James Monroe: A Life from Beginning to End by Hourly History – Book Review

We know about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson when it comes to initial Presidents of the United States. However, beyond that, most external observers tend to know only from Abraham Lincoln onwards. However, the 5^th President of the United States, James Monroe – the last of the founding fathers to be President was most famous for his Monroe Doctrine. This is a short biography on the former US President by Hourly History.

Monroe was the third time a Virginian became the President of the Country (after Washington and Jefferson). The book starts with his origins in Virginia, from a wealthy slave owning family. It then moves on to his period in the army, where he has fought wars on the side of the settlers and subsequently against the British during the American War of Independence. It then touched upon his time as the United States Ambassador to France, overseeing the Louisiana Purchase. The book then moves on to his two term presidency and his eventual death.

The book brought out aspects of US history, which I did not know much about, which is, the period between Jefferson and Lincoln. It also brought out Monroe’s personality as a sound diplomat – wherein he developed relations with France and at the same time, maintains good relations with the British in order to enforce his Monroe doctrine – which stated that Europeans shouldn’t colonise the Americas any further and he needed the British naval support to enforce the same.

The book was disappointing that the focus on his two term presidency was not elaborated much and instead, his personal life was given a lot more focus, with repeated mention of how his daughter’s wedding was the first ever wedding to be conducted at the White House.

The book was a reasonable read, but there was nothing significantly noteworthy to call it as a must read of Hourly History. I would award the book a rating of six on ten.

Rating – 6/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

Narcos – Pablo Escobar Saga (Seasons 1 and 2) – Review

Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar

Disclaimer – My usual norm for TV drama reviews apply, that is, I analyse only the story and not the other aspects of a TV drama such as acting, direction, background music, etc.

The first I heard of Pablo Escobar, the notorious drug lord from Colombia was whilst reading about the footballer Andrés Escobar (not related to Pablo) who was shot in Medellín, Colombia, in 1994 following Colombia’s elimination from the football World Cup owing to the own goal he scored. I read that if Pablo had been alive, the incident would not have happened as he is a die-hard fan of football and the Colombian team and nobody would have dared to attack a footballer in Medellín, Pablo’s hometown.

Thanks to the recent crime thriller from Netflix, being Narcos, on the life of Pablo Escobar – I could get to know more about him. The story is told from the perspective of Steve Murphy, an officer in the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of the United States who arrives in Bogotá on a mission to take down Pablo Escobar. He joins his DEA colleague Javier Peña – a Texan who has already been in Bogotá for a while.

The story then moves to Pablo Escobar, who starts his career as an ordinary smuggler of electronic items and cigarettes before starting to enter the cocaine trade – sending the drug in large quantities to Miami, US – and inevitably, the US has strong interests in bringing down the cartel. It shows the rise of Pablo Escobar in Medellín – how he forms an effective cartel combating his enemies, including Colombia’s communist guerrilla M-19 wherein he brings drug lords together to combat M-19’s kidnapping tactics. The story brought out the aspect of Pablo Escobar’s rise very well – how he rose to prominence so quickly.

The story then moves on to his next ambition – Escobar had a lot of money, and as he couldn’t hide it, he started distributing it to the people, building houses for them that he became very popular. As a result, Escobar ran for parliament, with ambitions of becoming the President someday but the fellow Congressmen were not too welcoming of Escobar’s presence in Parliament. As a result, Escobar’s downfall began when he started to kill politicians opposed to him. From here on, the series proceeds with the story of Escobar till his death.

The story had an all-round focus – the situation in the US embassy; the tiffs between the DEA and the CIA; the political situation and the campaigns for presidency in Colombia and Escobar’s interests in suppressing the campaigns; how the war affected the personal lives of two of the central characters – Steve Murphy of the DEA and Pablo Escobar himself.

From left to right: Maurice Compte as Horacio Carrillo, Boyd Holbrook as Steve Murphy and Pedro Pascal as Javier Peña

The story also brings out the character of each of the main persons involved – Javier Peña – who is willing to risk the means so long as it satisfies the ends, Steve Murphy – who becomes too attached to the task of finding Escobar that he begins to start to feel at home in Bogotá and even picks up a bit of Spanish, Horacio Carillo - the fearless head of the Search Bloc of the Colombian police and one of the rare incorruptible officers, Pablo Escobar – the astute and megalomaniacal drug lord who is also extremely concerned about his family, Gustavo Gaviria – the loyal cousin of Pablo and his right hand man, César Gaviria (not related to Gustavo / Pablo) – the Colombian President who begins his tenure on a principles and eventually starts to make compromises in the war against Escobar. The perspectives of the characters were portrayed so much in depth that at times, you’d have some sympathy for Pablo Escobar.

