The Fountainhead.

I am going to condemn the book, and before you dismiss that as proof of Ayn Rand's theories, hear me out!

I rather liked the book when I first read it. But back then, I was young, and naive. Over the years, I have come to think of objectivism as somewhat akin to teenage philosophy. If you have lived for a while, it becomes clear that The World According to Rand is quite nonexistent. Rather than proving her theories wrong, I would like to point out here the literary failings of all her novels. The trouble with her stories (to me at least) is that all of them follow the same theme. They all have the same point to make, and it gets predictable after a book or two. Add to this, the fact that most of the stories seem contrived around the philosophy instead of the philosophy being discussed in the natural course of the story makes the storyline a lot less appealing. The characters in most of her novels are again repetitive as well as predictable to the point that any one of them might have said any of the dialogues in any of the book. I find no real distinguishing character traits in any of the characters.

Would I recommend it? I would say, if you have never tried even one book of Ayn Rand's, then go ahead, try it. A lot of people who read it for the first time like it. However, if you have read this author already, dont waste your time unless you thoroughly enjoyed the first few versions that you read.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

The hardest part for me while reading this book was understanding why the book was so popular. I possibly found it so tiresome because I tried to read all the books at one stretch. I found the first few interesting enough to complete. Somewhere in between though, I completely lost interest, and gave up. This book however did help me once; A treasure hunt that I participated in had a clue that said : " The answer to life, the universe and everything". Having been totally confused with the answer while reading the book, I had no trouble at all recalling it. The only purpose the book serves, as far as I am concered, is to provide people who profess to enjoy science fiction with yet another set of series to do their analysis on... It is amusing how sometimes people find meanings in certain books that the author never intended.

Case in point : I once went to a book reading session by Upamanyu Chatterjee (the author of English, August .I shall give a review on that one soon... ). I managed to fish out a detailed description of what happened there in one of my notebooks :

"
I listened to a short story reading by Upamanyu Chatterjee.
The story was good, but poor chatterjee proved to be interesting only in parts. He seems to understand that fact himself, and apparently that is why he spared us the agony of having to sit through a discourse on his life. But the story reading only got animated in those parts where he thought his listeners were going into a thoroughly bored sleep.

The most interesting part of the whole exercise was the Q&A session. Various questions on his life, writing, and experiences were asked, and he thankfully seemed not to have ready made answers for them. The best however was this one:

There was a lady in the audience who caught my attention about as soon as I had walked into that hall, she was wearing my fav. color, but everything else about her was too loud. Too much make up, the sari revealed too much of her contours, and her hair was dyed to a shade that looked particularly ridiculous on her plump figure and oldish figure. That she had spent at least an hour dressing up was obvious, but her manner seemed to suggest that she wasnt in the least bothered about the way she looked. Perhaps that is why, I got this "phony" feeling from her...

Anyway, during the question and answer session she asked " I remember a murder scence from the book ----- . you must have chosen the setting carefully, in the temple..."

Poor Mr. chatterjee couldnt remember which part of the book she was talking about! He rubbed his temples helplessly, and then waved his hands in apparent despair and said " I am sorry, I dont think I remember this part"...

And the lady says " It was a very brave thing to do"..

And pat comes the reply : "Oh, really??"

I laughed hard because the comment from the author seemed to suggest that he was bewildered. Then he went on to explain that most of the time people seemed to interpret different meanings from the books he had writtern. First, Agastya sen was all about depicting the two worlds in India. But ppl thought is was damn funny and inspiring and so on.

Some ppl seem to enjoy complicating matters. Instead of just enjoying the story by reading it, they look into hidden meanings, hidden metaphors and so on which the author possibly never intended. And they then call the author a mastero, much to his astonishment....."

In any case, coming back to the Hitchhikers guide, the one thing I must say in its favor is that it is very imaginative. It is amusing at times, and tiresome and downright boring at other times. And my biggest complaint about the whole set of books was that the story was not compelling enough for me to sit and read it at a stretch. I actually had to take a lot of breaks while reading it, because I tended to fall asleep in between.. and that is not something I usually do.

