Lingering Tide and other stories by Latha Vishwanathan

Lingering Tide and other stories by Latha Vishwanathan is a collection of 12 poignant short stories. I am not a big fan of short stories. In fact, I can count on my fingers the number of short story books I have read. The good thing about short stories is that they are short and at times you want to read something short, they come in handy. For that fact, I read short stories real slow, one story at a time.

What the blurb says about the book:

"Fiction. These poignant short stories depict the lives of immigrants through the theme of family adjustments, loss, setting afresh in a new place. Set in suburban Toronto, New Jersey, Texas and India, they draw out the conflicts in three generations of Indians whose lives interconnect even as they straddle the old and the new. What we sense is both the anguish of loss and the thrill of discovery. Viswanathan's quiet prose imparts powerful emotions that ring true and her rendering of cultural clash is truly skilful and nuanced. The depiction of her characters’ interior lives is so full and vital that they breathe and walk off the page. The reader is drawn in and completely absorbed into her world of transitions."

All the stories in the collection have a mystic element to it. They have a lingering feeling, a thoughtfulness and sometimes even a sense of incompleteness. After I read one, I just kept thinking about it. I didn't like all of them or may be I should say, I couldn't connect with all of them. My eyes moistened as I read 'Brittle'. It is a tragic, heart wrenching story that will leave a lump in your throat. I liked Attar, Eclipse and A Couple of Rouges among others. All of them had a different story to tell and the characters were well etched and vivid. I found 'Cool Wedding' sort of funny. It is in the form of a letter which a lady living in the US writes to her friend ranting about her life in the foreign land. It was interesting to see things from the point of the protagonist.

 I found the last 3 stories least appealing. What I find difficult understanding is why the author tries to portray characters who have left their homeland to settle in foreign shore in gloom and doom. Why there is always a feeling of wrong doing on their part?
Some of these stories will put you in self contemplation mode, some you might just forget. I give it a balanced 3/5.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Latha Viswanathan has worked as a journalist, copywriter, editor and teacher in India, London, Manila, Montreal, Toronto and the United States. These stories have appeared in major American literary magazines and won awards. Her work received a grant from the Texas Commission of the Arts in Fiction, was published in Best New Stories from the South and broadcast on National Public Radio. She currently lives and writes in Houston.

I received a free eBook from TSAR publishers for review.

Linking it to the South Asian Challenge

Thank you for stopping by! Cheers!

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I had bought this book from the library the day I spotted it on the shelves. Yet, it had been sitting on my shelves for quite a time before I picked up to read. Why? I was wary. It has happened quite many times that a book that has been winning rave reviews failed to make a strong impact on me. I have had the feeling of being on the wrong side so many times that I was darn skeptic to read it. But, I am proved so wrong. I really loved the book and believe all the hype around this book is actually worth it.

The book has a strong and heavy storyline. It is about the rampant racial discrimination that was prevalent in the United States in early and mid nineties between the coloured and the white people. Despite the strong subject line, the story has been treated with great care. It is brave, warm and often witty. As a reader, not for a single moment I felt bogged down by the heavy subject of the book. It is not a sad book, but a heart warming one with a lot of hope, faith and love.

The book has very strong female characters, white and coloured. There is 22 years old Miss Skeeter, who has just returned home with a degree. Her mother is more interested in her marriage rather than her career. But, Miss Skeeter is restless, because her beloved coloured maid who had lovingly raised her, has disappeared. There are questions in Miss Skeeter's mind that no one wants to answer. There is Aibileen, a black maid who works for Miss Skeeter's friend - Miss Leefolt. She is raising her seventeenth white child. But, something has shifted in her heart since the death of her own only son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. And then there is Minny, Aibileen's best friend. She can cook like nobody's business but she can't mind her tongue. This puts her into a lot of trouble with her employers and she can't stick to a job for long.

Seemingly as different as can be, these women will come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk.

The story is set in Jackson, Mississippi during the time when the civil right movement in United States was at its peek. That was the time when Martin Luther King Jr went up a podium in Washington DC and said 'I have a dream'. Things have changed a lot ever since and the world has come a long way. That is evident from the fact that Barack Obama is the present President of the United States of America.

This book is about the lines which human created based on colour and how people who nurtured a dream, set out to voice their opinion and overstep the man-made lines. It is about ordinary people who can be courageous in their own way. It is interesting to know that the writer drew inspiration from her own experience for writing this book, even though the book is largely a fictional account. I took some time to get used to the Afro American slang that is used generously in the book. It surely works for the story.

I really liked the quote  by Howell Raines, which the author includes in her personal excerpt at the end of the book and I believe these words sums up the feeling behind the novel in a concise way.

"There is no trickier subject for a writer from the South than that of affection between a black and a white one in the unequal world of segregation. For the dishonesty upon which a society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism."

Although, I do not fall in either of the sides as far as colour is concerned, nor I have been through any incidents of racial discrimination, I can connect to the issue in a whole different way. I have seen discrimination on the basis of caste and creed in my own country and it is in many ways similar to the issue in context in the novel. It makes me realize that the things I take for granted today were not the same years back. It takes courage on the part of ordinary people who want to change things to step out of their comfort zone, voice their opinion, make an impact and initiate the change.

Don't miss this one, it is not a literary piece but a heart warming tale that can tug the chords of your heart. Highly recommended.

Thank you for stopping by. Cheers

Yes I know I disappeared again

Yes, I know I disappeared again. And this time it has been longer. I was sick again and this time I was down with chicken pox. Yeah, you heard me right, of all things - chicken pox. Many would say, it is something children get. Well, yes. But, I never had it as a child. So, I guess I wasn't immune and was an easy prey to it this time.