From left to right: Juan Pablo Raba as Gustavo Gaviria and Wagner Moura as Pablo Escobar

In this story, they bring out a lot of aspects – such as the society in Medellín back then, corruption in the police, politics and media, etc. It also was a story dealing with various human obsessions such as power, greed, pride, jealousy and revenge making Narcos rather a complete package.

The first episode of Narcos starts with a quote:

‘Magical realism is defined as what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe. There is a reason magical realism was born in Colombia.’

We read / see a lot of characters doing absolutely unbelievable acts and we wonder someone could do it in real. On that note, Narcos scores high as they did pick up a real character, often showing real footages and photographs from the police records (such as Escobar’s mugshot) and videos from the Colombian political campaigns. The very fact that this story is about a real person and most characters who appear are people who are real and still be interesting is something that provides a significant boost to the series.

However, on that note, while the producers agree that there are fictional elements for the purpose of dramatization, that makes fact checking a very important activity for a trivia crazy person like myself. While most characters were real, there were a few who weren’t such as Horacio Carillo; who was an entirely fictitious character. Some names have been changed of key characters but I would understand that as owing to certain legal constraints (such as Escobar’s wife and his journalist contact – both of whom are still alive) but I felt having key fictional characters was something that could have been avoided. Moreover, the show suggests a lot of conspiracy theories which alleged Escobar to be the brain behind the incidents such as; the attack on the Supreme Court of Colombia carried out by M-19 and also the murder of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán to be actually carried out by Escobar whereas in reality = the link between M-19 attack and Escobar is yet to be established and Galán murder is unsolved till date. 

Considering that, I might have preferred if they had taken an entirely fictional approach based on Pablo Escobar which would have given them full creative liberty and at the same time, weave an equally interesting story. Instead, I had to often pause my viewing and perform fact checking and sometimes, was disappointed over the producers portraying as though at a particular point in time, Escobar was in fact the most powerful man in the world. I don’t know whether other viewers also would tend to pause the video often while watching but in case they didn’t; they might believe in the portrayal of Escobar verbatim.

Furthermore, I felt that they prolonged the story a little, just a brief look at the timeline, the first season portrayed Pablo Escobar’s life from the start of his activities till 1992 and the second season for the same length, covered till his death, which just happened a year later, in 1993.

Whilst I generally don’t have the patience to watch TV shows, Narcos proved to be something different, it made me binge watch, often six hours (excluding the hours spent on fact checking) at a stretch. This was a highly gripping plot and those who enjoy a story containing crime, politics, police procedural, all at once, Narcos is certainly a must watch. On that note, I would award the show a rating of eight on ten.

Rating – 8/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

Nikola Tesla: A Life from Beginning to End by Hourly History – Book Review

Nikola Tesla is quite the cult figure, especially after the 90s with a lot of inventions being attributed to his vision and experiments including wireless communication. However, he is also the scientist who became rather obscure after his death in the 1940s and even during his life; he was often described as the mad scientist. Best known for designing the modern alternating current (AC) supply system, this is a short biography of the scientist by Hourly History.

The book starts with his birth in modern day Croatia, how he was very sharp in studies but eventually dropping out of college because of his gambling addiction. It goes to describe his working life with telephones at Budapest and job as a teaching assistant in Prague before finally moving on to the United States. He initially worked for Edison and later, with his game changing invention of a working alternating current (AC) system for Westinghouse, became Edison’s direct competitor. It talks about his legal disputes with Marconi over the invention of radio. Tesla was debt-ridden and the book eventually ends with his death in absolute penury and moving into obscurity.

The book brought out the fact that Tesla was a visionary very well; that he imagined things and he worked to create them, even things which were unimaginable in his time such as wireless technology or alternating current. It also brought out how Tesla didn’t care for money so long as he was given his space to conduct experiments and invent things, such as how he tore up the royalty agreement with Westinghouse when the company was in crisis.

