Villa Rubein; by John Galsworthy.

Villa Rubein seems to be an early work of Galsworthy, with Tyrol rather than England as the background. He attempts to write characters and families more cosmopolitan European than purely English, but it is more halfway than successful an attempt, and other than a few mixed dialogues - chiefly from the stepfather to the main female the story centres on - it amounts to a caricature of the said stepfather who is only good enough to bluster and really neither commands love nor respect from his stepdaughter or her maternal relatives whose house he lives in, nor at that much from his own daughter who is much younger, except as a matter of duty taken for granted.

There is portrayal of beauty of country and nature here too that blooms so very much through his later works, the latter being mostly of English countryside, but here the portrayal falls very short of how very beautiful Alps surroundings generally can be. Galsworthy truly belongs to England and does not quite flourish elsewhere.

Here the central theme is young love and art vs money, business vs career of vocation, work vs life assured with inheritance, and again it seems he tried it out first in this and later developed it into various other works. One surprising declaration and admission here is of the fact that it is those that have made money that care for it far more than those who have chosen to work for a living in a career of art due to a spiritual need of working for art. It is but logical that this be so, since one that makes money does not do so by a couldn't-care-less attitude towards money but only with great devotion of time and spirit towards earning and saving it, and while it is a fact perhaps known in life to all, it is but hardly ever admitted so in most works of literature in so matter of fact a way, refreshing in its simplicity.

Most different from his other works however - other than the placing out of England - is the little more explicit mention of the happenings of the time. Galsworthy is so given to love and beauty of nature and satirical portraying of upper caste England that one tends to almost forget he lived in an era of tumultuous happenings and thinking, when old traditional castes and their hold was not merely being questioned as in England but was elsewhere being violently rocked and even thrown away,  and here one gets a glimpse of a character involved in past in a movement that shapes his life and endangers his love, even though the mention of the movement and its actual facts is left only to be guessed at by the reader familiar with history of the times. All very tangential and elusive, but still, it is there unlike his other works.

Beyond: by John Galsworthy.

Reading Galsworthy brings a kaleidoscope effect after a while with themes and characters familiar yet not quite the same, and of course the every living beauty of countryside.

In Beyond he centres it on the father and daughter duo, the daughter born of love and claimed jealously by the father post death of the mother and the husband of the mother, with great care to avoid any blame for the mother but only until he could claim the daughter. The theme explored is love and marriage, togetherness and solitude, in marriage and in a live in situation.

A virile male might corner a young woman as a great serpent would a rabbit, and gain her hand in marriage or her body for his pleasure, but love is another story. If she is not in love with him, all the social propriety and financial security and all her compliance with his needs will yet not make him happy; nor will another younger woman with all her beauty and her being desperately in love with him if he is not in love with her.

Gyp's father is able to live on his memories of the only love he ever had, Gyp's mother, whom he saw but rarely during the one short year they had together; his life is devoted to his daughter and he is happy in his memory of his love, his integrity and faith with his love and his creed, his utter love for his daughter.

Gyp has inherited the integrity and the nobility of character, and the immense capacity for intense love, but love has its own life and cannot be summoned like water on tap. She is cornered and unable to escape the attentions of the handsome artist Fiorsen, but with all her will to go forth is still unable to love him, and is only able to comply with his needs and take care of him and home. This is not good enough for the artist who knows what love is and knows too that the wife does not quite love him, he does not have her heart. His dalliance with a beautiful young dancer brings danger and shame to the women and no solution for him, either, until it is too late for him to have another option - and even then it is a falling backward into something available rather than appreciation of what he has or had.

Gyp finds love unexpectedly after she has left her husband for sake fo protecting their daughter - the husband couldn't care less for anyone other than Gyp, and not only antagonises her relatives and what few friends she might have, but is callous enough that he terrorises their daughter and hurts her physically while she is still a baby - and Gyp lives in an era when separation was social stigma enough, divorce difficult and often impossible if the partner did not comply. She realises her love is all to her, is fortunate enough to be given her daughter back after being kidnapped by the husband to blackmail her into returning, but the interlude of her bliss with love is short lived albeit as deep and complete as her father's.

It is not that the man who loves her is short of courage to love, or any the less in love, or likely to tire of her, or any of the possible dire disturbances to love and bliss whether marriage is possible or not. It is that even with the best of all circumstances - her father supports her socially, she cares not a fig for other society, she is financially independent, they live in seclusion in country and he works three days a week in town - still, there are other possibilities of a wedge, and he is young enough to not avoid it soon enough.

As the author clarifies, the distant cousin is familiar enough that her society is not avoided before it is too late and not close enough to be a sisterly repugnant association, and while Summerhay sees the justice of Gyp's need of him avoiding the cousin and other such temptations, he does not see how he can or why he should, since his love and faithfulness are entirely with Gyp, the love of his life.

This tragedy could in life draw on and exhaust the people concerned; the author's narrative turns to another twist reminiscent of Summer part of The Dark Flower, and Gyp remains the fortunate tragic heroine albeit not quite as artificially forced so as Anna Karenina - she has read it and cannot understand why Anna is unhappy due to social stigma and forced reclusion status, she is all too happy to be not required to be social and to comply with necessities of formality, happy to be with her love and with nature, books, music, and her daughter. She thinks unhappiness of Anna Karenina is forced as moral lesson to comply with social need, and in this she is not incorrect. But life and love and one's nature is another story, and such happiness or love as one may find might be disturbed by a thousand factors in as may ways, albeit it has little to do with being married or single or living together in perfect situation where only the two people matter.

One keeps being reminded of various other works of the author, and the similarity of characters or their situations - Soames and Fleur of Forsyte Saga and its sequel, Charwell sisters of Forsyte Chronicles, Summer part of The Dark Flower, and bit of The Country House as well, with a ghost of Irene in background (art, music, taste, integrity of a sort, passive softness, ...) - and yet here too the characters and their story do manage to make a mark individually.

The Freelands; by John Galsworthy.

Galsworthy, amongst other worthy intellectuals of the day -such as George Bearnard Shaw - realised all too well the economic and social questions of the day, and caste system of the European continent was one, land and its ownership and usage towards luxuries of the owners detrimental to the general populace of the land and the world on a larger scale being one of the chief keys of the problems, with attitudes of those in power in dire need of change, conscience and consciousness of rich and poor alike in dire need of light being a factor such intellectuals could do something about. So they, in general, and Galsworthy in particular, wrote about it. Freelands is centred on this question, the very title and the name of the upper caste landowner family or clan telling us of the issue and its importance.

It is not that easy when most rich won't give up their privilege for sake of betterment of the poor, and most poor cannot afford even a peaceful strike, is the reality now as it was then. It is not easy to change the minds and attitudes, to wake up the power of the populace, and more. Power and energy of youth is needed, but it is sacrificed easily and blindly by those in power and blamed by the powerless for the consequences of the heavy handed and expected retaliation of power against poor hapless.

Blossoming of young, of love and consciousness, of waking up to the light and to realities of life under easy circumstances is not easy; under such struggle that needs one's life's blood it is life threatening unless there are enough caring and understanding elders who would act promptly.

The questions discussed here are mentioned elsewhere, in second part of Forsyte Chronicles (sequel to to Forsyte Saga) for example, where it is a bit more macroscopic view and from the point of view of upper caste and its exemplary behaviour along with the obligations inherent in being upper caste, and this latter takes a larger stage in the third part of the Forsyte Chronicles. In the Freelands the point of view is from an intellectual of the upper caste and centre stage is given to those in tune with land, nature, poor, in spite of being of the upper caste. Here the author can deal with the problems in their more dire nature.

The Dark Flower: by John Galsworthy.

The dark flower as a concept used in the title and elsewhere in the work by the author is symbolic of passion, not represented by any particular flower but by the dark colour representative of the dark area where a person's reason and other sights of consciousness fail to guide one, and a dark force pulling and pushing one takes over.