The Foundation Series.

Very recently, I completed all of them. Right from Forward the Foundation to Robots and Empire (the merged Foundation series and the robot series). I loved each one. My only regret is that I could not find and read them in order. I might read them again, just so that I can read them in order, once more :)

This is pure unadulterated science fiction, and it got me hooked for the first time when I was in class 8. Since then, I have been searching for and finding each of the books in the series. I am still hooked, I still cannot put one of these books down. Here is a test to decide whether or not to waste time on it : If you like the first book you read out of these, you will like all of them. If you dont, you probably wont like any of them.

Bloomberg by Bloomberg.

This is a biography by the man who made the company. I found it to be greatly interesting, despite knowing zilch about the financial industry. I actually went and read up some of the terms so that I would understand what Bloomberg was taking about.

So what did I like most? The fact that Mr. Bloomberg comes to office before everyone else and stays until everyone has left. I like that kind of dedication. And I like that he found a job that made him do it whole heartedly. I like working like that, and I tried to do it at the only job that I have had so far. I didnt enjoy the job much, but since I have only had that experience once, I keep hoping that I would come across something that would make me work like this and enjoy it too. I guess Mr. Bloomberg made me look forward to having another job and working like that again!

The Tipping Point

Short summary :

A book on how epidemics spread, and how something that turns into an overnight phenomena is also a kind of epidemic. They are usually the spread because these ideas reach the right kind of people, and the ideas have something special about them. The three types of people who must be involved to spread the ideas are mavens (people who know a lot of things about a specialised thing) , connectors ( people who can spread an idea to other people) and Salesmen ( people who sort of make others imitate them. These guys have charisma) The connectors help to spread the idea, mavens assure you that you are doing the right thing, and the salesmen ensure that the masses start following whatever the mavens have discovered and the connectors have spread word about.

There are also certain laws to be considered in the spread of an epidemic ;

The law of the few : everyone can be connected to another with a few people ( 6 hops thing). Also, we cannot logically invest time in more than about 150 people altogether. If we try to invest time in more numbers than these, we start feeling stretched, and we wont be able to hold up. So the number of best friends / family etc that you are really connected to is limited.

The stickiness factor : The kind of idea that you are trying to spread is very important. IT must have a certain amount of stickiness to it, or it wont spread. Read, not too many ppl will be interested in it.

The power of context : Even if the idea is right, unless the surrounding conditions are right, the idea will not spread. Plus, the kind of context that you are put in, as a human matters a lot. If you are in a rat hole, you will behave like a rat.

Humans are influenced a lot more by what others do than we think we are. We get influenced by what others tell, think, do and so on. Each of the actions that they do eventually determine the kind of decisions we make with regard to epidemics. (And even otherwise, wrt any kind of situation)

Review :

This book is a great read, with respect to the presentation. Keeps you gripped throughout. However, I am not sure how true the facts and theories presented in the book are. Except for the realness factor, a great read.

The Catcher in the Rye.

Reading this book makes one wonder why in the world it was prescribed as a text book for some schools in the United States. Does the education board want all the students to imbibe the values that seem to characterise the main fella, Holden Caulfield? He comes across as a completely confused and slightly unstable teenager who cannot seem to come to grips with the world around him. He finds all the people around him "phony" and wanders from school to school (actually, he gets kicked out of each of them for poor academic performance), and is unable to accept what is happening to him. There are references in the book to an accident that was to have taken the life of Holden's brother, and it seems reasonable to expect that the untimely death of a sibling had a disturbing effect on the poor boy's psyche. By the end of the book it becomes clear that the boy has been institutionalised.
So what did I not like about the book? It is depressing. The whole world seems to plot against you when you are reading it. If an ordinary writer took up such a theme, we could bear it without too much complain, but if one who has honed his skill to such perfection chooses to make his main character as miserable as in "the catcher in the rye", the effects of the book on an ordinary reader would surely be devastating.
The character is complex, and though he goes and soaks himself in liquor in a bar and flirts with some women there, and though he hires a prostitute for the night, he tires to protect his little sister from the obscenities written on the walls in her school. She is the only person he seems to care about. The book shows him at the height of his innocence an also of perversion.
The name of the book is still a mystery to me. Apparently it has been called that since the boy hears some one sing the song "...in the rye" and mistakenly starts singing " catcher in the rye". It is still unclear why the book was named that.

