The Elephant Vanishes

What do you say about Haruki Murakami? I was introduced to Murakami by the book shop owner of the Mumbai airport. He almost forced the Murakami on to me saying that I will like it. I was very skeptical as I started reading my first Murakami (Hard Boiled Wonderland and End of the World) but soon I was hooked to his writing style.

His writing has poetry in it and you can almost taste, smell and see what he wants you to feel. His stories also are pretty esoteric in nature in the sense that they do not have a clear beginning, middle and end. The trick of Murakami's stories are that they force you to think about them and slowly peel away the layers as you reach the gist of the story. Cliched as it may sound, reading his stories reveal different things to you everytime.

Now I am a great believer in the fact that a story should have a clear purpose and objective and must have a beginning, middle and end. I ideally do not like stories that seem to go all over the place and don't seem to say anything specific. This was a reason why I was surprised with myself that I like Murakami so much. Post the first book, I have read many of his books including Sputnik Sweetheart, Blind Willow Sleeping Woman, After the Quake & What I talk about when I talk about running.

I recently finished reading 'The Elephant Vanishes' which is again a collection of short stories. Like most of his short stories some of them are brilliant, some average and some that just don't make any sense. Of course these are very personal opinions and may not apply to you. So let's see how the stories pan out with my ratings for each of them.

1. The Wind Up Bird and Tuesdays Women (2/5): This falls under the 'What the.....' category. Its a bad way to start a book and I have no clue what the story meant or is supposed to mean. In fact all I remember is that I rated it 2/5 because I didn't quite like it.
   
2. The Second Bakery Attack (3/5):Explores relationships between a couple and how some emotions shared can lead to interesting consequences. The metaphor that Murakami uses about the volcano under the sea to describe the conflicting emotions in the central character's mind is really awesome.
3. The Kangaroo Communique (2/5):Didn't understand. Starts off well, engages you in the middle but loses track somewhere.
   
4. On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning (4/5): One of the best love stories. What if you met the person of your dreams, didn't believe in it and wanted to test out the theory?
   
5. Sleep (3.5/5):What would happen if you just couldn't sleep and if you didn't need sleep? The story explores some interesting emotions, dwells into realm of reality and semi-consciousness but ends rather abruptly.
6. The fall of the Roman Empire, The 1881 Indian uprising, Hitler's Invasion of Poland, and The realm of raging winds (4/5): Nothing is as it seems. The story does not talk about any one of the occasions but rather the author tags his daily diary entry with things that he can remember them by. Very interesting story.
7. Lederhosen (3/5): What drives a woman to just divorce her husband of many years when he asks for a simple gift? It forces you to think about how you take your relationships for granted.
8. Barn Burning (3/5): If faced with a prior knowledge that someone is going to act on a act of vandalism, what would you do? Will you scout the area to find out if everything is OK and obsess about it? Makes you think about the times when you obsessed about inconsequential things that don't matter in your life.
9. The Little Green Monster (3/5): Explores the power of the mind over things that initially frighten you.
10. Family Affair (4/5): Everyone will immediately identify with this story as each one of us sizes up and tries to categorise members of our family or a possible new entrant in the family.
11. Window (4/5): Explores Murakami's favorite topic of loneliness and how a woman copes with it. Can a young man who has no connection to her be able to fill the gap?
12. TV People (3/5): What if you can notice things that other people don't? It explores the idea of intuition and suppressed emotions.
13. A slow boat to China (4/5): Explores the effect of different people at different times in one's life.
14. The Dancing Dwarf (5/5): Can compromises ruin your life? Explores how a simple act of compromise to get something can affect your life adversely.
15. The Last lawn of the afternoon (3/5): Again explores loneliness and what people do to fill the gap.
16. The Silence (5/5): Explores how a single wrong act can have long lasting consequences and change your life, for better or worse.
17. The Elephant Vanishes (4/5): Explores how certain important things at one time can diminish over time and lose their importance.

Overall a really good book with some brilliant stories that make up for the average ones.

A 7/10 rating!

Oh Shit, Not Again!

What a way to start the first book review on a blog - but that's the name of the book I just finished reading. Its not a line to start the blog with. :)

Oh Shit, Not Again! is a book by Mandar Kokate and published by Expression Publications and this is the first book that they have published.

Its a story of five friends and their trials and tribulations across a period of few months. The central character is Raj who moves into the locality of the novel's setting, meets with the other characters in the book and talks about it in a first person perspective.


Why did I pick up this book from an obscure writer?
The name is the first attraction. When you see a novel name like that you have to pick up the book and see what it is about. Then you turn to the back cover to get a summary of the contents. Kudos to the publishers for making that quite interesting as well.

Have you ever experienced what happens when a porn movie is mistakenly played in front of your grandma and the CD player refuses to stop?
OR
Have you ever experienced what happens when a mixture of vodka and soft drink is server to hundreds of people gathered for a party?
OR
Have you ever experienced what happens when you are conspired into a murder that you had merely witnessed?

And a few more such questions adorn the back cover. The book promises to answer these questions through the eyes of the five friends. Most of us have been caught in one such situation and would love to read about it from a different perspective.

The story sounded interesting and coming from an Indian author in an Indian setting, I decided to pick it up. It cost me Rs 150/-

Was the book worth it?
The story had tremendous potential and in the right hands could have worked out to be a great book.

Mandar's writing style is rudimentary and you can see that he is desperately trying to be an author. His prose uses words like preclude, perjure and conspire where they are not needed. You can see that he uses these 'big' words because he thinks that's how good authors write and so he should use them as well. Given also that his characters are all college going students in the age bracket of 19 - 22, the use this language is completely unnecessary.

How many times have you told your friend "C'mon yaar, you can't perjure" or "What if someone precludes me over there?" I wonder if Mandar even knows the meanings of these words and the correct usage of them.

His characters are not well developed and there are gaping holes in the storyline. A lot of situations are mentioned that have not been developed well and no justifications are given for them. The main character is carrying on an 'affair' with two women - a girl of his age and an older married woman with a child. He seems to take them to hotels and spend money but there is no explanation of where he gets that kind of money from. After all he is just a student and does not have a job. Then again he gets caught up in a murder mystery that just seems to disappear in a whimsical manner.

Mandar also cannot seem to decide if he is writing for an Indian audience or a global audience. His writing seems to suggest that he writes for India but hopes that the global audience also picks up his book. Money for e.g is referred to in Million rupees denominations. Mandar also is unable to decide if his story is a love story or a murder mystery or a story of his main character's growth into adulthood. There are liberal doses or innuendos of sex - Raj gets to kiss three women and sleeps with two.

In all an average first attempt at a novel. Mandar should have read through at least a couple of more drafts of his story before sending it for publication and the publishers should have done the same.

The first page of the book reads - "Beware before you read...........you may die laughing". We do die laughing but unfortunately not because of the writing but because of the lack of it!

All in all its o.5/5

The Start!

I am a voracious reader and I need a book to end my day. My interests vary from regular fiction, spanning thrillers, murder mysteries, sci-fi, romance to management books and everything in between.

This blog is my attempt to review the books and also mention what I liked, what I did not, my impression of the book, what I learnt and if there is a KEY MESSAGE that I took away from the book.