Far From The Madding Crowd; by Thomas Hardy.

Thomas Hardy is not merely master storyteller, there is much more to the superb author than that. It is difficult to decide which facet of his excellence to go into first and which is the best and so on.

There is the genuineness of settings and descriptions of his time and place, which might seem trivial but really is not easy to achieve. There is the human nature and its vagaries, especially when it comes to interactions of people with one another and with ambient society. There is the series of events that are as genuine as in real life, with few major happenings and their ripples, reactions of various characters major and minor, and events caused by people as well as by fate.

But the best of all is his lyrical, poetic descriptions of the earth and heavens, of perfectly ordinary people and their reactions to it all, in a slow and deliberate tempo that gives one far more than if one were actually experiencing it all first hand.
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This work perhaps is best in that respect in that it begins with rhythms of life of a shepherd who is prudent and competent at everything he does, which includes his ability to tell time by looking at skies and to know which sheep needs precisely what, to know that harvest needs action now before rains come pelting down and destroy all the work of the year of all the men. Then there is the funeral scene with its dense fog that he describes as unshed tears suspended in air and thick on the trees.

As to the characters and story that grows out of the people and their nature described so well, few could do it so well. The bewitching beauty who likes her independence and her very strength and nobility of character that - along with her innocence - makes her a prey to the vagaries of an unstable vain man who is not without feeling but is without much conscience or strength when it comes to responsibility, after she has not accepted a man she liked and could be friends with and work with, and after she has innocently been the cause of a noble character man of wealth falling in love with her deeply, is a facet of human interactions that most would not look twice at, except perhaps to comment that she deserved it. That she did not so deserve even though it was her faults and mistakes that caused it is made clear by this author even through his less noble characters.

That it all ends happily after deep tragic events muted and otherwise, is the final satisfaction of this work. With Hardy, that is not always the case.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012. 

A Group Of Noble Dames; by Thomas Hardy.

A collection of tales from the master story teller of England with women young and old as the focus of the stories, told at a cosy setting of fireplace talk post dinner amongst a group of men exchanging tales. Interesting in study of human nature, each different from other and only constant is the unpredictability of not only events but human nature itself.

Mayor of Casterbridge; by Thomas Hardy.

A man can make a horrendous mistake in a bad moment with drink and temper, and however much he regrets it and does his best to change himself and aspire to be a better man, another moment of being less vigilent with one's faults can again bring him down and bring unhappiness to him and others around him. One may pity him, but one has to excuse those he harmed and are unable to love him again, or even forgive him, especially the young ones.

Thomas Hardy is a master in literature. And this is one of his best. Few books can be so heart wrenching about a man of such character.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
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Hardy belonged to an era when a few miles were a great separation, although people were traversing the Atlantic ocean regularly enough in search of livelihood and sometimes more than once in a lifetime. Perhaps it is that era or perhaps it is the author himself or it is a reflection of his times and his society, but invariably he makes his stance clear - unless there is subterfuge and trickery involved in saving a woman who made a mistake however small, pay she must and she does in his works for the mistake, often with her very life.

Tess was raped and she paid with loss of her marriage by her husband leaving her, insisting she was wife of the man who had raped her, and she eventually paid for it by being hanged for the murder of the rapist. Lucetta in this one is made to pay for having nursed a stranger to health and thus compromised her name, and if she marries another for love of the other or for fear of the one she nursed, no matter, society shall punish her so much she loses a baby prematurely and dies of shock.

Susan is sold by her husband to a stranger and she is over and over certified as innocent for having gone with him, no matter how wrong the husband was in the first place, and dies soon after attempt to correct her mistake. Her daughter is miserable for no fault of her own, is full of virtues and triumphs all her trials with the prescribed womanly virtues, except the unwillingness to forgive and inability to comprehend the actions of the man who made her miserable, and she is castigated without a word by the author towards the end for this.

The man who causes so much misery to various people is sketched best by the author with all his faults out in the open and his temper, his dark psyche and his violence not hidden, and his virtues clearly visible for all to see but not much dwelt on, with the theme being how he is respected and feared but never loved due to the complex mix of his nature. One cannot say one would be able to deal with him better if one met him, he might not allow that to happen to one any more than he did to Susan or her daughter or Farfrae, but the author nevertheless leaves one with a deep pity for the man whose mistakes and pride and temper and more caused so much misery to others - and to him. He gets the worst punishment after all in life, no one loves him, and few sympathise, fewer respect him past his loss of stature. He has attempted to rectify his mistakes by sacrificing much and achieved much, but his nature he could not change and so he lost all by steps, including the love of the daughter that could have been his.

Thursday, November 23, 2012

Mill On The Floss: by George Eliot.

Human nature, the author's era, and in particular a corner of the veil over caste system of Europe lifted with the casual reference to the separate churches or chapels for the poor and the gentry - all in all, good.

Friday, February 11, 2011
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Amazingly this is one of the few works of literature where a film or a television serial gives more, not less, than the original work in some ways. The social contexts of the time and the general setup is described in the book by the author as much as the author saw necessary, but times change and perhaps social set up across the world in another land, another time is different. At any rate, what comes across as a very personal story of a young woman in particular and her family in general, with the society as the frame thereof, changes when one takes into account the context of the time and the society, which is brought to view far more clearly on film in the film or television series.

The central character Maggie is very endearing in her persona full of life and aspiring for a life of mind and spirit while in turmoil of heart and conscience. Eliot seems to be a follower of Aquinas, and at any rate finds it necessary to make the poor young girl give up her one chance of finding life of happiness when she and a young man are inexorably drawn in spite of all obstacles, with little quarter given to his very valid arguments about the others they are engaged to being merely cheated if these two pretended no love existed between them.

The author seems to make little of the young woman's quest for independence by on one hand making her insist she won't depend on her relatives if she can make her own living and on the other hand give far more importance to the claims of various relatives and others when weighed in against her own mind and heart.

As for others, the society then clearly had its caste system with money and power playing top roles (which one doubts has changed much) and more, society including most women (author mentions them towards the end as the wives whom the rector cannot bring to see reason or truth where a poor young woman without powerful connections when compared to others is concerned - what else is new? -) consider a young woman as not quite proper except as someone belonging to, property of, under protection of a relative with some money, prestige, power, preferably male. If the male is merely a slightly older brother, nevertheless he has the power of righteous indignation and wrath if the young woman has any emotions much less actions or thoughts that are not explicitly approved prior to having them by the said male, and same is true of other relatives. The young man in question gets far more latitude in comparison.

In short the life and society of Europe was not that different regarding the feudal structure especially regarding women from what is now protested about as the restricted version in lands other than those of richer western nations (which is not a geographical term, since it includes Australia and NZ generally) with lifestyles of plenty and so forth.

One wishes the author had made Maggie's society see common sense and have a heart and allow her and Stephen Guest to be happy, but Eliot seems to think it is necessary to go tragic to deprive Maggie of everything that can possibly be taken from her including life, merely for the sin of having a young man of rich class fallen in love with her - he has been courting her cousin, but is really not bound by promise to her - and the only relief in all this is that the four young people concerned, the two in love and the other two who thought they belonged to them, understand all perfectly with no rancour. Which makes it all the more senseless that the tragedy is forced merely for sake of punishing a flouting of conventional bindings due to truth of hearts.

But then again, the author is a prisoner of her times, and perhaps she meant to bring about change in social attitudes by forcing this tragedy to attention of her readers and making them see sense.