The book was slightly annoying in parts, wherein, no less than three times was it mentioned that it we must all be thankful to Tesla for the radio, the smartphone we are holding, the tablet we’re using, etc. While the need to acknowledge his contribution is fine, I don’t think it is logical to expect people to thank Alexander Graham Bell when they dial a number, John Logie Baird when they switch on the television, etc. Similar to my point on Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s biography by Hourly History, Tesla too was an engineer and some diagrams and illustrations would have helped (such as the Tesla coil).

Tesla did achieve a lot of things, but certainly not as what the cult projects, as being the inventor of practically everything and I might have appreciated the book more had they dedicated a small paragraph in the conclusion debunking those myths (such as Tesla inventing radar technology).

I would award the book a rating of six on ten.

Rating – 6/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

The Goat Thief by Perumal Murugan – Book Review

Genre: Short stories – narratives

Age group: 16+

The author Perumal Murugan is no stranger to controversy and before too long and considering his name continually featuring in the news, one can’t help but be curious of his works. The Goat Thief is a collection of ten short stories of Perumal Murugan in Tamil, translated into English by N. Kalyan Raman.

The stories explore various kinds of people whom we don’t normally read about – a night-watchman guarding a haunted house, a bunch of youngsters who discuss and offer solutions for every problem of the society but were unable to identify the problem in their own backyard, a goat thief in a village who is chased by a violent mob, an old woman who has forgotten nearly everyone in her life suddenly finds a meaning considering the unexpected visit by her great-grandson, etc.

The author in the preface talks about how the stories he picked up were featuring people who were exceptions in the society rather than conformists. The author touches upon various human qualities – for instance, the author brought out possessiveness and the need for space in the story Musical Chairs where there was only one chair in the house and the wife fights to get a second chair and gets too attached to it. In The Night the Owls Stopped Crying (my personal favourite), the author brings out how the night-watchman in his desperation to interact with people, especially women, decides to engage in conversations with a spirit of a rape victim in a haunted house he guards. The Goat Thief brought out the intention to seek revenge of a mob, which over the course of time becomes more of a matter of pride to attain the revenge than to seek any gains. The Man Who Could Not Sleep explore the jealousy and rage of an old man wherein his sons are lacking a vision whereas the neighbour’s son is building a house with a tiled roof at the age of 25.

I would not reveal the synopsis of any of the other stories but I would comment in general that wherever the stories had a rural setting, the author brought out the setting very well – a well, muddy roads, a house with a pyol where people sit and gossip, etc. The way in which the author brought life into non-living objects in some of the stories was also done very well, such as the well in The Well and the chairs in Musical Chairs.

What could pull down these books are normally the translations, but then, the translator has done a good job in bringing out the crux of the plot and even where he chose to retain the Tamil words (usually in case of pronouns), he did add a line to what that meant. Only translating proverbs was perhaps a grey area, wherein, some of them sounded weird like – ‘even a neem oil bowl could be of use someday’ – while the crux of the meaning is conveyed, a word for word translation makes the proverb lose the charm.

I would say that I thoroughly enjoyed nearly six of the stories and partially enjoyed two of them but then, while abstract elements with a lot of metaphors are quintessential of a short story, sometimes, it also renders the story incomplete leaving the author without a proper conclusion. I would also say that in this collection, two of the stories, The Well and Sanctuary was on very similar themes, just that the latter was less macabre and I felt that this repetition could have been avoided by placing some other short story of the author in the anthology.

This book would certainly be enjoyed by those who do enjoy short stories filled with imagery left to the interpretation of the reader and I did enjoy most of the writing and on that note, based on my above review, I award the book a rating of seven on ten.

Rating – 7/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

Christopher Columbus: A Life from Beginning to End by Hourly History

It is this trivia that we hear in school - Columbus discovered America. While that statement is inaccurate on many counts, considering, the Viking explorer Leif Erikson arrived in Newfoundland around 500 years before Columbus did, and the first European explorer to first set foot in the American mainland was Amerigo Vespucci. Despite all these, Columbus did possess a lot of courage and introduced the Europeans to a whole new world and this is a short biography attempting to recollect the life and journey of Columbus.

