The Island

I really love Victoria Hislop. I like her style, the fact that she writes about Greece, Spain, Cyprus; and just the way she spins stories. They are stories about everyday people in remarkable situations typically set against a period of historic significance.

The Island had been on my TBR for a while, but I saved it until I got to THE island. Yes, read the book while on a vacation to Crete and a visit to Spinalonga, the 20th century leper colony that housed so many people plagues by leprosy. It’s a disease that has faced so much stigma and shame historically, that a person contracting it is instantly shunned by society.

The story really is Alexis’s grandmother – Eleni, who is a mother to two daughters, Maria and Anna and wife to Georgio. When a trip to the doctor alters her simple life, she must face her tragic reality. The reader is instantly drawn into the lives of the daughters, their contrasting personalities, and their aspirations in life.

Simple village life on Crete takes on larger proportions through themes of love, passion and ultimately the human spirit against challenges. Such a wonderful read, no surprise that it is prize winning and has sold millions of copies. Here is mine in the Cretan sun.

The Return

As far as lightweight summer reading goes, Victoria Hislop is one of my absolute favourites. She writes in a beautiful, natural way, her stories have a nice flow, and the books are so easy to read. In The Return, the reader is transported to Granada, in Spain, during the Spanish Civil War.

Our modern day protagonist Sonia, trapped in a marriage with a man she doesn’t even recognise anymore is hoping to let her hair down on a trip to Spain with her childhood friend. But a chance meeting with a stranger in a cafe will lead her into the past. Here she will discover the incredible story of the Ramirez family as they live in a war torn Spain, and the remarkable journeys they go on.

Of all the places I have been to in Spain, Granada has always tugged at my heart. The Moorish quarters, the winding streets of the Albycin, the impenetrable majesty of the Alhambra – it is a city with magic. It also has an incredible history as one of the foremost cities of Andalusia and of great importance in medieval times. Hislop manages to lift these scenes of the pages through the stories of the past.

The reader is completely drawn into the tale of the Ramirez children and the story of this family, as it is brought to the brink of extinction by the Civil War. The backdrop is terrific and really shows that democracies that we take for granted in the modern day were one day, bitterly fought for and snatched from the greedy mouths of dictators.

This is a wonderful book and I very much recommend as a summer read if you are looking for one this year.

Just the Plague

Just the Plague by Ludmila Ulitskaya is set in 1930s Russia. Stalin is at the helm. And in a small town, Maier, a microbiologist, is slogging away developing a plague vaccine. Nothing particularly dramatic happens until he is summoned to Moscow to give a progress update to the powers that be. As Maier struggles with what to actually report, things take a darker turn.

A plague like disease suddenly begins to spread, leaked from a lab. Little by little, it transpires that more people are affected. The primary way to contain the disease is to quarantine anyone who catches it, which stops the virus from spreading to others. State machinery kicks in, aggressively tracing contacts of patients displaying symptoms, and taking them into quarantine. To guard against panic, State officials are only giving basic information to those being rounded up.

For the citizens’ greater good, the State puts controls in place. But do people really want their State officials to turn up at their door at any hour, demanding that they drop everything immediately and accompany them? What are the limits of personal freedom vs the boundary of the State? Where do we draw the line? These and other themes, in this novella, far ahead of its times and uniquely prescient, is Ulitskaya’s masterpiece written in the 1980s. Must read.

A Suitable Boy … a review

I’d heard so much about this book for a long time. But I’d never come across it. Last year, however, it was being talked about a lot when the BBC drama was released. Eventually, I got round to reading it. At 1544 pages, it is one of the longest books I’ve read, and it took me well over 2 months to finish it.

Set in 1950s newly independent India, this novel by Vikram Seth centres around young Lata, and her mother’s ambition to find her a suitable boy to marry. Longer novels tend to begin slow, as there is a lot of time to set situations up. Not so with this book. Seth uses the first 200 pages to introduce the reader to a raft of characters – Lata’s family, their extended relations, and all of her suitors and their families too. The result is a complex and intricate set of lives in the towns of Brahmpur, Cawnpore, Calcutta and others. Normally, I find such books hard to read, but this one draws the reader in with its wonderful detailing of events, places and things.

