Katabasis – A journey to the underworld, to Hell. It was supposed to take me in, get me hooked. It was supposed to present me a world from where my eyes wouldn’t tear off. A world where wild things happened, unannounced. A precipice that threw me into vertiginous depths wherein everything was alien, sterile black, … More A rewarding journey to Hell
Of late, I have been wary of picking up a chunkster to read – no, not because they have lost their appeal but because I have come to attach greater value to the time I have at hand. Almost to the point of being miserly to let it go without doing my best dance with … More Friendship in the frigid weather of life
“He put his arms around Charles, and Charles leaned against him, and for a moment they were quiet. It was then that he had a sudden vision of the two of them many years later, in some undated time far into the future. Outside, the world had changed: The streets had been overgrown with weeds, … More Vision of us, together – Reading “To Paradise”
Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami My Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars If I close my eyes tight, what shall I see? If I shut out all the noises I can sense, what shall I hear? If I shun the world completely, what shall I feel? A dark nothingness? Or a blinding muddle of overlapping images? … More Book Review: Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami (2018)
The Book of Chocolate Saints by Jeet Thayil My Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit. – The man is either mad or he is composing verses. But what verses, would you say, emanate from the bosom of passion that borders on delirium? What timbre of voice floats in the smoked air … More Book Review: The Book of Chocolate Saints by Jeet Thayil (2017)
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars I finished reading this book at precisely 0205 hours a week ago. The night still lay majestically over the impending dawn, and in its blackened stillness, swayed the echoes of this imperious book. The walls of my room, at once, turned into a … More Book Review – The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
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)
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry My rating: 5 of 5 stars The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of. Flipping through the pages, my heart leaped many times; those waves bearing the ring of countenance were from still stream but the ones with ripples of accusation roared thunder. Accusation? Accusation hurled towards whom? … More Book Review: Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry (2001)
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