Pardon me. I know `The White Tiger' is old news now but here's what I think of it. I read it after it won the Man Booker prize in October '08. But since I am back on the blog after a long break, I am putting it up. And it did appear on MUST DO - the cinema, books, art, culture show, I do on CNBC TV18.
“The White Tiger” – Aravind Adiga
Now reactions to Aravind Adiga’s “The White Tiger” winning the Man Booker prize have been coming in fast and furious. I have finished the book, and here are my two bits.
Did I like the book? I have mixed feelings. It’s paced well, and it is easy to get through to the end. And that is saying a lot. But the writing doesn’t take your breath away. Its clever and racy but it doesn’t make you stop, re-read and savour literary art or craft. The plot is simple; the characters are not fully fleshed out. Atleast I don’t think so. The fact that its written from the point of view to someone who belongs to what Kishore Biyani calls India 2 or the serving class, a driver in this case, is the classic double edged sword. It sets the book apart but it also makes it weak. Balram Halwai, that’s the driver or the protagonist doesn’t quite resonate.
The book is at its best when Adiga turns the lens to the class he comes from himself – some of the sharpest bits are when Balram becomes the mute, almost invisible bystander to everyday conversation, behaviour and concern of the people in the backseat – the master and the madam. The book is subversive and I mean that as a compliment. If real life Balram Halwais read it, it well help change the social status quo.
But then I don’t think that is what Adiga wants. Adiga wants people like us to change. The White Tiger provokes and challenges equally our conscience and the modern professional ethos we subscribe to in most spheres of life. It questions the fact that in our dealings with hired help and people who depend on us we’re still as feudal as our forefathers – both as individuals and as a nation. Those who try to be different do it half-heartedly and ineffectually as Ashok, that’s Balram’s employer does. He raises great expectations, but doesn’t live up to any.
“The White Tiger” has a happy end – Balram Halwai, escapes what he calls the rooster coop. But it comes at a price, one that undermines the most basic human right – the right to live. So is “The White Tiger” a must read? Well, yes. Is it a book that will go down in my memory as one of the most evocative, insightful books that I’ve read? Well, no. But it's a book that makes you think. And that is always a good thing. I’m hoping Aravind Adiga will meet us soon because it’s a book that gets you talking.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE IS OUT NOW!
I popped into Crosswords to see what the 80% clearance sale had to offer. Not much. In fact I think most people like me were lured in by the sale only to pick up stuff that wasn't on sale!
But imagine my absolute delight when I saw THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE - the second in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy displayed innocuously as a new arrival! And they had just unpacked them I believe. If you are wondering why this is such a big deal, scroll down read my take on the first book - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, that appeared first on the CNBC TV18 show, MUST DO. Next week I will tell you if the second volume was worth the wait.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – Steig Larsson
(FROM MUST DO ON CNBC TV18, SEPTEMBER 7TH, 2008 )
I’m recommending a pacy crime thriller today. The book is called “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” by Swedish journalist Steig Larsson. First a bit about the author who died in 2004. Larsson was a journalist who spent a lifetime researching and fighting right wing extremism & racism in Sweden. He was the editor in chief of Expo, the magazine of the Expo foundation that was started by teachers, journalists, and artists to counter the growth of Nazism and white power culture among the young people in Sweden. Now Larsson died before his set of three novels were published so he didn’t get to see the worldwide responses his books are getting. Now “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” is the first of what is called the ‘Millennium Trilogy’. The English translation was published this year. It’s about Mikael Blomkvist – (I had a hard time saying the name on TV and hope I got it right) – who’s a financial journalist. He’s the publisher and editor of a magazine called Millennium that has a simple mission. Let me give you a sense of that mission…From Page 60,
"His contempt for his fellow financial journalists was based on something that in his opinion was as plain as morality. The equation was simple.
A bank director who blows millions on foolhardy speculations should not keep his
job. A managing director who plays shell company games should do time. A slumlord who forces young people to pay through the nose and under the table for a one-room appartment and shared toilet should be hung out to dry.
The job of the financial journalist was to examine the sharks who created interest crises and speculated away the savings of small investors, to scrutinize company boards with the same merciless zeal with which political reporters pursue the tiniest steps of out of line of ministers and members of parliament. He could not for the life of him understand why so many influential financial reporters treated mediocre financial whelps like rock stars."
But that’s not the story. The story starts when Blomkvist’s piece on a powerful Swedish financier is found libelous. Fined and sentenced to a few months in prison, his trust capital is seriously eroded and the survival of his magazine is at stake. The only option he has is to lie low and figure out how to redeem himself. Enter an old respected industrialist – the head of one of Sweden’s pioneering industrial houses – and a chance to solve a 40-year-old family mystery. A disappearance that maybe a murder.
