Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett My Rating: 4 of 5 stars [Curtains Fall] Stage: I lived good, within all of you. Heck! You would not even survive a second without me. Why? I even took that wretched boot and that stinky feet on my chest! Feet: Ha.. Stinky you say! Did you ever eavesdrop … More Book Review: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (1952)
Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag My Rating: 5 of 5 stars At my touch, the striking cover of this book leapt up and stood suspended at my eye-level. As if to escape this loggerhead-state, I bored through its skin amid a question – what does this image wish to convey? Unity? Mess? Greed? Asymmetry? Power? … More Book Review: Ghachar Ghochar by Vivek Shanbhag (2015)
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut My Rating: 4 of 5 stars Kurt Vonnegut. Four syllables, once pronounced, suspends in the air like a rock star swishing his name into the air for chanters to latch on and treble the echo. Slaughter-House Five, god knows how many syllables (depending on stress-points of your tongue), once sprinkled from … More Book Review: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
Stoner by John Williams My Rating: 5 of 5 stars As a child, I had a thing for inanimate things. A sling, a pond, a pebble, a mica chip; they would catch my attention and hold it hostage. I would play for hours together with these silent, placid beings, drawing great solace from their harmless, … More Book Review: Stoner by John Williams (1965)
Life and Times of Michael K by J M Coetzee My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars “War is the father of all and king of all. Some he shows as gods, others as men. Some he makes slaves and others, free.” But how does one differentiate between The Slave and The Free? Is that Man … More Book Review: Life and Times of Michael K by J M Coetzee (1983)
Ulysses by James Joyce My Rating: 5 of 5 stars Some works are not written; they are lived. The authors write not with ink, but with breaths. Every breath that finds its way in, sucks in a piece of the world and releases it into the author’s being, letting it permeate, gauge, prod, absorb and … More Book Review: Ulysses by James Joyce (1920)
The Loser by Thomas Bernhard My Rating: 3 of 5 stars Grey – The color that most of the characters created during large part of twentieth century and whole of twenty-first century till date, are painted in. Cruelly banishing the evergreen Black and all-star White to secondary positions,Grey has risen in ranks to be the … More Book Review: The Loser by Thomas Bernhard (1983)
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann My Rating: 5 of 5 stars As long as we breathe, we live. We do not possess the power to embrace death at will. So, we live. And for living, we cling to a purpose. The purpose may be clear or clouded, animate or inanimate, expressed or hidden, stable … More Book Review: Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (1912)
Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli My Rating: 3 of 5 stars Like Valeria, I stare at the faces in the crowd; the crowd of short paragraphs hurrying across the surface of this book, intermingling with the innate desire to escape the mound without any considerable collision. Like each paragraph, I anoint a … More Book Review: Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli (2011)
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)
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