There was one overarching concept that bothered me. I found it difficult to stomach how ‘modern-day’ the behaviours of the women were. My grandmother grew up in the most progressive state of India in the 1950s. And in those days, young unmarried women could not dream of travelling 1500km by train alone, going on boat rides with boys, and walking back home after ‘tawaiaff’ performances alone. All this and more in Lata’s life, and that too in the most regressive and conservative region of India. One could argue that it is because her father is dead, and she is free from familial patriarchy. But she has her grandfather, brother-in-law etc in the same town. So that level of freedom is just made up.

Apart from this, the book is wonderfully written and the story told beautifully. Jane Austen could have learnt a million lessons from Rupa Mehra before she wrote her Mrs Bennett, but I’ll let that slide for now. Anyway, I’d recommend this book as a lingering long lockdown read. Enjoy!

A Necessary Evil … a review

This book is the second in the Wyndham-Banerjee series of crime novels set in British India. I chanced upon one of the 4 books and so I have not been reading these in order. Also, the library seems to have very few copies of each of the 4 books and so I couldn’t line them up properly. But that’s no issue because the books can be read standalone.

I must confess, I am now an Abir Mukherjee fan. First of all, the setting of the books is unique. Our lead DI Wyndham is of the Imperial Police force in Calcutta, the second-city of the British empire. His sidekick is local policeman Surendranath Banerjee, appropriated as ‘Surrender-Not’. Their combination is brilliant and nuanced, as Wyndham would be lost without Banerjee’s local knowledge. Second, in this book, we travel to Sambalpore in Orissa at the murder of its prince. As a Scottish-Bengali like Mukherjee himself, who grew up in Orissa, the references to local folklore and customs was too close for me (and I loved it)!

Third, every DI has a darker side; and Wyndham is no exception. As he battles wuth the trauma of his past, his need for love, and his addiction, many shades of his character are revealed. He reminds me of Perez from the Shetland series, and I really like his character. Finally, the cast is varied and interesting. There are Brits, princes, kings and eunuchs – and all of them have a very specific part to play in this novel to uncover the plot behind the Sambalpori prince’s murder. A fine book, a very enjoyable read.

A Life Apart … a review

I had really enjoyed reading Neel Mukherjee’s The Lives of Others and so I turned to this book. I have been a long-time subscriber of my library’s digital subscription, but it had been years since I used it. And so, this book broke that chain.

A Life Apart is the story of a young Bengali man Ritwik, who travels from Calcutta to England to study at Oxford University. Ritwik is from a humble background, and this is the 60s, so the chasm between his life in India and life in England is huge. A parallel storyline is one set in early 1900s, that of Miss Gilby, who’s an Englishwoman in British Calcutta. Ritwik is writing her story, so she’s actually a book within a book, which was very interesting. Mukherjee has picked up Miss Gilby from a small character in a Tagore novel, and drawn it out through Ritwik’s pen.

This is definitely a debut novel. It doesn’t have the smoothness of writing of Mukherjee’s later novel, or the tautness of structure. However, it is an enduring debut, with character-driven storytelling. Perhaps this would be very impressive if this is the first of his books you read. I enjoyed the complexities of Ritwik’s life, his strugges with his identity and Miss Gilby’s adventures. A fine read.

Smoke & Ashes … a review

In 2018, I saw Abir Mukherjee speak on a panel at the EdBookFest. As a Scottish-Bengali myself, I remember making a mental note to read his stuff. And I finally got round to it. This novel is the 3rd in the Wyndham series, but they can all be read as standalone books.

I thoroughly enjoyed this read. Set in 1920s Calcutta, this novel follows the sleuthing of Sam Wyndham, an officer of the Empire and his sidekick ‘Surrender-not’ Banerjee. While Wyndham battles an opium addiction, he gets embroiled in serial murders of a pattern. As India is poised on the brink of the Swadeshi movement, Wyndham and Banerjee must navigate political sensitivity and the machinations of the Raj to determine who the killer is.

The book is well researched to the point that a number of interesting plotpoints are woven into the story. There’s the opium trade, Subhash Chandra Bose’s rise in politics, the Christmas Day plot against the British – all of these make an appearance. But using these as hooks rather than the main basis of the story means that this is an easy read, perfect for the summer. The balance of detective thriller and historical fiction had me devouring this book in a matter of 2-3 days. I loved the interactions between the two protagonists that surpass cultural barriers, and also the description of the prime city of the Raj.

I will be reading the rest of the books in the series for sure (book 4 came out late last year). I can definitely say Mukherjee must have been wasted as an accountant because he’s clearly a crime writer. Highly recommend!

