Tag: English literature

Cease, Cows, Life Is Short

Once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky enough, you manage to finish reading a book that’d make you wish you had read it sooner.

For me, it was One Hundred Years of Solitude.

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I had begun reading the book as soon as Amazon delivered it to me — about two years ago. Then we had a falling out. I read through about sixty pages before I realised it was too complex and too “out there” for my intellect. I felt intimidated. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t understand the narrative. Maybe it was the fine print and the font that I didn’t admire, I told myself.

Thinking I’d read it later, I cast the book aside waiting for motivation to strike me hard enough to pick it up again. Some time that time, a friend wanted a book. I suggested One Hundred Years of Solitude, but I also warned her that it had given me a block. She took it nevertheless.

That was the last I saw the book until last month, almost a year and half later.

One cold morning a line from the story popped into my mind: “Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.” Even though the book had thrown me off, that queer line had stayed with me. That’s when I realised I should give the book another chance. I got the book back from my friend and dove in right away.

It took me a good one week to finish the book. I whizzed through over half of the story, slowing down as the narrative progressed. Many times, I went back two pages to make sure I followed which Aureliano did what. I had to scan the family tree hundreds of times before I understood who’s child Amarantha was and who her child was.

I speed-read some parts while I cherished other parts of the story. I stopped at beautiful turns of phrases, and gawked at clever word choices. And then I paused and took pictures when I saw words of wonderment.

When I did finish reading it, however, I wanted to kick myself. I chided myself for missing out on so much pleasure the first time I tried reading it. If only I had tried harder to endure the initial confusion, I would’ve enjoyed a glorious read much sooner.

Perhaps it was meant to be. Perhaps I couldn’t read it then because I wasn’t mature enough. Maybe now was the time I needed it the most. Just like the Buendía family had waited a hundred years to decode the prediction of their fortunes and misfortunes, I had let history repeat itself before decoding the joys of One Hundred Years of Solitude.

You should read this book, if you haven’t already. If you have, however, tell me, what was your initial reaction?

Men Without Women

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When I first read it, the title bemused me. That’s not the kind of topic anyone at Hemingway’s time would’ve spoken about. Nowadays, sure. In the age of vapid vanity masquerading as fierce feminism, people would be more than happy to talk about men without women.

But Hemingway doing so? I wanted to go in and find out for myself why.

Like always, I read through the contents page. There were a list of lines that seemed like the titles of short stories rather than chapter names of a novel. Since the title on the cover felt like one for a novel, I hoped to read a thrilling tale of a group of men who lived without womenfolk.

Instead, I stumbled on many little stories and into the lives of many men whose egos, societal pressure, and selfish greed for power had hardened them. I had opened the book and fallen into a world of men, all of whom had no sense of what they were missing in life.

The book had a total of fourteen tales, and every one of them had vivid characters that jumped out at me. At least one character in a story refused to give in to his surroundings. I don’t know how having a woman in their lives would’ve changed their actions, but as a woman reading these men, I realised they were just jerks. And at some parts, their actions went beyond enlightening and entertained as well.

But it wasn’t all proud men wearing garlands of thorns. Some of the stories were a little dull, I admit. But every time I closed the book, thinking I’d read it later, the men on the cover called out to me. There was something about the picture on the cover, something about the three men smiling without a care in the world. As the book lay on my table, it made me wonder who those men would be and how the title of the book related to them. Men drinking and smoking, laughing and chatting — what did they speak of? Just the sight of the cover made me open the book again, hoping I’d find the answer in one of the stories.

I didn’t find the answer or the relationship between the title and the stories until after I finished the book. Two days after I had read the final story, it dawned on me how each story developed, and how every man in every story was walking proof of an empty life. And that’s when I appreciated the true power of Hemingway’s writing.

Whenever the plot vaned, Hemingway soared with the narrative. For a long time, I’ve basked in the image of Ernest Hemingway being an earnest writer. And this book proved it again. Some of the sentences and word choices popped out from print, making me gawk in awe at Hemingway’s simplicity with narrative. It’s unbelievable how basic words, with basic structure, can radiate depths of meaning. Such was Men Without Women — a joyous read.

The Absolution That Comes From Unrest

If you think that that’s one scary title, let me break it down: it’s a trap being like everyone else.

Throughout our lives, we’ve been taught to blend in, conform, adjust, and settle without complaint. And to make it all worse, our parents tell us to think about the ones who aren’t as lucky as we are; that ought to shut up a whiny kid.

Since a young age, we are moulded to be like everyone else, and accept what we get. We don’t think beyond what’s given. We are discouraged to, in fact. Even in school, the hyper kid is the first to get punished. If a kid sits in class without questioning the teacher (or throwing paper balls at the board), all would be well.

So we obey the rules, follow the orders, take what we get, compromise when we’re overpowered, and just grow up to be the average tax payer.

It’s the curse of being human. We don’t ask for more.

And it’s everywhere, even in the literature that we cherish and appreciate. Look at our Oliver, for instance. They chased him out of school and cast him into a world of misery — all because he asked for more.

However, what we often forget about Oliver Twist is that if he hadn’t asked for more, we wouldn’t’ve heard of him at all. He could’ve stayed in his bench, licked his bowl clean, and went off to bed. But he didn’t. The moment he asked for more, Oliver broke though all barriers and went beyond every line. The result, changed the course of literature and the life of Dickens.

That’s the power of a rebellion, of unrest.

For as long as we stay with the herd, as long as we settle, we limit ourselves. But when we think beyond the borders of the square we’ve been thrust into, we can reshape our lives.