Galworthy here takes stages of an artist's life, symbolised by three seasons (he refrains from exploring winter as a season for passion, leaving one to imagine that one is finally settled into one's marriage and not available any more for passion outside it), and the passion is of the variety not likely to come to a happy solution all around, hence dark all the more.

Over and over there is characterisation of English life as that bound by "good form" when freed from other bindings such as those of religion, and thus not allowing the freedom one speaks of or assumes for a person and especially an artist or thinker when it comes to passion.

The tale begins with an involvement of spirit between young Mark Lennan and his teacher's wife Mrs. Stormer whose husband, a don at Oxford, is far too dry and intellectual to answer his wife's needs of love and adoration but is rather more likely to deal with it by humour and standing aside in spite of awareness of it. Sylvia, the young fair girl Mark has protected and known since his childhood, solves the dilemma for the older woman (who is really young by the standards of today but was a century ago looking at her last chance for romance, passion, beauty in life at mid thirties), by simply coming to her attention as a younger person on the horizon who might not be an equal opponent but is simply younger.

Mark is not involved with Sylvia romantically yet, and goes on to become an artist, and happens to subsequently meet and become involved deeply with a young married woman desperately unhappy in her marriage in spite of wealth and respectability, with most of the involvement consisting of an innocent - by today's standards - togetherness and a passionate awareness of one another that is clear to everyone around. With a husband who is just as passionately in love with the wife as Mark being in the picture, and violently jealous one at that, it is bound to end in a separation, and one expects a chase when the young woman in question make sup her mind to go away with Mark. But the end of this part comes rather suddenly and shocks one, being so at odds with what generally one is led to expect of an English spirit. Then again, of course, the husband is characterised long before that by the wife's uncle musing about his being an adopted heir to his father and hence an unknown factor, unlike Mark whose very deep propriety in his following the form is observed and satisfactorily so by the uncle.

The autumn chapter brings a stormy turmoil of an involvement with an illegitimate daughter of a schoolmate to Mark's life and threatens to destroy the peace of his now wife Sylvia's life and mind, and while he is tossed about in this storm seemingly far more, the concern and responsibility for Sylvia who is more than only a wife but rather the innocent person he is used to protecting since she was small, brings him to port to safety. The end is abrupt, since one is rather led to expect a chapter on winter, but perhaps the author could not imagine passion in winter and made subtle allusions to Sylvia asleep by fire to indicate that would be the winter of life of Mark Lennan.

A slight lessening of quality of Galsworthy comes about by the usual excuse to the passion inappropriate to age being led by the woman in question, and while it might be likely in the first it is a very transparent excuse in the last, a bit reminiscent of the far more unpleasant Nabokov. It is always possible of course, only, with the striking beauty of the young girl in question, one wonders if it is due to her being an illegitimate and therefore hidden daughter of a not very high caste English man that she is thrown on the society of a man in his mid forties and being the one to take a lead in the affair, declaring her passion and holding on and so forth rather than being one to be surprised by his declaration of love and considering it for reasons of her situation in life. It does not quite fit except as an excuse for his passion to be reconciled with his status - he cannot offer her marriage and a safe home and respectability, being married - and thus must be propositioned rather than the one to lead. Thin excuse, at that.

Spring and Summer are haunting parts, with autumn rather more troublesome and stormy with one wishing he would sooner come to his senses. Perhaps it could not be otherwise in any way, but with quality of Galsworthy's works in general one goes in expecting him to do better, and is a bit disappointed. Still, all in all perhaps it forms a work preparatory for the far more satisfying and wonderful Forsyte Saga and Forsyte Chronicles, and perhaps it ought to be read before them, not after.

The Country House; by John Galsworthy.

One reads The Forsyte Saga trilogy, and wants more, and goes on to search out the rest of the tale about the characters one is so involved in by now, Irene and Jon most of all. Irene remains elusive and if anything more so than through the first trilogy, but one gets more of people related to Forsytes, and of beauty of England and some insights of social life and political state of the country and the world of that era. One finishes Forsyte Chronicles, three trilogies, nine books each of which is further three parts, and two in each trilogy connecting the parts. And one wants more. So one goes on to other writings of Galsworthy.

And one is not disappointed. Only, rather than go forth, one gets a view, an insight into how Forsyte Saga and Chronicles came to be the finished, polished, elusive portraits of the time and life veiled with a very English poetic mist wafting over the whole tale.

The Country House is set as the title would tell one in a country house, primarily, and the village life in general of that time, the mindsets still entrenched in the traditions and caste system of that time and place, but the people evolving at their own speeds of comfort.

A woman unwilling to live with her husband is at the centre of this work, with the peripheral people vivid as usual with the author. How her decision to separate affects people, how her involvement impacts on them, how they deal with the questions of divorce and involvement and questions of whether a woman may leave her husband and still be respectable, is the work.

There is the rector who is unable to deal with his wife's tenth confinement and the question of whether she will survive it, and with her contempt and pity for him hidden well until her moment of agony when she still smiles at him and tells him to go for his usual walk - and he never connects it in his conscious mind to his condemnation of the woman divorcing her husband for moral reasons. The opposite are the squire and his wife and son, each of whom deals with the same woman in a different way, but more humane and more civil. And the heartening part is, the husband she separated from is not automatically held up as free of guilt and full of innocence - rather, everyone including the rector is quite honest about how he is no better than the wife but merely has more rights to possess the woman since he is the man.

This admission of the skewed basis therefore makes them able to look at the whole question in a more honest way, and to go as far as he or she might with comfort with one's inner core, into the question of a woman's being a person in her own right rather than a mere possession and chattel bound and branded by her husband's right to her.

Not that these questions are now universally solved to satisfaction of justice much less satisfaction of everyone, especially those not willing to grant a personhood of a woman, but that era was the beginning of such questioning and thought in Europe. Tolstoy solved it by having Anna Karenina miserable with her choice of going away with her lover, unable to love her daughter by her lover, pining for the son she has by the husband she is unable to live with, and unable to feel secure in her love, committing suicide at the end symbolic of her choice of love over respectability of unhappy marriage stifling her heart - the choice that was a social suicide for her.

Galsworthy is kinder and more honest in that he does not attempt to satisfy all regressive or closed minds, much less authorities of the kind that attempt to rule personal lives by impersonal laws same for all, but rather shows a whole spectrum of people that deal with these questions in different ways, thus freeing the reader to think and feel and explore one's own heart and mind and thought, while looking at the portrayal by the author.

Yayati: by V.S. Khandekar.

Incidentally the work Yayaati or Yayati is from a story in the great original ancient timeless Sanskrt epic Mahaabhaarata by Paaraashara Vyaasa.

Twists and turns, a little of chance and a little of fate, much more of human characters shaping lives of everyone around with their emotions and actions, follies and greatness.

One of the many, many subplots in the original greatest work ever, by the greatest writer ever, Paaraashara Vyaasa, here given in another language by a competent writer (any more epithets would require a string of those for the original one, and one falls short) as it has happened in other cases, other subplots of the great epic retold by other recent writers. Fascination for the original, and the eternal nature of its truths, is the foundation and the core key to the whole series of such works and their success.

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Begun in the war between Gods and their opposite side the Asuras, this tale - as most parts of Mahaabhaarata do - continues with effects and consequences into human society at more than one level and more than one generation. Unlike the common misconception (story of lust) this story is about pain suffered for no fault of ones own, resulting loss of sweetness, ego, desperation for love, revenge and repentance, lightness of spirit and pride, and so forth - interplays of various human faults and travails.

Kacha came to Shukra Muni (Muni - sage, great learned teacher, someone with knowledge devoted to knowledge and spiritual matters), to learn from him the knowledge that Gods needed to defeat Asuras, but he had to be disguised as a Braahmana - if he admitted to the truth of his being a Kschatriya, he would be refused by the great teacher who belonged to the Asura side, since the knowledge would then be certain of being used against Asuras.

