On The Literary Review in The Hindu

(This is the first post of this week's three posts. Next post will appear Wednesday evening, and the third on Friday.)

The previous Sunday (1/5/2011) being the first Sunday of the month was one I was eagerly waiting for. India’s one-of- a- kind literary supplement in a Sunday newspaper is brought out by The Hindu on the first Sunday of each month. What’s reviewed and what’s written in TLR is something I take seriously though not seriously enough to dash out and buy all the good books mentioned in it. The TLR has intelligent reviews of some of the latest titles in the bookstores, interviews with writers, and regular columns by Pradeep Sebastian (on collecting books), Vikram Kapur (on creative writing), important articles on Indian literature, writers (past and present) and other insightful articles which makes TLR not only a treasure trove of information but also a pleasure to read.

In this month’s (May 2011) The Literary Review supplement I read reviews of four books that I might have thought of buying right away if I were in some other job that paid me well. One book that I would like to buy nevertheless is Anuradha Roy’s ‘the folded earth’ that got a good review by Arunava Sinha. An interesting detail in the book about one of the main character Maya being from Hyderabad is one reason that I want to read the book apart from the high praise that the book is getting in just about every review I’ve read so far. I also want to read Anuradha Roy’s first book ‘The Atlas of Impossible Longing’ if I can find it at Abids.

Another book that’s been praised in the review in TLR and elsewhere is Jamil Ahmad’s ‘The Wandering Falcon’ which is set in the tribal regions bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan. What is interesting about the book is that its author, Jamil Ahmad, is seventy eight year old and a bureaucrat which is one reason why I (also a bureaucrat) want to read ‘The Wandering Falcon’ as soon as I can. Rakhshanda Jalil, the reviewer, pointed out that one of the high points of the book was Jamil Ahmad’s writing which she described as ‘simple, spare, stark…the finest writing one has read in a very long time in English by a South Asian writer’ which is another reason for me to want to read the book.

Other interesting articles in TLR included Jai Arjun Singh’s review of Orhan Pamuk’s ‘The Naïve and Sentimental Novelist’, and a review of his own book ‘The Popcorn Essayists’ that I plan to buy. There was Navtej Sarna on John Steinbeck’s ‘Travel’s With Charley.’ Though I have not read Aditya Sudarshan’s first novel I have read some of his interesting and well written articles in TLR and am convinced that like Chandrahas Choudhury he is another promising writer to watch out for. Therefore, I was surprised to read Tulsi Badrinath’s panning Aditya Sudarshan’s second book ‘Show Me a Hero’ in his review. There was yet another review of Jonathan Franzen’s ‘Freedom’ which made me wonder when I am going to begin reading it and find out if it is as good as the reviews say it is. Geoff Dyer’s ‘Otherwise Known as the Human Condition’ which Pradeep Sebastian wrote in his column, is one I want to read if I can lay my hands on a free copy.

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