Revolutionary Road

Watched the movie some time ago with the ladies. Quite a slow-paced and depressing movie. It's a bit of a wonder that someone would care to make this novel into a movie and with two bigwigs (Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet) as the cast. But it reads quite well.


The author, Richard Yates, seemingly captures the tiniest detail of the human expression and behaviour. So much attention was put into portraying the display of emotions of the characters, that sometimes, I feel it might be a little too much.

It is what I would say, an interesting story about the most blatant things of life.

The story was set in the 50s , which incidentally, is an era that I love and find romantic. But unfortunately, this is not a love story. And as a matter of fact, it speaks of the 50s as an era of conformity, of boredom, and safety. The characters, April and Frank, were a young suburban couple, who abhorred the suburban life, and who felt they were different from everyone else. And they were afraid too, that they would become just like everyone else- too comfortable for change.

As their marriage started to fray, April came up with the idea to move to Paris, a place that Frank often reminsced about and loved. This sounded like a last ditch effort to save their marriage. But alas, things did not go as planned, with Frank, morphing into the very type of person that he looked down upon.

This is rather ironic to me. Frank did not want to be like his father, stuck in a dead-end job for years, and never raising to the ranks. He vowed not to be like his father but strangely, he took on a job in the same company his father worked in, in a job he hated. He stepped into the very shoes that he did not want to wear. Just like, how it was, with him and the surbanites of the 50s.

The story did not end well. You could almost feel the boredom driving April crazy, how sick she was playing the suburban wife. She wanted an adventure that Frank was afraid to embark on. How disappointed she was that she had no way of breaking free. At the very end, she chose to die, with her unborn child, which was also an excuse that Frank used to abandon their plans of adventure.

How sad.

Fear often stopped us from doing the things we wished or dreamt to do. Craving comfort and safety are all part of human nature.Aren't those the very things all of us strive to achieve- the comfort and saefty of shelter, food, clothing, etc. Sometimes you just can't fight evolution.

This was lent to me by a colleague. Great autobiography by Adeline Yen Mah. It is appalling how cruel people could be to defenseless children. Adeline Yen Mah's story was set in a politically chaotic China during the second world war. She was born to a rich family but was often neglected and abused as she was believed to be bad luck (her mother died shortly after giving birth to her). Her father subsequently remarried to a half french half chinese woman, who constantly abused and left her to her own devices.
She was sent away to boarding schools and while, her classmates had visitors or food sent by family, she had nothing. When her classmates went back home during the holidays, she was left alone in the school, all by herself. Her stepmother, knowingly sent her to a boarding school Tianjin, when she knew that a war was impending. The whole family had escaped to Hong Kong. Fortunately for her, she was "rescued" by her stepmother's sister and finally reunited with her family.
Adversity does build resilience in her case. She excelled academically and eventually won the first prize in an international play writing competition. This award, may have seemed trivial, but it changed her life forever. It brought her recognition by her father and he eventually, was convinced to send her to London for medical school. She became a physician and practiced in America.
In the last part of the autobiography was a story written during the Tang Dynasty by Tuan Cheng-Shih. The story is essentially that of the popular fairy tale, Cinderella. This is believed to be the earliest version of the story and not the Italian version written in 1634 by Giambattista Basile. Some, however, believed the story had originated in Ancient Egypt.

A couple of short stories made up this book. My favorite is that of Hema and Kaushik, which comprises of three parts, each narrated in a different perspective (one of Hema, one of Kaushik, and one of a sorta "over-seer"). The last part of the story "Going Ashore" was bittersweet. The ending made me rather sad. Sometimes because of a sense of duty, we have to make difficult choices that we may eventually regret. I guess that was what happened with Hema. She chose to be with someone she didnt really love, out of a sense of responsibility/duty, and gave up the man she truly wanted to be with. This man (Kaushik) eventually left for another country to start a new life, that was unfortunately cut short by the Tsunami of 2004. Devastating! But a piece of him remained with her and for that, I guessed she was blessed.
As with her usual writing, these stories told the lives of different generations of Indians living in America- the Indian migrants and their born in American children, with both generations struggling with identity crises and trying to assimilate to their adopted country.
Definitely a worthy read. I would buy this book when I see it...

