Light In August

Rarely have I read any book, which has such a cheerful and a sweet ending that it atones for all the dreariness in the book. The book starts with, “Although I have not been quite a month on the road I am already in Mississippi.....” These words are uttered by a young, unwed girl who is pregnant and is on the lookout for her self-avowed husband, who in turn has deserted her. She is mightily confident that she would find him but she has no idea that by the time she would see him again, he would have turned into a broke & a reckless rascal. She was then not traveling but only enduring the journey with a repressed hope, which is to hope despite knowing all the while that there was no hope in it. The story ends with, “.....here we aint been coming from Alabama but two months, and now it’s already Tennessee.” These words are spoken by the same girl. Only this time she is traveling without a purpose. She is out on a country tour without a worry and without a husband but with a lover. But the story is not about her. Instead it’s about the characters who are inextricably linked to her in someway or the other.

The book I am talking about is ‘Light In August’ by William Faulkner.

How many times have you observed that just when you think that you have gotten yourself that alluring peace, a quite corner for yourself, that you have gotten above all the petty nuisances or that you have become invincible and don’t care any more what people might say to whatever you have done or to whatever you might do, right then something will happen that will throw you neatly inside the ring and every shard of your whimsical paradise will be broken and pierced with peace-shattering events.

Just when you thought that you were immune to people's sarcasm and that your life was going on smoothly, yet something would happen that will give you a rude shock. You will be taken aback. To make matters worse someone will come into your life and you will fall in love with her or at least you feel that you have fallen in love with her. Woe betides if she happens to be the one who has fallen in love with you and you are emotionally impervious and impassive to her and she makes her business that you toe to her line.

All of a sudden you realize that you have become a fugitive in your own country, which until recently treated you as any ordinary citizen. Out of the blue, the spotlight is on you and the people are ready to lynch you and that too just because they want to lynch somebody.

The book talks about all this and the deep divide that was there between the blacks and the whites in the southern US in the early 20th century. It is about the struggle to survive and lead a respectable life in a racist society, where every action you take and every word you speak could possibly demarcate you from the blacks or the whites whichever the case might be even if you were of the same race as the one you were being differentiated from.

Overall, the book is a good read but it could be quite boring towards the latter part. If you ever plan to give it a read, make sure you do reach the last page for it’s the best one.

Au revoir

Living To Tell The Tale

You don’t like to read biographies. It’s fine. You hate reading biographies, even better. If no one told you that ‘Living To Tell The Tale’ was an autobiography, you would probably pass it as another masterpiece from Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Maybe then you would change your attitude towards biographies and wish that every biography was written by him only.

Through this book, you not only come to know about him but also the upheavals and history-making events that have taken place in Columbia, since the time he has been observing that. At no point you feel that the book is trite or moving at a monotonous pace just describing his life. On the contrary, the book is no less than a fantasy ride through a literary extravaganza. For someone who always had the concrete conviction that one day he was going to be a writer and who did not leave any stone unturned in realizing that dream, he has come a full circle. From his wild and daring sexual encounters, his all-night literary discussions with his distinguished friends in disrespectful quarters of the city or in cafés, his stints as an editor and a journalist to his ingenious answers that he would write in exams that would somehow convince his teachers to pass him with good grades, he has lived an ordinary life in an extraordinary way.

When I read ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, I always thought that the book was the work of the author's pure imagination. Little did I realize then that the book was indeed a mirror of the author's life! The exceptional characters which make up his family are straight out of a fairy tale. In ‘Living to Tell the Tale’, he also tells about his ever-composed and courageous mother and his parents' prodigious love story.

Somehow I feel that the book has an air of solitariness about it, which I think has become a typical characteristic of his books. At no point the book takes on a pedagogic tone, like most biographies. It is a story told in as raw a fashion as it could be without any adornments or pretensions. It is a tale one can read and be proud of that he has read it.

One note of caution: Don’t attempt to read this book if you haven’t read ‘one hundred years of solitude’. You can read its review by clicking here.

Au revoir

Hurray!!

Let me quickly write something just to publish my post on the 1st of January 2006.

First of all, a very happy n prosperous new year to me. Oops!! To all of you too :0)

I have started this year on a good note for I had wine for the first time in my life. I and my sister had gone to her friend's place where we discovered that 1st of January also happens to be her birthday. And so, I had both cake n wine!

Time now to get a good night's sleep.

Au revoir