The Roads Less Travelled …

Which book lover can resist the first line - "I read a book one day and my whole life was changed". Pamuks' "The New Life" starts so and then proceeds to take the reader on a fantastic and often dizzying journey of Anatolian steppes in Turkey, of town centres with statues of Ataturk, and of cafes which serve the thick tea that Turkey is so famous for. The narrative moves at a frantic pace, often leaving the readers perplexed at turn of events, leaving a trail of unanswered questions for the reader to ponder on long after the book has finished.

Osman, a young student of engineering, chances fortuitously (or so he believes) on the book, "The New Life". He reads the book as a way to reach Janan, the beauty he has been smitten by, in whose hands he had first seen the tome. He definitely achieves his aim for the book leads him to Janan and her morose and reticent boyfriend Mehmet, but the book also opens to him another world, the world he thinks he has left but one which is continuously by his side, coexisting - waiting to be discovered.

Osman runs away from his home, hopping buses to reach the corners of Turkey, whose very existence he was unaware of. He sees his wanderings as a way to reconcile his existence with the teachings of the book. In his wanderings (and bus accidents), he chances to meet Janan, who in turn is searching for Mehmet who has left her to lead his new life. Together they start out - Osman searching for the lost meaning and Janan searching for her lost lover - different ways, but leading to the same end.

After a series of rather haphazard and unstrung events, Osman comes to know of the "The Grand Conspiracy", to get Turkey rid of those small things of daily usage - the popsicle candies, the gloves made from the hair of the mountain goat, the old stoves leaking oil - which together form the basis of existence of a community and its culture. Our young protagonist soon finds himself in the den of the people working against this conspiracy and for whom the book's name is an anathema, realising in the process that he himself is nothing but a screw in the grand design of the clock of time. That the events he took as chance were carefully crafted and orchestrated by someone else. That his reading of the book was not ordained by fate but decided by the Mehmet and implemented by Janan. He continues on his journey leaving his beloved Janan behind (never to find her again), with killing Mehmet as his sole aim - for he has come to believe that Mehmet's removal is the only way for his existence.

"The New Life" is at once a detective story, a parable and a critique of casting aside old customs without a thought in the race to get modernised. The structure of the novel is carefully conceived, so carefully that one might believe that the last and the first lines of the book were a single thought, with the rest of the material just buffering up the grand scheme. This indeed seems to be the trademark of the Orhan Pamuk novel, where the story is built up conceptually to very finish. So very often a Pamuk book feels like reading a Harry Potter novel (as Rowling herself has confessed to have already written the last chapter in the series), where the author knows what is the end whereas the reader hangs onto every page waiting for the end to occur - guided only by the number of pages left as to how close the end is.

I hung on to the last page.

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Why the hell did the author want to combine two separate stories, linked only by some ephemeral threads, I did not understand nor appreciate. My expectation towards Llosa's writing had increased manifold since the reading "The Feast of the Goat", but frankly speaking this book was a let down.

The book is an effort to relate the stories of Flora Tristan, and her more famous grandson, the eccentric artist Paul Gauguin. If you want to read the story of Flora all you have to do is read the odd chapters while the even tell you of the life of Paul. What binds both of these characters is their search for paradise on earth, in Tristan case - a society where each one will have equality of opportunity in all spheres while Gauguin searches for a lost island where man lives as he did in the old days, unfettered by the chains of civilization and culture.

The stories by themselves are eminently readable, especially the account of the painter's life in Tahiti and Marquesan. This is probably the best rendition of the Gauguin's life since Maughm came out with "The Moon and Sixpence". The narrative is interspersed with flashbacks in both the tales, which gives the reader some context for the search that characters are undertaking. However in the story of Flora, Llosa uses a second person narrative while the lady reminisces about her past, which I found irritating and unnecessary. Is this to evoke in the reader a sense of pity for the character? If so, Flora Tristan will be turning in her grave.

From the looks of it this novel seems like an experiment on the part of the author. But for me it was an experiment which just did not pay off.

I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.
She showed me her room, isn’t it good, norwegian wood?
She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere,
So I looked around and I noticed there wasn’t a chair.
I sat on a rug, biding my time, drinking her wine.
We talked until two and then she said, "it’s time for bed".
She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh.
I told her I didn’t and crawled off to sleep in the bath.
And when I awoke I was alone, this bird had flown.
So I lit a fire, isn’t it good, norwegian wood.

Norwegian Wood - Beatles

Haruki Murakami has taken the theme of this song and as only a true artist can, has produced a work of art that will rank alongside the best in postmodern 20th century lit. Unrequited love, death, poignancy, madness and surprisingly humour are the basis of this coming-of-age tale of Toru Watanabe. Toru is torn between Naoko, his first love and that also of his now dead friend Kizuki, who is maniacally depressive and Midori, a person who is trying to come out the shroud of death to find a life for herself. As Toru struggles between maintaining his fidelity to Naoko and at the same time grows closer to Midori, Murakami's unique prose allows the reader to place himself completely in the protagonist's shoes.

