Book Thread - May 2010

Book Name: 44 Scotland Street
Author: Alexander McCall Smith

Since I read this book before I decided to write about books I read, I am only writing a quick excerpt here. Nothing against the book, but I would feel I am not doing justice to the many others I read before. So as I have decided I will start from what my reads are currently. So is me :-)
Coming back to 44 Scotland Street, no second thoughts, the book is an absolute fun read...quick, interesting, and light. Focusing on the typical English society with its many shades, the story has multiple threads intervowen through its central character Pat. Each thread focuses on charaters and relationships and brings to liget the farce that is society and the warmth of true friends. Does not make you emotinally charged, but leaves you with a fond smile and hope that you lay your hands on another McCall Smith soon for a lazy Sunday afternoon!

My fav thread - Irene and her son Bertie

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Book Name - South of the Border, West of the Sun
Author - Haruki Murakami

Since I first picked up Murakami by chance, my opinion about this gripping author has not changed, he sure writes intersting stuff in a welcome fresh style, whether it be his left to concluion thrillers, his page turner short sories, or his pleasing to the senses passionate love sagas.

I read South of the Border, West of the Sun start to finish yesterday and this 186 and a half pager to be precise, still has its spell on me. I know hat sounds a like an overstatement but the book makes you live through emotions so strongly it is difficult to close it and brush away that unsettling feeling within you to another day. The beauty is no one is a hero and no one the bad guy, weaving the love stroy through the central character Hajime and his childhood admiration who remains his soulmate Shimamoto-san, the book remains clean of judgement. As a reader, it is difficult to pin down any character as black or white, you simply accpet them as they come, with their flaws yet their beauty. As in all his writings I have read so far, this love story too is a treat of passion to the senses and leaves you high through some passages. It is also a depiction of the frgility and wekneses of humans albeit without the right or wrong tag, this I think is the beauty and strength of it. Most stongly the sense of hopelessness and sadness runs through the book and it is on a very rare occasion that you find yourself smile in a carefree fashion. Mostly a tear striken smile is what remains but the book makes you want to go wild and cry your heart out without shame. It does not glorify pain but if you are as emotional a heart as me (or maybe more) and have experienced the sweetness, beauty, and biterness that is love then you are sure to read this book through the end and feel that light sense of pain that remains....especially the last couple of chapters make it difficult to remain strong and not break down.

Will not forget the manner in which Izumi is portrayed in the concluding chapters of the book. Glass, hardness, void......the emotions are on a all time tumult with her icy coldness......my irrepairable dmamaged inspiration.

Also a salute to Yukiko for the undying spirit of loyalty and coming to terms with reality, something I am sure each one struggles with.

Murakami might have been a pick by chance bu it certainly remians a pick of choice for a long time to come.

My Silvers

Knowing shatters all hopes and brings bitternesss along,
When I know not what, I continue to hope in spite of hope,
At least then deep within the silver imaginations live,
So let me lie in my make-belive silver web,
And then when I have to die let the silver strings strangle me,
To my ideal ignorant death.

-Monica

Once There Was a Me

I sit back and look at the shards that were once me,
A few minutes back I tore myself to pieces,
And bit by bit I let each burn to ashes,
Now the handful of ashes stare back smilingly..fondly perhaps!
I carve me out of you then,
Untouched, Unbroken, Unattached...
Now I do not cry, but keep wondering how to smile?
Now I do not hope, but I have forgotten what it was to dream too
Now I do not hate myself, but have lost my ability to love as well

So now I gather the ashes and let them flow into the colorless seas,
never to find me and never to be found again.

