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Book Review: The Good, The Bad and The Ridiculous

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The latest book by Khushwant Singh that recently hit the bookstores is a compilation of 35 famous and controversial personalities through the eyes of the 98 year old celebrated columnist. The Good, The Bad and The Ridiculous pens uncensored attacks on people with whom Khushwant Singh had relations, met and interacted over the years. Co-authored by Humra Quraishi, this book provides an insider’s look at the lives of people like Indira Gandhi, Giani Zail Singh, Jinnah, Gandhi and many others and introduces us to their not-so-pleasant characteristics.

He dedicates small chapters to each personality and narrates his accounts wittingly and candidly. The book engages you with innately honest opinions and makes one curious to know what bomb would explode in our perceptions of the famous ones after reading about them.

Reading out blurbs like, “There was something cold and haughty about her. Not my type at all … But she had her set of admirers … and never forgave anyone who said anything against her” for Indira Gandhi or “He took a vow of celibacy in his prime, but without consulting his wife, which I think was grossly unfair. He would sleep naked beside young girls to test his brahmacharya. He could be very odd” for the Father of the Nation makes the book both intimate and irreverent.

He quite clearly expresses his bitterness for L.K Advani and expresses his ‘ambivalence’ for Indira Gandhi. Khushwant Singh dedicates the biggest chapter to V.K Menon followed by a close second of Giani Zail Singh.

The book entertains and shocks the reader with Singh’s sketches of the good, bad and the ridiculous shades of the people whom he knew for almost a century.  Well informed accounts and frank opinions by KS have been appreciated by all and makes him one of the most honest and candid writers in this industry.  Khushwant Singh also makes it very clear in this book he that neither dreads criticism and nor is bothered about it.

This book will certainly ring a bell for people who crave gossips coming out from the elite class of the country. Notwithstanding the fact that the book is only a person’s opinion which need not be a full story, the book can prove to be useful for peeking into the lives of others through the eyes of the Big Old Man of the writing world.

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DUB Speak

The line between fictional and non-fictional books

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‘Fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ are the two genres that a writer goes for. There was a time when fictional books were written only for entertainment purposes but that is not the case anymore. The new trend is to provide morals to the readers apart from engaging them. The learning derived from the two genres are slowly but steadily converging to a single goal of reminding the readers of something intricate yet basic, sending across a message about the world they are currently inhabiting or dream of, for better or worse.

The fictional books provide a platform to the readers to identify themselves with the characters present in the book. The reader, in the process, suffers if the character he/she identifies with, encounters sufferings and is made to learn a lesson in the end. The non-fictional books intend to give out a message by describing the journey of a person’s life or some other real situation. It appears as if the fictional books serve as examples of the contexts explained in the non-fictional books.

While Harry Potter’s battle with Voldemort tells us that with grit, determination and by having faith in yourself, any evil can be fought and defeated, his endeavors throughout the series , leave a message of perseverance  until you have achieved your goal no matter how messed up the circumstances are. The same morals can be derived from a non-fictional book containing an account of someone who has strived hard, against all odds, to achieve a position he currently enjoys, the autobiography of a renowned individual as an example. The suspense that a reader enjoys while reading an autobiography to know how the individual got out of messed up circumstances is the same as the suspense enjoyed when the reader grows restless to know what will happen next to a character in fictional books. A non-fictional book giving an account of the partition of India as seen through the eyes of an individual who has survived the partition, gives the same moral message of violence and wars being disastrous and futile, as a fictional book in which the same scenario is related. The examples can be innumerable.

Thus, the demarcation that separates the two genres, although being there, is blurring when it comes to the morals and the learning derived from a certain book. That being said, both are equally intriguing facets of writing.

Image Credits: www.talkandroid.com

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Top Picks

5 Contemporary Classics for the bibliophile

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Shakespeare’s Julius Ceaser, Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, Bram Stocker’s Dracula…

The past few centuries have not only led to astounding technological development but also fantastic development of literary excellence. Every decade saw its own artistic genius, be it books, movies or music. The legacy that our ancestors left behind has been breathtaking.