The Tale of a Boy at Sea

Yesterday, I read a unique book that chilled me to the bone. It wasn’t the curious case of an unsolvable mystery, it wasn’t a multi-murder crime thriller, and it wasn’t a sweet romantic proposal story. It was the tale of a young boy stranded at sea for ten days.

It’s not Life of Pi, but I wouldn’t blame you if you had thought so. That book is ever more popular after its movie counterpart. However, the book I just read is “The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor,” and the author is Gabriel García Márquez.

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It surprised me too. I had never heard of Márquez writing such a book. But I was curious. It was a small book, just about 100 pages. And yet as I held the book in my hands contemplating whether to buy it, all my sense of reality told me I should opt for an ebook, instead, because it would take far less physical space. I asked a friend to help me decide, and he warned me that Amazon would have the same book, for a lower price.

And so when I was almost convinced I shouldn’t buy the book, I flipped the book over and read the epilogue. That’s when I realised: this was Márquez’s first book. That piqued my interest. Besides, the cover was gripping, and it even had a review from The Times that called the narrative, “A gripping tale of survival.” And at that moment, I took a chance. I lost all sense of common sense and decided to go for it. After all, I had nothing to lose.

I’m glad I made the decision. I know I shouldn’t have gone by just the cover of the book, but this is one of those times when the gut and the cover got it right. It’s a simple story, in the first person point of view. A boy in a ship leaves for Colombia after being in port for six months. He set out homewards, to his family and soil he could call his own. In the middle of the sea, however, disaster strikes and all of his shipmates go down. He holds on to a raft and survives the sea—amidst sharks, hallucinations, hunger, and thirst—for ten days. He then makes it to land and becomes a national hero.

It’s typical and predictable in all aspects. But the best part of it is that the author narrates all the typicality and the commonness of it in such a matter-of-fact way, that you can’t help but keep turning the pages. You’d want to know what’s coming, even though your sixth sense tells you it’s nothing great for the hero.

The story reeks of emotion. You feel for the hero. When he stretches his neck looking for land, you stretch with him. When he plunges his hand into the sea trying to catch some fish, you gasp knowing that the sharks are waiting around the corner. When he wonders how shoes taste like, you’ll find yourself imagining the taste on your tongue. And as he tries to pry out the soles of his shoes, you wish you could pry it with him.

It’s an ordinary story, but it gives you an extraordinary experience. I now know why Gabriel García Márquez got a Nobel prize for literature.

Why You Shouldn’t Study Shakespeare

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Some of us, more than others, have taken those Shakespeare lessons in school a little too close to heart. So much so that we decided to delve deeper into the man’s mastery with words, words, and more words.

Shakespeare was the father — or one of the fathers (with the utmost respect to Homer and Johnson and Marlowe) — of English literature. And that’s one of the reasons people study Shakespeare; he’s done most of the heavy lifting already. When you study Shakespeare as a subject, you don’t have to create anything from scratch. There are no eureka moments. (As the ignorant people would say, but that’s for another time.)

As a student, you’d have to memorise the structure, the poetry and find the prose that’s hidden within. It’s not medical science, it’s not astronomy, and it sure as hell ain’t math.

At least in India, studying Shakespeare is transferring the textbook onto your answer sheet. Once you’re done, you’re ready to graduate with a degree in Shakespeare. That’s our education system — it’s all text and nothing more.

That’s why it’s so sexy — because it’s easy. Literature students thrive in repetition, and the concept of repeating book words appeals to housewives who’re busy with kids running around the house. It appeals to their husbands who advocate women education and empowerment. It appeals to the losers who can’t do math and science at school. Because, well, let’s face it, people think it’s easier to count metre and Iambs than it is to count metre per second. And who’d want to fumble with computer programmes when they could just scribble lines of rhyme “as defined in the textbook?”

Plus, in Shakespeare, you’re studying plays with words and words with plays; tone and tenor, method and manner. All that sounds far easier than calculus.

Here’s another reason people study Shakespeare: It sounds exciting in the preface of the textbook, but when you flip the cover and cradle the pages, you’ll stare at opinions. Not prose, not poetry, just random interpretations of Bard’s rhetoric.

Your question paper wants observations of moderators, not your own. You think you’re studying Shakespeare when, in fact, you’re studying summaries of the original piece that — this is called irony in literature — never made it the text.

That’s what they do to you when you want to study Shakespeare. They make you study the ones who’ve studied Shakespeare, and not Shakespeare himself. They divulge the amateur as the master; a blunder if there ever was one.

Alas, a formal study of Shakespeare includes none of his actual works and all of misleading citations and cheap caricatures. And to continue studying Shakespeare would endanger our minds, and force us into thinking like the wannabes desperate for a sliver of Shakespearean glory. We’d limit our thoughts and diminish our ability to differentiate witty wit from winding word choice.

And that’s why you should never study Shakespeare. He wasn’t meant to be studied. He was meant to be experienced.

His works are to laugh at, to cry over, and to pine about with bottles of wine. Shakespeare, the man, stomped on rules. He cut licences from rule books. He had a way of doing things, of seeing things. And you won’t get that by reading what others say he says.

You won’t see it when others tell you. You will see it when you see it for yourself. Shakespeare speaks to the reader, textbooks speak at the reader.

You’d study for the marks, but you experience for the thrill it gives you. Shakespeare visualises life and body and love and beauty — he talks human traits. That’s not something to study, that’s the essence of life you inhale, that’s what pierces you, transcending emotions that translate into words.

Studying Shakespeare sticks words to your head. Experiencing it tugs at your heart.