-Monica

A New Attempt: Books and Movie Thread by Monica the Critic ;-)

With the race against time life I choose to live, my only savior angels and books and movies (though the frequency graph is a all time low, in fact it has hit rock bottom). Now I quite give myself the airs because I get frequent calls and messages seeking recommendations on what to read what to watch etc. And though the 29 years of life are fast catching up and my foot nears the grave, which in simpler terms makes me forget names, numbers, books, and movies, I quite fancy myself thinking o it is just the stress of super busy life I have pushed myself into, but well the real secret is I am growing old  Now I hope I didn’t say that too loud. But well even if I had said it in undertones, anyone would understand by the fact that I have already wasted a long paragraph to say something as simple as I forget stuff and then it is most embarrassing when I begin to say o that author its on the tip of my tongue, o you must watch this movie, now what’s it called now……?
So I have decided to maintain a thread on movies I watch and books I read to make life simpler and also to high standards on my consultancy advice, not to mention the fringe benefit of being able to pass on my blog link to many and creating potential readers ;-)
Now I know that you know that I am trying very hard, this is not me and not my style……I am actually killing the humor…..this post looks like a Cntrl C-Cntrl V attempt and looks like the Cntrl C didn’t work quite well….so will stop the jazz right here……about to watc Secret Window and The Grand Illusion post lunch…will update soon.

Irrepairable Damage

Ends and losses are always painful, they leave a void within, a vacuum that never can be filled come what may, even when time comes jauntily by and offers to be the proverbial healer. I seem to have lost a special part of me the other day and yes I feel the vacuum where a friend used to be earlier. Now I may not have been a responsible daughter or the feel good sister, but I have always felt (or maybe I should start using past tense)….so I used to always believe and feel good about being a true friend, a real friend, someone with whom you can laugh and cry and I genuinely felt I was one such. However now that is lost. So how did I manage to lose the friend that I always believed I was? Did someone better come along, someone a better friend than me? Well you don’t end being a friend if someone better comes along, you just remain all the more, no matter who comes along. Then? I didn’t cease being a friend by myself, but the joy, the love, the right, the responsibility of being a friend was taken away from me, I was declared to not have the capability of being a friend. I therefore feel the loss so strongly. So now there is a vacuum, where the friend in me earlier used to be and I do not know what to fill it with, because where will I find another friend like me?
Some damages are irreparable, my damaged emotion of being a friend for instance.

-Monica

Fragments

I lived with a memory
I loved a dream
You destroyed that memory
I shattered that dream

Now I live with a self
That is really not me
For the memory took the dream with it
And the dream is but a broken memory...

The Road

This road has taken almost human dimensions for me. So much so much so much do I share with it and like a true friend it silently listens without complaining, without judging, and most importantly without ignoring me, or at least I say that to myself and smile.

I go to and fro on this road at least once a day on a usual routine workday and then sometimes even twice or thrice to meet my work needs, personal needs, and mostly to meet my own expectations for my one-sided love. This road then hears me speak out my unvoiced thoughts aloud. It knows all about what happened on any given day at work or about an evening I spent with friends and most certainly about my love life. Maybe by now it can guess my moods and feelings based on how slow or fast I drive, the songs I hum, or the cuss words (my vocab is limited to such an idiot, stupid, crazy fellow…but nevertheless it is a clue) I mutter under my breath.

If someone were to ever talk about me am sure this road would certainly have the opinion of been there done that over me. It has seen me alone and it has seen me lonely too. It has seen me with my friends and with my love also. Our crazy rush at top speed (40 is the fastest my good ol’ scooty manages) to meet the hurried mornings, our easy pleasure rides to embrace the serene evenings, our laughter, and my tears…this road has witnessed it all. An accident has also been its fair share!

It hears my many thoughts, shares my anxiety and my excitements. I know it feels my pain too and so at times I just stop by the side, waiting to get a hold of myself and be me again. It caresses me with a pleasant breeze as I warm up to the thoughts of a cuddle and it drenches me with raindrops as I breakdown in hopelessness. At times I feel its sharp windy slaps when I succumb to anger and frustration. It takes so much of me, my feelings, my thoughts, my moods that I almost feel indebted for its patience and devotion. Yet each day it remains as is stretching out welcoming me with all my closet cobwebs and my dreams of future.

I am all grateful to you my dear road for being the bridge between loneliness and love, for being my pathway to passion, for being my conduit of responsibility, and my reckless carefree mate who shall one day connect this world to that.

-Monica