But what about today’s generation? Are we capable of only producing better gadgets and remaking films? Has the Shakespeare been replaced by the Steve Jobs? Most certainly not. The creative genius is just as intact as the wiz kid. And some of our modern day authors back this notion.

The only reason classics are what they are today is because of the adulation of thousands of readers over tens of generations. So if some of the recently written books were to outlive all of us and survive for that long, then they might just find a place in textbooks and the ‘Classics’ section with Romeo- Juliets and Oliver Twist. Here is my list of the 5 books that have the best shot!

1. The Da Vinci Code

There are very few writers who can appreciate the value of time as well as Dan Brown. Quite literally! All his books featuring Robert Langdon span over a day (two at the most). The sheer pace with which this innately gifted professor solves unfathomable mysterious keeps you hooked onto the pages. And the perfection with which the story is presented from multiple perspectives makes Da Vinci Code the work of a skilled virtuoso.

2. Harry Potter Series

I highly doubt that anyone would disagree on this phenomenal series by JK Rowling. I read somewhere, ‘We owe our childhoods to JK Rowling’. And then I realized the level of impact this book has had on the lives of children in the most formative years of their lives. Suddenly from wanting to be astronauts and film stars, every child wanted to be Harry Potter. Achieving a feat like that, the series has the potential to be a classic.

3. The Master of The Game

Very few writers can disregard the value of time as well as Sidney Sheldon. Among all of Sheldon’s books, The Master of The Game is the one that makes you stay up late in the night reading and probably miss a meal the next morning. Starting from Jamie McGregor, the book delves into the life of his daughter- Kate Blackwell, her son and his twin daughters. So basically in a matter of 400 hundred something pages, you span 4 generations, cover two wars, deception, mystery, love, drama and spinning chilling thrill. If this book doesn’t make it to the classics, then maybe classics are over rated!

4. Kane and Abel

Although each of Jeffery Archer’s books is a beacon of unparalleled genius, Kane and Abel deserves a special place alongside the other classics. The book centers around William Lowell Kane and Abel Rosnovski, two men born in different parts of the world, literally and metaphorically, and their journey from birth, their ambitions, struggles and intersected destinies. The profound impact that this book leaves on your mind makes it well worth the honour it’ll most certainly get.

5. The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho’s books are often accused of being too optimistic and often, boring. The Alchemist is no exception. But just because a book isn’t compelling you to finish it in 2 hours doesn’t mean it’s not worth reading. In fact, classics rarely do. You might read the first half and forget about the book for a few weeks or even months. You might not understand the whole point of reading it even after you have finished 3/4th of the book. But the sense of hopefulness and contentment that the book propagates and almost manages to make you believe in, by the end of it, is definitely worth the time you spend on it. And the best part is that it’s a self help book that lets you live in the false sense of security that you don’t need a self help book.

There are a lot more that can be added. But if you haven’t read these, you better start cracking! What other books do you think can become classics in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Image courtesy: goodreads.com

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Biblio

Book Review: Dozakhnama

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Name of the author: Rabisankar Bal
Translator: Arunava Sinha
Genre: Magic realism
Year of release: 2013
Price: Rs 399

Who is the better storyteller: God or Manto?

Manto’s grave In Miani Sahib, Lahore, used to hold this epitaph before it was replaced by his sister fearing consequences from the newly independent Islamic nation of Pakistan. This race with God to be the better storyteller continued till his end and really is the essence of Dozakhnama. Within the conversation between two of the most celebrated writers in Urdu – Saadat Hasan Manto and Mirza Ghalib – the novel oscillates between two of the most important turning points in subcontinental history; the first war of independence in 1857 and the partition in 1947. In disguise of a literary masterpiece, it chronicles history in far more eloquent terms than any history book.

