The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz

This is a self-help book, a non-fiction category that I had borrowed from the library.

The premise of the book appears fairly simple: the author advises us to follow four rules in life to live a happy, fulfilling life.

1. Be Impeccable with Your Word
2. Do Not Take Anything Personally
3. Do Not Make Assumptions
4. Always Do Your Best

Generally, in most self-help books the life experiences of writers are boiled down to succinct points with useful examples and explanations. And to many cynics (including me) these pearls of wisdom may seem obvious, even trite, but there is no denying that they are important.

However, this is a difficult book to prod through not because it is complex in nature, but mainly because it is incomprehensible and a tad boring in many parts. When I say incomprehensible, I mean to say some of the ideas do not make sense – I felt the author made it unnecessarily complicated just to make it appear exotic. I was looking forward to a lot of personal stories of the writer that connects the reader to the situations and the application of these rules to overcome any obstacles. I was also looking for a more no-nonsense approach towards the explanations. Neither happened here.

I am disappointed to say I finished the book with great difficulty, often doubting myself of being close-minded, but the more I think of the book now, the less impressed I am with it.

I would rate it just 1.5/5.0

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice - A Graphic Novel

This graphic novel is meant for young adults, an effort to spur their interest in classics. This book is published by Campfire, a unit of Kalyani Navyug Media (essentially an Indian venture). To be honest, we bought this book to be given as a gift to somebody, but I changed my mind in the last minute and decided to keep it for myself :P

The story is not new to me, having seen it in all formats (novel, tv series, movie), but I was curious to know how it would pan out in a graphic novel. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. The script is extremely well written – crisp, and not too complex so as to keep the young readers engaged. To be able to cover a novel like Pride and Prejudice and do justice to the original is no small feat, and Laurence Sach – a UK based writer/theatre lecturer – has successfully managed to achieve this.

The illustrations, however, are a slight disappointment. The drawings of the characters are inconsistent (even a little ugly in some places), and hugely influenced by the existing formats (movies/tv series). At one point, I even found an image of a real photo in one of the panels.

Despite this I would heartily recommend this book for all book lovers, young and old, simply because of the prose.

I would rate this book a good 3.5/5.0

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz

I have not read any other books by Junot Diaz but I definitely plan to. He is an amazing writer and rightly deserved the Pulitzer Prize for this book.

Another borrowed book from the library, I found it difficult to put it down once I got past the initial few pages. The book interweaves the history of Dominican Republic during the violent era of dictatorship (under the dictator Rafael Trujillo in 1950s) with the stories of the individuals (a family affected by the atrocities of dictatorship). The story is told from the perspective of three characters, although the omniscient narrator is present throughout the book.

Oscar Wao is an overweight Dominican who mainly does two things in life: falling in love with beautiful women and writing sci-fi and fantasy books (“the next Tolkien”) and fails fantastically at both. The other main characters in the book are Oscar Wao’s sister Lola, their once-beautiful, domineering mother, and their grandmother named La Inca. Wao’s luck seems to be clouded by a powerful fuku (curse) that the family is burdened with, which is also linked to the evil eye of the dictator.

The language is fluid, and the storytelling is effortless. The bleakness of the story is only manageable because of the wonderful humour that is present throughout the book. There is a liberal usage of Spanish sentences in the book throughout, so much so that it was annoying – every time I was forced to stop reading and do a google translation. After a point, I quit in frustration: the translation part, not the reading.

What I loved the most was the extensive footnotes, which becomes part of the storytelling. After a point, I looked forward to the footnotes – they are the window to the country’s bloody history and the perpetrators of the violence. The footnotes at some point stopped becoming just factual information, they also ended up becoming part of the story itself.

A must read for people who enjoy political, social commentary along with a well-crafted story.

I would give it a 4.0/5.0

The Englishman's Cameo - Madhulika Liddle

Talk about finding a wonderful writer by chance. This is the second time it has happened to me. (First was Annie E Proulx via her book Shipping News.)

I was reading an online interview of a writer in an article posted on twitter and she happened to mention Madhulika Liddle as one of the influences on her own writing. She had heaped praises and I found that other tweeters also had mentioned how much they had enjoyed Liddle’s books. The name stuck in my head. Later, when I was browsing through my online library book lists, I found a book from Madhulika Liddle and I decided to borrow it. I am glad I did so.

The Englishman’s Cameo is a debut novel from Madhulika Liddle. In this detective story set in the 17th century Mughal era, we find the young nobleman Muzaffar Jung trying to help his friend who has been accused of murdering a rich businessman. Jung stumbles from one mystery to the other and in the end, all ends well.

I loved the story. The writing is very lyrical and engaging; the writer effortlessly creates the milieu with careful and detailed descriptions of the rich, decadent Mughal era. I liked the way she evokes the images of a bygone era with the details of the food, clothes, jewellery. I could have read on and on. The characters were well developed; intriguing people with a hint of enough baggage of the past such as, Jung’s intelligent sister who is almost old enough to be his mother, Jung’s boatman friend, and a mention of the long-lost love; I wanted to know more and more about them. Since this is the first book, I am guessing she developed them further – Muzaffar Jung continues his adventures in the next few novels and short stories.

Despite all these positives, the very mystery solving process falls pretty short of expectations. There is nothing gripping in terms of the suspense or the mystery per se. If one was expecting something on the lines of Agatha Christie stories, one would be greatly disappointed. Yet I am willing to try the next few books from this author. Now that is a first for me.

Though I would love to recommend this book highly, I rate this 3.5/5.0 purely because it does not do enough justice to its genre.