Udhaya's Reviews

This book is a special find for many reasons. The book is at once an in-depth account of a war from within its battlefields, an exquisitely drawn graphic report that betters graphic novels (to use the term "comic" or "illustrated book" betrays the gravity of this effort), or even the best war fiction for that matter. War photographs depict the physical destruction; magazines and TV news editorialize; novels make war poignant; but Sacco has surpassed all other available venues in capturing war with its historical, political, social, background statistically and spiritually intact that the effect on the reader is devastatingly personal. Sacco clarifies what mainstream media stylizes. He puts the Bosnian war in objective context as a culmination of religious animosity that had been brewing for generations with each side taking its turn as victim and oppressor. In a very telling segment he mentions: Croats are predominantly Roman Catholic, Serbs are Orthodox Christi...

This is a high-tech thriller set in the U.S. government's shadow agency, NSA. Deep in the secure nest of the cryptographers' infallible decoding machine there's trouble in the form of an undetectable code. A rebel ex-agent has brought the proud big brother's, snoopy watchdog to a screaming halt. The premise pits us in an increasingly relevant dilemma: government's privacy-invading protection of its citizens versus the individual's unbridled freedom. Interestingly, the book's protagonist depends on which side you lean. Until midway, the author does a nice job of not picking a side. And until the last third, the search for the missing key is strictly trial and elimination of leads. The swift pacing assures us that characters will barely register their agendas, let alone their characteristics or distinctions. Whenever characters ruminate or converse they betray every aspect the author lauded on them. Clearly, Brown would rather feed us tidbits on Japanese hi...

Yet another novel that claims to understand middle-class America. Some novels are written with movies in mind. Reading Empire Falls, I couldn't help but wonder if an eventual TV series was the goal. HBO could do a more literary job than Russo has for sure. Left up to actors, the dialogues will instantly soar at least above Russo's tin ear. Talented actors, with competent direction would also know the value of subtlety when irony or symbolism abound. Not so with Russo who would subtitle mimes to ensure nothing was left to interpretation. This novel (as in, fall of the American Empire; very clever this Russo is, don't you think?) is rife with canny observations, dull melodrama, and bitter condescension--towards its characters as well as its readers. The narrative can be classified as a third-person-intentional where the author confesses character intentions in a commentary. Empire Falls is a New England mill town. Much of the property and people in the area are owned or co...

This little novel won France's prestigious Grand Prix de l'Academie Francaise and the Prix Internet du Livre awards. Nothomb, a Belgian writer, achieves on many levels with this fictional work. The novel reads like an incisive look at corporate culture in Japan with a crash course on the inscrutable Japanese mindset. With the protagonist sharing the author's first name and other similarities, the book immediately imparts a closed-door intimacy akin to an autobiography. As a little helper in the Import-Export division of the Yumimoto Corporation, Amelie wreaks accidental havoc from scene to scene like a silent movie comedian; only her turmoil is all emotional. In the peculiar way Amelie laughs at her misfortune her blunders that lead to harsh retributions somehow come off as tragicomic. Complicating further her situation is Amelie's unrequited crush on her unflappable boss, Fubuki. The more Amelie tries to impress Fubuki, the worse things get for both. The ambivalent ...

Mistry has been lauded as a master storyteller who belongs among the 19th century greats. The American media is completely enamored with his writing calling it Dickensian. It was nominated by Oprah for her book club (should've known that it meant, "guaranteed to depress") . Mistry does create endearing characters that gain an intimate resonance from the careful details of their longings, motives, actions and the circumstances surrounding their everyday struggles. The intertwining stories of a middle-aged Parsi widow, a college youth who becomes the widow's paying guest, and two tailors who work for the widow form the core of the novel. There are plenty of secondary characters that aid and obstruct the lives of the four main characters. The Emergency period under Indhira Gandhi's reign and the fascist power wielded by the MISA act are the real villains in this novel. Mistry is best when personalizing the political or social edicts through his characters. This wa...