A journalist, unnamed throughout the book, researching on the tawaifs of Lucknow comes across an unpublished manuscript of a novel written by Manto about his conversation with Ghalib beyond the grave. He takes the manuscript back with him to Calcutta to translate it into Bengali with the help of his Urdu teacher, Tabassum. And then what follows is a world unleashed by the turning of pages where lost dastangos are found again, where Ismat Chugtai and Ashoke Kumar are living characters, where the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zaffar is still holding onto glories long past. The decay of the Mughal Empire and with it the culture attached to it of Shahjahanabad is echoed in Manto’s description of the aftermath of partition. If history repeats itself, then there are no better historians than poets.

Translators are important. Without them, Marquez would still be undiscovered, Murakami would still be an unknown name and Neruda would not have become the most quoted poet ever. Likewise, without Sinha’s translation, Dozakhnama would have remained a book only celebrated inside the Bengali reading audience. While a lot of the nuances of the original language get lost in translation generally, Sinha has still managed to keep the pacing of the words and the emitting imageries true. Interestingly, the journalist-protagonist in the novel is himself translating a work from one language to another. One paradox inside another, by the end, the novel magically opens up portals to our shared history which reminds one that the past is not always that different from the present.

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Biblio

Read them, don’t watch them!

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Someone once said ‘those who say money can’t buy happiness are the ones who don’t have any’. That someone apparently had excellent insight into human mind, especially of the ones in the film making business. And so the whole process of spending months writing, shooting, editing and releasing a movie boiled down to filling already overstuffed pockets.

And what better way to create a multi million dollar blockbuster than converting an already oversold book into a motion picture. And since the author ends up with jaw dropping royalties and the producers with more money than they can spend, everyone’s happy. But the one flaw in the plan is that blockbusters don’t fall from the skies or off bestselling pages, they need to be made with the most deep and well-thought perspectives. So here’s a look at all the movies that did not only leave blots of disturbing memories in the minds of the viewers but also spoilt the reputation of the books.

  • Angels and Demons- The movie, which had expectations soaring as high as those from classics, was a disappointment. Not only was the plot changed drastically, the film failed to bring out the sheer excitement and thrill a viewer should experience watching Robert Langdon come to life. The studio made a sad choice between a shorter running time and a better, more authentic plot.

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  • Eragon- If you’ve watched the movie, then I don’t even need to elaborate on what a horror those 2 hours were. One of the most well written fantasy novels was turned into one of the most pathetic movies (genre no bar). Everything from start to finish was completely different. In fact, if the studio named the movie something else, they would have had an original disappointment to their credit. Thankfully, a sequel is unlikely. But please do not trust the movie, read the book. It’ll be worth your time.
  • Lord of The Rings: Before you write me off as delusional, let me clarify, the movies were pretty good! But, they were not even a spec on Tolkien’s classic Trilogy. Even though no movie can capture the depth of a book, this is especially true in this case. The plot was the same and the movies won Oscars, still reading the books is a far better experience.
  • Eat Pray Love- Think Julia Roberts, Think visual excellence. And then think again. Beside Roberts in exquisite locations, Eat Pray Love has little to offer. Roberts brilliance as an actor was eclipsed by a completely deformed plot. The movie seemed to drag on endlessly. It wasn’t even able to approach the depth of the book.

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  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen- No list of worst movies can be completed without the mention of this particular one, much less a list of good books turned into bad films. The graphic novel is touted as one of the most hair-raising comics of recent times was turned into one of the most shunned movies of all times. In fact, it’s hard to find even one review recommending the movie.
  • One Night At The Call Centre/Hello- If you believe that only Hollywood makes such mistakes, then let me enlighten you. Although the book itself was no Pulitzer winner but the movie was even worse. The audiences discomfort in sitting through the film was mirrored by the evident discomfort of the actors trying to do something they can’t. Actually, neither watching nor reading it will be the safest option.

A few others, which managed to make it to the hall of shame, are Inkheart, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Stardust and Hobbit (making 3, 3 hour films out of one book- seriously!) to name a few.