The rest of the book follows months of painstaking research that helps Blomkvist solve the mystery, uncover horrific crime in the process, rescue ‘Millennium’ and most importantly for him, expose the corrupt financier he had failed to do earlier. The book is fast even when Blomkvist is all alone plodding through decades of records and notes on the mystery in a small industrial snow bound town ion the north of Sweden. The milieu and location is a refreshing change from the British and American settings we’re used to. Some of the images that get conjured up while reading are like those you would have seen in films like Run Lola Run or even the Bourne identity.
While it’s a crime thriller, it also ends up putting to test the journalist’s own ethics, and standards on journalism. Blomkvist is an attractive hero. As you’ll discover while you read the book – women like him. But the character for whom you must read this book is Lizbeth Salander. A 24 year old who the Swedish state has declared legally incompetent, and whose legal affairs are entrusted to a State appointed guardian. Now Salander lives on the fringes of society perpetually worried that she maybe institutionalized. She’s also a freelance private investigator, an amoral genius computer hacker and a loner who deals head on with all the punches life throws her and it throws her many. She’s the real hero of the book, rescuing Blomkvist from the villain, finding him the proof he needs to redeem his reputation and the character who gets to grow the most as the story unfolds. She’s the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
Now the next book in the trilogy is the Girl Who Played With Fire, its going to be out in English in January next year. The trilogy is also being filmed, the first film is going to release next year as well. I can’t wait to get my hands on the next two books. Pity, I can’t read Swedish.
But imagine my absolute delight when I saw THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE - the second in Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy displayed innocuously as a new arrival! And they had just unpacked them I believe. If you are wondering why this is such a big deal, scroll down read my take on the first book - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, that appeared first on the CNBC TV18 show, MUST DO. Next week I will tell you if the second volume was worth the wait.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo – Steig Larsson
(FROM MUST DO ON CNBC TV18, SEPTEMBER 7TH, 2008 )
I’m recommending a pacy crime thriller today. The book is called “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” by Swedish journalist Steig Larsson. First a bit about the author who died in 2004. Larsson was a journalist who spent a lifetime researching and fighting right wing extremism & racism in Sweden. He was the editor in chief of Expo, the magazine of the Expo foundation that was started by teachers, journalists, and artists to counter the growth of Nazism and white power culture among the young people in Sweden. Now Larsson died before his set of three novels were published so he didn’t get to see the worldwide responses his books are getting. Now “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” is the first of what is called the ‘Millennium Trilogy’. The English translation was published this year. It’s about Mikael Blomkvist – (I had a hard time saying the name on TV and hope I got it right) – who’s a financial journalist. He’s the publisher and editor of a magazine called Millennium that has a simple mission. Let me give you a sense of that mission…From Page 60,
"His contempt for his fellow financial journalists was based on something that in his opinion was as plain as morality. The equation was simple.
A bank director who blows millions on foolhardy speculations should not keep his
job. A managing director who plays shell company games should do time. A slumlord who forces young people to pay through the nose and under the table for a one-room appartment and shared toilet should be hung out to dry.
The job of the financial journalist was to examine the sharks who created interest crises and speculated away the savings of small investors, to scrutinize company boards with the same merciless zeal with which political reporters pursue the tiniest steps of out of line of ministers and members of parliament. He could not for the life of him understand why so many influential financial reporters treated mediocre financial whelps like rock stars."
But that’s not the story. The story starts when Blomkvist’s piece on a powerful Swedish financier is found libelous. Fined and sentenced to a few months in prison, his trust capital is seriously eroded and the survival of his magazine is at stake. The only option he has is to lie low and figure out how to redeem himself. Enter an old respected industrialist – the head of one of Sweden’s pioneering industrial houses – and a chance to solve a 40-year-old family mystery. A disappearance that maybe a murder.
The rest of the book follows months of painstaking research that helps Blomkvist solve the mystery, uncover horrific crime in the process, rescue ‘Millennium’ and most importantly for him, expose the corrupt financier he had failed to do earlier. The book is fast even when Blomkvist is all alone plodding through decades of records and notes on the mystery in a small industrial snow bound town ion the north of Sweden. The milieu and location is a refreshing change from the British and American settings we’re used to. Some of the images that get conjured up while reading are like those you would have seen in films like Run Lola Run or even the Bourne identity.
While it’s a crime thriller, it also ends up putting to test the journalist’s own ethics, and standards on journalism. Blomkvist is an attractive hero. As you’ll discover while you read the book – women like him. But the character for whom you must read this book is Lizbeth Salander. A 24 year old who the Swedish state has declared legally incompetent, and whose legal affairs are entrusted to a State appointed guardian. Now Salander lives on the fringes of society perpetually worried that she maybe institutionalized. She’s also a freelance private investigator, an amoral genius computer hacker and a loner who deals head on with all the punches life throws her and it throws her many. She’s the real hero of the book, rescuing Blomkvist from the villain, finding him the proof he needs to redeem his reputation and the character who gets to grow the most as the story unfolds. She’s the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
Now the next book in the trilogy is the Girl Who Played With Fire, its going to be out in English in January next year. The trilogy is also being filmed, the first film is going to release next year as well. I can’t wait to get my hands on the next two books. Pity, I can’t read Swedish.
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