Ignorance by Milan Kundera My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars “The more vast the amount of time we’ve left behind us, the more irresistible is the voice calling us to return to it.” In this poignant recount of two people, forced to bid goodbye to their native country, in the diminished, yet flickering hope of … More Book Review: Ignorance by Milan Kundera (2000)
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars ‘Those who love from a distance are not seduced by lust.’ Thus crooned a honeyed, longing voice I happened to hear two days back. Perhaps the essence was expressed before; in manifold arrangement of words, in wavy placement of multiple strings. But sometimes, something … More Book Review: Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (1956)
It is through the lens of absence that love appears the clearest.
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)
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)
Us by David Nicholls My Rating: 5 of 5 stars Falling in love is a beautiful thing, more so when the love comes surreptitiously at your door which had opened many a times in past to find only empty autumns of loneliness and futile rains of solitude. Into such a heart, when love steps … More Book Review: Us by David Nicholls (2014)
The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust by Marcel Proust My Rating: 4 of 5 stars Mezzanine. That is where my soul lies right now. Elevated, with the soft avalanche of rippling visions, erupting from the nubile eyes of a young Proust, from a lowly level that seethed with diminished dignity and blackened clarity … More Book Review: The Complete Short Stories of Marcel Proust by Marcel Proust (2001)
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)
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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