Do yourself a favor, and do not watch them, read them! (or at least read them before watching the films)

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Arts & Culture

Top 5 Books Banned In India

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The Indian government has always made pretentious claims about idealism and socialism, yet goes on banning books – a distortion of the freedom of expression – to claim their supremacy. About 20 books are officially banned in India currently, and imports of many others are denied by the customs department.

But are the bans really worth it? With greater permissiveness and social freedom, uncensored copies of the book are anyway floating freely on internet.

Indian writers and economists have said much harsher things. Yet, in all these years nobody has bothered to take them into consideration. Analysts from Reporters Without Borders rank India 131st in the world in terms in their Press Freedom Index, falling from 80th just 11 years earlier. Here are top 5 books that are censored in India.

 

1) The Satanic Verses

Amongst the oldest, yet youngest controversy as is evident from incidences of Jaipur literature festival. India was the first Country to ban the Book following the hostile response from the Muslims all over the Globe. He has been in a hiding for over a decade. Fatwa was imposed on Rushdie by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini for demeaning Islam. Rushdie had to live in hiding for nearly a decade.

2) The Great Soul

Joseph Lelyveld, the Pulitzer Prize winner and former executive editor of The New York Times penned a biography, “The Great Soul”, inspired by Gandhi’s life in India and South Africa. The reviews claimed that the book exposed Gandhi’s sexual life and bigoted views. Reacting to it, the book was called for a ban in Gujarat, Gandhi’s hometown has. But imposition of nationwide ban was abjured, citing Lelyveld’s clarification. Still book is not let inside India by customs department.

3) Nine Hours to Rama

Nine Hours to Rama written by historian Wolpert, a professor at University of California. This book is a fictional account of last day of Gandhiji’s lije and focuses on how Nathuram Godse planned Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. It got banned because it exposed the poor security provided to Gandhi, and hinted at possible incompetence and conspiracy.

4) Lady Chatterley’s Lover

“Lady Chatterley’s Lover” by D.H. Lawrence was considered as obscene because it was an account of a women’s illegitimate relationship with her Gardner. It has depiction of sex and politics gave rise to controversies and was unanimously banned in India and Britain (though Britain lifted up the ban). But the ban is not followed as it should be and you can find books in some stored. The court said that the court does not protect those who take delight in “sexual pleasures and erotic writings”.

5) The Polyester Prince

Australian journalist Hamish McDonald wrote this account of Ambani’s rise in 1998, which remained unavailable in India, partly because of concerns that Ambani would sue if the book got released. The books asserted that many of the rules and regulations were turned down to serve his purpose.  An updated version” Ambani and Sons”, was written down which is available in book stores.

 

 

 

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Arts & Culture

Book Review: The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao

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“It’s like a fucking knife in me”, said Junot Díaz, on the pressure to produce a follow-up to his 1996 short story collection Drown,  that released to explosive critical acclaim.  Greats have been known to succumb, but with the release of his sophomore publication and debut novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Diaz, creates a narrative that juggles the two contrasting curses that have been known to afflict Latin-American literature: the “Macondo” (a shorthand for the García Márquez school of fiction) and “McOndo” (a term coined by Alberto Fuguet for the backlash against magical realism), with a breathless, capacious pace.

In what the New York Times called a “Mario Vargas LLosa-meets David Foster Wallace-meets-Kanye West” manoeuvre, three generations, two nations, a multiplicity of voices that echo the complexities of being American, sexual shenanigans, a foppish genocidaire and a sincere homage to all holy tenets of geekery, are all held together by the eponymous Oscar and narrated by his sometime-friend Yunior, in a relentless, streetspeak brand of Spanglish liberally interspersed with flash talk and razzle-dazzle words.

The book opens with a nod to “magic realism,” the most hackneyed tradition associated with Latin American fiction in the United States, introducing “Fuku Americanus,” or “the Curse and the Doom of the New World,” brought into being by the European colonization of Hispaniola and, more specifically, Columbus’ peregrinations circa 1492. But in Díaz’s hands, the “magic” gives way to “realism” in the first few paragraphs. The broad strokes of his global curse suddenly become very personal: “It’s perfectly fine if you don’t believe [in this],” the narrator tells us. “In fact it’s better than fine — it’s perfect. Because no matter what you believe, fuku believes in you.” Not surprisingly, fuku is eventually reconfigured as “fuck you.”