The young and vulnerable daughter of Shukra Muni, Devayaanie, fell in love with him and Kacha played along so as to not rock the boat prematurely. When he spurned her after being found out (since he was discovered to be too tough and resilient physically to be a Braahmana) she was devastated. Her close friend, princess Sharmischtha, perhaps unaware of how hurt she was, played a prank on her along with her friends and Devayaanie was left in water without any clothes on shore after their bathing together, the friends having left with laughter and her clothes.

A king of the realm, Yayaati, arrived soon after on the scene and helped her out, having heard her cry for help; she then informed him that since he had taken her hand under the circumstances and according to the code of chivalry in India then observed, he was obliged to marry her, and he agreed, with no shortage of pleasure since she was attractive and spirited.

Father of Shramischtha, the king of the region, on the other hand, was obliged to make amends for his daughter's thoughtless folly in putting Devayaanie in this predicament - all the more since it need not have ended as well as it did. Devayaanie asked that the princess be given to her as a personal servant for life, not free to have a life of her own until Devayaanie so pleased. This was done, Sharmischtha repentent and her father only relieved the punishment or amends was this easy. (If it were his kingdom or his daughter's life that were asked for, he would have to comply according to the code of conduct.)

Yayaati the easy going king, Devayaanie the proud and upright queen who was a Braahmana woman and hence unused to the Kschtriya easier life and mindset, and the ever watchful Shukramuni to see that his daughter was not ever disrespected again - this did not exactly make for domestic felicity and when Yayaati happened to see the servant, Sharmischtha, who was not only beautiful and well behaved as a princess born and brought up but also softer due to her repentence and status, he fell in love, as did she.

The queen never discovered this until she saw the proof of their liaison, a child. Her wrath brought her father and he cursed Yayaati the adulterer with untimely old age forever. When repentence of the guilty male was enough to melt his heart, he was given one solution - if any young man were willing to exchange his youth with the king's old age, this was possible as long as the king wished to enjoy youth.

Devayaanie's sons along with all other men refused, unwilling. The only young male willing to agree with all his being to such an exchange was Pururawaa, the son of Sharmischthaa. And having enjoyed youth for long Yayaati gave it back to him, with much more - all his love and his heat's blessings, which Pururawaa proceeded to make good use of. According to the code, he was judged the best candidate to inherit the responsibility of his father's kingdom and became the king. (Kingship was not necessarily bestowed on sons, either, but on the best person for the role, chosen by king and - or - agreed generally by the people of the realm.)

"Yayaati" is One (male) Who Has Suffered Pains. The word is related to Yati, which means One (male) Who Goes Through Pains Of His Own Willing Decision, For Sake Of Spiritual Achievement. (The latter word has been used wrongly by western observers and travellers for sightings of unidentified human like creatures in Himaalayaa who have characteristics human but are most likely to vanish when sighted; this characteristic fits very well the possiblity that they in fact are men meditating in regions where they are unlikely to be disturbed by lesser humans.)

Shukra Muni was the one who in wrath called Yayaati "a man who went astray in his lust"; but it is far more complex than that, and he realised this too, which is why he gave a way out of his curse at all.

Pururawaa went on to be one of the great kings in the Mahaabhaarata tradition, an ancestor of the princes of the main story.

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The original work of which this is based on a small story therein, Mahaabhaarata in Sanskrt by ancient sage and poet Paaraashara Vyaasa, is one of the few works that deserve well over five stars - but then it is also one of those that are beyond most readers' capacity to grade, and one can only be grateful if one is able to read it (in any language) and see the beauty and depth therein.
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Sunday, July 18, 2010
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A magnificent disaster : the failure of Market Garden, the Arnhem Operation, September 1944; by David Bennett.

It is difficult to describe in short the whole humongous war machine and the excellent men that came together in the fight for survival of humanity on one side, with glory of one nation out to conquer civilisation on the other. Cornelius Ryan has attempted that in his several excellent books on various parts including A Bridge Too Far about Operation Market Garden to control bridges across Rhine and especially the one at Arnhem. This book by David Bennet is about Operation Market Garden, with more research work about various parts of the action - British, Canadian, Polish, U.S., German.

The entire plan was ambitious and not impossible but only practical with some guaranteed miracles, and much of men were lost in the process. Was it all for the glory of one prima donna, is not clear.

This is what they did, this is how they fought and died so we can live as free men and women, and it is worth a look or more, several looks, reads.

Out of Africa / Shadows on the Grass; by Isak Dinesen.

Even more than the spectacular film made on the book, this book grips one - and that is saying quite a lot.

This writer wrote about her own life in this one, the part she went out and lived in Africa, and one is filled with admiration for her courage, her growth and her perception, and her ever standing for what is just and right, which she did often at the risk of loss of status (which those days - and even now - is often be-all and end-all for most people - they consider what is necessary to be perceived as socially as the most important factor in decisions).

Karen went against much of conventions including those of colonial masters society then, and this woman again and again broke out against conventions and well trodden paths like a tremendous torrent bursting out through rock to find its way over more rocks.

In a Sunburned Country; by Bill Bryson.

Bill Bryson gives a detailed description of Australia, history, geography and much novelty thereof, with his journey through the continent described relatively briefly (unlike to boring infochannel documentaries where one wishes there was less of the narrator's back or face or whatever and more of the landscape) and there are a lot of anecdotes to enjoy, from funny to astounding to proving the uniqueness of the country.

Few things are as informative and this too about a huge country that is also a continent - and it is enjoyable too, as this writer generally is. It is amazing how much one does not know about Australia, and that is not about one person or so, it is about the rest of the world and even Australia.

There is the sheer huge number of species of dangerous insects and snakes and scorpions and so forth crawling around everywhere, that the continent proliferates with. New ones get discovered all the time, too, what with the interior of the continent being too dangerous to live or settle most of the places or even to travel except with a lot of luck.

The size of the continent can be judged by the fact that not only there are various animals that escaped or were let loose and are alive and well after several years or decades or so without humans being aware of them - animals like camels, no less, and others of various sizes - but in fact more.

At one point there was an atom bomb that went off in the middle of the continent - and no one knew until some organisation proudly owned up.

And then the prime minister of the nation who was lost while going on a walk. He fell into the ocean.

For more of such various interesting bits, one has to read the book.

Devdas by Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay (Sarat Chandra Chatterjee).

A decent young man and a caring, but self respecting, young woman - and a feudal society where he has no means of supporting her if his family would not have it and so lacks courage to elope with the woman he loves, so he does the decent thing and instead tells her he never saw her as a lover, a mistake he repents forever while throwing away his life. Wealth comes but is too late, and is of little use when love is lost.

(Wednesday, August 27, 2008.)
(Friday, September 18, 2010.)
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Paro, the love of his life, sees her loss when she sees him throwing himself away in drink and dissipation, sheer depression and inability to get past loss of her, pretty much a boat that has lost its sails and sailor and is at mercy of all winds and waves, and hears him telling her that if only she had been there she could have taken care of him and his household, his home, his mother who is at mercy of the other - the only now that he is alone - daughter in law, and he would have been free to not worry.

She reflects on the irony of caring for the widower she married, along with his grown up children who have come to respect and admire her for her virtues of patience and caring and selflessness, and all the while letting the people she cared for be left to mercy of fate.

She makes him promise he will come to visit her marital home - it is large enough to accomodate any number of relatives, servants and guests, as old well to do homes did - so she could care for him. One has to admire the sheer certaintly of her virtue she has, that there is no concern about anyone holding her in suspicion if this ever came to pass, and indeed she had established her own persona, her virtue and her clear conscience in her home by her life there being one of faultless exalted kind that even her much older husband respects her for.

But life takes its own course and she is immersed more and more in the day to day affaires of the household, and with no news of her older concerns they are sort of veiled and remain behind her everyday awareness. When he does arrive at her doorstep, finally, to fullfill his promise to her - he could have come earlier but has his self respect too, about being ill in her home and recovering, so he would rather throw away his life until it is too late to recover and the promise is fulfilled only in name - he is then too ill, dying on her doorstep outside the gates.

