life of that era is alive in front of you. The people are real, the emotions are real. The struggles tug at your heart as well.
2. Characterization: when the narrative features the point of view of a dog, and makes you feel the jumpy affection that a creature could feel to its master, you know that the author is one capable of capturing fine character point. A large number of characters have their viewpoints. They speak of their troubles and go away. Tolstoy can tap into each character, assess what they actually are, and what they want for themselves.
3. Emotions: each character is rounded. With their own personal demons, each a product of the decisions of their thinking mind, the emotions that each of the characters feel make us a part of all that happens in the novel. The reader becomes the agony aunt to each of the characters, patiently listening to them resolving their position in life.
4. Unbiased descriptions: he awards the rustic life as much detail as he does the aristocratic politics. Each character is thus in a a soup of their time and place in history, and the socio-emotional tone of their society. Not one perspective is deemed higher than the other. He fondly talks of the simplicity of rustic relationships in the same manner that he shocks you with a peasant woman's callous attitude towards her child's death (as she has one too many). The urban bribe-culture is paired with the wishes of well-meaning politicians making good reforms. 
5. Encountering ideas: Tolstoy works with concepts like spirituality and religion, life and death, marriage and love, rich and poor, urban and rural with wisdom. He understands that human nature will always sway in between these binaries. This is the primary conflict of all the characters in the novel as well.  

There are a number of ideal characters - Kostya, Varenka, Sergei, Alexei Karenin, Dolly (to name a few). These characters are selfless, trying to make the world around them a better place, and they all go through their own crises that shape them further into a universal ideal of 'goodness'. The principal virtue that Tolstoy seems to advocate is the ability of a character to question. He therefore values the questioning mind of these characters. But it is the moments of doubt that show what their true worth is. Without their flaws, these characters couldn't dream of being perfect. 

This novel isn't about resolution. Tolstoy hints to a tragedy right from the beginning - there is not another way for the plot to proceed. Society must triumph over Anna. 

But a smaller tragedy is the one where Sergei Ivanovitch and Varenka succumb to limbo. Both individuals are too pure in themselves that they cannot fathom the inclusion of another person. Even as they wish it, the 'moment' passes and they must remain alone. This is the only pang that Tolstoy leaves you with. This is the element of surprise, the one unresolved haunting piece in the novel.

In fact, nothing is about resolution in the novel. It's about coming to terms with individuality in an increasingly complex world. The novel ends calmly with Kostya ruminating over his choices when it comes to spirituality. But his thoughts are his own; he decides against letting his wife know of these changes in his thought process. His thoughts aren't final either, for he fully understands the transitory nature of his thoughts. He continues to be a person who will have his ups and downs and will still try to survive. Because, this book tells me, life is all about survival and the pursuit of peace.