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everyday i have the blues
Jan. 3rd, 2007 12:52 amHere I am, sitting in my blue swivel chair, with a cushion to my back, listening to the jazz masterpieces of Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald; book in hand and the reading line glowing noisily above me.
This is a picture of content, I tell myself.
I finished A Fine Balance - it depressed me. I have nothing for Mistry's writing style. It's effective, it gets his point across, I enjoyed the prose but it was sometimes too laboriously detailed. Overtly descriptive nearly bordering D. H. Lawrence. But I liked it. I have a penchant for post-colonial narratives and this one did not disappoint. I found it much better than The God of Small Things for numerous reasons. Firstly, the flow of the story is much smoother and seamless than The God of Small Things. Characters are much more fleshed out. I felt something for Omprakash, Ishvar, Maneck and Dina Dalal. I didn't feel anything for the characters in Arundhati Roy's novel. They were just symbols alone. Simply plot devices.
Then yesterday I started on Murakami's Kafka on the Shore and devoured it by 7pm today. First sign of a good book. Me not putting it down except for sleep and maybe a bath.Oh if only we could waterproof books. I still place Norweigian Wood as my ultimate favourite novel from Murakami. Kafka ties in with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle for second. It was almost a contender for first place, except that Norweigian Wood has a special place in my heart.
Reading Kafka on the Shore, I noticed how Murakami's style has progressed from the Rat Trilogy to this latest book of his. He's clearly much more at ease with prose, the way he nearly effortlessly weaves in three narratives to complete a novel as a whole. Everything was a symbol. Now that might seem tiresome, but really, it was quite an easy novel to absorb.
To absorb, I repeat.
I haven't completely understood it yet, it's much too complex to digest in one reading only.
Next up is an A.S. Byatt piece.
I haven't decided which one yet though.
This is a picture of content, I tell myself.
I finished A Fine Balance - it depressed me. I have nothing for Mistry's writing style. It's effective, it gets his point across, I enjoyed the prose but it was sometimes too laboriously detailed. Overtly descriptive nearly bordering D. H. Lawrence. But I liked it. I have a penchant for post-colonial narratives and this one did not disappoint. I found it much better than The God of Small Things for numerous reasons. Firstly, the flow of the story is much smoother and seamless than The God of Small Things. Characters are much more fleshed out. I felt something for Omprakash, Ishvar, Maneck and Dina Dalal. I didn't feel anything for the characters in Arundhati Roy's novel. They were just symbols alone. Simply plot devices.
Then yesterday I started on Murakami's Kafka on the Shore and devoured it by 7pm today. First sign of a good book. Me not putting it down except for sleep and maybe a bath.
Reading Kafka on the Shore, I noticed how Murakami's style has progressed from the Rat Trilogy to this latest book of his. He's clearly much more at ease with prose, the way he nearly effortlessly weaves in three narratives to complete a novel as a whole. Everything was a symbol. Now that might seem tiresome, but really, it was quite an easy novel to absorb.
To absorb, I repeat.
I haven't completely understood it yet, it's much too complex to digest in one reading only.
Next up is an A.S. Byatt piece.
I haven't decided which one yet though.