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July 27, 2012. 

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Vanity Fair: by William Makepeace Thackeray.

In retrospect it seems far more the fault of a caste system that worships money and those that have it, not often questioning how they came by it, and despising and sidelining and using any which way those that do not have it. Under such a social system a man might commit much chicanery and even murder, and be able to establish his house in higher circles - it has and does happen all too often. A woman of talent however had no chance then short of having a wealthy male marry her, however capable she was, however beautiful, and there were always those that would save such a man from marrying her however unworthy of her he was otherwise, while all the more willing to dally with her even at cost of their own family life and marriage. Today things are different, not much but a little, in that a woman from not wealthy origins might still find good chances to rise to her fullest capabilities in her career, and even find a worthy mate, while caste is now less relevant albeit not quite done with. People of wealth still scorn those without and will save their sons from marrying worthy and beautiful women of no dowry, but it all matters a bit less.

Friday, December 10, 2010.
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Thackeray is either unable to make up his mind about what stance to take for public view, or adopts that stratagem as part of his satire extending to himself. With all the withering Goyaesque portrayal of the rich and the titled in most part, and while often acknowledging qualities of his heroine that would go a long way towards making of a man if she were one, he nevertheless takes care to repeat his refusal to give her a certificate of innocence or goodness, while not quite condemning her and making clear his satire re those that do so condemn her or pursue her with gossip and accusations unfounded in most - ninety nine out of hundred, really - part. The only really good people in his work are the major Dobbin (who is pursued by ridicule and discrimination almost into his adult life, and even then in not a small part until his worth is proven beyond doubt and beyond his father's lowly beginning as a mere grocer rather than a rich or titled person), and Amelia the other heroine who is looked down on not merely for her poverty for a large part of her life but also for her simplicity and goodness itself.

So perhaps a reader may conclude that in European caste system one can only be a rich and - or  - powerful male, preferably with a title or half a dozen, before one can have one's small faults overlooked and be respected socially, and the more the wealth, power and titles the more one's sins' degrees that can be not only overlooked but have one drooled over nevertheless. And if that was so in Thackeray's time, what has changed since? Only that in lands elsewhere a man may have a fair chance to do well and be recognised for one's worth before one is quite old, and sometimes even a woman might have such a chance, but for most part in most of the world the status quo remains.
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Becky Sharp has good qualities that might today raise her to a satisfactory status by her own efforts rather than having to please those with wealth and titles for sake of getting them to give her husband a position and money to secure a good life for the family; at any rate, she stands a better chance today of being seen as a normal person with normal concerns rather than a social climber, such climbing being neither necessary today to find financial security or a good life nor a vice per se.

But if Becky's lack of feminine virtues (she is not fond of her only child, and is more involved in pleasing people who can assist her husband with his career - which, come to think of it, might have served her extremely well had she been married to someone with a position in colonies part of the empire) is dwelt upon by the author and many many of his characters, they nevertheless manage to overlook the corresponding lack of masculine virtues in her husband (he never does manage to find work after the war and his resignation from the military, which is again surprising since he has no money apart from his salary; he never attempts to understand his household finance and worry about how to pay anyone, and he gambles albeit mostly successfully); what is more, without quite making it clear, Becky is blamed for the financial fiasco too, when it comes, although she has been instrumental in getting him a position that he promptly takes leaving her behind to face ruin.

If he is praised for being fond of his son and she is denounced for the lack of it, shouldn't he be denounced for lack of providing for his family and providing her a male authority to depend on (she is always pleased when he does show any sign of it), and shouldn't she be praised for attempting to secure a future for him and for the family?

No, the caste system of Europe says - any blame is for the female, any compassion and respect is for the male. Unless she happens to be well situated to begin with, that is, by virtue of happening to have a father or a husband with money or power or title, both with all of the above if possible. Then she can do as she pleases. No questions asked, no denouncing, no criticism, unless she happens to lose the instruments that have raised her to the status.

In retrospect it is not clear what exactly Becky Sharp did or did not do that was different from the general conduct of the empire in colonies, or generally the behaviour of European states in Asia and Africa.

Come to think of it, there is a subtle parallel there between Becky with her social climbing due entirely to her own innate qualities and Napoleon with his self built empire that the then European monarchs joined in bringing down with a crash, mainly because he was a common man who lacked royal pedigree.

Whatever the faults of Thackeray as a writer - and there are many - one can be reasonable certain that this parallel was not hidden from him, what is more he fully intended it but did not care to make it so obvious as to become socially unpopular or worse for it.

Thursday, July 19, 2012.
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Kublai Khan; by John Anthony Garnet Man.

One begins to read this book about the famous historical persona from Mongolia, a land of mystery for most of the world and a land that much horrors emanated from for those that experienced the invasions and onslaughts, and the author assures us that the famous Kublai Khan and his much more famous grandfather Chengis Khan (Chingis Khan and Genghis Khan being alternative spellings) were not the murderous figures as they are normally understood but men of ability, thought, and more.

And then he proceeds to give the history of the person and the clan, with all that they and their armies, mostly cavalries, did to the world they touched. Horror it is, unmitigated horror, at every stage almost, considering how many hundreds of thousands were massacred in how many different cities in very diverse parts of the world, only because this clan began with the man who believed he had a divine mandate to rule the world - and his progeny inherited this belief and stuck to it, often when they lacked territory to rule, and had infights amongst the various cousins all progeny of the one Chingis Khan only so one could find supremacy to rule the piece of earth he had chosen to rule. As for descendents of this man, somewhere one has read that they number in millions, with whole villages of central Asia often claiming descent from him.

Not that descriptions of thought and details of administrations lack as far as the life and times of Kublai Khan - and his mother - go, but the constant running theme is war, massacre of cities that do not capitulate immediately, and subsequent taxation of the conquered territory for financing of the future campaigns of the Mongols. Having conquered the territory from Mongolia to Hungary via all of central Asia and much of west Asia, the clan has not enough yet, and gets their nose tweaked only by Egypt due to the change in land; then they - specifically Kublai Khan - turn to China, conquer Tibet and all of China and declare him emperor of China (hence the Chinese claim to Tibet and genocide of hundreds of thousands of Tibetans with deliberate settling of Tibet by Han race from faraway east coast, all because if Kublai Khan was Chinese emperor he must be Chinese and not Mongolian, according to Chinese logic; by this logic Hanover could very well claim US and all the rest of English colonies!); and yet this is not enough, he must then turn to Japan and think about what next.

There are explicit details of how many thousands, sometimes even hundreds of thousands, massacred in what city, from Baghdad, and Nishapur (which translates as City of Night, in Sanskrt; so it probably was so prosperous a metropolis it need not sleep at night to save on oil for lamps) in Persia to various cities in China and Japan. But the horror of the whole Mongol mentality is reflected in the mere detail of administrative time when they are of the firm opinion that farmers and peasants should be simply driven out - no matter if they starve by millions - from their land, and the land turned to pasture for the horses of Mongolians, since Mongolian horses are more precious then humans of other races and nationalities.

Not that Chinese lack horrors to match - the explicit descriptions of their weapon sophistication leaves merely scientific progress as gap from then until now, with their not only explosives knowledge and usage for war but also chemical and biological weapons.

No wonder it takes so long to read this - it takes long to overcome the horror of various accomplishments of Mongols to be able to pick it up again and go on with the next part!

