Happy Birthday, Mr. Zweig! I am so glad to have met you this year. Through your stupendously masterful Chess Story, you got into my book world like a summer rain; unexpected but alluring. Discovering multiple angles of psychological reflections in a slim novella of 80 pages was like hitting a jackpot; that sudden halt one … More HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEFAN ZWEIG!
Three Tales by Gustave Flaubert My rating: 3 of 5 stars Ever wondered if stark realities of life were humans, how would they converse? What would death reveal to Satan which may surprise agony? What may joy surmise on pain that might recall God’s support? What might greed and insanity bring to table worthy of … More Book Review: Three Tales by Gustave Flaubert (1876)
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 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)
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata My rating: 4 of 5 stars I am white, mostly. And cold. And occasionally, weeping. But you don’t see my tears, for they run down the stream and lose their essence at the prolonged kiss of the first sun. But I do not mind. I come alive to die; I … More Book Review: Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (1935)
My Rating: 5 of 5 || My Review on Goodreads || More About The Book || About The Author The silence about me was heavy as the sea. Sitting by the sea, I am trying hard to evade the embrace of camphoric memories that hover schemingly, stroked by the amorous waves. Often this colossal sapphire … More Book Review – The Sea by John Banville (2005)
My Rating: 4 of 5 || My Review on Goodreads || More About The Book || About The Author They walk under its shadow. And it feels forever. They breathe their warm heart out under its all-pervasive blanket for so many countless instants (sometimes their entire lives) that the line drawing its glistening touch and … More Book Review – The Autumn Of The Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez (1975)
My Rating: 5 of 5 || My Review on Goodreads || More About The Book || Author’s Website Hi. || Hi. || Is it you? || Yes, I am. || You look different. || Should I have been same? || Mmm… I don’t know. But you have my color. || In setting auburn, yes. || … More Book Review – The Waves by Virginia Woolf (1931)
My Rating: 4 of 5 || My Review on Goodreads || More About The Book || Author’s Website In the family of exhilaration, stupor is a vulpine breed. One can often find it lying sulking behind the pure aura of dream, its distant and more heralded cousin. But make no mistake, Sir; its sulking is … More Book Review – Netsuke by Rikki Ducornet (2011)
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