Bartleby, The Scrivener by Herman Melville My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars I could ask you to look beyond your desk if you are at work or peep down your balcony if you are at home and spot a Bartleby. But I would prefer not to. I could urge you to frame that calamitous Bartleby … More Book Review: Bartleby, The Scrivener by Herman Melville (1853)
The Shape of Water | Directed by Guillermo del Toro | Starring Sally Hawkins, Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars The night has dropped by. I have said hello. She has settled on my window sill. The moon is invisible from my meagre window. But I am drunk. A little. … More Movie Review: The Shape of Water (2018) by Guillermo del Toro
Nutshell by Ian McEwan My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars [Originally appeared here (with edits): http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/li…] Pessimism is too easy, even delicious, the badge and plume of intellectuals everywhere. It absolves the thinking classes of solutions. This wonderfully sapient insight springs somewhere in the middle of this book and almost gives away the rationale behind McEwan’s … More Book Review: Nutshell by Ian McEwan (2016)
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars You landed in my world on a calm, dewy evening And struck was I with a song I was about to sing; A song that lay hidden in the silhouettes of each letter That protruded from the cover, all poised to embitter. But waited … More Book Review: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (1972)
The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Insane. Insane. Again. Insane. “Then I resumed my efforts, moving to other parts of the wall. Chips fell, and, when large pieces of the wall began to come down, I kept on pounding, bleary-eyed, with an urgency that was far greater … More Book Review: The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares (1940)
The Vegetarian by Han Kang My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars [Originally appeared here (with edits)] Many of us, if stretch a little, can recall the question that appeared in our science textbooks in primary schools: choose the living and non-living thing from the following options. While we conveniently tagged all humans, animals and plants to … More Book Review: The Vegetarian by Han Kang (2007)
A Personal Anthology by Jorge Luis Borges My Rating: 5 of 5 Stars Borges and I I: Borges: I: Borges: I: Do you like silence? Borges: What silence? I: The one you are filling up this space with right now? Borges: This, is my ground. Contemplation, not Silence, my weapon. Thought, my battle. I: A … More Book Review: A Personal Anthology by Jorge Luis Borges (1961)
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño My Rating: 4 of 5 stars Somewhere in the midst of this book, Bolaño spells out in explicit words what I suspected to be the undercurrents from the word go: ….a novel about order and disorder, justice and injustice, God and the Void. So there I was … More Book Review: Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño (1996)
Blindness by José Saramago My Rating: 5 of 5 stars Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. What an irony that a book which holds, loss, filth, loot, stomp, cruelty, disorientation, putrefaction, injustice, helplessness, murder, rape, misery, nakedness, abandonment, death and unimaginable suffering in its bosom, left me with a climactic emotion of … More Book Review: Blindness by José Saramago (1995)
It’s not a belated birthday wish. It’s a continuing one. Breathing in the Proustian air is one of my most favorite stress-busters since the time I have been introduced to it. An air so rich yet so clear, it permeates into my lungs with its slight, caressing bend, filling me with a sense of beauty … More HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARCEL PROUST!
SEEMITA DAS 