It has a haunting quality, the last few hours of his life when he is lying there, dying, and she keeps on waking up, hearing in her sleep her name he keeps of whispering and and going to the terrace wondering who is calling her. She keeps on being disturbed through the morning until she accidentally hears about the details of the guy who died outside the gate - it is too late then, to see him, even though she tries, running in desperation and throwing the household in turmoil to see her sedate usual self behaving in sounusual a manner. The villgers outside the gate have already taken him away for cremation.
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It is almost as if the writer was unconscious of what came through while he merely wrote the tale of an unfortunate man. For it is not just about loss of love that might mean loss of a future, a life that could have been, loss of the persons that were separated. Which is tragedy enough.

The last few hours of Devdas's life while he whispers her name again and again and she wakes up from her sleep hearing someone calling her, but is unaware of what might be going on right outside her own gate, has the quality of a truth of a higher plane. Thus might one lose one's own soul while one got busy with worldly care and lost track of that which one had brought with one's birth from above.
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I have heard many quote the facile summing up of Devdas, about comparison that men easily might make between the two women in his life. And I find it short sighted. This is not a story about ego vs love, one woman losing the latter for the former and the other the reverse.

Paro took much from her love of childhood as her parents did from his wealthy parents, the neighbours in village they lived in, but being told by him that his parents were right about not wishing to step down in matters of forming relations with a lower class family - not a serious caste difference but one of class, that is, of money, which came to replace the older and more benevolent system in that it was more snobbish and had no values to go with it - could finally not overcome the slight to her parents, her family by her love.

By the time he arrived to repent and offered to make it work, it was too late, and he assumed all he had to do was to express his wish to her parents - which was the last straw and she boiled over with indignation. She told him off, in no uncertain words, that her parents knew better than to leave her at mercy of so weak a character, and they mattered, and their submission to his will was by no means a guarantee as he assumed. And moreover they had prestige of their own too, she informed him, indignant at his remark in his letter about their lowering their status by this marriage. As a matter of fact they had easily found her a match far wealthier than his family, which was only a proof in her eyes that her family had no reason to feel low in comparison.

Self respect, not ego, was what this was about, when she told him off. That he could have in spite of that tried to make her parents and his agree to their marriage escaped his notice, and he satisfied his injured ego with hurting her, and giving up rather than carrying out his promise of a sincere attempt to make the two families see reason in the matter and make it happen. His love was sacrificed at the alter of his class and the ensuing ego of the family that he shared - and his temper.
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The other woman did not, could not have had an ego, in the profession that she was in, due to whatever circumstance - she and others in her profession have it hard enough to have self respect, or indeed even a sense of self, if they are not of a low consciousness, and this woman was awakened from her stupor of everyday life into her self by the disdain this man of clear conscience made clear to her. She longed for his respect and love and in the process her life is cleansed of the muck her profession throws at her. She transformed herself, but was not above setting up shop again when needed to find him when he was lost, and that did not bind her again to the profession either - she gave up all to live in a small village in a very simple lifestyle earning much respect from the villagers that knew her for her true self.

In the final hours Devdas confused her face with his mother's in his unconscious state, and becoming aware of that fact, did not think it was incongrous to confuse the two supposed extremes, a revered mother and a common courtesan. This, for the culture this story belongs to, where mother is an extremely revered persona and the Divine is seen as The Mother, is testimony indeed to the clear souls and the relationships.

(Friday, October 24, 2008).

(Monday, September 20, 2010).

Daughters of Shame; by Jasvinder Sangheera.

I began after finishing the first one - Shame - in two days, and this one naturally takes off with a flying start. Every one goes to heart. One wishes one could do something, even if it is only to hold the hurt little ones and reassure them.
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It took a couple of days longer to finish this one, since it gets rather oppressing to realise it is all quite so ubiquitous - a systematic physical and emotional and in fact every other form of abuse of daughters geared towards using them as currency to keeping up one's own social prestige. Young girls somewhere around their teens, from as early as preteen to as late as early twenties, are held hostage to the concepts of honour that involve a slavery or worse for the women concerned, with no concern for their mental or emotional or often even physical well being and the only concern being to hand them over and to make them docile and servile to the men who own them in a farce of a marriage.

These forced relationships are really not marriages, they are a male bound (in his ownership of her) to a woman, often as young as fourteen and expected to be a robot in her compliance with the expectations of her from everyone including in offering no resistance to rape by the husband (he has often no concept of any other form of a relationship with a wife), with both cheated of any possible joy or love in the relationship and in fact in life. There are frequent enough instances of the young wife's father offering to murder her if she is unwilling to allow a consummation of a forced marriage. And all this in a community that claims to give rights to women what with a formality of a consent asked in public at the wedding, which often is given on threat of murder ensuing non compliance from her of course.

These girls, even when they grow up in UK going to schools there with the local population, are not really familiar with any other world than the one the community forces on them what with rules of behaviour pertaining to all spheres of life, and they have a window in the schooling years to a better world with more freedom - albeit with dangers too, but then freedom with dangers is better than dangers guaranteed at home! But even when they have a courage and spirit to try to take a flight to a better life, often what cripples them is this very inability to connect to any other life when the old life steeped in the community is cut off from them.

And why should the community be cut off if they do attempt a better life? It is because in the communities - not all Asians, but those from a particular region in Asia, and of some but not all religions in those parts - the possibility of a daughter or a woman with any choice, any possible better life is simply unthinkable. Not that men of the community benefit in this, and one has to question who does. After all a family with a mother and wife unhappy and daughters disallowed to blossom cannot possibly be happy, they just don't know any different. And people who are not happy at home are easier to control.

So the mores imposed like a poisonous weed flourish to the extent that when a girl, a young woman leaves a home in fear for her life and in protest against a forced marriage, often with as honourable a wish as an aspiration to education, she is hunted out again and again until she gives in - and the whole community is a part of it until she is unable to find any solace in familiarity of the world she has known by meeting any people of her own community even when they are strangers. Even a person working for governmental institutions in UK who are supposed to help her and protect her might find his (or her) loyalty to the community override the work ethic, and inform on her, resulting in her being hunted out by those intent on kidnapping and - or - murdering her. Emotional blackmail is used successfully too, and some women do cave in after a while.

All this if the young one escapes in the first place. Until Jasvinder Sanghera started educating the police and schools and other institutions of UK that could and should help and protect the young in the immigrant communities of the nation about the issues involved, and pointed out that being sensitive to culture difference was resulting in murder and kidnapping and rapes and general abuse of the young British Asian girls, there was really no way for them to escape, no route as such. Often they did go to teachers and police, but with no help forthcoming.

Now, there is a growing lot of institutional help what with a growing awareness about the issues, and hopefully there will be a growth in the enlightenment of the general community too, resulting in more education and benefit for everyone, with a better quality of life.

Marriages can be arranged without being forced, Queen Victoria was key in arranging her children's and grandchildren's marriages with holidays arranged so the young could meet and be familiar - just an example.

In the world wide expatriate community rooted in India the "arranging" merely amounts to the young ones being free of concern for hunting out and wooing their partners until their education and career concerns are at a stage satisfactory enough to find a partner, and the family along with the various other routes used by dating agencies in the world - advertisements, marriage agencies, websites now - help to locate possible choices.

Often a young person looks at the data selected for him or her with a few candidates shortlisted from the few hundred or so responses, there are meetings arranged where the young have a conversation with some privacy and might judge how they feel, and each has a possibility of saying if they wish to proceed to be engaged (which is when they get to meet more, but still on relative privacy, chaperoned by a member or few of either family or both).

In effect, this amounts to either person being as well educated and able to pursue his or her career as the family and the circumstances afford, all things considered. Hence the wide spread progress in the majority of people with roots in India, with excellence in education and career being a foundation considered important.

And it does help when one is not supposed to deviate from those aims while still young, not worry about being popular or learning to use cosmetics or being with fashion. One might do it a bit but it is far from a stigma to be plain, simple and good at academic and other achievements - on the contrary. In addition, often someone who finds love is able to deal with it, since such a concept is not considered evil but merely something the family has to deal with on par with any other way of finding a partner.