Columbus was from Genoa (present day Italy), and was from a middle class family. His brother Bartholomew was a cartographer and Columbus too was passionate about ships and the sea. It then moves on to Columbus' adult life, sailing as a business agent to various parts of Europe. Columbus always believed that there was a route to Asia through the west and believed that it wasn't too far away. However, his ambitious project didn't receive sufficient funding, and the King of Portugal was not interested in funding his expedition. Queen Isabella of Castille did respond and accepted to fund his expedition and he finally ventured past Azores, something carried out by no European in the past. It then talks about his three expeditions, his discovery of Hispaniola, Cuba, among various other islands and governing them on behalf of Castille. There were also scandals that broke out, saying Columbus was a fraud, and also on how he treated the natives and others.

The book brought out the fact that the task undertaken by Columbus was very daring, because Europeans were already comfortable with the Cape of Good Hope route to Asia and were not interested in taking such a big risk. The description of his disappointments upon realising that it wasn't Asia was also brought out well, his misgovernance, treatment of slaves and in fact, the slave trade he carried out with the natives, was all described very well in the book. I felt that in an hour, this book covered the details in a manner in which you could read it all in an hour and at the same time, revisit some of Iberian history of the 15th century.

The book concluded on how Columbus should be viewed - whether as a daring explorer who opened up Europeans to a world beyond Azores or someone who ill treated the natives, indulged in slave trade and forcibly imposed his religion on them. The book left the judgement on Columbus to the individual reader.

Based on my experience with it, I would award the book a rating of eight on ten.
 
Rating - 8/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor by Gabriel García Márquez – Book Review

Imagine going on a voyage on the sea and your ship capsizes, your fellow sailors drown and all you have is a raft and a few oars right in the middle of the sea. This was the reality of the Colombian sailor, Luis Alejandro Velasco, in the year 1955 and he stayed on that way for ten days. Years after his ordeal, he was interviewed by the then Colombian journalist who later on went to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gabriel García Márquez who weaves an interesting novella from the perspective of the sailor Velasco.

On February 28, 1955, eight crew members left Mobile, Alabama, United States towards the Colombian port of Cartagena aboard the destroyer Caldas. En route, the chip capsizes and one of the sailors survive and make it to Colombia, surely, everyone would want to know his story but that is where the complications arise. Colombia was under military dictatorship back then wherein the regime declared all the sailors dead because of a storm. However, there was no storm and in fact, the ship was overloaded with contraband leading to a major factor for the accident and the government didn’t want the shortcomings exposed.

The story has a lot of parallels with that of the Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, however, there were some significant differences. Crusoe had Friday as his companion, Velasco had none; Crusoe had arable lands, Velasco’s sources of food was minimal. But then, both deal with the survival instinct and that aspect was brought in well wherein Velasco, desperate for food, commits the cardinal sin for a sailor, which is killing a seagull.

In this quest for survival, there were a lot of other things that were happening to Velasco, wherein, though he didn’t have Friday like Crusoe, he hallucinated a friend and indulges in conversations with him. It also gets him thinking about Caribbean islands with cannibals and starting to feel safer at the sea than land. Despite the fear, he was overjoyed when he did arrive at land and saw a fellow human being and shout for help. That was an aspect that this novella lacked a little, wherein, his arrival and first interactions back in land could have been described better.

The author also brings out how Velasco being celebrated as a hero and his sudden increase in marketability (considering his endorsement deals) started to lack meaning to him, as, if he had supplies in the raft, his story wouldn’t have been half as popular. The story did have a price, for Velasco, though, with the truth exposed, he was forced to retire into oblivion by the military regime and was soon, forgotten.

For once, I had a relatively light read from Gabriel García Márquez and I think this book does a very fair job in bringing out the story for a novella. I would award the book a rating of seven on ten.

Rating – 7/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

The Golden House by Sir Salman Rushdie – Book Review

Publisher’s write-up:

‘On the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration, an enigmatic billionaire from Bombay takes up residence in a cloistered community in Ney York’s Greenwich Village. Along with his improbable name, untraceable accent and the unmistakable whiff of danger, Nero Golden has brought along his three adult sons: agoraphobic, alcoholic Petya; Apu, the flamboyant artist; and D, who harbours an explosive secret even from himself.

