Daisy Miller- Henry James

Decided to read this book after it was featured in "Readling Lolita in Tehran".

This is a very short story written by Henry James, a well-known American writer, in 1878. It is a rather fun and interesting read. The portrayal of Daisy Miller is so real, that you can't help falling in love with her (I will, if I were a man). Daisy Miller has the art of flirtation so fine-tuned, that she came across as a subtle, innocent, yet charming young lady. Mr Winterbourne was so captivated by her and pursued her relentlessly against the better judgement of his snobbish, high society aunt.

Against societal norms, Daisy Miller went out on dates alone with young men and late at night. After meeting Mr Wooster for just half an hour, she went out on a date with him, alone, to a Chateau in Switzerland. Such behaviour was despised upon by the high-society women, who felt such behaviour loose. But Daisy did not seem to care for one bit. The story ended quite sadly though- with the very frivolous and nary a care character of Daisy Miller, causing her death.

It's kinda funny how Aunts always seemed to play a major and imposing role in stories from the late 19th/ early 20th century. It reminded me a lot of PG Wodehouse's Mr Wooster and his aunt, who was his source of income. And whom, Wooster was terrified of and often had to bend himself over to his aunt's will.

Reading Lolita in Tehran-Azar Nafisi

Finally got through this book. This book reminds me alot of those women studies classes I had during college days, whereby we dissect every sentence,try to infer what the writer really means, and try to figure out the underlying themes/ issues, etc. This was what happened during a large proportion of the book. But sometimes, I just feel like saying, leave the poor book alone, read it and enjoy it as it is, without trying so hard to decipher coded meanings!!! You would never know whether your inferences are right anyway, unless the writer explicitly states so. In your own interpretation, the book alters and becomes, in a way, your own, and not what it was supposed to be in the first place. Of course, the book does not speak only of other books, it also reflects the social and political issues of Iran at the time the writer was living there. And how reading and discussing those books affected the lives of her and her female students. There were some books I wanted to read after reading this book- Daisy Miller, Lolita, The Great Gatsby...

Bad dogs have more fun- josh grogan

This is a collection of articles he wrote for his column in Philadelphia Inquirer. It's arather entertaining read but some of the articles were just a little too contrite. What with with strange characters with silly names talking about the, well, weather!! I guess Josh grogan must have ran out of ideas and backup articles that particular day. Otherwise, most of the articles were funny or heart felt. Great for spending a boring Sunday afternoon.

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!