THE SUNDAY HAUL & MUSINGS ON LITERARY REVIEW

When it comes to books my normally strong will crumbles like the proverbial cookie. Since a long time I’ve been promising myself that I would not pick up any more books at Abids on Sundays. But so far I haven’t been successful in keeping this promise. Every week I see some book or the other at Abids and tell myself ‘just this book/s this one time and no more’ and end up picking books like I am planning to open a library. This Sunday too it was no different. I bought a couple of books again. However I am glad because I picked up only three books though I had seen half a dozen books that I felt I should have picked up. There was Rakshanda Jalil’s translation of Saadat Hasan Manto’s stories, Jonathan Stroud’s ‘The Amulet of Samarkand’, Rohinton Mistry’s ‘Such a Long Journey,’ ‘Meditations’ by Marcus Aurelius that I held back reluctantly from buying. But I did pick up three books, two of them travelogues, by the way and the third book, a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.

The first travelogue that I found was Ian Frazier’s ‘Great Plains’ and the second travelogue was ‘Danziger’s Travels’ by Nick Danziger. I found these two in a new heap of books selling for twenty bucks only. I guess I got them quite cheap because Ian Frazier’s ‘Great Plains’ is a Penguin and a hardcover at that. ‘Danziger’s Travels’ was also special because it was signed by Nick Danziger himself.

The third find was Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go,’ a novel that I got for fifty rupees, a bit steep but I guess worth it. I’ve never read anything by Ishiguro though I’ve been looking for his acclaimed title ‘Remains of the Day.’ I read Pico Iyer analyse it in ‘Tropical Classical’ and since then I’ve been looking for Kazuo Ishiguro’s books. Someday I hope to find his ‘Remains of the Day.’


The Literary Review
This month’s Literary Review supplement in The Hindu produced more than the usual joy that I experience while reading it. Whether it was the wonderful interview by Ziya Us Salam on Amitav Ghosh or whether it was the anticipation of reading ‘River of Smoke’ I don’t know. Zia Us Salam’s interview was not exactly a ‘Q&A’ session but more like a discussion that revealed a lot about Ghosh and his writing in an insightful manner. Somehow it made me pleased that we have someone in our midst who writes the sort of books that not only sell well but are also considered near classics. What rang true in it was what Ghosh said about writing: Writing is a lonely process, it is a solitary pursuit, requires solitude

Then there was Samit Basu’s amusing piece about his visit to Bhutan for ‘Mountain Echoes’ the Indo-Bhutanese Literary Festival. It was a funny piece unlike the articles on such events one usually gets to read in other papers and magazines. Here was someone who found different things at the Bhutan apart from literature.

Etc.,
The other day I was browsing the net and saw on NDTV Profit channel that ‘Just Books’ was being telecast on 4 pm on Sundays and 6 pm on Saturdays. Last Sunday I watched it at four pm only to find a special episode which had Sunil Sethi talking with Amitav Ghosh. There’s going to be a lot of Ghosh in the coming days I guess. . ‘River of Smoke’ too has generated a lot of buzz already but I will wait some more time. But what I am waiting is for the Hyderabad launch, if it is going to happen.

While browsing the net I came across the interesting piece of information that Amitav Ghosh writes with a Mont Blanc. Ah, at last there’s something in common.