 

Miss Chopsticks

Read this book some time ago, so much so that I'd forgotten most part of it. But I remembered being quite captivated by the story of 3 sisters who moved from rural China to a big city (Nanjing). Suffice it to say, even though they were still within China, it was a big culture shock to them. the three sisters were named, Three, Five and Six. Three was the first to arrive in Nanjing and eventually scored a job in a restaurant/ food stall because of her "display artist" skills- she was able to arrange vegetables enticingly. Two other sisters joined her in the big city and all managed to carve out a decent living for themselves, thus changing their father's mind of how daughters are like chopsticks. Their father had liken them to chopsticks as he felt that daughters are easily broken like chopsticks and thus, are unable to support "the roof of a house". Having only been able to produce daughters, the father often felt disgraced. But after his daughters come back with wads of cash from the city, he had to admit that daughters were not as worthless as he had once thought.
The characters were loosely based on people whom Xinran had came across and befriended when in China.
This book was very simply written, with no fancy words or plots.  But I like it for its pureness and simplicity.  I am really looking forward to getting my hands on Xinran's other non-fiction work: The good women of china: hidden voices. Saw it in Popular bookstore but it was a tad too expensive to buy: it costs more than 20 bucks!

Thanks for the Memories- Cecelia Ahern

I actually got this book from the gas station (yes I can find books ANYWHERE!). Honestly, I'm not a big fan of Cecelia Ahern, although "Where Rainbow Ends" was quite a humorous and entertaining read. Her first book P.S. I Love You, felt a bit amateurish and formulaic... Not to my liking.


Thanks for the Memories is a lovely read though. It is chick-flick in every sense of the word. But I absolutely adore the character of the female lead's father. He is an old, funny, child-like man; very affable quality that just make you wanna befriend him. He's pretty much the saving grace of this book.


The story began with Joyce, who had a miscarriage and needed blood transfusion. Justin, a blood-donating phobic, unknowingly donated his blood to her, while trying to score a date with an attractive doctor. This somehow, mysteriously connected the both of them to each other's world. Joyce began experiencing Justin's memories and feeling what he felt. They finally met at a hair salon when Justin wanted a haircut, and so, inevitably caused Joyce wanting a haircut too. And so, the story unfolds, with Joyce and Justin meeting again and again but never really getting the chance to know one another.


Till Joyce found out that Justin was her blood donor and she began doing things for him and "stalking" him.


This is a story of strange coincidences and fate- a case of serendipity... Read it for a good entertaining afternoon.

The Namesake- Jhumpa Lahiri

Just finished this book. It reminded me alot of Amulya Malladi's two books: Mango Season and A Breath of Fresh Air. This is an equally enjoyable book, with unexpected climaxes, so you won't ever feel bored. The book incorporates a lot of the Indian culture into it; I find it particularly interesting to be able to immerse yourself, through the book, into someone else's culture. This explains why I've been trying to find authors like these, these days.

The Namesake's protagonist is Gogol, a name which he despised. Gogol was supposed to be his pet name. as in the Bengali culture, you will be given two names, one is your good name, which is your official name and the other is your pet name, which is only used by family and close friends. However, a twist of events, saw him ending up with Gogol as his official name. But this was later changed to Nikhil. 

The story reflects the discordance the characters felt being foreign implants in America. The cultures are vastly different and yet, Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli (Gogol's parents) had to try to assimiliate themselves into the American culture, for the sake of their children who were bornt in America.

All in all, this is a powerful novel, infused with culture, rich characters, and vivid descriptions. You will feel as if all the characters are real and that you get to know them inside, out, through the book. 

P.S. I don't know why I feel that the author has put herself into the story, through the character Moshumi.

The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns- Khaled Hosseini

While channel surfing sometime ago, I caught half of “The Kite Runner” on TV. It was quite a good film, I must say. And so it got me started on borrowing books by the author Khaled Hosseini. I managed to find “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, and it was a seriously good read. To be honest, I have never been interested in the middle-eastern countries. But the book inspired me to find out a tad more about Afghanistan and Pakistan, which are where most parts of the stories take place. If what’s mentioned in the book is still reflective of what’s going there, it’s really quite unimaginable what the lives of the women/ pple from the lower castes are going through. It must be torturous wearing the burqha, not being able to go anywhere without a male relative, and being stoned to death if you were to commit adultery. i truly hope that at least some changes have been made to these laws. Coz it reeks of nothing but oppression.

Right now, I’m reading “The Kite Runner”. It doesnt seem to be as good as “A thousand splendid suns” but still quite good nonetheless.
The story took place in Kabul, Afghanistan and speaks of the friendship between a wealthy boy (Amir) and his servant (Hassan).
Hassan was fiercely loyal to Amir and was equally protective of him as well. One incident broke their friendship (you've gotta read to find out what!) and eventually Amir and his father fled to America during the Soviets invasion, and the boys lost contact with one another.
 
Eventually, a twist of events happened, that brought Amir back to Kabul, to give something back to his friend, whom he had started to feel guilt-stricken about. A deeply, moving story, that is steeped in the middle-eastern culture.
 
I realised a lot of stories tend to mirror the authors' own lives. I've read some other books by Jhumpa Lahiri and Amulya Malladi, and they too, put bits of their experiences into their stories.
 
Hosseini was from Kabul as well, and during the Soviets invasion, had migrated to California, which was exactly what happened to Amir.