“You really want to know what being an X-Man feels like? Just be a smart bookish boy of colour in a contemporary US ghetto.”

Diaz creates in Oscar de Leon, (“not one of those one of those Dominican cats everybody’s always going on about. He wasn’t no player. Except for one time, he’d never had much luck with women”) a portrait of the artist as the homely lonely homeboy hero, painfully overweight and overtly precocious user of words like ‘vertiginous’ and ‘indefatigable’, “a hardcore sci-fi and fantasy man”, well versed in “Japanimation” and Marvel comics lore and with a burning ambition to write a space fantasy epic combining the characteristic themes of JRR Tolkien and EE “Doc” Smith. A Dominican-American growing up in Paterson, New Jersey, during the 80s, his counter-stereotypical nerdiness make him a doubly marginalised figure who spends most of his life wondering if he would ever get laid. A sensitive inamorata who ‘falls in love like the rest of us fall asleep’, Oscar’s emotional rawness and authenticity, his willingness to die for love, exasperate and then engross Yunior, are striking. The novel traces the strands of Oscar’s peculiar emotional DNA back through familial and national histories, in particular those of his mother, grandmother and grandfather, all three of whom suffer injustice and brutality at the hands of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, the Dominican Republic’s iron-fisted ruler from 1930 to 1961. The plot interweaves period chapters set in Santo Domingo with those in New Jersey and New York as if hoping to diagnose Oscar’s addiction to love and Yunior’s encroaching self-loathing via personal and political histories. Accounts of betrayals, beatings, tortures and other manifold perversions of humanity darken Dominican narratives filled with beautiful and strong women seeking love, and proud men crushed by their perceived failure to navigate a ruinous social system.

Funny, unapologetic and intensely readable, his novel has a fine sense of itself as a performance rather than something ominously lapidary. It’s also good on the weight of history. And the reader is left guessing about poor Oscar until the very end.

Iva Dixit
[email protected]

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Biblio

Book Review: The Buddha of Suburbia

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Sometime before the world began perceiving him as a once-brilliant success-cliché who’d simply gone stark raving mad and taken to penning scathing novellas about intolerable ex-wives, Hanif Kureishi produced his debut novel The Buddha of Suburbia – a curiously satirical work that drew almost entirely from Kureishi’s own tumultuous teenage years growing up in the suburbs of South London.

The book is an-almost Bildungsroman of sorts, as it is the chronicle of a short time in the life of half-Indian teenager Karim Amir, (‘an Englishman born and bred. Almost.’) whose narration is a sardonic account of the in-between-ness of his origins: suburban, non-white, (‘more beige than anything’). Pop music, sexual explicitness and suburban self-denial come together in a raucous clash of cultures in ‘70s Tory England, with little doubt as to which side Karim favours.

So what sets Karim apart from the legions of leather-and-Levi’s clad punk heroes found in Beatnik literature, sniffing in disdain at the inanities of suburbia? Young, disrespectful and suspicious of bourgeois working-class pretensions, Kureishi creates in Karim a peculiar anti-hero who is vain, foolish and prone to too many chatty exclamations of hyperbole and superficial witticisms, but somehow rises to any satirical occasion with a laconic, exaggerated insight that is uncomfortably close to the truth.

The ‘Suburbia’ is Chislehurst, snug in its complacent manicured lawns, racist attacks on Pakistanis, and absurd fascination with all things Oriental and exotic, where deadly conformity rules supreme and deviations from established norms are not tolerated kindly.

The ’Buddha’ in the title refers to Haroon, Karim’s father, buttoned-up bureaucrat by day and velvet-waistcoat-clad-mystic yogi by night, dispensing a vague mish-mash of Buddhist and yogic philosophy to suburban yuppies seeking redemption of a higher call than polished wood flooring. Haroon’s mystic stint and eventual relationship with the dilettantish Eva Kay, opens up a world of staggering new possibilities for Karim, as it is she who unfolds the world for his restless ignorance to delve into.