The key difference of the two pictures, of course, is - education, career, choices, and a help with finding a partner rather than the family forcing one at a young age out of a good life into a bed with an unwanted stranger against one's protests and in fear for life.

And the most major key difference is the concept of family and woman, with a forced marriage being based on no recognition of individual, considering everyone as a property of the family, and any individual choices being threatening to the honour of the family. This idea of the honour being so fragile as to be threatened by a blossoming of the family is the root of all the evil described here.

In the wider Asian community rooted in India, honour is neither so fragile nor dependent on the living death of the family and women - on the contrary. It is the growth and blossoming of the family - including the women - with education and achievements and careers and progress that is key in the wider community, these essentials replacing the killingly misplaced concept of honour that are used in forced marriages.

There can be no honour in forcing a woman to marry, (or even a man unless he has played with a woman or raped her - and even then it is no good for her - ) - much less in abusing and kidnapping and having her raped by the officially designated person in the name of one's own prestige in the community. Such a concept makes one a slave owner and one's family robots, no more.
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At one point there is a further analysis of the situation of immigrants, with some commonalities to the general migrants around the world (including the various colonial rulers through the ages in lands far away from their roots) but with some frightening consequences in this case.

The immigrants in UK, even those of Asian origin and even those that speak a particular language or two that are related to one another really, are further divided by one important difference - that of religion. And while two out of the various different religions in this context have a concept of "honour" about ownership of daughters to such an extent they would rather hunt out a woman and murder her, there is one that allows, indeed takes pride in its tradition of, easy divorces. This usually does not in practice result in a freedom for a woman although in theory that is the idea - in practice it results in the woman being cast aside as soon as her forced husband has achieved his aim of getting a legal status his own to settle in UK. Then he is free to bring another bride from back home, one unable to speak English, with no ties and no support for her in UK. And thus the community grows - grows as immigrants growing further apart from the ambient society even as they grow in number. And in this lie the roots of much of the disturbance plaguing the world today.

These immigrants have no ties to the land they live in, have little or no intention of being connected much less absorbed or even a part of a salad bowl. All the pain and travails of being far away from one's emotional roots are translated thus into a hatred of the very society they clamour so much to be legally a part of, with marriages paving a way as a ladder to climb from being an Asian to a UK citizen.
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Other parts of the community, those without easy divorces, have had ties to other just as horrible ways to take their pain and hatred out on another part of the world - back home, in fact, with much pain inflicted in attempt to carve out pieces of a land they left behind; they do not and never did intend to return, of course, merely to attempt a show of what they could do. The talk of a separate homeland goes on still amongst these migrants to faraway lands while back home it has gone away, it never was a real possibility there with the community so very widespread as to make it another farce.

Those immigrants, with no easy divorces allowed in their faith, instead resort to killing the daughters that do not comply with being objects traded for prestige. ...............................................................................................


Again, majority of the world wide population with roots in India have not so much fear or aversion to being integrated into the ambient society where they live, however gently - most migrants do not easily give way to losing their own culture, and indeed flourishing of such cultural gardens is a key to growth of nations that are not xenophobic. But they do accept the children growing up abroad with them as part of the nations they have migrated to and while they might impart their cultural values and attempt to keep in touch with relatives back home or fellow immigrants around, marriages are not forced and education a matter of pride as is any other achievement, and of course careers.

Marriages of children with local population or other immigrants (not of one's own culture but those of roots far away) do happen and are accepted, and attempts are made sincerely to make things work. In fact often enough a first generation immigrant ends up marrying a person from the place he or she has been living in, and such marriages are accepted too, and often work quite well.

Which is not to say things are all perfect in one community or another - only, that the practices of one or two of the communities of the general "Asian" immigrants in UK are far from ubiquitous of the region of their origin as a whole.
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In fact, the people mentioned in this book, with forced marriages and abuse and rapes and killings and kidnappings in name of prestige (I don't, really don't think it is honour in any way for anyone, it is only prestige and status!) - they remind me of another set of migrants, those of Asians in US (which there means orientals, that is, mostly with roots in China and related lands).

Chinatowns in US have long had the notoriety of being difficult for the local or state or any other agencies in the country to deal with, and there is generally little protection for the people being smuggled in and trafficked as labour or white slaves.

The difference is, in UK they do it to their own daughters and wives and family members. Not just fellow community members, as in Chinatowns of US, but actually their own blood - daughters and sisters and nieces - and life partners.

And often sons too.
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(Friday, April 17, 2009)

The Bridges At Toko-Ri: by James a. Michener.

War is hard enough for people to go through, without having to explain to one's partner why one is not attentive and loving, which is a hazard when one cannot say much about the mission or its dangers, for various reasons. Or when - as it happened with Korean war - the rest of the world is at peace and it is hard to explain to everyone you know that there is still a war somewhere that must be attended to. And then there is the difficulty of the mission itself, which one may or may not succeed and return alive from, since the bridges at Toko Ri must be taken and they are situated at an extremely difficult place.

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.

Thursday, July 19, 2012.

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BPO Sutra - True Stories From India's BPO And Call Centres; 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.

Theodore Boone: Book 4: The Activist; by John Grisham.

The Activist begins with Theodore winning a debate about status of migrants in US, specific issue being if their children ought to be allowed the same public schools and other education facilities that those of citizens do. Theodore Boone wins that debate with some very good pointers about reality of US as a nation.

It is a much needed reminder to those that live with blinkered vision about history and reality of the nation that US does not belong to the WASP, English speaking or the descendants of European origin who migrated to the continent at a point of time in history, but rather to all migrants - or only those that were there prior to that,  migration referred to mistakenly as Indian or red Indian (a very convenient mistake, that, based on a lie and propagating it conveniently) and more correctly as Native Americans.

At that, the very name America was given to the continent and used for the nation US then and now by the migrants, wiping out the name or names that the continent and nation had in the culture of the indigenous. And, too, the name is that of a sailor from Latin Europe, which ironically is forgotten by those citizens of US who go "this is 'Merica and our language is English". English was voted not to long ago as the language, but it barely scraped past German as the common language, and most migrants spoke more than one language well past the first generation of migrants, even into the twentieth century.

The story here goes on to another much needed debate about crucial issue for the whole world rather than the microcosm that the small town the story takes place in, namely, what is falsely called development or economic development and is in reality a race to fill a few pockets of some rich businessmen - while everything else suffers, forests and water and wildlife and the very children that humanity invests in as future of the earth. Theodore Boone is an activist almost but not quite against his wish, circumstances forcing him and other children to take a position and carry out the agenda for people's rights to clean water and air and their rights to land and more.

They - the children, and the adults who help them - carry out this and win it with debate and other intelligent activities using technologies available today to children and adults alike, fortunately with less violence than the reader fears post the first encounter with thugs who invade someone's land. They do not even use language that might be considered inappropriate legally, not knowingly or deliberately anyway. And they win their debate and their rights with the final debate about the proposed bypass with a speech by Theodore Boone.

A must read for most people, and especially for those mistaken about what it means to be citizens of US. Or those that have forgotten.

Theodore Boone: Book 3: The Accused; by John Grisham.

Theodore Boone series is a good read for young readers and adults alike, giving the young a taste of what life holds out there even as they are looking out and growing within their own circumstances, and reminding adults of how the young live, think, feel, and are affected by the life around despite the protective parents - and sometimes because of parents being not so protective.

The Accused begins with a murderer going missing when he is supposed to go to trial since his first trial for murder was declared a mistrial, and his whereabouts being a mystery discussed while another mystery begins - Theodore Boone is attacked surreptitiously and subsequently accused of crimes he did not, would not ever consider committing. But the law goes by evidence, not by the faith and knowledge of everyone around him, and he must find ways to prove his innocence.

In the process there is a reminder that decent people often are clueless while those on the fringe might be far more useful given right heart and bright mind. Here uncle Ike is the one who provides keys while Boone's mother is clueless in spite of being a key factor in the persecution of her son by unknown persons.

