Skip to main content
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Four stars, because I couldn't fathom the whole meaning of some of its stories. I understood they were deep but maybe one needs to graduate to a certain level of EQ to understand stories like this. At first, till 2 or 3 stories, I felt that these stories were obscure. But then I read some stories which went very deep, you know, the kind of stories where the characters do something but it means something else entirely! I reread the earlier stories and I let them seep in. They started making sense. I felt the utter incompatibility about feeling and sensing deepest of the emotions. What a fool I was, feeling superior after reading some books that I understood human emotions and mind. Raymond Carver was a genius who understood darkness and loneliness. Don't get fooled by the title of the book. It's not about just love, it's about other things which we try to ignore which come with love, like insecurity, celestial loneliness, feeling that no one will really understand you, jealousy, boredom, acceptance of the things the way they are and death of romance. Time does that to love. There are great philosophies underlying in the book, not the kind which you use to enhance your happiness, but the kind which makes you put away the veil that society advises you to put on dark issues. Mind you, that veil is necessary to go through life without being constantly depressed and should be encouraged in my view, but not without understanding what lies below, in the dark, lonely alleys of the mind.
I still haven't understood some stories fully. It's like knowing someone is there but not knowing who. I'll keep rereading till I feel I have understood them at least a little.
View all my reviews
Popular posts from this blog
Looking for Alaska by John Green
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
It started with a kindle book which was on a freak sale; I didn't even like YA novels (so I thought) and it was an impulse buy (you know, when you buy books just because, you know!!) but boy, has this book opened my eyes! I had liked some YA movies like 'Perks of being a wallflower' and 'Me and Earl and the dying girl' but always thought YA books to be fodder for the inferior somehow. I couldn't be more wrong. This one created swirls of emotions I had always loved but current cynicism had forbidden. It is true that we grow bleaker and more cynical as we grow older but we are delusional as well. Books like these show you the softer side of life. Everyone has gone to school once upon a time and each one of us has had a crush on someone we thought was cute but not every crush ends up being 'happily forever', well, most of them don't. This book is an ode to those turbulent times of the journey from childhood to adulthood, first kisses (and blowjobs too!), that fluttery feeling in the heart, friendship, unbreakable bonds, introduction to vices of life, adolescent pain, breaking rules, love and most important of all, memories!
View all my reviews
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Yes, there are some books you've heard a lot of hype about but don't live upto your expectations. This was one of them. This doesn't mean that it's a bad book as I'm no one to pass judgements towards books. What I may not like can be love of someone else.
So, what I liked about this book is obviously the narration style. The reader is the protagonist in this novel. The writer takes us on a journey to read a book 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveller'. We buy the book but there seems to be a problem in the book and so we go to replace it, but it starts a series of events where we stumble upon many books (or rather only beginnings of books) but are never able to complete any one of them.
This book might have been a try by the author to provide source for his stories which never went beyond intriguing beginnings. He elaborately has enticed the reader in reading all these unfinished stories. It sometimes reminded me of Vonnegut's style and insane logic of 'Catch-22'. All this was very interesting but there were patches in the book where I couldn't get much interested fully. There was heavy usage of complex words and phrases which seemed slightly out of place for this novel.
Overall, I liked the novel but I can't say I loved it. Maybe in future, if I reread it, the result maybe different.
View all my reviews
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
It's rare that I finish a book in a single day. I did it with this book. A writer who has written only two books is rare and that too half a century apart is even so! Harper Lee gives us an unexpected but very deserving sequel to her 'To kill a mockingbird' with Jean Louise of 26 years old as protagonist. Many things have changed in these years, some characters are gone, others are added to the narrative but the soul of this book is the same. You get the same feeling you had when you read 'To kill..'. The only necessary difference is you get to see this Maycomb county directly from an adult perspective as opposed to the case of 'To kill..' in which one had to interpret a child's observations. I loved this book; especially the climactic intellectual intercourse between Scout, Atticus Finch and Dr. Finch. Reading it in one sitting helped of course to stay with the characters. One can't help but get mesmerised by the dialogs and philosophies in this book.
"Every man's an island, Jean Louise, every man's a watchman, is his conscience."
"Our gods are remote from us, Jean Louise. They must never descend to human level."
View all my reviews
Comments
Post a Comment