In short... not recommended, unless you are tough enough not to soak up the mood of a book.

My Name is Red.

The most striking feature of this book is its structure. The story is narrated from the perspective of the different characters that make it up, without any judgement or comment from the part of the author. The dexterity with which details are laid out, without appearing to take sides with any of the characters is amazing. And the result of such a scheme is that the novel is left without a "hero" or a "heroine". They are all treated just as they are, without magnifying or diminishing their importance in any manner. The plot has all the ingredients of a normal paperback, with two murders, a love story, a missing husband, a clandestine wedding as well as an elopement, all of which revolves around the notoriously beautiful Shekure. There is also the villian element added, in the form of Shekure's brother in law. However, the events are related in such a matter of fact manner that they dont seem contrived at all; indeed, they seem plausible.
The book has several "layers", the most basic of them being the miniaturists and the Islamic culture. It explores the relationship between art and religion as espoused by Islam, where art is created not for our enjoyment, but for the sole purpose of exalting allah. Each painting must be given perfection in the way allah perceives it, instead of the way a human being would perceive it. Thus a dog, being a lowly animal, must always be shown smaller than the sultan, who is God's representative on earth. The main plot of the story winds around the deep seated desire of Enishte Effendi to have a western style painting done by his master painters. He thus persuades them to work for them by the night, in secret, at their homes, or with him. But before the completion of the book he is planning, one of his miniaturists start to harbour suspicions about what he is drawing for the Enishte. He goes to one of the other three, and confides his fears in him, only to find that the very man he went to for comfort was planning his murder so that the paintings could be completed, without a murmer from anyone.
Even the Enishte is not able to find out which one his three miniaturists commited the murder, and it falls to Black and Master Osman to find out who committed the crime, given that the motive was to preserve his "style". The answer to this lies in the style of the miniaturists, each of whom consider themselves to be the best since Bihzad. Thus Black and Master Osman together pore over all the depictions they can find and finally find out who made that painting. Meanwhile, poor Enishte is murdered, presumably by the same person, and possibly because the murderer perceived him as the next threat to his style.
At another level, the story explores the realtionship between God and man as perceived by Islam. God, as the supreme creater, is perfect in all his works, and man, being merely one his creations, must never try to achieve the level of perfection that God shows in his creation. Thus each painting must glorify Allah, and it must only bring forth the awe and beauty one feels on looking upon his creations, instead of aspiring to look like the creation itself. Thus paintings are drawn as seen by the eyes of Allah, and not as they really appear, with the Sultan given the maximum importance in any painting, and dogs given the least importance.
The book also gives one an insight into the plights of the miniaturists, as they try to come to terms with the fact that the period of their dominance is now ending, as must all things, and that the paintings for which they dedicated their lives, their sight, their very being, would vanish completely and would be forgotten, never to be remembered again in the time to come. However, their fear of being turned into outcastes who depicted Allah's creations in a sacriligious manner is about as great as their desire to be remembered for their own style, so each of them reconciles to the fate that awaits them and satisfies himself with other pursuits. (One, in gold, another, in his wife, the third in and the fourth one who gives in to neither of these pleasures goes on to commit the murdrers.)
The sense of mystery prevails till the end, and the identity of the murderer is made known only at the end of the book. So we wait through the endless deptictions of masterly paintings created by Bihzad and through the scholarly and erudite arguments of the miniaturists about their style and a hundred other details before finding out who committed the murder.
Some of the passages in the book are particularly moving, like the one where Master Osman blinds himself with the same needle that the great Bihzad used, and also the one where Enishte describes his experience of being murdered. This is the only book I have read in which a narrator describes himself being murdered. (It gives new insight into the act of murder itself!).

Highly recommended .. a great read, though it is tiresome in parts.