The story of the powerful Golden family is told from the point of view of their neighbour and confidant, René, an aspiring filmmaker who finds in the Goldens the perfect subject. René chronicles the undoing of the house of Golden: the high life of money, of art and fashion, a sibling quarrel, an unexpected metamorphosis, the arrival of a beautiful woman, betrayal and murder, and far away, in India, the unravelling of an insidious plot.’

Who are you? It might sound like a very easy question but over the years, the issue of identity has been made so complex that there is no longer a very direct answer to the question any more. Although whether the complications are required or not is an entirely different debate altogether, Sir Salman Rushdie in his thirteenth novel explores the various identity crises in the society.

It starts with an aspiring filmmaker, son of Belgian academics, René is writing a film featuring his new neighbours, moving in to New York on the day President Barack Obama was inaugurated. But who were they – a man and his three sons (or is it?) trying to dissociate themselves from their old names, with the patriarch naming himself Nero Golden, with his sons assuming Roman names themselves – Petronius (Petya), Lucius Apulius (Apu) and Dionysus (D). Predictably so, René’s film is called The Golden House and the question he asks is – who are they? Is it really possible to be completely shed all your past identities?

In his quest, René does get some of his answers, the Goldens are an extremely wealthy family with Indian origins where the patriarch seems to have made the decision to move out of his past life post the death of his wife following the terrorist attack in Mumbai on 26^th November, 2008. But is that the only reason? While René tries to find the answers and to learn about the Goldens for his own film, René gets too involved that he becomes a part of the story of the Goldens himself.

The other identity issues that the author raises through his various characters are intriguing – one is that of Petya and alcoholic and agoraphobic, Apu – an artist who longs to return to his homeland and original identity and that of D, their half-brother who is confused about whether he is man or a woman or the category of transgender he falls under. The women have a significant role too, Riya D, helping her boyfriend (or girlfriend) D through the identity crisis and at the other end, Nero marrying a significantly younger Russian woman, Vasilisa, whose entry eventually makes all the sons leave the Golden House as she assumes absolute control.

The author has made a good decision to return to realism rather than the usual genre of his being magic realism. This book lacks any element of magic and in the era of post-truth or truthiness (coined by comedian Stephen Colbert) the question is always as to whether everything we hear or see or told is actually the reality. The author doesn’t leave that stone unturned and frequently makes allusions to the current President of the United States as the story moves towards the end of Obama’s term. Without ever taking names, he refers to the winner of the 2016 Presidential Election as The Joker and his principal opponent as Batwoman. Considering René’s own background, he makes a lot of pop culture references, from Batman to The Great Gatsby, which considering my lack of knowledge in the area, started becoming difficult to follow and appreciate.

The author fills the book with various other allusions as well – such as Nero himself alluding to Trump, a rich man who considers himself all powerful and invulnerable, with a young wife from Eastern Europe, and a highly murky past from when investigated would open a can of worms. The author also brings out that even if you wish to shed your identities, they would eventually catch up to you and when it does, the Goldens start to fall apart.

René the narrator was very unlike Saleem Sinai of Midnight’s Children wherein, René is not the principal protagonist and as a writer of the Golden family’s mockumentary – what he describes as a story where he assumes the events whenever he wasn’t present, what we often do about people around us. Thus, René being the narrator rather than being one of the Goldens was indeed a very good choice.

The final third is where the author chooses to bring up the murky past which again, has a lot of allusions to reality and this is where, the extent of thrill would vary based on whom you are and the extent to which you know the history of the city of Bombay / Mumbai and how closely you followed the campaign of the current President of the United States. Since I am reasonably aware of both, it was very clear to me as to where he was alluding to Haji Mastan and Dawood Ibrahim (Mumbai gansters) and also Donald Trump and based on the sequences, I could predict what was going to happen.

However, for those who aren’t familiar with those, along with the various issues of identity he has raised – touching upon blind nationalism, gender politics, other identity issues, this would also be a thriller plot unravelling along with an interesting political backdrop. But it could also be argued at the same time that for the plot, the political background was quite unnecessary.

The author has taken up a courageous task, of making political connections on an interesting plot, and that too, taking a position contrary to the trend in the two countries he hails from – being United Kingdom and India and also the country where he is currently residing, being the United States.

To conclude – it is an intriguing plot that keeps you gripped till the end and on that note, I would award the book a rating of eight on ten.

Rating – 8/10

Have a nice day,
Andy