Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov My Rating: 4 of 5 stars The evening lessons were always the most difficult. Drained of ambulating the willing grey cells throughout the carnage of day classes, the young readers, almost resignedly, filled the quiet room at the end of the corridor. A subdued tête-à-tête, almost at once, broke into … More Book Review: Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov (1953)
Satantango by László Krasznahorkai My Rating: 5 of 5 stars For a rainbow-chaser and flower-collector, satan-tango is not exactly the kind of event to spend an many evenings on. The brightness is pleasing odour and the not-so-brightness is forever under verdict. But there I stayed; lurking under the disturbing, frequently tingling, always jagging edges of … More Book Review: Satantango by László Krasznahorkai (1985)
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald My Rating: 4 of 5 stars On an unusually upbeat evening, I was winding up from work. The recently bought, crisp, intense 300-pages long fictional drama, that I had left, tantalizingly, at the 273rd page the previous night, was softly tip-toeing in front of my eyes. The unread pages were … More Book Review: The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald (1978)
Love In The Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Márquez My Rating: 5 of 5 stars When glistening drops of dew swivelled across the leaves, When hazy films of sun lifted their candid veils; When morning spring walked the aisle of the autumn road, I saw a face whose reflection, since years, I have behold. In envious … More Book Review: Love In The Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1985)
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys My rating: 2 of 5 stars A few years ago, I happened to have a chat with an old friend. We were catching up after a long time and like most friends do, we picked up our favorite teen (innocent) crimes to gorge on. One of our best memoirs … More Book Review: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966)
Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal My rating: 5 of 5 stars Existence. Tearing Existence. Endearing Existence. Suppressed Existence. Spirited Existence. Delusional Existence. Resuscitating Existence. Multiple Existence. Solitary Existence. Existence. Overriding all the comprehensible and perplexing spaces enjoining the various uneven points of existence in the larger lattice of congruent existence, I have pushed … More Book Review: Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal (1983)
English, August: An Indian Story by Upamanyu Chatterjee My rating: 4 of 5 stars Indecision will be your epitaph. As the statement rung in my ear for more minutes than I cared to count, I stared at the mouth that just uttered it. No, it was not Agastya, the hero of this story but his … More Book Review: English, August: An Indian Story by Upamanyu Chatterjee (1988)
The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas My rating: 5 of 5 stars When a few dotted lines can cuff my heart into a promise and bind my palms over it in sombre armory, keep me lain in its pristine shadows for hours and yet freeze the time in crystalline imagery, I beam at the prospect: … More Book Review: The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas (1963)
The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon My rating: 4 of 5 stars Muted – I am in an alien way, Post – reading this weird novel about a Horn – that despite many mouths, remains Muted – across the Post – offices of circuitous US lands although the blare of this Horn – is audible to a secretive group … More Book Review: The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (1966)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera My rating: 4 of 5 stars It’s rare that I come across a title and intuitively tag it as an oxymoron; rarer still, I continue to silently contemplate the space lying between the duo. Unbearable Lightness. How is lightness, unbearable? Isn’t it the right of heaviness for … More Book Review: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (1981)
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