Rereading 'Literary Review'

It is exactly two weeks since the last issue of 'Literary Review' and I have already read through it end to end quite a number of times. I am already looking forward to the next month's because what with the Booker going to someone from India, there will be really a lot to read about Indian writing and so on. A lot of people will hold forth on the writing scene in India, which in my opinion, is just unfolding. There's a lot to come, apart from my book, which, I am beginning to think only two people would get to read if I don't begin the revision soon enough.

In the current issue of 'Literary Review' there wasn't much that was interesting. There was a sort of write-up-cum- interview with Anita Desai. Apart from it, the only interesting article in it was by Vijay Nair about literary collaborations between famous writers. If I were to choose a writer to be my mentor then I guess I would go for Pico Iyer because I really like his writing. His observations and analysis are brilliant. I'd give anything to be told something about writing by him. But then, he lives in Japan which makes it quite impossible.

Another interesting mentor-pupil combination was the one between John Gardner and Raymond Carver. I have this habit of jotting down random bits of trivia, titles of books others recommend in their articles, on the back of my notebook. While flipping through an old notebook I read that I had written down the title of Raymond Carver's 'Fires' which I had read about in the 'Endpaper' column in the March issue of 'Literary Review.' I took it out once again and read the column. I had found 'Fires' sometime last month at Abids. Raymond Carver himself was a mentor for another writer- Jim McInerney.

All this makes me impatient for the next month's issue of 'Literary Review,' that will be out only on the second of November. Till then I have to make do with rereading the old issues which isn't such a bad idea.