The books' major forte is clearly the character development. Every aspect of each of the major players in the 19th and 20th years of Toru's life is drawn out in the book. Toru's despondent loneliness, Naoko's silence, Midori's ache for love are truly felt by the reader. There is a certain lyrical quality in Murakami's writing which allows him to transition from one state to another with a grace that is truly amazing. The same quality also allows him to leave a lot unsaid, especially about the setting and ambience, only to be said by the way the narrative develops. "Norwegian Wood" can be compared to "Catcher in the Rye", both being tales of adolescence, insanity and death. In fact we can see Toru reading the book quite a few times in the novel.

I have not read much Japanese fiction(Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetralogy being the only other work I have attempted). But Murakami presents to us a Japan of Sony and bullet trains which is more in line with our knowledge than Mishima who seems to be stuck in the Post-Meiji era. While Mishima's prose is as heavy as the a branch laden with cherry blossoms, which he so often describes, Murakami's is light and flighty. What is common to them is the grace of movement which I have to realise is probably a cornerstone of their culture. Books, movies, cartoons, music all seem to possess this trait.

My favourite parts of the story -

1. The opening part where Naoko and Toru are going through the meadows and how Toru realises 18 years later that the scene is slipping away from him second by second with age.

2. Midori and Toru sitting on top of her house watching a house fire and signing a folk song. Talk of dysfunctional humour!!!

3. Toru visiting Midori's father in the hospital and eating cucumbers with him. And all he remembers is that the old man made the same crunching sound as him.

4. Reiki telling Toru in a letter that it is possible to love more than one and by accepting Midori he was not really casting away Naoko.

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Reading for me is not a habit, it is almost an addiction now. Most define reading as as an act of reading a book or papers something like it. But the word itself has much wider connotations, for you can read the underside of a bottle of cough syrup and realise first hand that what your mom gives you so many times in your childhood is exactly what she tells you to avoid in college parties. The above clearly belies the fact that reading something is a act of some intellectual achievement. I would rather term it as an act of discovery.

I have had in the last few days some discussions wherein, the theme was centred on the how a person's taste in books develops and evolves over a period. What we found was that this change is not gradual but their exists certain events which cause a person to alter his habits - either to adapt to his new surroundings, or as a way to catch up with his peers or just realising that something else exists beyond what he knows. However what was most interesting was that all of us almost shared almost the same timelines. Another funny coincidence was that this evolution stopped in one direction the very moment one lost the yearning to discover some new things and unravel some new mysteries.

I would divide my reading history so far into 3 periods - School, Undergraduate, and Present. It is no coincidence that these periods correspond exactly to the broad phases in our education. For it is education - only of our own choosing.

The School phase: When a person discovers books is very much a matter of circumstance. For me it was extremely early, leaving in a house that had enough books to be packed from floor to ceiling in a couple of shelves. I knew I loved reading when in class 3 I received a set of encyclopedias which I continued to pore over for the next 3 years till I had almost memorized everything that was in it. I have forgotten most of what I had so carefully gleaned from those books but even what little remains stands me in good stead even today. Then came the Hardy boys, Famous Fives, the Super Sixes, the Secret Sevens and Three Investigators. For some time I thought I had read enough. Then I from a relatives place I picked up "Day of the Jackal" by Forsyth and it was faster, more action filled and infinitely more intriguing than what I had read before. That was in class 9th. It would take close to 5 years, well into my college life, before I had my fill of this genre. Forsyth, Ludlum, Archers I read them all. And then there are the short stories. Our literature text books were a collection of short stories and through these books I was introduced to the world of Sherlock Holmes, O Henry, Tolstoy, Chekov, Saki, Maugham and so many other writers. I remember waiting every summer for the new books to come in so that I could read my literature text book end to end. It is in these years that one develops an yearning for books and reading or the opposite. That is why I would consider the Harry Potter series such wondrous creations. They are probably the best introduction a student can have into the pleasure of sitting in chair with a book in hand, discovering new places ,meeting new people and experiencing emotions so well understood and yet so alien. And lastly reading in school implies comics - from the urbane tintin, to funny Asterix to the downright garish Nagraj I read them all.

The College phase: In one line, introduction to novels. When I entered the hallowed corridors of the Hall 3 in IIT Kanpur, I prided myself in being well read. It took me a couple of interactions before I realised how much I still had to learn. There are a few books which are an essential read for every new undergraduate. Catcher in the Rye, Catch - 22 and Atlas Shrugged. First two of these give voice to those conflicting emotions that one feels on leaving the protected environs for the big bad world. And the last probably screams out the ambition of every young individual of doing something different and leaving his mark in the world. I discovered amongst other authors Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Tolkien, Marquez, Saramago and Vonnegut in these days. The problem with my reading in this period was that I was too busy catching up, filling up my perceived gaps rather than searching out what really wanted to read. So even though I read a lot they did not affect me as much as much as the books in my school days. I would say this was the period where I was defining my tastes and likes.

Present: I read whatever I get. I have given up hope that I will be able to read all I want. For every book I read I get to know of 5 more titles I want to read. I also widened my reading net. In came non-fiction, popular science and manage it yourselves books. Nothing went out. I still read cheap racy paperbacks along with Nobel prize winners and wannabes. Every time I talk books with someone I discover something new - a new author, a new genre or a new style. From these discussions I have discovered Bulgakov, Nabokov, Vargas Llosa, Mishima and so many others.

Regrets - I have never read a P.G. Wodehouse. That however should soon be rectified.