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

Joseph Stalin by Hourly History – Book Review

Stalin is known for his moustache, his role in the Second World War, and his controversial deportations. policies leading to famines and labour camps resulting in deaths of millions of people. This is a short biography of the Soviet leader, whose name translates to ‘Man of Steel’.

The reason why I didn’t say Russian leader was because Stalin was in fact not Russian and this book starts with his beginnings in Georgia as Ioseb Jugashvilli, going on to work in a factory in Tiflis, Georgia, rising up as a union leader, gets arrested and exiled to Siberia. The book then talks about his meeting with Lenin in Siberia and how he gets influenced by the Communist ideology. The book marginally touches upon the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution leading to the establishment of the new Communist Government with Stalin rising up as the General Secretary of the Communist Party. It moves on to Stalin’s role, his attempts to broker peace with Hitler in 1938, eventually leading to a war against Germany, and how his charisma urged the Soviets to fight the Germans unto death. Post his victory in Stalingrad and Second World War, it talks about Stalin’s rise in stature as he had a commanding position in the Tehran Conference with Churchill and FD Roosevelt. It then talks about the eventual decline, his administrative mishaps leading to criticism and denouncement from his successor, Nikita Khruschchev.

The book covered most highlights of Stalin’s life, if not all important aspects. How the Soviets were totally in awe of him and in a position to demand anything from public was brought out well in the book. His skills as an astute negotiator was also brought out, from his days as a union leader, then as the General Secretary of the Communist Party, his negotiations with Hitler and finally, the Tehran conference.

With that said, the book was quite short, and I think it took me barely half an hour to read the whole thing. While there is nothing wrong with it being short, it missed out on his schemes which lead to mass famines, his policy to deport ethnic Tatars to far off places such as Kyrgyzstan, among various other things leading to a death of a lot of people. Stalin, often considered as a villain in history, a biography on him is incomplete without coverage of both sides of the coin.

On that note, I would award this book a rating of five on ten, where the aspects of his rise to power, his ability to negotiate and his war tactics were brought out well but not so much, for his flawed policies.

Rating – 5/10

Have a nice day,
Andy

Elizabeth I: A Life from Beginning to End by Hourly History – Book Review

Most are aware of the current monarch of the United Kingdom, Elizabeth II, but not so much about her 16^th century namesake, Elizabeth I. This is a short biography of the English monarch by Hourly History.

It starts with how when Elizabeth took over, the country was in turmoil. She took over from her half-sister Mary, notoriously known as Bloody Mary for her aggressive push to reintroduce Catholicism in England. Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII from his second marriage, to Anne Boleyn and many Catholics in the kingdom viewed her claim to the throne lacking legitimacy, as they didn’t recognise the annulment of Henry VIII’s first marriage. It goes on to talk about how Elizabeth had to initially consolidate her power and at the same time, also maintain religious harmony between Catholics and Protestants. However, she was faced with succession battles from both internal and external forces, with the French supporting Mary, the Queen of Scots (Elizabeth’s cousin) to succeed the throne and many Catholics in England seeing her as the legitimate successor. It then elaborates on her decision to not marry and keeping her suitors guessing and also about her various military victories, most famously the Spanish Armada. It also focused on her relationship with her cousin, Mary the Queen of Scots and the eventual souring of the relationship, considering the latter’s constant push for claiming the throne herself.

This book revisited English history during the 16^th Century, the constant question of succession looming over Britain. The fact that there was a looming threat of political instability throughout her reign was brought out well. Her ability to deal with the nobles within her own kingdom and negotiate with other kingdoms, such as Spain and Netherlands, was also well explained. Ultimately, this also fit the time frame of one hour, as that was all it took to complete it.

The aspect that was lacking in the book was that though it asserted that Mary and Elizabeth shared a close relationship, it was never convincing, as, throughout, Mary had been plotting to usurp the throne and mercy seemed to be only from Elizabeth’s side. Perhaps, if the authors had substantiated one of the letters that had been exchanged, it could have been brought to the fore better.

On the whole, this was a well compiled biography and I would award the book a rating of seven on ten.