The Forsyte Chronicles (The Forsyte Saga, A Modern Comedy, The End of the Chapter); by John Galsworthy

Forsyte Chronicles:-

This work developed over a lifetime and began with a simple theme, that of individual's right to life and love, especially those of a woman.

The first trilogy, Forsyte Saga, is the most famous of all. There are three trilogies, Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter being the second and the third.

The Forsyte 'Change was written as separate stories about the various characters and spans the time from migration of Jolyon Forsyte the original, referred to usually as Superior Dosset, the paterfamilias of the Forsytes, to London from border of Devon and Dorsetshire, onwards well into the time connecting it to the beginning of the second trilogy. The first two trilogies have interconnecting interludes between each of their two parts.
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The Forsyte Saga:-

The Forsyte Saga was not planned as such but developed over years with sequels coming naturally as they did, and human heart and passion and minds within settings of high society of a Victorian and post Victorian England - chiefly London - and its solid base in property.

When it was published it was revolutionary in the theme - a woman is not owned by her husband, and love is not a duty she owes but a bond that is very real however intangible, that cannot be faked.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008.
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The Man of Property:-

The Man Of Property, with its very apt title, begins with Soames Forsyte, the man of property who not only inherited but is very good in acquisition of property and taking care of it. As such he has virtues necessary to society, honesty and prudence and more, but lacks in those that cannot be taught and must be developed by sensitivity - those dealing with heart. He has no comprehension of those, and proceeds to acquire the object of his passion, his first wife Irene, pretty much like he would any other property - with steady and unrelenting pursuit and some crafty methods that make it difficult for her to stay the course of not acquiescing. In this however he is wrong, and the marriage goes sour long before he would acknowledge it, with his total bewilderment and lack of understanding of his beautiful and sensitive, artistic, intelligent wife - he expects her to settle down and do her duty, and be happy with all that he can provide for her in ways of house and clothes and jewellery and stability, but she is made of a different mettle and is not one to see herself or any other woman as an object of male property.

She might have continued the slow death within, forced to do so by her husband reneging on his promise of letting her go free if she were not happy, had it not been for the architect Bosinney, fiancé of her niece by marriage June Forsyte the daughter of Young Jolyon, first cousin of Soames. Bossinney has sensitivity to match and recognise and appreciate Irene, and more - he falls in love with her, even as he is contracted to design and construct a house for the couple far away from the city where Irene may find solitude and peace and come to terms with her lot, or so her husband Soames plans mistakenly. The house is beautiful, but the love of the architect for the woman who the house is meant for is not to be bought or killed, and tragedy begins to unravel the lives involved, Irene and June and Bosinney - and Soames.

Young Jolyon, the son of Old Jolyon who disapproves of his son's second marriage and has not till date seen his new grandchildren by the woman who used to be in employ of his first wife before they fell in love, is a presence that comes to fore slowly in this, with art - he is an artist, and Irene appreciates beauty as much as he appreciates her in all her qualities - and the relationship and a recognition mutual to both. She seeks his help in the support and strength that his daughter needs from him now, with June too proud to be friend of Irene any more after the revelation of Bosinney and Irene being in love.
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Interlude: Indian Summer of a Forsyte:-

Indian Summer here refers not to unbearably hot 45-50 degree centrigrade summer but the soft warmth of India of post rains in September - October that here the author uses as a silent metaphor for the beautiful life of Old Jolyon in his old age after he has bought the house Bosinney built for Irene, after Bosinney is dead, where he now lives with his son Jo, Young Jolyon, and his three children from his two marriages, June and Jolyon "Jolly" and Holly. Jo with his second wife is traveling in Europe when Old Jolyon discovers Irene sitting on a log in the coppice on the property where she had been with her love, Bosinney, and invites her to the home that was to be hers and is now his. This begins his tryst with beauty that is Irene, in the beauty that is Robin Hill, his home, and the surrounding countryside of which his home includes a good bit.

Jolyon employs Irene to teach music to Holly and invites her for lunches at Robin Hill, and listens to her playing music; they go to theatre, opera and dinners in town on days when she is not teaching Holly, and meanwhile he worries about her situation of barely above penury that her separation has left her in, her father's bequest to her amounting to bare subsistence. He decides to correct the injustice she is meted due to her husband not providing for her (this being the weapon to make her come back to him) and makes a bequest to her for lifetime, settling a good amount that would take care of her reasonably, and let her independence from her husband supported well.

He comes to depend on her visits, and she realises this, returning his silent affection and appreciation - and he dies when waiting for her one afternoon, in his armchair under the large old oak tree, with beauty coming to him across the lawn.
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In Chancery:-

In Chancery continues with young Jolyon and Irene and Soames, the beautiful new house designed and constructed for Irene being now put up for sale by Soames who is tenacious in his not giving up on her in spite of her leaving him. Irene connects with Jolyon, partly due to Soames bringing an action against him for alienation of his wife's affections and then far more due to their being well matched, and they are together in spite of Soames trying various tactics - threat of divorce (a far more lethal weapon in that era), refusal to give a divorce when they wish for it, and so forth. Finally the divorce goes through and two children are born, Jon to Irene and Joyon and Fleur to Soames and Annette, a French young woman he finds in an inn and marries.

The new house is in chancery as are the people in this interim period and old Jolyon has bought it partly due to James, his brother and father of Soames, telling old Jolyon he owes it to Soames and to the Forsytes, seeing as how young Jolyon is responsible for the quandary Soames is in. Old Jolyon however is as much in love with Irene as most of the clan, and when once he finds her sitting in a corner of the property he assures her of his lack of disapproval of her finding refuge in the home built for her by her lover.

Jolyon helps Irene as his father's wish, and his own, having been appointed executor to the bequest of his father for her, and in the process comes to not only protect her from the husband who wishes her to return (so she can give him a son and heir, after all they are still married twelve years after she left), but also comes to be her friend, her companion and more. He does not admit his love, but she understands it, and their days together are spent in the same beauty that she did with his father until they are thrown together far more due to the persecution of her husband who would divorce her and marry a young woman he has fixed his sights on so he can have a son after all - he is now near fifty and his father James is dying, hankering for a son for Soames. But divorce laws were then difficult and Soames is unwilling to pretend an affair, so his choice is to name Irene and Jolyon, which neither of them oppose irrespective of facts.

It is the news of death of Jolly, son of Jolyon, that throws them together finally when both younger children of Jolyon along with Val Dartie the son of Winifred have gone to Boer war and June has joined Holly as nurse, and Jolyon in his grief for his son that he thinks he did not give enough of the love in his heart for him to has only Irene to consol him with her compassion.
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Interlude: Awakening:-

Little Jolyon, Jon, awakens to the beauty that surrounds him, the beauty that is his mother, and the love personified that is his father, even as his days are spent in play about the home Robin Hill that is now his parents' in more than one sense - his grandfather bought it from her ex-husband the first cousin of Jo, Young Jolyon, the father of Jon, after the architect Bosinney who was her first love died and she fled from her husband. Jon knows nothing of the history, and his blissful life is carried on the wings of imagination where he plays out every possible scenario from every book he reads, so his half sister Holly returning with her husband and second cousin Val from South Africa (where they married during Boer war and stayed to raise horses) finds him painted blue head to toe, playing by himself in the garden.
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To Let:-

To Let goes on with lives of the various families, and chiefly of young Jolyon and his now wife Irene and their home at Robin Hill, with his other children and their various cousins and uncles being part of the story. Soame's nephew Val Dartie falls in love with young Jolyon's daughter by his second marriage, Holly, and the two second cousins manage to marry and be happy in spite of an initial lack of acceptance by the clan due to their being not only second cousins but also related to parties feuding majorly about Irene's divorce of one and marriage to other cousin.

This has the unfortunate consequence of encouraging the other pair of second cousins, Jon and Fleur, in thinking they may make it a success as his sister and her first cousin did. This time however things are very different, and Jon's parents are as unlikely to approve of this match as Soames initially is. Soames gives in due to his heart being completely ruled by his daughter, and goes so far as to plead with Irene for his daughter's happiness, offering to never interact in their lives for sake of overall peace. But Irene cannot risk it, and Jon is sensitive to her and his father's point of view when he comes to know of their history.