Octavio Paz served as Mexico's ambassador to India for six years. He made some long-lasting friends during those years and also kept in touch with the Indian Government right up until Rajeev's assassination. He recollects his experience in India with shining intellect and impartial curiosity as opposed to the snooty V.S. Naipaul in "India: A million mutinies now". Paz is such a rarity; he's a world-class intellect with third-world modesty and empathy. In his words I don't even sense a struggle to hold onto objective reasoning. This man can not but think objectively. Maybe his is the height of knowledge: wisdom. He does not spare his commentary on any sacred issue. He combines his overwhelming knowledge of world history and the astonishing clarity of purpose that is to convey the objective truths of religion, politicians, culture, art, and society. His commentary is based on his observations, which are enough to make this a great read, but he has also read ever...

Dostoevsky considered this last novel his magnum opus. With this he felt he had expressed himself completely. This sprawling 936-page novel does tackle every issue that ever fascinated man--religion, society, class, sensuality, morality, mortality, honor, love, lust, greed, kinship, sin, retribution--you name it this has got it. After having read modern novels with their crystal focus and edited crispness, The Brothers Karamazov overflowed my mind with outlandish tangents, intense-to-a-fault pondering and blatant pontificating. But no matter how taxing and dated the style or subject matter, the underlying soul, the integrity of the writer's search won me over time and again. Dostoevsky is the kind of noble soul who would feel shame for the natural flaws in him, flaws that we easily rationalize and even feel proud of in ourselves. He also embraces these flaws in others with such insouciance that I want to go hug him and buy him vodka. With his characteristic concern, fascination, un...

Misra, though not as overwhelmingly literate or wise as some of my esteemed favorites, is definitely one who delivers emotional integrity in his characters. By exploring the intimate with egoless sincerity, he probes the universal dreams and dread. Samar, the narrator is a bookish young man who moves to Benares in the late 80s to prepare for his Civil Service exams. Samar's exposure to the outside world begins with an English neighbor, Miss West, who further paves the way for his first pangs of love. With confessional intimacy and an eye for detail, the narration won me over early. The narrator being a focused-yet-passive, intelligent-yet-naive, young man works handily into the novel's machinations. The psychological insights the Misra gets for each character's actions and hang-ups are so real and touching. And the object of his love, Catherine, haven't we all pined for someone like her at least once in our life? Though the narrator is a romantic to the core, the nov...

Jose Saramago, a Portuguese writer, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. After reading about his novels, I decided to try "All the Names" for it seemed the most peculiar of the lot. Let me start by saying that Saramago is probably an acquired taste for many; especially those who expect direction from their authors. Saramago must hate indentations and quotation marks and probably punctuations for the most part. He blends in dialogues, monologues, thoughts and narration together. Even though this seems ridiculous, when you read him you don't notice the lack of said structure. Whether that is Saramago's intention isn't clear, but he succeeds with this aberration nonetheless. The story follows a tremulous clerk who works at the Civil Registry, a bureaucratic monster, where he records the names of the newly born, the dead and updates the transitions of the living. As a hobby he secretly follows the lives of famous people of his own selection from the registry...

I have a habit of going to a thriller or crime novel after every 3 or 4 literary novels just to change things up. Usually I read the likes of Walter Mosley, Jim Thompson or Elmore Leonard as my genre breakers. I became interested in Baldacci after watching his speech/interview on Book TV several months ago. Though I saw and hated the movie, "Absolute Power" based on his book, I decided to give Baldacci's novels a try because he had mentioned in the interview that the movie had skipped key plot points and characters. I would like to add that I've only read Scott Turow from the lawyer-turned-writer genre (if there is such a genre). The Simple Truth was a curious read. The novel races from page to page true to its genre, but there's also more remorse and regret in its characters than found in most such novels. I found the parallels between Mike and John Fiske as well as the contrasts between the brothers Harms and the brothers Fiske very interesting. A character such...