And Chinese solution to the shame of conquest of China by Mongolia is simple - declare the Mongolian emperor of China as a Chinese, claim his conquests as Chinese territory, and simply never mention any of the persons of any of the other races that contributed to the glory of China, such as the architect of the palace Kublai Khan had constructed in Beijing - today's imperial palace in the place is constructed along the same lines, following the same plans and dimensions, according to this author, post the razing of his palace by the successor.

One little detail - the famous wall of China was constructed to keep out other Mongols post Kublai Khan. Thank heavens, or else who knows what other parts of earth China would claim were a part of China!

His Majesty's Opponent: Subhas Chandra Bose and India's Struggle against Empire; by Sugata Bose.

To begin with one does wish the book was written a bit better, but it quickly becomes irrelevant as one gets into the life and persona of this figure so strangely ignored post independence by political rulers of India through decades due to an unbalanced worship of one family, two names and most small or big members of the said family dynasty. This sidelining of most major figures of independence struggle of India is neither new nor unknown, but is a shame nevertheless, and leaves much unknown about these majestic persona and their minds, thoughts and actions. Shame.

Bose is mostly known for having forged together an army, Indian National Army, to fight against the British during wwii. Prior to that all that is known other than his being a patriot and a member of Congress is that he was president of Congress and gave in his resignation due to displeasure of Gandhi who preferred Nehru instead, whom he saw as more malleable and less likely to think independently, whatever the truth of that.

What is not known about Bose is about his extensive writing and deep thought re world politics and economics in context of India and her future - he was fooled by neither communists nor fascists during his extensive sojourns through Europe during early and mid thirties, never mind the impression created (by British, perhaps, but most definitely left so by the post independence rule of Congress), that he befriended the Axis and was perhaps used by them as pawn - nothing could be further from truth.

Congress and generally government of India along with academia would do well to correct these mistakes and lapses about freedom fighters of India who are neither Gandhi nor Nehru by name - this ignoring the great is a shame for those that do it, and stars do not stop shining when someone herds people into a cave like so many sheep.
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As one finishes the story of this towering persona and his role in history of the world and his nation, one has several sensations - one wishes to know a bit more, one is overwhelmed with the gigantic figure who was in person perhaps imposing only due to his inner being (was he tall?) but cared for his people so very much (his embracing was reward enough for all the hardships his soldiers went through on his call); and one is once again wistful about his sudden accidental death, wishing it were not true, wishing someone like him were long lived and changed the course of world history for the better, and of course that of his nation. Would India be divided if he were alive and active in his nation? Perhaps not. And much misery, much strife would then have been avoided.

Last but not the least, did India even extend an invitation, a welcome and a citizenship, to his wife and daughter, post independence? That the woman whom he loved and who loved him enough to live the life she had to under the circumstances - a marriage kept secret, financial hardships galore post his death and during the war - shows her grit and her independence. But if Indian government did not even take steps to invite her, to award her and her daughter - the only child of Subhash Chandra Bose - with a with a citizenship and more, it is a shame to the government of India.
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The Encyclopaedia of Earth - A Complete Visual Guide: by Michael Allaby and John O'Byrne.John O'Byrne.

Even an a cursory glance at the book prior to purchase is impressive enough ( -hence the purchase in the first place!) - what with the part illustrating solar system and its planets and other fascinating objects before going on to Earth, our own planet. Then there is the geophysical parts and other about Earth. All in all a must in a home aspiring for well educated family, especially with growing children. In a school library, needless to say, it is indispensable.

As a matter of fact one might as well have children familiar with it when young, before they are corrupted by the peer cynicism against knowledge so very prevalent in some of the richer nations where being well informed gets a child bullied in school and a football jock or anyone capable of bullying is the object of worship, and tobacco-alcohol-and-co seem cool, partying a must and study merely a painful requisite for sat unless one has a cool career in hand such as a garage mechanic or a sport scholarship to push one through college all the way without any reading skills.

In parts of the world where knowledge and information are still valued, this book is a valuable addition to any home, any library.

Heart of Asia: by Nicholas Roerich.

Whereas one might expect lyrical descriptions of the sublime beauty - or thrilling tales of travails thereof - of the travels through Himaalaya and trans Himaalayan regions, from Darjeeling to Kashmir to Ladakh to Mongolia via Gobi desert, to Tibet and return to India through Sikkim, such descriptions are only summed up in the art work of the Roerich family, and here one gets tales providing unexpected insights into times the travel took place in. Whether these impressions are due to bias on part of the author and his group, or merely reflection of time then, is not easy to determine. They could be the other side of the facts usually not publicised.

Avenger: by Frederick Forsyth.

Very good, especially the finale. Very satisfying, after the horror of the details of the two wars. And the horror of the philosophy of the agencies, mitigated only by the honesty and loyalty of the individuals.

The Sins of The Father; by Jeffrey Archer.

It has taken long since the publication of the first part and one needs to be reminded of the story so far, but even independently it is worth reading. The anxiety to read the next part which takes long, by which time one has forgotten somewhat, takes a toll, but still -

The uncertainty of the ending is the third time Archer has used it, once in UK and once in US based story, both with the equal opposite and once with twins too.

One finds satisfaction in the end a bad guy comes to, but wishes it were not paid for by his victim being beaten up before and dying later. Also, it would have been all right if the mother were to marry a wealthy suitor who cares about her as well, and the otherwise satisfactory marriage she chooses of necessity of heart and mind could have come just a tad earlier.

The dilemma at the end remains the same as at end of part one, and one wishes there were a satisfactory solution in writing if not in life.

Too many works - one at least of Archer, one of Cookson - have been about the dilemma of a brother and sister falling in love due to the excruciatingly bad behaviour of the father of the two and part of his family. One wonders what basis there was in reality for this fascination - but it does serves to remind males to not endanger their own progeny by such behaviour, and acknowledge progeny rather than attempt to deny, or even better, behave well in the first place with the mother of the progeny.

Revolution 2020: by Chetan Bhagat.

Just when one gets past the Readers' Digest type sentence construction - nothing wrong with the digest, but they do condense originals, and the greatness of originals is not in the condensation - and the screenplay type writing (oh, try reading this author, any book of his, without a film or a television series unfolding before one's mind's eye!), and begins to think he might after all be getting over his tripe and getting towards better writing, he hits one on the head with the trashy climax of the protagonist questioning his self and sacrificing his love, quite as per melo-melodramatic style diktat of the films he seems to be unable to get over.

Until then, good at least, great in some few points. The pathos of a poor father bringing up a son and hoping he might get out of the dire circumstances the uncle has cheated them into, the pathos of the son who is good but lacks the take-off level to do well in competitive fields and is ignored, looked down on and so forth, until a politician realises his potential and sets him off on path to be able to do not only well but do good; the pathos of this politician being not smart enough to play the game with safety nets and taking a fall but setting up the protagonist to do well nevertheless with a paternal sentiment in spite of no lack of his own progeny; the pathos of the protagonist never quite feeling equal to his friends who were brought up in better circumstances and feeling guilty enough about his resentment of their togetherness to give up just when he could have had his dream life - if only the author had overcome his normal shortcomings to make this one better, skipped the sacrifice falsehood and thought of a better solution, ....

Did he simply visit the two towns he describes and write them into his work (did they come pleading with him?) or does he really know them, good question.

Hope this work does not get bracketed with the worthy anti corruption fight of the saintly and good of the country! They deserve better.

The Litigators: by John Grisham.