Yellow Crocus … a review

I picked up this book coincidentally at the same time as the BLM protests kicked off worldwide. Just as well, it added to my quest of trying to understand the black experience more deeply. This book is about the bond between a white girl, and her black nanny. Being brought up in a privileged land and slave-owning family in 1800s Virginia, Lisbeth is unduly attached to her nurse Mattie.

The family of slaves lives on their estate and so Lisbeth has the opportunity to interact with them quite closely. Over time the girl begins to see that these people are not so different to her after all. And they have the same hopes, dreams, fears and aspirations for themselves and their family. What I thought interesting was that the author herself is white, but she does portray the life of black slaves very well. Perhaps this is because she is part of a non-visible minority as well. Through her own personal experiences, she can channel the discrimination faced regularly by those perceived by the majority as ‘the other.’

As Lisbeth approaches her late teens and is encouraged to make herself attractive to a potential suitor, her own moral compass comes in the way of her decision. What will Lisbeth do? Will Mattie ever find the freedom she seeks for her family? What will happen a result of the Abolishionist movement? A fine book, not too hard going, and a toe-dipping exercise into understanding the contibution of slaves to the building of the so-called greatest nation in the world.

5 Books about the Black Experience

As I have said before, I find literature, particularly fiction, the most natural way of understanding the human experience. A number of people have reached out to me for suggestions on reading black authors, black books – so here’s a little pile that will take you comfortably through summer. This is in no particular order.

1. Gone With the Wind

A timeless classic, this book lays bare truly and honestly, the black peoples’ contribution to building the USA. There are many ways of approaching this book and picking apart its depiction of slavery. But I think it is a seminal read to see the relationships of slave owners and their slaves, the extent of reach civil war, and the motivations of people on both sides. It also shows how changing laws is the beginning of change, not the end. I would say if you can’t be bothered, watch the movie, but at 4.5 hrs runtime that’s no mean feat either!

 

2. The Color Purple

I had to read this novel for my degree, and that certainly took some pleasure out of it for me. But regardless, this Pulitzer prize winning book is fine literature. What is particularly devastating about this book is the amount of abuse it doesn’t shy away from depicting. A pregnant black woman is probably bottom of this world’s foodchain in some ways, and even if you ignore the colour of her skin, she gets trampled upon for her gender. This book made me come to terms with the fact that I will never truly grok the experience, and made me uniquely aware of my privilege.

3. Praise Song for the Butterflies

This is a shorter book, almost a novella, and what a fantastic book. This is a fictional story based on real life inspirations. If you have been feeling overwhelmed by the protests and would like to start easy, this would be your best best. The author’s style is lighter on the psyche, although continuing to deal with the hefty weight of its content. A young protagonist always provides some sense of hope, and eventual redemption.

 

4. The Secret Life of Bees

I am always surprised that this book is not better known. Set in Carolina, this is the story of a white girl, her black nanny, and their combined fight against the world. This book is more centered around interpersonal relationships than the wider experience. This makes it enlightening, because the author sees the differences in race through the eyes of the protagonist. This book does have a happy ending, so perhaps one for these tough times!

 

5. The Bluest Eye

This book depressed me when I read it. It genuinely brought me down because of the utter helplessness of its characters. I think it also comes closest to the ‘Indian – experience’, of young girls and women wishing for fairer skins. This book is the only thing you need to read to understand why Toni Morrison won the Nobel and why the Obama couple regard her so highly. Read at your own peril, it’s gut-wrenching.

 

Bonus:

I like reading topical books. And so I have borrowed ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’. I didn’t include it on the list because it is autobiographical. But A recommended it highly when he read it a few years ago and so I am sure I will enjoy it.

Remember to keep educating yourselves, and support black authors where you can.

Wolf Hall … a review

Hilary Mantel’s last book in this trilogy is out this year.  And this book was given to me as a present and been on my TBR for a while. I thought I would use the lockdown to indulge in some high-brow reading. But what can I say – this Man Booker winning novelist is not for me.

The writing is absolutely rubbish. The characters – and there are about 20 who are all called Thomas – are all over the place. The start of the book is incoherent and did not draw me in. But of course, I persevered because this is such a famous historical book. I was not going to give up until I had read half of the book. Alas, it was a waste of my time. I have very little good to say about this book, as you can probably tell by now.

Have you read it? Let me know if you enjoyed it and what about it did you enjoy? If you haven’t read it – I would suggest you steer clear.