Eva’s unforgivably cool son, Charles, a mediocre musician, with his platinum blonde hair and emotional coldness, is the sexual focus of Karim’s Chislehurst years, who later markets himself as a punk rocker Charlie Hero to the musically forgiving Americans.

It is in London, less than 20 miles away but an alternative universe itself with its hot promise of endless drugs, sex and excitement, that Karim eventually discovers a talent for acting and develops the first of many disillusionments with love and politics.  Karim’s maturity can be measured by the distance he travels from Chislehurst, and the perspective he gains on Charlie. 

Kureishi’s beginnings as a playwright make plenty of appearances in the technique and narrative of the novel, evident in the precedence of speech over description. Karim’s calculated colloquialisms and the ambiguity between speech and thought are liberally interspersed with mock-dramatic cliché and theatrical narcissism.  The comedy of the novel relies on the narrator’s determination to stay on the surface of things – to combine candour with caricature, espousing an irreverent take on his surroundings while remaining absolutely straight-faced.

“Perhaps in the future I would live more deeply,” he says with comic solemnity as the novel ends, “But that is not for now”.

Iva Dixit
[email protected]

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Arts & Culture

Spell & Bound Bookshop and Café: A review

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The musky smell of crisp, new paper emanating from stacks upon stacks of titles sinks in the moment you enter Spell & Bound Bookshop and Café, the newest place to have moored its enticing anchor in the bustling area of SDA.  With its polished wooden floors and spiral staircases, Spell & Bound radiates a cozy, old-world charm that is immensely wanting in chain bookstores today.

The store itself is tiny; with the basement and ground floor dedicated to books, while the first floor serves coffee and kathis (the latter of which deserve a paragraph to themselves, as shall duly follow!). The stock is neatly shelved according to category, lined from end to end and packed tight with titles ranging from the latest in Indian and International fiction, to prizewinners, classics, and must-reads.

From Jack Kerouac to Henry Miller, from Tina Fey to Anthony Bourdain, liberally interspersed with Graham Greene and James Joyce as well, the oeuvre of the store is admittedly massive, and it is evident that they take their reading very seriously, and many a bibliophile can be found perusing through titles at complete leisure. Not limited only to fiction, the store has an entire section dedicated to coffee table tomes, some of which include books of images from the Victoria & Albert Museum, works of iconic photographers such as Angelika Taschen and Raghu Rai, to the exclusive limited edition book of Pucci prints (published by Taschen, sold out in most other parts of the world and legendary in every way).

However, the one area where it falls short is the prices: Spell & Bound, for all its inviting warmth of teak and mahogany, and musty paper smells, unfortunately does not go too easy on the pocket. Apart from smartly dressed yuppies often seen frequenting the place, the prices of vintage complete editions of Fitzgerald and Murakami (while thrilling to touch and covet) aren’t very conducive to the average college goer’s budgets. However, that isn’t always the case as the basement does stock the cheaper Bantam, Penguin Classic and Simon & Schuster versions as well.

However, if the hardback edition of Mohammad Hanif’s Our Lady of Alice Bhatti (Rs 499) is a bit out of range for you, despair not and head to the first floor instead to sink the distress into the absolutely delicious kathis served there. With quirky Delhi-inspired artwork on the wall, and the prices almost reasonable (before the vat kicks in), it’s usually flocked with people furiously discussing their downstairs purchases with the gusto only someone who reads is capable of.

C-11, Shop No 2, SDA Market, Opposite IIT Main Gate, New Delhi, India 110016

Iva Dixit
[email protected]

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Uncategorized

Laments of a reader wronged

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Reading has always been an intrinsic part of being me. Over the years I have read a great number of books. At the tender age of ten I accidentally found myself reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The other three quickly followed and I was secretly delighted that I was not yet eleven, harbouring dreams of a Hogwarts letter. Well, I didn’t kill myself.