Very good as usual from Grisham, although of late he goes for the more normal to be expected rather than the thrilling out of the way of the unequal fights won by the Davids against the Goliaths. Davids do win but Goliaths plod on trodding on general populace regardless.

In this one the thrilling moment - second, after the walkout by the little lawyer out of the huge firm - is when he is able to pin the mammoth drug company to their bad drugs, since they went for a punitive trial out of vindication for their name. But the jury goes reasonable rather than emotional and punitive and absolves the company of liability of death in question with a drug not proven bad, which the main trial is about.

Conclusion is towards a normal life and rise of a bright young lawyer too rather than one or a group hiding in witness protection or in offshore islands as was in his more thrilling earlier works.

All in all a very good one - as is usual from Grisham.

BPO Sutra - True Stories from India's BPO and Call Centres; compiled by Sudhindra Mokhasi.

Interesting, funny, informative, not always the good guy win but then again life isn't over either and they might yet, ...one awaits more of the stories. Customers from US who peremptorily demand that the connection from next door internet cafe that they have been using in their own home be restored promptly, perverts who are foiled, sexual predators that sometimes get their prey terminated with false allegations and are not yet shown for what they are, .... all sorts of little pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that shows the landscape of an old culture changing in many ways and the human nature that is eternal across all space and time.

This has immense potential, especially as television series much more than a mere film, but then again series of films with sequels following the first one are now not at all uncommon and this provides enough material for many, many sequels. All the more so since anyone can add one's own by going to the website provided and get it included in the next one - so one awaits the series of television and film portrayals of this for more fun.

Not My Cup Of Tea (originally published as Square Peg in a Round Hole); by Marcel Daniel.

The work is attractive primarily because there is a good deal of information about the tea plantations and tea industry in general, in more than one aspect - how the plantations function, the harvesting and the "manufacture" of tea, the hierarchy structure strictly adhered to, clubs and poverty of workers, and so on.

There are indications that this work is based on the author's life, but not clear if it is in fact precisely the autobiography with a mere change of names, so one might take it that much of it is based on his own life and experiences, feelings and thinking.

As such, the first thing that strikes one is how - and how much - the protagonist/author (Mark Edwards / Marcel Daniel) is conflicted between his various roots of identity due to the circumstances it was brought about due to, namely, the colonial rule of his ancestors' land by those from across halfway around the globe and conversion of his ancestors' from their own culture to that of rulers.

Culture, because it was not merely faith or religion that the rulers and their missionary accompaniment arriving with military protection sought. What rather was aimed at very deliberately was the destruction of morale of the ruled, by deliberate attacks coupled with lack of - and indeed inability to - comprehension of the ancient deep rich culture that was of India. In case of those that did convert, either partly by accepting the education for more than opening of a window to the faraway lands and new winds, or those that went the whole hog and gave up their own roots in all but blood (or even that, in case of those that happened to marry one of the rulers and convert far more), this demoralisation worked much more than in case of those that kept their own roots while allowing opening of windows and doors to more light and air.

Thus Edwards/Daniel is forever conflicted between his bringing up which is very English, and his own reflection in the mirror which he is unable to identify with - he feels that the person in the mirror is not, could not be, himself, because he is English, even though he knows he is completely Indian by blood and only English due to his three or more generations of ancestors having lived an English life in India.

As a consequence of this conflict ironically he blames India and indeed its culture and faiths not only along the lines prescribed by the rulers that had left before the story begins, but for anything that goes wrong in his personal life, as long as there is someone Indian or Hindu involved - which is unavoidable as long as he lives in India. Often it is something common to most cultures, most societies, most nations, as in case of the expected fraternal bonding and hierarchy in his military life, and the necessity of obedience to not only rules but to superiors, which is backbone structure of any military and in fact of most corporate institutions in US as well. Another example is when incidents of dishonesty or bullying occur, which do in any society, but which to Edwards / Daniel are convenient to deal with by blaming India and Hinduism. Indeed his, and his community's - his father, his bosses who happen to be of his faith, and so forth - first response to any such occurrence is "these bloody Indians"; one wonders what the response would have been had they dared to emigrate to the lands of those they identify with, and then find the same problems, which in fact are more than common. Dishonesty, bullying, and so forth do not get any better when one is perceived as an outsider due to racist culture of a land, nor do expectation of bosses who look upon subordinates as people to blame for their own shortcomings.

But Edwards and his father are all too aware of the various shortcomings of European colonisers in this respect, of the destruction wreaked on the lands they attacked and occupied in the name of "discovery", denying the very human rights of the occupants of those lands by calling them "aboriginal" or any other derogatory names, and naming those lands to suit rather than respecting the names that existed. This awareness stops short of including India, since it would cleave their own identity itself, even though it is not denied. Edwards is all too aware of how racist are the societies of various colonies that are now seen as European emigrants' lands rather than as colonies occupied, such as US and Canada and Australia, and indeed Britain.

Hence the deliberation about emigration to those lands, where one might feel at home due to one's feeling and living English rather than Indian, goes finally against the idea due to the certainty of being treated as a second class citizen at best due to one's physical appearance. It is much more convenient to stay put in India, live an English life, look down on Indians and then blame them for one's own alienation. Not that different from blaming one's mother for being a child of rape, this whole conflict and resolution, after the rapist has pillaged and left the mother and children destitute.
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Ironically it does not occur to the protagonist/author that the hierarchical structure he describes without comment is not qualitatively different from the structure of India that he deplores so very vociferously for being divided by castes, while the divisions of India along languages and identities of people along linguistic lines are no different from those in Europe. If anything the caste structure imposed by colonial rule and that prevalent in most societies of the world is along the lines of power and money ruling and ascribing all other virtues to itself, while that in India is comparatively far more enlightened - power and money are separated and held lower than intellectual knowledge, while spiritual life is everyone's prerogative, and duties along the lines of one's vocation are strictly taught and imposed.
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It is only when Edwards emigrates for work to Papua New Guinea due to his inability to work in India - partly due to his being unable to resolve the conflict between his own upright, independent being and the dishonesty and bullying he encounters, and partly due to his blaming it all on the country of his origin and countrymen he refuses consistently to identify with, preferring to see himself as better due to being English rather than seeing that he is honest and independent and upright because of his own choice - that he is brought to awareness of superiority of some virtues of India and Indians, although he is lagging behind as yet in realising that his conflicts that occurred in India could and indeed would occur everywhere else as well, with the difference that then they would be blamed on not only him but his race, his country of origin, and the racist assumption that anyone whose ancestors lived in lands with sun are lesser than those whose ancestors lived in darker latitudes closer to one of the poles rather than the equator.
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Friday, March 2, 2012


Much ironic once one has finished with this - not the bitterness which is understandable under the circumstances, nor the feeling of comfort the protagonist has mainly when in surroundings not of his ancestral roots but - as he frankly expresses again and again - that of anglophones, or even better, a land where he is as much an outsider as any "white" person, so that he can be as much aloof above the general madding crowd as he desires to be, which is only natural since that is the example held out to him as one to emulate - that of British rulers and others who occupied India and left post enough looting rather than that of the indigenous with their rich culture and multiple layers of deep virtues - no, none of this, but only this - that he finally does not blame or indict those that hurt him far more in physical and psychological sense than the first couple of incidences of attacks by bullies that were of his own country.