He would be in a quandary but for the similarity of Fleur with her father in claiming him as her father had claimed his mother, and this repels him. Fleur's lack of comprehension in her loss is matched by her father's when he lost a wife he had a very slim chance to have a life with. And the beautiful home of Irene is now to let even as they leave to go as far away as they can from this place and this history.
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 On Forsyte Change:-

On Forsyte 'Change is a collection of stories about various members of the clan, children and grandchildren of Jolyon Forsyte ("Superior Dosset") who came with his ten children to London, immediately post death of his wife in her tenth childbirth, spanning a time from their coming to London to well into the first world war. Galsworthy wrote these pieces after the second part of the Forsyte Chronicles, that is, Modern Comedy, to connect through time lapse between the Forsyte Saga and Modern Comedy, but it really covers far more.

The lyrical beauty of countryside and awakening of various Forsytes to beauty and to individual rights along with their occasionally coming into contact with public and their trials and secret joys or escapades form part of most of this, some delightful and some poignant. The success of it all is, having finished all that Galsworthy wrote about the Forsytes one wants more.
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A Modern Comedy:-

The second part of Forsyte Chronicles begins - with The White Monkey, first volume of the Modern Comedy - where the Forsyte Saga left off, with a six years gap that includes what was then called the great war and is now known as the first world war. The story here continues with Fleur at the centre and her father, Soames, close to her, with Jon and his mother Irene far away in US.
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The White Monkey:-

The White Monkey is both a painting - by a Chinese artist, to go with the Chinese drawing room Fleur has designed for her house in London - and an allegory for the life of that time and place, upper middle class England and specifically London, with homes in the city and additional houses in the surrounding countryside. The society is in quest of culture, advance of civilisation, of art and literature and other pursuits of mind and heart - social works, politics, et al - that those who do not need to toil for survival may busy themselves with could indulge in if they so aspire. This society uses much, and throws away much, pretty much as the monkey in the painting does, and is not far different at heart from the uncomprehending disconsolation in the monkey's eyes, with Fleur at the centre of the tale and her father close.

Fleur like her father before her is disconsolate at loss of object of her passion, and like him is collecting, with one difference - he collected paintings and objects of art, she collects people. Neither of them was then or is even now unusual in this. But the difference is critical in that the career of a salonniere depends on the people one collects, the ambient society, and its acquiescence in being thus collected. Works of art are paid for and do not strike back, while people might even as they are guests in one's home.

Soames won't take anyone speaking ill of, much less hurting, his beloved daughter - she is the one occupying his whole heart, a heart injured by loss of his first wife Irene and his total lack of comprehension of why he lost one he hankered after and thought he had rights to - after all he had done everything in terms of marrying her respectably and giving her all the financial security she never had had, and more - so all the more he is passionate in his taking care of his daughter while being sensitive and delicate with her, qualities he acquired perhaps due to loss of Irene with whom he was neither.

So he chooses to confront rather than let go and kill by ignoring a treacherous behaviour directed at his daughter in her quest of a life of salonniere in society. She as her loving and patient aristocrat husband know well he was wrong in choosing that path, and try to stop him in his defence of his daughter - but in vain. And the course is thus set for an expose of society that acknowledges moral right but avoids those right, while preferring beauty and entertainment and lack of confrontations.
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 Interlude: A Silent Wooing:-

Wilfrid Desert, poet and friend of Michael Mont, is in love with Fleur, and she is not in love with her noble, cheerful, silent husband who is in love with her, so she is missing a passion that she had in her love for Jon. But Wilfrid is not willing to let her dangle him beyond a point and she must decide between going away with him or letting him go, and much as she is unwilling to let this interest go she must, and he leaves for east.

Jon meanwhile has married Anne whom he met in US, and her brother who is a distant cousin of Mont and owns a sizeable property in south visits England, and falls in love with Marjorie Ferrar who is unwilling to declare her engagement with an aristocrat of formidable financial status from Scotland, since he is simple and she has been a woman of modern character and passion for Society, life et al. Marjorie would rather dangle them all indefinitely as long as she has not found another play, but it won't do.
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The Silver Spoon:- 

The Silver Spoon, the second volume of this trilogy, continues with Soames's defence of his daughter against her treacherous guest that he threw out of her home, and the defence of the case this guest brought against Fleur. Much is brought to light delicately as Galsworthy does in his expose of the society, their thoughts and morals and sensitivities and attempts to understand the time and the world they live in. This society is mostly those born with a silver spoon, and some of them deal with those in more perilous or dire circumstances - chiefly Michael Mont, Fleur's aristocratic husband with his quest to do good and to take on politics as a career in an honest way - while others are less caring about those in lesser circumstances, whether honestly as Fleur is or otherwise.

Michael attempts to help various people who appeal to him in his various capacities, and has mixed results in return, some success and some not quite so much. One couple he helped before his political career began managed to stay together despite delicate problems to negotiate and even managed to migrate to a better climate in Australia, but is not as immediately well off as they thought. Another is a disaster partly, with a third doing all right.

Fleur is unable to face her loss of face in society post winning the case brought against her by a badly behaved guest, and is taken for a long travel around the world by a caring and concerned father who would do anything for her. He has tried to stop the case from getting to court by offering to pay, but the intractable stupidity of the aristocratic guest who demands an unqualified apology along with a hefty payment (she needs the money to pay her bills) makes it necessary he defend his daughter and he does so only too successfully, with the prosecuting Marjorie Ferrar losing her rich aristocrat fiance and her newly found status along with her newly announced engagement, but not her place in society!
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Interlude: Passers By:-

The general strike and its concerns and effects on various people is the next, with Jon and his wife arriving in England with intentions to settle down. The first, the strike, has a good effect in that Fleur manages to shine in a new role, running a canteen at the railway station for the volunteer workers, and very successfully, at that. But she is then again in contact with her various second cousins, the descendants of young Jolyon from his three wives, and here are possibilities for stability or fall of Fleur.
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Swan Song:-

If only she could have equanimity or at the very least prudence and control of her passion for her lost first love, Jon, she would do well. She cannot, however, give up what she considers her rightful claim to his heart, and to his love. She is aware of his love for his lovely wife, and so engineers situations to where it is possibly disastrous for all concerned. Jon and his wife survive it, she not so much, and is saved only by the timely intervention of her father at heavy cost to himself, and by the true nobility of the husband who won't indulge in theatrical relinquishing or violence but will wait quietly for her to heal and to return to him in her heart. In this he hears a swan sing when he strolls out on grounds of Soames's house in the last part, and this is a fitting image for one just as silent and noble as a swan.

Monday, August 12, 2013
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End of the Chapter- 

In the third trilogy of Forsyte chronicles the story centres on cousins of Michael Mont, mainly on his mother's side, the Charwells who are socially somewhere bordering on landed gentry and aristocracy, unlike Forsytes who made their way up from farmer to various money making professions (solicitor, investment manager, builders, stockbrokers and more) to artists and gentry of leisure. Being upper caste in England amounts to being bred and brought up to notions of service to the country and accordingly the Charwells are occupied with work dealing with law, church, and so on, when not with actual landownership including caring for the tenants and other residents of the land. Mostly the three parts focus on Dinny, Elizabeth Charwell, an attractive young woman of Botticelli beauty with a sensitive heart and capable mind who cares for not only her own family and clan but anyone around who might need her, and does the care taking actively with initiatives, meeting people and speaking to them, and more.
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Maid In Waiting:-

In Maid in Waiting, Dinny who is the person the title is after, is busy rescuing her brother and an uncle and other related people from various tangles to do with love, empire, standards of behaviour to do with scientific expeditions and treatment of people and animals, love, mental illness and more. She is unable to consider a brighter prospect for herself with either of the two very suitable beaux who fall in love with her, and would not make a match yet.
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Flowering Wilderness:-