Before you ask, let me tell you, I am far better now. Motivated enough to update this blog. The blisters were not very wide spread. So, I guess I was down with a milder one. But the symptoms were annoying - fever, sore throat, back ache, lethargy and the constant desire to itch.The blister are drying up now and hopefully in a day or two, will scab off. I have been on a very bland diet for the past 10 days and have to be so for a couple of more days (so, I have been advised). A dear friend took care of cooking things for me all these days. I can't thank her enough for all the help and concern. I am grateful to God for blessing me with such good friends.

So, you can guess there hasn't been much cooking and clicking of late. Although, I have a number of drafts for recipe posts, I don't feeling like posting them. I will however post a few, if I am not cooking anything new for a few days.

Past 10 days I have rested like I have not in years. No household chores, no TV, no cooking. Only long distance calls and unlimited sleeping and a little reading when ever I felt like. I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. So, expect the reviews for these book soon. I have 3 other books that I am reading now Lingering Tide and other stories by Latha Vishwanathan, Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner and The Little Shadows by Marina Endicott.


Among other updates, I have been on twitter (@JyotiBabel) for sometimes now. Although, I am not much of a tweeter myself, I love to check what the world is tweeting about. Recently, I found from twitter that Instagram App for Android is out. I have seen many people sharing pictures through this app and so I signed up on Instagram instantly (as I recently got myself an Android phone). Instagram is a fun way of sharing pictures. So, if you have an iPhone or an android phone and love taking pictures, Instagram is for you. If you are already there then do check out my profile at JyotiBabel. After Pinterest(jbpages), Instagram is the thing I am hooked to.

Hopefully, this space will be active with a few book reviews for the time being. Stay tuned.

Thank you for stopping by. Cheers!

Mint Ginger Lemonade

I have a love and hate relationship with Irish summers. Irish summers for the good part are not sunny but rainy, and the rain is not torrential but dripping and drizzling all the time. That is the part I hate. When it sunny the crowd throngs to the parks to bask in the sun and suddenly and unexpectedly, it will rain and everyone will run for a make shift shelter or open their umbrellas. You can't do without an umbrella in your bag in this country. The month of March had been great weather wise, spring felt like real summer but April has been rather cool and rainy. But, I don't really look at the weather when I want to indulge in something cold. I can have an ice cream with a blanket around me and sip a cool drink even though the weather is not ideal for it. And that is exactly what I am doing now.

For Blog Hop Wednesdays, my partner is Vidya who blogs at kurryleaves and I chose this cool drink to try out from her blog.

 

Mint Ginger Lemonade

Ingredients 

Juice of 1 lemon, about 3-4 tbsp

15-20 mint leaves

1 inch peice of ginger

400 ml chilled water

Ice cubes as needed

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 tsp black salt

Process:

1. Add 60 ml water, mint leaves, lemon juice, sugar and salt and whiz it in a blender to a fine puree. Sieve to get the juice and discard the waste.

2. Divide the juice in2-3 glasses equally. Add ice cubes and top it up with rest of the water and stir. Serve chilled.

 

Check what other blog hoppers are up with here.

Thank you for stopping by. Cheers!

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Sometimes I feel I am on the wrong side of the line when a book that has won accolades from a huge number of readers, fails to make a significant impact on me.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak falls in that category for me. To tell you what the book is all about, I am quoting the blurb:

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s ground-breaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meagre existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbours during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.
This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

 I have not read a lot of Holocaust fiction. In fact, I had read my first on it just last year. The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne had the kind of impact on me, a holocaust book should have. I think what worked there was the innocence of the narrator, how he was oblivious of the things happening around him. Another one on the subject, Beatrice and Virgil byYann Martel was the most bizarre book I have ever read. The author tried an innovative approach, but for me it failed completely to convey the message. The Book Thief falls in between these two books. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it. It was just another book that will fade from my memory as time passes.

Holocaust is one of the most horrendous periods in human history and to read about it is not a joyful experience.  Stories about it should wreck and wrench the reader’s heart (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne did exactly that). This book didn’t live up in that aspect. I like the idea of Death being the narrator and the Holocaust being the busiest period for him. But, somehow the story didn’t hold together as one. It kept me engrossed till half the way through the book and then it faltered. I found it a bit monotonous and bland. Not that I expect Holocaust fiction to be spiced up, but I felt it just went on for the sake of it. Even if I skipped a few pages, it didn’t affect the flow of the story. 

It summed up to this - Even Death was sorry to see the state of Jews in the Holocaust period, how could humans (who have a heart and a soul) inflict such atrocities on their fellow beings and be oblivious to their sufferings.

Having said all this, there were some things about the book that made me kept reading. The observations of the narrator - Death on the human race were often profound and even witty. Here are some:

“I am haunted by humans.”

“Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.”

“My heart is so tired”

“A small fact:
You are going to die....does this worry you?”

“People observe the colors of a day only at its beginnings and ends, but to me it's quite clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations with each passing moment. A single hour can consist of thousands of different colors. Waxy yellows, cloud-spot blues. Murky darkness. In my line of work, I make it a point to notice them.”

“I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skills is their capacity to escalate.”

“I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I ever simply estimate it.”

I hate writing a bad review. But, this is not one. I just can't pin point at any thing in particular, as to why I didn't enjoy reading this book as most people did, or as much I hoped I would. I would give it a generous 3/5.