For the latter, he indicts the whole nation and its people and especially the majority community, in spite of the fact that it was his own and his ancestors' choice to separate and hold themselves above the milieu so they were the privileged people halfway up the rung of preferences closer to the rulers in every choice of posts and other benefits; in other lands, other cultures, such separation and aligning oneself with occupying looters is rewarded with persecution and death, rather than the merely factual acceptance of the separation chosen by those that align themselves thus as India and its majority community does. But he wants it both ways - to clearly state his own and his ancestors' preference about separating themselves, aligning themselves with the rulers, being comfortable only in the surroundings emulating the rulers long after they left, taking all the perks that were theirs due to this preference and conversion as natural, and then resenting when things are set right for the nation after the rulers have left (not taking their local imitations with them as the French did, offering citizenship of France to every citizen of any colony) - resenting the separation and blaming it on those they left to climb up the ladder.

This contrasts rather absurdly with the comparatively less blame, less resentment or even dispassionate indictment of those that actually harmed him far more, either due to the discriminating laws and contracts at work or due to direct attacks that were - unlike those in India - intending to kill, and far more successful at that.

Daniel / Edwards is able to describe the attacks on his property and life in Papua New Guinea - where he went to work after blaming India for all his problems - with precision and dispassionate correct descriptions but with no horror attached to it; indeed he fails to take precautions to safeguard his own life long past having been cautioned in the only way it might have been, since the company won't pay for the whole security need - he is satisfied to point out the discrimination to his colleague and go about his merry way knowing fully well that attacks on his person are as likely as those on anyone and anything that do indeed happen regularly - and merely goes about to describe the attack clinically with no horror, no blame, no disgust at those that did it; he rather indulges in guilty feeling blaming himself for death of the dog that attempted to protect him by fighting off the attackers alongside.

And then he blames the racist discrimination of a whole country or a whole industry even less even as he clinically describes the details of how they were responsible for his ending up losing use of half his body, since the Australian person in charge of immigration who could grant him a visa (as he regularly does to every "white" visitor merely for asking) due to the medical emergency and chooses to refuse showing his manual and insisting the routine of several weeks applying for a visa is observed, never mind the medical emergency. That the company could have sent him to UK for the operation on a more proper flight at their expense is not even thought of, since he is not one of the ruling clique, a "white" person, but surprisingly no one even thinks of sending him to Hong Kong or Singapore or India where it all might have been taken care of.

And finally, having chosen to uproot himself from India - he sold off his parents' home in a part of the country where they had no roots and no relatives post the death of parents, and had no interest in finding the rest of his clan that might have embraced him and given him a home and a family to belong to and put down roots in, since he much prefers the company of anglophones and indeed such English as would deign to speak to him as a human at all - he then must end his life in the strange land where he was dealt with the murderous attack by the locals.
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And yet his finale' is nothing short of an emulation of some of the finest of Indian understanding of existence, although he mucks it up by then justifying his never identifying himself with his image in his mirror! Such is the half baked attitude of those that would cut off their own roots and float forever in shark infested waters of reefs faraway - roots after all bring responsibilities and belonging!
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The Shadow Lines: by Amitav Ghosh.

Break a mirror and set splintered fragments thereof in walls with a rough finish, and then attempt to patch a reflection of surroundings of today and of yore - this is somewhat the image of this work, of events of the story and of history as seen in this.

The writer here attempts to deal with his own childhood trauma experienced in Dhaka where his parents were stationed as diplomatic corps from India during sixties, where he lived through riots and a murderous mob surrounding their own home in faraway diplomatic enclave, specifically attempting to massacre the family for crime of being Hindu. This event has left so deep, so strong an impression as to be a character molding factor and the writer has never since been able to deal with his own roots as Hindu, his own deep ancient cultural heritage, and has instead spent his life and writings attempting to defend other similar cultures from the vast neighbourhood while never quite being able to defend his own Hindu culture from ignorant attacks.
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He combines these happenings here to provide a background and a shocking ending to the work while dealing with the life of eastern part of India as it was, whole rather than the part that retains the name, with people moving from Dhaka to Calcutta to Burma to London back and forth before and after independence and partition, the movement between Dhaka and Calcutta as rare post independance as that between Burma and the rest - Burma was as much part of India prior to war as any other part of India - and in the process he deals also with the various psychological elements and processes that went into the British-Indian relationships, shown here on personal level between two extended families through three generations.
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He mentions, as himself and as protagonist - since his own story is not that exactly of the protagonist here but could easily be in part that of a cousin, especially the part that constitutes not only the shocking end but the very raison d'etre for the work, one cannot separate the two - the differences between physical proximity and nationhood, and attempts to say without quite saying it (if he had said it he could be pinned as extremist by those that have appropriated the label "secular" and targeted as a fanatic, and he takes care to stay on the safer side at any cost, including howling like the wolves most of the time and at any rate avoiding being identified as not a wolf) that arbitrary lines drawn on paper do not constitute nations, that nations do exist in sense far more than political states at any time and have an identity beyond the decisions made by any political state authority regarding borders.

This has been proved amply of course and as recently as two decades ago by the fall of Berlin wall uniting Germany on one hand while reconstitution of the erstwhile Soviet Union into its parts - Russia is still very large, and does constitute a nation, but Ukraine and Baltic nations and central Asian regions have separated as independent nations, remaining however as parts of the federation under the Russian umbrella. Britain meanwhile is slowly inching towards a similar cultural freedom and political one as well, what with resurgence of the once forbidden Welsh language as a very living one, a parliament of its own for Scotland, and so forth.

That India might be such a living nation with the arbitrary borders drawn post war - for convenience of the rulers that left in a hurry and gave in to demands forced with massacres - might be false really, and India is a living nation that includes the various parts no longer included in the name India post world war two, is what the author avoids saying explicitly - instead he resorts to maps, compasses, comparisons across the globe about how events faraway usually do not affect people, and a lot of obscure language.

Fair enough, considering the threats to life of Rushdie and several others - Taslima Nasreen, for example - who have been targeted with orders from religious authorities towards their murder and promises of paradise for those executing the orders, for writing truths that were comparatively smaller in scale or dreams that were interpreted by those ordering murders. If Ghosh wishes his self and his family to live in reasonable safety, he can hardly afford not to be obscure about false lines drawn to cut up a real living nation into new nations that are forever tied in tandem and affected by happenings thousands of miles away as long as they are in the parts of the nation that really is a living one.
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One unpleasant factor is the unnecessary part of artificially added spices or sauces, the now almost compulsory descriptions of certain kind in every work published these days, whether necessary for the particular tale or not, and in this one such an inclusion makes it a splintered and pale copy of Sophie's Choice, about which one comment went that it was a teenage boy in US getting to finally have sex on the background of antisemitism, world war two, holocaust, Europe trodden under fascist boot and what have you.

If the author here had managed to avoid that trap, or for that matter the fractured nature of the story telling that begins to come across as gimmicky and irritates even the most patient reader, and instead gone into the trauma of India in depth, he might just have managed to author a great work.
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One recurring theme in this author's work is the delusion planted quite deliberately in minds of several such displaced or otherwise gullible persons, that is, everything would have been automatically fine for them and for the whole nation - if only the partition had not divided the great big provinces of Bengal and Punjab at India's independence. This mentality also prevails in many who are all too willing to divide their own nation further at a whiff of any demand supported by armed terrorists. Tamilians were surprised why Indian government wouldn't simply agree to give away what remains of Punjab when there was a demand for Khalistan, for example.