Rating – 7/10

Have a nice day,

Andy

The Clicking of Cuthbert and Other Golf Stories by PG Wodehouse – Book Review

Publisher’s write-up:

‘Who but P.G. Wodehouse could have extracted high comedy from the most noble and ancient game of golf? And who else could have combined this comedy with a real appreciation of the game, drawn from personal experience? Wodehouse's brilliant but human brand of humour is perfectly suited to these stories of love, rivalry, revenge, and fulfilment on the links.’

The Clicking of Cuthbert and Other Golf Stories is a collection of stories with golf as its background theme and the British author PG Wodehouse attempts to bring out some humour. To start with, I am neither a fan of golf nor a fan of Wodehouse but I would solemnly affirm that I did not read this book with pre-conceived notions.

Most of the stories involved humour (attempted) around golf, with a golfer being in love with a woman being the central theme in all of them. It starts off with the Oldest Member narrating a golf story off his memory. The stories are as follows:

1.       The Clicking of Cuthbert – The title story where Cuthbert Banks who is passionate about golf, falls in love with a woman who prefers intellectuals and fancies a writer.

2.       A Woman is only a Woman – Two friends, also amateur golfers, fancy the same woman and decide that the one who wins a golf match get to propose her.

3.       A Mixed Threesome – Mortimer, a rich man who is totally disinterested in golf; is engaged to a woman who loves golf. She fancies one of Mortimer’s friends – an explorer. Mortimer himself starts to learn golf for her sake.

4.       Sundered Hearts – Mortimer is the main character in this story as well, now so passionate about golf, gets married and his wife goes missing, getting Mortimer to exhaust all his wealth in search of her.

5.       The Salvation of George Mackintosh – This is about George Mackintosh, a golfer engaged to a woman. The only problem with George is that he can't stop talking. 

6.       Ordeal by Golf – The post of treasurer goes vacant in a company and the Oldest Member suggests the proprietor to decide the candidate through a game of golf. 

7.       The Long Hole - Two friends fancy the same woman and they decide to settle it through golf. They get into a lot of arguments over ‘rules of golf’ and leading to funny humorous incidents.

8.       The Heel of Achilles – An American millionaire is engaged to a woman who lays a condition that she’d marry him subject to him winning the American Amateur Golf Championship.

9.       The Rough Stuff – Ramsden Waters fancies a woman, teaches her golf and they pair up for a golf match.

10.   The Coming of Gowf – A group submits a story of King Merolchazzar modelled along the lines of a Babylonian kingdom but seems to be in the vicinity of the British Isles. The king embraces Golf as his new religion.

The book maintained the consistency – each of them was around twenty pages. The book had a really good start to the stories, The Clicking of Cuthbert was excellent, humorous, short and well written. I would say the same for the A Woman is only a Woman, mostly because when I first read a story with that theme, it was funny. Apart from that, Sundered Hearts was an enjoyable read and so was The Long Hole, especially the golf lawyer aspect in The Long Hole, notwithstanding the repetitive nature of two men fancying the same woman.

Barring those, the other stories were repetitive or silly or mostly, it was both. I mean, what sort of a woman accepts proposals solely based on golf skills? While the whole thing is meant to be light hearted, there is no point generating humour through means of absurdity which is what PG Wodehouse always seems to do. There could have been a variety of aspects from which he could have generated humour surrounding golf but then, the author chose the same – mostly two men fancying the same woman. I felt the story; The Coming of Gowf was not funny and totally absurd. I also don’t understand why the author chose be a narcissist through his own stories – wherein, in Clicking of Cuthbert, a Russian author in the story claims, ‘No novelists anywhere any good except me. P. G. Wodehouse and Tolstoi not bad.’

On the whole, as seen above, four stories were good and six were bad, and the last was quite awful. The stories were highly repetitive and after reading this, I continue to maintain my stand that PG Wodehouse is highly overrated (refer my review of his book Pigs have Wings). Going by a wholly mathematical approach, four out of ten stories were good, so the rating of this book is four on ten.

Rating – 4/10

Have a nice day,
Andy