Book Review 2

Three months have passed so it is time to give you a glimpse of our readings. I guess during the next three months we will not be reading that much - more watching movies as we have bought a set of Cannes Award winning movies (since 1946 I believe), and collections of Almodovar and Bergman movies.

Isaac Bashevis Singer: Shosha

If you would like to learn about Jewish customs in the pre-WWII Poland this book will give you an atmosphere so strong that sometimes you beleive you feel the smell of food cooked on the streets, which by name are still there but without all this milieu. I liked that the author spared the description of the horror Jews went through in Poland, and rather tells about social life, love and culture - making these suffocating times so much easier to embrace and even to like. And of course you learn again something new about the ways love works.

Herman Hesse: Siddharta

Our edition contained not only the novel, but a Hesse biography with an interpretation of the novel. A fully educating piece. The novel itself was just the perfect synthesis for our SE Aian trip, especially the Buddhist part - as you cannot escape the obvious connotations. Though I think just like most of Hesse´s novels it is a must read at certain age and not any other time, when the message becomes unimportant. If you are ready for some relatively staightforward teaching about how to lead a good life, go for it but do not be disappointed if you find, that there is no universal recipe for enlightment :)

Jose Saramago: The Siege of Lisbon

Another book which makes a city breath alive on the pages, especially if you have been to Lisbon prior to being guided around the contemporary and at the same time medieval streets in the novel. Besides the academic theme around the theory of history - wheter history as such exist at all and what history is after all - it is a manicured love story. This book did not shake the way I see life, but made it cosy and so much comfortable. It makes you want to go to Lisbon and rumble down the streets with a map and this book in your hand, drink coffee and eat pastry in those wonderful brasilleries. Oh, and it will give you an entirely new experience of reading dialogues: you will have to use your imagination to find out who is talking and where is the end of the sentence. Do not give up after the preface, it is worth the try :)

Graham Green: The Quiet American

I wonder why I have not read anything from Graham Green till now. He is just genious. Not only because it is great to read a book about the country you are travelling to, but because his writing is such as Leonard Cohen's songs: they are boiled down to simplicity and tell more by silences than with words. It is a not especially unique story told in a very special way about those inevitabely peculiar years when French lost grip in Vietnam but the Americans did not mess around yet too seriously. And as ususal it is principally a love story plus a friendship, a lot of Saigon folklor with the tension of politics.

Khaled Hosseini: The Kite Runner
It is a book everyone should read. It teaches you about the Afghan culture, which is partially lost, partially hidden for most people who listen only to the news about this unfortunate country. Besides it is a heartbreaking, wonderful story, written in a beautiful fashion, teaching you so much about human nature as ten other books together cannot. There is the finest sensitivity paired with such brutality you would not want to see on film and twists and turns making it not only wonderful but exciting, too. And most of all, you really have to give up thinking about right and wrong, just dive into the ocean of man-made complexity and try surviving it with a full heart.

Yann Martel: Life of Pi
I had this book in my hand so many times contemplating whether I should read it or not that it became an engagement I could not escape. The book finally landed on me as a result of a book exchange from our Australian fellows travelling with us in Myanmar and I finished it almost in one shot on one of our never ending bus rides. It is a refresing peace of work especially for those interested more in the method of teaching literature than enjoying it, though I have to admit, it is a very exciting and unique story. It teaches you a great deal about animals and you become almost a zoo expert by the end of the book - though do not try training tigers how to jump through circles based on the instructions, even if you tend to believe it as a true story :) Besides to Pondicherry zoo my favorite part was the way the three big religions (Hinduism, Islam and Christianity) entered Pi´s life and how he introduced them through his perception, accepting all three of them simultaneously. If you are ready to test your concentration skills and ability to understand the debth of text, try answering the list of questions at the end of the book. It really does show how much blackout we have while reading.

Gregory David Roberts: Shantaram
This is a totally unbelievable autobiographical book written by a guy who used to lead an insane life. It shows Bombay in the 80´ties with its slums and local mafia. There will be soon a Hollywood movie staring Johnny Depp. At the beginning of the book I was totally incaptivated by it but with time I did develop certain distance to the guy as his values or the way he acted on them were inconsistent at best. Below his not so short biography:

* Marriage break-up, loss of daughter in custody dispute, beginning of heroin addiction, 1976
* Armed robberies with toy pistol to support heroin habit, end year 1977
* Capture and imprisonment, 1978; Escape from Maximum Security Pentridge prison, 1980
* Escape from custody (twice) in New Zealand, end 1981
* Arrive in India, beginning 1982
* Six months in remote Maharashtrian village, learn to speak Marathi language
* Live in Bombay slum, establish and operate free clinic for slum dwellers
* Imprisoned in India for 4 months
* Recruited by Bombay mafia, training in currency crime, gold smuggling, passports
* Gunrunning operation to unit of mujaheddin fighters in Afghanistan
* Wounded in action, evacuated to Pakistan, recover and return to Bombay
* Appointed controller mafia forgery unit, write short stories, published in popular series
* Passport smuggler to Nigeria, Zaire, Iraq, Iran, Mauritius, Sri Lanka
* Establish casting agency for foreign extras in Bollywood movies, act in movies
* Arrive in Germany, work as singer, establish rock band, receive recording contract
* Manhunt by European police, escape custody in Italy & Switzerland, escape to India
* Act in Bollywood movies & TV dramas, establish travel agency in Bombay
* Passport smuggling to Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Nigeria, Zaire, Mauritius, etc.
* Break with Bombay mafia council, freelance drug smuggling missions to Europe
* Teach myself to read & write German, win concessions, extradited to Australia, end 1991
* 2 years solitary confinement, 4 years mainstream prison in Australia, begin novel, 1991-97
* Develop philosophical and cosmoogical model, "Resolution Theory"
* Released from prison, begin novel 1997, end parole 2002
* Sell rights Shantaram, in USA (St. Martin’s Press) & UK (TimeWarner Books UK)
* Publish Australian edition of novel, Shantaram, August, 2003
* Sell movie rights to Johnny Depp, Brad Grey, Graham King, Warner Brothers, October 2004