Considering the way demand for partition was agreed to, namely, post Jinnah's call for "action day" in Calcutta executed with a massacre of thousands of Hindus in less than three days, with knives not machine guns, this easy solution mentality seems to be almost a necessity of being seen as a peace loving secular person if one is a Hindu.

Fact is however, facts speak otherwise since the partition and before, long centuries of history and decades since over half century ago. There is no way one can be reasonably certain that the same bloodbaths and exodus of Hindus from eastern and western parts given away in name of Jinnah's demand would not have happened if only those parts given away had included all rather than most of the two provinces, on the contrary. Better parts of the provinces did go to the separated new nation, and ever since then there has been an attempt to "cleanse" their nations - one until the independence war of '71 proved that a demanding and conversion-or-die faith cannot be a factor to hold a nation together, although it can divide one - of all other faiths, by law and taxation and other, more persuasive methods.

Fact is, refugees from those separated and otherwise named parts to India have been a continous stream, and what is more it includes huge populations of Muslims as well, with an agenda - not only explicit but published explicitly too - of settling parts of India and increasing numbers until those parts too can be demanded in name of Islam. That the same threat looms over Israel too is not a secret.

Ghosh though goes further than that, and questions why the war of '62 that threatened the integrity of the nation seriously matters more over localised riots in Calcutta connected to riots across the border in Khulna, Dhaka and so forth with several persons dead, especially since they were connected to the mysterious disappearance of a hair of the prophet in Kashmir and subsequent riots there.

He is very explicit in this book in his disdain, about a few soldiers dead in a war in faraway hills that did not affect the nation, according to him - although one might ask what can one expect of a person who calls Himaalaya "hills", and faraway ones at that in context of India. Perhaps he is thinking from the China-US point of view, both of whom are in fact far away in their centre of gravity from Himaalaya although deeply involved politically in the neighbourhood nevertheless.

This, in view of his calling himself Indian, is about as reasonable as any US citizen thinking the civil war of north and south was more important than the two world wars and the cold war with threats of nuclear holocaust looming over the nation to boot. This point of view might be of a southerner who left the country at the conclusion of the civil war to live in Mexico or further south, dreaming of return with a bigger force to win the war back for a Confederacy. For Ghosh, the parallel would be his persuading India to give away whatever "they" demand, whoever "they" be, in the interest of peace and being seen as reasonable by powers west. Or east.

A convenient point of view for someone who lives in US, after all, and enjoys the perks of being seen as Indian while living in a rich society. A parallel would be someone Jewish living in US advising giving away anything demanded by not only Palestinians but all surrounding nations as well, and calling the various wars unimportant while naming the local riots more worthy of publicity.

One wonders if he would have the same point of view about giving away, say, Alaska to Russia - the lease has expired, after all - or New York to the Dutch, Louisiana and a few other parts to France, California to Spain and Mexico, and so forth. He is probably more loyal to his adopted nation, if only for sake of his family and their wellbeing, unless he goes by reason and extends his positions about India to his chosen country too. It would only be fair, at that.
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In the story, the protagonist's "practically twin" Ila is obsessed with the "yellow haired" Nick Price, never mind how casual he is about her - he will use her for any purpose that suits his needs but won't commit anything except empty vows, not kept at all even immediately post honeymoon. He won't defend her from a bunch of bullies in childhood from being beaten up in street any more than he won't refrain from using the apartment bought by her father for the newly married couple to have sex with other women day long regularly, or think of schemes of business using her father's money to further his own living. He has returned from a well paid job in Kuwait due to shady business on his part, but is in no hurry to earn a living even post wedding.

This Nick Price that Ila is nevertheless obsessed with long before she manages to marry him - one wonder if she was the best Nick could catch under his circumstances, he couldn't have found a better one amongst his own, although whether he would treat such a one better is a moot question, and most likely not is the obvious answer - this Nick Price is the alter ego of the protagonist according to his explicit mentioning thereof as soon as the name is mentioned by Ila, and this tells perhaps a lot more about the author and his background at that.

For all that his avowal of nationhood across arbitrary borders being false goes, he - the protagonist or his fractured identity twins across his family for that matter, and so perhaps the author after all - identifies more with a colonial power that occupied, looted, and left when it suited them, never mind the millions that died in riots that were foreseen clearly as coming due to the arbitrary borders drawn by those that had never seen the country except to sit in an office to draw the borders.

Ghosh, no surprise, is more comfortable living clear across the globe and making pronouncements high handed with a nose turned up, not so different from the various Germans who begin to advise India about what to do about the crowds or health or what have you (forgetting their own lack of any suitable experience that might excuse such pronouncements) as soon as they meet someone from India. He - this writer - after all does identify with his obsession with those that left, if only because they have yellow hair flipping in their eyes - there has never been any other justification mentioned of Ila's obsession with Nick Price other than this in the whole book. She makes up a story to herself about his protecting her, and insists on the lie even after her marriage is immediately proven empty. Nick is no more than a cheater, whether in finance at workplace or in personal relationships.
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The Imam And The Indian; by Amitav Ghosh.

The spelling of the author's first name follows the convention of his roots, where "v" of Roman script is pronounced "bh", in accordance with "w" being pronounced "b" generally; his name ought to be spelt Amitabh for a proper understanding of how to pronounce it, and in fact in his home in Bengal it would be Amitabho since almost every "a" is made into an "o" as a rule in Bengali.
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A collection of the author's writings prior to or in between his prolific authoring of books, these essays or "prose pieces" as advertised on the cover (new worldese rather than English?) reflect his background and the handicaps of his upbringing as clearly as a not too deep pond would show its bottom just as it is reflecting the surroundings.

Ghosh suffers from the not uncommon malady of a brown sahib with his conflicts - on the one hand the deep seated need to win the approval of the colonial masters, the ones that designed, planned and executed the factories for manufacture of the brown sahibs, a nomenclature they gave to the products of the schools set up by colonial rulers to "educate" the ruled into their own image internally, so that the machine of colonial rule would run smooth with the least effort from the rulers thence free to loot; on the other hand an equally deep seated need to rebel against this, but without being accused of siding with one's own people, being not free of one's own background prior to the coats of years and years of brown sahib varnish that went into the making of the products never ever quite finished.

This conflict results then strangely enough into an attitude that goes - one may be born such and such and educated by so and so and living in a rich nation with reaping of the benefits thereof of the lifestyle of a rich democracy along with a possibly local wife and therefore natural half white children (so one doesn't have to worry about their heritage quite as much after all, or for their peers dealing with them with prejudice or worse) - but one is free to have an attitude against all of the above, so one can be called independant at least and fair at best; to achieve this, the Indian Hindu brown sahib repudiates in particular anything remotely of the Hindu Indian multitude thought (calling it baseless sentiment helps), sides with the pre-European colonial rulers (scrupulously refraining from identifying them as colonial rulers), and calls it secular. Since this is approved by the party that came to power with independence of the country that provided his background (which included the status of parent - not only "salaried government employee" but one rather well paid with perks, in diplomatic services to boot), a party that endorses a definition of secularism that goes with faith equated to most outrageous claims of minority religions (but only the sizeable minority, those sponsored in stupendous amounts from outside for the purpose of conversion and other routes to power meanwhile) and putting down of majority ones - votebank politics at its most shoddy form - one can literally see where Ghosh is coming from.

