The God of Small Things
In a further effort to regain my lost intelligence, not only have I started getting up to speed on all the movies I have missed the past couple years, but I've also been tearing through books as quickly as I can get my hands on them. When I was down in Dallas we made a trip to Half Price Books, or something like that, where I found delightful things for under $5. I picked up a couple of Booker Prize winners, a glorious Woolf, and Love in the Time of Cholera. I have to ask...is being from India a requirement for Booker Prize victory? Because although I grabbed the two books because I recognized the titles and they had the big BP endorsement, they also shared a common thread in that the authors are, and the books are set in, India.
That was pretty much where the similarities ended mind you. White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (2008 winner) was crude, vulgar and a somewhat obscene look into the development of an industrialized nation from the tech heaven of Bangalore to the vast "Darkness" of back woods India. Although I could appreciate its merit and read it start to finish in a very short time, I felt that stylistically sometimes it was trying too hard to maintain a casual, blasé matter-of-factness in the face of illegal/abhorrent acts. It certainly didn't have the sort of captivating grip of The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1997 winner), which I read directly before it. I've wanted to read this book for years, and finding it in a bargain bin at a random Texan bookstore was one of the more satisfying buys I've had in years. Not because it was cheap, but because it was a steal! What a fantastic, fantastic story. Violence, love, segregation, understanding, jealousy, opportunism, religious persecution, family ties, etc etc; it was told in a beautifully descriptive, almost lyrical style that for once (halleluiah) did not edge into overkill but served to illustrate the story with a skill and precise flow that suited the content.
Easily one of my favourite books that I've read in the past few years. Easily.
Parallel to my film and fiction escapades, I've been Blipping. As in I have my own little radio station thingie on Blip.fm. It's great because I've been finding all kinds of new songs to adore from people with surprisingly similar tastes and compiling a playlist that I can access anywhere. I have been tormenting everyone at work (where the going opinion is that classic rock is god's gift to music) with everything from the Brazilian Girls to Lykke Li. Check it out if you want an eclectic playlist to list to. I try to add at least one song per day. In the browsing required of a committed Blip.fm DJ, I requainted myself with Amy Lee, formerly of Evanescence. There's something about a woman with an impossibly massive voice that's just pure awesome. I used to sing Lithium, one of the most depressing songs known to music (how ironic?), to myself in the barrel cellar. Currently I'm completely obsessed primarily with a song called Electric Twist by A Fine Frenzy (because it kicks like a mf-ing pony) and secondarily by almost anything Uh Huh Her (I love to watch you...honey).
File this one the "more random notes on my desk that I have no clue what they're for" category: a sticky note simply saying, quotes included: "real" job. It looks recent, but I don't know what it means. By the quotations it appears to be a note of scorn, perhaps directed at some snide comment made by somebody, or an expressed desire (oft repeated) to escape the 8-5 world and return to something a little more fluid and nocturnal. Who knows.
That was pretty much where the similarities ended mind you. White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (2008 winner) was crude, vulgar and a somewhat obscene look into the development of an industrialized nation from the tech heaven of Bangalore to the vast "Darkness" of back woods India. Although I could appreciate its merit and read it start to finish in a very short time, I felt that stylistically sometimes it was trying too hard to maintain a casual, blasé matter-of-factness in the face of illegal/abhorrent acts. It certainly didn't have the sort of captivating grip of The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1997 winner), which I read directly before it. I've wanted to read this book for years, and finding it in a bargain bin at a random Texan bookstore was one of the more satisfying buys I've had in years. Not because it was cheap, but because it was a steal! What a fantastic, fantastic story. Violence, love, segregation, understanding, jealousy, opportunism, religious persecution, family ties, etc etc; it was told in a beautifully descriptive, almost lyrical style that for once (halleluiah) did not edge into overkill but served to illustrate the story with a skill and precise flow that suited the content.
Easily one of my favourite books that I've read in the past few years. Easily.
Parallel to my film and fiction escapades, I've been Blipping. As in I have my own little radio station thingie on Blip.fm. It's great because I've been finding all kinds of new songs to adore from people with surprisingly similar tastes and compiling a playlist that I can access anywhere. I have been tormenting everyone at work (where the going opinion is that classic rock is god's gift to music) with everything from the Brazilian Girls to Lykke Li. Check it out if you want an eclectic playlist to list to. I try to add at least one song per day. In the browsing required of a committed Blip.fm DJ, I requainted myself with Amy Lee, formerly of Evanescence. There's something about a woman with an impossibly massive voice that's just pure awesome. I used to sing Lithium, one of the most depressing songs known to music (how ironic?), to myself in the barrel cellar. Currently I'm completely obsessed primarily with a song called Electric Twist by A Fine Frenzy (because it kicks like a mf-ing pony) and secondarily by almost anything Uh Huh Her (I love to watch you...honey).
Click to viewFile this one the "more random notes on my desk that I have no clue what they're for" category: a sticky note simply saying, quotes included: "real" job. It looks recent, but I don't know what it means. By the quotations it appears to be a note of scorn, perhaps directed at some snide comment made by somebody, or an expressed desire (oft repeated) to escape the 8-5 world and return to something a little more fluid and nocturnal. Who knows.