Charting India's turbulent history since its independence and telling it through a story is no small feat. Rushdie certainly achieves what he set out to do in that sense. Influences of precursors in the magical realism epic genre is very evident in Midnight's Children, I can't help but think of One Hundred Years of Solitude along with other lesser known works by Jorge Amado and Mario Vargas Llosa, but this is elite company to be aligned with and Rushdie certainly has taken the genre and made it his own. While I wholeheartedly embrace the ambitious novel, my feelings as a reader were somewhat mixed. I appreciate the abundant research that went into the novel, the intricate parallels drawn between the generations, the twins-- an allegory for Hindu/Muslim, India/Pak, India split between nationalism and the inherited British values and so forth, along with the allusions to mythical and cultural icons. The foreshadowing creates a restless anxiety about the turn of events that so...

It's a lot like the mood of Wings of Dove, but I think Wings came after he had mastered his craft and gained a wealth of wisdom from his life. The central character, Daisy is American and bears a lot of resemblance to the American character in Wings. Maybe James was working out that character when she was a budding melon. I'm glad I read it, regardless. It is like a heterosexual version of Death in Venice only less haughty. James has the humility I love in Turgenev. He strikes me as a humble, proper soul with a very fragile ego and exquisite taste in life and language.

Banks has carved himself a niche among American writers of fiction--the social displacement of the working class whites. The novel charts a working stiff's gradual tumble as he finds himself slowly losing step with society. The average man's inability to make himself a viable part of the changing equation in society--the out-of-reach status, skills, careers and life are poignantly captured by Banks. The gradual meaninglessness in man's role as a husband, father in a struggling class also gets plenty of attention in this novel and this is where Banks is at his best. The small scenes within the family are worth savoring. When Banks weaves in the cultural and racial contributions to outline society's current state of affairs, he gets out of his range. The historical background, the inflow of immigrants in Miami all seem too researched and issue-oriented for a novel. For those interested in the plight of an everyman in white America, this would be worth a read. But I sti...

Love in the Time of Cholera is a sensuous feast, a dissection of love in all its flavors. Every type of love is an ingredient, a plotline in this rewarding stew. Central to the story is Florentino's unrequited love for Fermina. Closely linked by his marriage to Fermina, Dr. Juvenal plays a major role in the story as well. Florentino's beyond-obsessive love strangely steers him with such clarity through everything, making him a wise person seasoned in all the weathers of life. In a way, when Florentino finally grows out of his adolescent ways, we realize that though his love was pure, he needed to be made into such a man in order to deserve what he yearned for. Through the many characters that populate the story, Marquez shows the shallow, selfish, greedy, and vain aspects of love along with the noble, faithful, tragic and principled side. The true brilliance of Marquez is that while the world he shows us seems uniquely his own, it also reverberates with universal truth. So, the...

This novel is a slick sales job of a philosophy text disguised as a novel. Out of the blue a 14-year old girl receives a letter that spurs her curiosity about the world and philosophy. From hereon goes the outlandish story about the secret letters with each revealing a chapter of philosophical thought in Western philosophy covering everyone from Socrates to Sartre. I don't want to give away the parallel structure that the reader becomes aware of midway through the novel as it's one of the few literary surprises in the novel. Gaarder's strength is philosophy and it shows through with the philosophical discussions being the best part of the novel. The segue from philosopher to philosopher, along with the historical background of each and their times is done effortlessly. The rest of the novel though, its plot, dialogues and characterizations belong in a book found in the Young Adult section of a library. For what it's worth, Gaarder does deserve credit for pulling off th...

Returning to his Sri Lankan roots, Michael Ondaatje explores the fate of the Sri Lankan public caught in the crossfire between the Fascist government’s oppression and the retaliation by the revolutionary guerillas. Mass killings, kidnappings and disappearances seem rampant, yet nobody seems willing to acknowledge the victim or the enemy. Anil, appointed by an international peace force, is in Sri Lanka on a fact-finding mission. Returning to a country that has grown wildly different from her memories of it as a teenager, Anil is forced to face her precariousness as a woman, a visiting expatriate, a foreigner with international clout and an object of unanimous contempt. Her supposed ally is Sarath, an archaeologist she teams with despite suspicions of his alliances. Those expecting the grand romance set against the war, as in the author's previous work, "The English Patient," will be disappointed by the relentless accounts of suffering, torture and doom in this book. At ...