To add to all this there is his life spent in various nations since childhood and well into his formative years including working on his Oxford degree, nations and societies where he was not only made to feel ashamed of his roots but his very existence and life of his family was threatened due to their being of another faith. He therefore perversely goes to "understand" them and taking sides with the least informed, most prejudiced, and so forth, and for example is never able to explain why cremation is not only as good a way as burial to dispose of the bodies when soul has departed but is in fact better, since it allows no desecration by animals or invaders and does not clutter the earth with cemeteries, leaving earth free for life on earth.

Such convoluted mindset explains why he praises someone "born to rule" and without a place to rule, constantly on the run from his own kinship who are equally all born to rule and therefore out to finish off each other to rule the same little place, hating a vast subcontinent when he has managed to acquired it but not leaving it to go attempt to acquire the little town in central Asia he longs for - Ghosh praises the historic document as an unprecedented piece of literature rather than a factual write up of the wars and victories that it was, understood by now as in fact written in all probability by an official court historian rather than the conqueror himself, and manages to miss the bragging about destruction of temples and disposal of the worshiped objects by paving the doorsteps of mosques with them.

He goes on to tow the official line of obfuscation about uncertainty about there having been ever a temple and more. Such uncertainties can be very simply removed with publicly witnessed and documented - photographed, videoed - archaeological digs; that the "site" has instead been locked up with all archaeological work stayed forever ought to make anyone with a shred of brain suspect that the claims about a temple might after all be not only true but known to archaeological authorities and therefore to the government that seeks to claim otherwise; that walls have been recently built behind other similar monuments known to have been built on top of temples destroyed for the purpose, including mausoleums, ought to make anyone with a shred of gray matter suspect it is a shoddy conspiracy to rule the nation by browbeating and guilt imposed on majority.

But Ghosh is not concerned about any of this, he would rather be seen as someone who rebels against his Oxford-route successful education - successful in his acquiring not only an admission but a final degree at Oxford - and is fair to the West Asian downtrodden nations in spite of his life and family residence in the ultimate paradise on earth, US.

If Ghosh did grow up out of his mucho handicapped brown sahib upbringing, it is not clear in his "prose pieces", possibly due to their being not recent; if he is at all likely to grow up, he probably will hide it assiduously, since his present attitude and lack of comprehensive knowledge or thought helps him win accolades in his home country, and refrains from his being branded as a Hindu in the country he has chosen for his life.
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Mrs. Gandhi's Ghosts is a curious piece, worth a read for its first hand account of the day of her death but raising questions about the lack of generally known details of the horrors being far too coordinated to be merely "young hoodlums" roaming around and responsible. Ghosh does mention a direction being given generally and transport being provided free to those killers but refrains from mentioning who might have done it, and does not have a world of repugnance or denounciation, unlike his clear sentiment for destruction of a mosque unused for centuries as a place of worship - except by Hindus who all along believed it was birthplace of a God of theirs.

This silence about perpetrators of horrors of post Mrs. Gandhi's death - just as huge and conspiratorial as the silence about perpetrators of the massacre of several thousand Hindus on and for a couple of days after the "action day" commanded by Jinnah for demand for a country he could rule in name of a faith he disdained to practice at any time in his life, a massacre moreover with knives, indicating not only complicity by the then government of Bengal but participation by hundreds that went unpunished and even unaccused just as the '84 massacres did - this silence and careful refraining from any mention of anyone who might be held guilty even if due to being in a position of responsibility, is indicative of the loyalties and dirty politics of those that clamour for blood of guilty in riots (post burning of a train full of pilgrims alive to death) in the name of secular justice.

Sadly someone of Ghosh's capabilities - anyone having read his novels can suspect he is not quite one of those whose minds were destroyed completely by their education - goes along with this party line, much as the leftists and fellow travellers of leftists went on to justify every atrocity in East Europe and China (and by China in Tibet) but make up for it by clamouring to question India's holding Kashmir as a part. If wishes of the populace were the criterion, what price forcing Baluchistan and Frontier Province against their wishes into the country they did not choose? They had clearly expressed their wish to be part of India, so much so the Viceroy and his retinue had to escape their wrath by fleeing their crowds, afraid for their lives!

For Ghosh, it probably is convenient to not think about any of it, and take the path of least danger for himself so he can continue his privileged life - and that involves officially siding with every claim, however outrageous, made west of borders of the part of India that is currently named India.
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From Beirut To Jerusalem; by Thomas L. Friedman.

Friedman's life, work and impressions of the two places when he was stationed there during the eighties, the work is informative in detail in more ways than one - horrors such as Hama and confusion of Lebanon are not this well known to those not of the nations involved, for example - and very worth reading.

Even as one reads these accounts one wonders at the cry against the comparatively smaller details of events elsewhere due to the democratic nature of the nations and culture in the said elsewhere places, while almost no sound is made about the Hama massacre of 38,000 Islamic fundamentalists and the neighbourhood they lived in by their own regime in an Islamic nation, just as very little noise is heard above the bare mention of the massacre of Armenian million and more by the Turkish government a century or so ago. But then, so very little noise or mention exists about the massacre of millions of Tibetans in Tibet by China, while billions were spent to arm the Afghans against - comparatively - an almost benign, benefic Soviet occupation (women will never be so free again as under the Soviet occupation according to the prophecy by the father of the protagonist in The Kite Runner, and it seems to be all too true even until now what with the neighbouring regime supporting Taliban to wage their war in a supposedly free Afghanistan, supposedly free from not only other other repressive regimes but from Taliban chiefly).

But then, it ought to be clear to anyone looking dispassionately, or with a passion for humanity, that the misplaced war on Soviet regime to the exclusion of ignoring massacres in Tibet, Hama, and elsewhere by Islamic fundamentalist regimes using weapons of terror across their own borders and within too (massacre prior to independance of Bangladesh by the military of west Pakistan of what they thought were their own people in the eastern part, including the horrendous use of women of Bangladesh, kept naked and chained so they could not run away, half a million women - or was it only fifty thousand? - so treated in inhumane way for sexual needs of the occupying west Pakistan military soldiers, a la nazi treatment of their own - read German, misnamed "Aryan", the real meaning of the world Aryan from Sanskrt having nothing to do with the usage made by nazi regime or their predecessor racists in any part of Europe - women kept for sexual use of their soldiers) being one example. The only difference was the German women were probably allowed to wear clothes when they were not being used.

And yet none of these various atrocities are mentioned a fraction as much as the happenings in a couple of places, easy targets for being not only democratic regimes of modern nations that believe in education and cultures of certain faiths that do not go about converting with aggressive fervour and hence targeted.
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One reads about the two nations and two cultures in this work - with people of diverse agenda and more than one nations in each of the two - and one is overwhelmed with the information unless one is extensively familiar with all this, which a general reader is not quite likely to be, not so much.

The diversity of Lebanon in the citizenry of not only including Christianity among the nation but remote and elsewhere not so well known branches of both Islam and Christianity is as much a new fact for most of generic readers as the description of almost claustrophobic nature of orthodox variation of faith in Israel that is so very a mirror image of Islam in its fundamental robe.
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Informative although not exhaustively so - for instance, details of the terrorism are missing with their effects, and the few mentions include a branding of a people but refrains from mentioning if such branding was justified by their sympathy and covert help for those that did commit acts of terror - this is an account of the author's life in the two places and his perception, understanding, and information about the people and nations of the two places - the number being a lot more than two.

