Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars Tempting as it may appear to wrap the poetic pearls from this collection of Neruda’s heartbeats into a warm shawl of erotic wool, do resist it and pause. These loquacious verses that assemble at the nape of a … More Book Review: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda (1924)
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 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)
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)
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 Heart So White by Javier Marías My Rating: 4 of 5 Stars What do I wish to hear? About the present? The past, may be? Or a little tune on the waiting future? Do I wish to eavesdrop on my best friend to find out what she thinks of me when I am not … More Book Review: A Heart So White by Javier Marías (1992)
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)
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)
Here by Wislawa Szymborska My Rating: 4 of 5 stars “She wants me to live only for her and with her. Ideally in a dark, locked room, but my plans still feature today’s sun, clouds in progress, ongoing roads.” With this singular clarity, Wislawa Szymborska views memory. By running a casual yet assertive hand, she … More Book Review: Here by Wislawa Szymborska (2009)
Honeymoon by Patrick Modiano My Rating: 2 of 5 stars I felt a vague twinge of remorse: has a reader the right to criticize certain details under the pretext that she considers them superfluous? Beginning my review by borrowing a line from the novel and infusing it with my words means two things: one, the … More Book Review: Honeymoon by Patrick Modiano (1990)
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