The epitome of fantasy, in my opinion, is the Lord of the Rings. The Narnia series and Dragonheart were other impressive books. I was mesmerized by fantastical creatures like elves, dwarves, dragons, vampires….

Some years ago, I chanced upon Eragon and eagerly picked it up. I would be lying if I said that I did not enjoy the book; it almost got me a fail in my French second term. The idea of a Dragon Rider, a human and a dragon sharing such an intimate bond was fascinating. The book had it’s inconsistencies but I was too young; or maybe on second though, Paolini was. Eldest released in 2005 and burned a hole in my pocket, not that I was complaining, not yet. The book was quite appalling, to put it cleanly. The characters lacked depth, the author lacked good writing skills, there were glaring inconsistencies and being a Tolkien loyalist, the originality and imagination were conspicuous only by their absence. I could write several volumes about the lack of character development but it should suffice to say that Saphira’s character reminded me more of a plain old, nagging aunt rather than a fire- breathing, glorious dragon. Brisingr, the third installment of the Inheritance Cycle had little redeeming value. Every little discrepancy was answered by a sneaky, “It’s magic.” I mean really, it’s not like the readers are daft. Concepts such as that of elvish magic– eldunari left a lot to be desired. I am in no hurry to read the final book.

Last year, I eagerly awaited Twilight, touted to be an electrifying teenage vampire romance. I read the book and went on to read the entire Twilight Saga, as it is so unnecessarily called. I say unnecessary because I feel that Twilight did not deserve a sequel. There was no story to take forward. Seldom have I come across a book with such a forced continuation. Girl gets gorgeous boy, they are in love, end of story. Stephanie Meyer is at best a mediocre writer. I criticized Paolini before but one must acknowledge that atleast he tried. Meyer is annoyingly unapologetic about her below par story telling. For me, Twilight was the best book in the series. Relatively that is. The ones which followed abandoned all pretense of plot and logic. I’d like to see Meyer elucidate on the conception of a baby vampire. She has herself said that when a person turns into a vampire, he or she is frozen in that state. A vampire does not grow, their hair, nails do not grow. Vampires can not have children because their biological clocks are busted. Yet, Bella and Edward give us Renesme, a living, breathing half- vampire child. Maybe Edward Cullen besides being a gorgeous Adonis can also continue to produce sperm when the rest of the ‘damned’ suffer from vampire faults.

What irks me is not that it is a ridiculous book, correction: saga; it is the fact that it has achieved cult status, the kind that eludes many great books. It is heart- wrenching to see teenage girls swooning over Edward God Cullen, unmindful of the ridiculous lack of realism. Bella Swan is a shy, clumsy girl, who is a complete pushover because she cannot resist the gorgeous face. There are only so many times you can say the word “glorious” to describe a man. We get it, he’s beautiful; now get on with the story, please. Honestly, if Meyer dwelt on the superficiality and physical aspect of Edward Cullen a little less, the book would have much more depth. A great example-

His angel’s face was only a few inches from mine. I might have — should have — flinched away from his unexpected closeness, but I was unable to move. His golden eyes mesmerized me. “What are you afraid of, then?” he whispered intently. But I couldn’t answer. As I had just that once before, I smelled his cool breath in my face. Sweet, delicious, the scent made my mouth water. It was unlike anything else. Instinctively, unthinkingly, I leaned closer, inhaling.

I realize that he is fictional character and it is a fantasy novel, but that precisely is the thorn in my flesh. Harry Potter is a character from a fantasy novel. He exemplifies suffering, courage and bravery. The Twilight saga is unjustly compared to the Harry Potter books. The fault is that while the Harry Potter series embody love, triumph over evil and brilliant writing; Twilight dumps on us a mixture of infatuation and stupidity which gives young girls absurd expectations, and the flat, insipid writing style only adds insult to injury.

It kills me that such trash enjoys such immense popularity. It is wrong on so many accounts. I sincerely wish that readers realize the garbage that they are being fed and read something worthwhile. Literature isn’t extinct yet.

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