Also, it explains a lot about acts of terror committed elsewhere that are linked to the topic of this work, by the tide of the movements, and successes perceived thereof by various others who sought to copy those successes including what counts as martyrdom, but more relevantly the expansion of a people connected by what is misnamed faith via methods tested and proved effective - high rates of reproduction, induction of small children in acts of terror and war (and subsequent howling against the same children being caught in crossfire or affected as result of the encouragement by the adults towards taking part in the war), occupation of lands and hypocrisy of howling protests against others either being part of the same lands or copying the occupation tactics, flat out declaration of not tolerating others among themselves and howling against similar reluctance by others to tolerate their own selves, using their own intolerance and democratic tolerance of others to their own benefits of expansion and take over towards a final aim of converting humanity with a clear agenda of clearing the world of any other faiths or systems, .... it is all eerily familiar across spaces and time.
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Interestingly another analogy is that about settling of US, Australia, and so forth, generally the continent(s) of the so called New World, by migrants from Europe; "settling" (they were none of them empty, to begin with!) those continents by every possible tactic including massacres and denigrations of real inhabitants of the places, including misnomers such as Indian (for a variety of people that had nothing to do with India - but then again, the very name India was given by people outside India to the land once so known) - or Aborigines, rather than retaining names they have for themselves.

Is settling of Palestine - by an original people driven out of it by Rome two millennia ago - against the unwillingness of the more recent inhabitants of the land (bought by the settlers from owners who were of the same ilk as the unwilling recent inhabitants, only they were rich landowners and couldn't care less for the tenants' opinions, feelings, or lives - unless they simply knew they were taking the money for a land they intended to drive away or massacre the new settler from anyway) - is this worse than the massacres, and worse, of original people of continents of Australia and America, by weapons and infected blankets and deliberate "whitewashing" of races by using European male settlers' usage of women of the land (it would be called rape if the males involved saw those women as human, but in all likelihood they saw them as objects of use, and this is worse than rape) and taking the resulting children away by force, causing disruption of families and trauma very like that of slavery of people kidnapped from Africa and sold in US - well, one doubts Israeli occupation of Palestine, including the post '67 territories, could even begin to compare, all the more so since it was a much persecuted people flocking to their homeland they had been driven away from by Rome then occupying Judea, and never allowed to live in peace anywhere else in the world with the exception of two places, two nations (one since expanded, one severely divided and a victim of terrorism of expansion by a colonising and conversionist people or two).

Those two places through history of the two millennia when Jews were driven out of their homeland and dispersed, seeking to live elsewhere and never allowed to feel at home or have rights, were India and China.
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In the land and culture that India was before the forced partitions (due to some that required supremacy of their faith as a national character), Jews lived in peace, were free to follow their own faith and culture or assimilate as much as they chose, prosper, and survive - as other refugees since and before, including Parsis, those from Persia fleeing terrors of a persecuting new religion over a millennium ago, and more recently Tibetans. This is by no means a complete or exhaustive list, either - it includes all those from east or west that came with intentions of life rather than that of death of others.

China on the other hand assimilated the Jewish diaspora gently - according to Pearl S. Buck, for example - until trace of such assimilation is found in a name here, a nose there, and very little more.

In India - what is now retained by that name - however, one can find old Jewish settlements in various places, and people who have lived there for all this time. The young might have emigrated elsewhere, but that was due to better economic prospects post formation of Israel as much as a returning to an ancient homeland or finding others of one's faith from across the globe - all the positive reasons, and none of the usual ones of persecution or lack of any rights of citizenry on par with everyone else.
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Events have gone far beyond the book's beginning of Hamas, of course. Now the world is smaller, terror spread beyond boundaries of the nations that have been the usual target, rogue nations have been reluctantly admitted by various powers of west after attempting to coopt them into "fight against terror" by labeling them as a partner of US in this fight and bribing them with billions of dollars unaccounted for - only to find the money vanishing, more demands for sophisticated weaponry, and backdoor coordination by those "partners" with the very agencies of terrorism they have been pretending to cooperate fighting. This is today, post not only the horror of towers unfolded over a decade ago but nearly a year post having the man who masterminded or at least was leader and spirit being hunted down in his lair in the very heart of military establishment of the "partner" of US in fighting terror.

Few dare to ask, was US really so stupid as to be duped by this nation, one born less than a century ago out of terrorism used for demanding it to begin with (but teaching its children, falsely, that it had existed for over a millennium, never mind how unlikely it was to exist even today without the massacre of thousands in Calcutta to force the demand), all along, or was it something else?

Now however not only this is post 2001, it is post the 26/11 targetting of western and Israeli people in a landmark luxury hotel in Mumbai used as focal point of a terrorist attack masterminded on cellphones from across the western border to instruct the terrorists continuously, and there can no longer be a pretension of doubt about the rogue nature of the agencies that mastermind and train the terrorists while denying it with open lies as long as the paymasters are willing to buy the lies. Hamas has been joined by various other agencies of terror as a front for the authorities of the rogue nation - agencies that merely change names and claim to be institutions of charity, on the whole creating a picture of a killer on the loose pretending to be a beggar and denying both begging and killing, or blackmail that joins the two.
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Letter From An Unknown Woman; By Stephan Zweig.

Opinions differ on this - chiefly on Letter From An Unknown Woman - regarding how to see this, as a maudlin or heartrending.

To begin with the story is about a handsome rich playboy who is depicted in the tale with no moral sentence on him whatsoever, neither about his wasting his life nor about his neglect of the women he has been around with. This is not to say one ought to pass such a judgement or that the author lacks moral sense, it is merely how the portrayal here of the man goes. The chief part is about a young girl who is poor and it so happen she lives across from his flat, looks at him and is fascinated by him and his lifestyle. There is no way she can aspire to be one of his lovers in her circumstance.

Her circumstances change for the worse, and she subsequently is a woman of the world in the barest sense, but with better financial position, and happens to be on the fringe of the man's circle one evening and he notices her. He is intrigued, takes her home, and she has the love she had ever dreamt of - for the short while she does.

She knows he is not to be bound, to be expected to be steadfast in his attraction or notice he took of her, it is casual, and while he could be with her again just as casually another time, he might not, too. She knows this, unquestioningly accepts it, and leaves in the morning.

It so happens she is with child from him and hence loses any possibility of keeping herself financially well off - and then loses the child too, to an illness she is too poor to pay for a treatment of.

The letter is written post that heartrending loss, still with no expectation, just to let him know. He reads it, wondering, trying to remember which of the hundreds of women he has been with was this one, and has merely wisps of recall but nothing clear.

Written in a simple style and heartrending in its truth at every step, it makes an impact - unless this is what one takes as normal and is impatient with the author or the woman for making a fuss, which one supposes a good many would; some of course would denounce the male, and most the female. The author merely portrays the lifestyle of one, and the life of another blossoming and withering, without any such denouncing or comment.

Some opine this is a great work, and some that this is maudlin sentimentality.

Incidentally, the word stems from Magdalena and represents the snide attitude towards women from the church authorities of early, perhaps even now, times; not so far from the word grotto being the origin of the word grotesque, and the latter one being denigrated into meaning something horrible, while really it amounts to merely relate to grotto the way statuesque relates to statue. Grottos and caves, or artificial grottos thereafter even until now, were and are used for worship of the Mother Goddess figures through Europe; on one hand the figures were integrated by using the name of Mary the mother (one wonders if the earlier and real figure included Mary Magdalene, the bearer of Jesus's child, rather than his mother); the practice of the grottos used for worship continued on one hand and was denigrated on the other by the denigration of the word grotesque.