In Flowering Wilderness she meets and falls in love with Wilfrid Desert, a friend of her cousin Michael who had fallen in love with Fleur in the White Monkey and left for east to disentangle himself, and Wilfrid is in love with her just as much, except that unfortunately he has been in a circumstance where forced to choose between life and conversion he had chosen life and thus disgraced all of his countrymen, endangering them to future kidnappings and disdain from those under British rule. This cannot be considered suitable for Dinny by her family and clan, and the story cannot be kept quiet, not the least due to the pride and sense of uncertainty Desert has about his own actions, and it ends up in her heart breaking with him leaving for east once again.
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Over the River:-

In One More River Clare, the younger sister, returns home from Ceylon after a brief duration of married life, determined not to suffer any more her husband's sadist behaviour. Since she is young and beautiful, there is the expected entanglement with a young man falling in love with her, only she is unable and unwilling to consider any physical contact for now, and is not in love for a while until her own status is clear. But her husband is more than willing to take all possible steps including a divorce court where she is accused of adultery while she is unable to go into why she left him due to her delicacy about exposing her married life and its unsavoury character, and she comes to appreciate her young lover only when threatened with possibility of losing him. Dinny and the clan stand by her, and in the meanwhile another suitor appears for Dinny, who she is able to accept only post news of her first lover being dead and buried in far east on an expedition up a river, a news that makes her seriously ill. It all ends well with both sisters set well with their respective men and the clan at peace, and Fleur has been of borderline help at crucial moments, not the least with her father's money coming in handy to pay for legal costs of the divorce.
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One of the major beautiful things about Forsyte Chronicles - all three trilogies, but the first and third in particular - is the love of the author for beauty of England in general and countryside, nature in particular. Very lyrical. The other, more subtle, is the depiction of society in general, upper middle class of English society in particular and the times they lived in in the background, empire on distant horizon until the third trilogy where it is still in background but a bit less distant.

The society changes from the first to the third trilogy but not radically, and in this the author is successful in portrayal of how things might seem radically different superficially but are closer to where progress began, and progress being slow in steps that various people pay heftily during their lives for.
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The Shepherd: by Frederick Forsyth.

My kindle edition claimed 700 pages and so it was astonishing to finish it in an hour or so in one afternoon, having expected the usual Forsyth tale with detail, worldwide canvas and more. One had to check to make sure the kindle had delivered the whole book! It had, and then one realises it was published in '75 or so, and perhaps the number of pages is explained by the illustrations. Still, one is left wanting more, to begin with. Not that the story is unsatisfactory by itself, quite the contrary, it is beautiful and perhaps ends just right when it should rather than going on. But one does want more when one is just finished reading.

The synopsis everywhere pretty much tells what it is about, although it does not say how beautifully it is written. Quite lyrical, unlike most work of this author, although that is not to say his other works are lesser, merely different. This one is comparable rather to works of Richard Bach and James Hilton in its qualities of lyrical beauty. There is suspense of course, a matter of life and death, and more.

And the Mountains Echoed; by Khaled Hosseini.

The author attempts another form of telling this story in this work, with separate stories across the time spanned by the whole centred on various characters and woven together by the common thread of the narrative. So one gets a deeper understanding of each one, for the duration, and a comprehensive one of the whole.

In his previous works too the author has made one aware that terrible doings are not necessarily patented by any one particular sect or organisation, and instead are rather a part of human characters that some choose to succumb to or indulge in while others stay clear of or rise above. In this one too, while he does not refrain from mentioning the atrocities by various politico-terror organisations, he brings out horrors perpetrated by people for private reasons that are as mundane as division of property within the family and clan, or stealing property that belongs to someone now poor and in need of it.

The stories take one across the world with the characters forced to or choosing to travel, migrate and take refuge in various countries for various reasons, usually seeking to find peace that they can live and prosper in. There is cultural diversity therefore, and a kaleidoscopic change of shifting patterns as people from Afghanistan, France, Greece and US move back and forth across, bringing their own cultures and languages and meeting others of diverse backgrounds.

And of course he depicts goodness and nobility of human characters, but not in expected ways or places, rather more in a variety of ways small and large. Often good comes accidentally to someone despite it being not quite clear that such was the intention, for an obvious example when a woman of mixed French and Afghan background who is rendered incapable of bearing her own children - due to some medical procedure she underwent early - adopts a little Afghan girl from a poor family, and eventually takes her to France to live in an attempt to survive. Whatever the loss the girl suffers of her family and connections, it is obvious it is good for her not only for survival but blossoming of a life and mind that would have been unthinkable back home with her family had she not been taken away.

One rather wishes the story would go on and fill gaps left about various characters, and go further, the way one wishes a just finished cup of coffee or tea would continue for a while longer. Perhaps the author would do so at that and tell us what happened to everyone. And this is the success of his work.
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In an amazing detail he makes the little Afghan girl of poor farmer family adopted and brought to France to grow up to not only choose Mathematics for her studies but do well enough to go on to be on faculty in Paris and retire only for reasons of health, and have a good life with a family meanwhile with a French husband and three children of her own to boot, with grandchildren galore yet. And the details mentioned of her work in Mathematics are meticulously done so it is not ridiculous either.

It takes someone with some familiarity of the world of science and of western social life to know what a miracle he has painted so very casually. Not because this woman is of another culture, another race, but simply because she is a woman, and west does not tolerate women with careers without penalty of family and peace of mind in any field, even fashion that one would think would be a womens' own field, much less science which is seen as male club and Mathematics which is the very central ivory tower therein.
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Inferno; by Dan Brown.

Brown takes one topic for each work of his and presents a thoroughly researched expose thereof with a thin veil of a murder mystery, and this time it is about the very factual problem of today, where all dire scenarios of future have all sorts of interconnected roots with one chief problem, overpopulation. Also, in this work he goes back to his first two works in the sense of a background from history, art, literature and so forth, deeply rich and contextual for the problem. Da Vinci Code had Leonardo Da Vinci and his works along with history of Europe, west Asia and Rome of two millennia, while Angels and Demons had church and Illuminati and a short lived pope that might have been murdered; this work has Dante, Virgil, Vasari, bible of course, and other works related to concept of hell and inferno as depicted in various systems related to church. Needless to say he portrays east vs west in a very limited way as church vs Islam.

Inferno here is both the problem - problems that come together in the current scenario and their future outlooks for earth and humanity - and solution thereof. Any solution to human population growth and its devastating effects on earth of today must deal with question of reproductive rights and of course resulting human rights of survival, and in past this was taken care of by nature with various calamities such as plague or war and deaths of infants and mothers in childbirth - all of which are today receding with increasing of human knowledge and widening of consciousness, to the extent that very concept of an inevitable death past a certain age is now challenged, and natural relief from overpopulation can only be a far lower rate of reproduction.

For obvious reasons such as racism that is still very rampant, this possibility of such a tool for culling of reproduction cannot be in hands of a powerful institution that might thereby use it to wipe out population seen as unimportant, and one can imagine scenarios where a government in possession of such a tool may wipe out a few poor nations. Or continents.

So here a genius scientist works alone to solve this, and leaves clues about his work admittedly due to an egotistic need to be acclaimed for relieving humanity from the hell it is inadvertently descending into - overpopulation, global warming, wiping out forests and species galore, and effects of any and all of these.

Most people in any glimmer of this assume it is a virus related to a plague that is being released and race to stop it, finding out that it is too late to do so, and trying to discover what virus, what effects, what if any solutions might exist. What they discover however that it is a virus quite different from what they all imagined, bringing not death but a permanent solution to the problem, and is in the long term benevolent. The remainder is sort of anticlimactic, and leaves only one question that most readers would not realise exists.

Populations culled at a certain rate worked for the best is an observation and the virus goes towards affecting it in a certain way, in Brown's Inferno. However, he fails to see that in reality his solution might cull population at twice that rate at most, and certainly there would not be any guarantee that it could be limited to the rate he states is ideal, unless a very organised reproduction was arranged throughout the world. Sheer calculation and a small error that he has perhaps missed.