Why I don’t and wont write about any “serious” stuff here:

This is no book review . Just some answers. My friends really liked my decision to create a blog, but not necessarily the blog (“thank god, it is at least better than those bunch of psychos, you called friends at different points of time” (?)- according to my best buddy)
So here you go.
“Graphic-novel is an oxymoron kiddo, call them comics. God I thought u were intellectual”,
-Yes I call them graphic novels. Try reading “Maus”, that would shut you up for good.Regarding the second question, no am no intellectual. I just have some kurtas. Lolz.
“You silly girl, why don’t you write about serious things, you were discussing about ethnic cleansing and ended up writing about a thriller”
-I write and analyze so many serious things day long (capitalism, dollar mechanism, Indian export potential, WTO, list goes on and on), so I would write about silly things only for my blog. And that also in this lousy manner. Between I love the way you write dude, why don’t you teach me a thing or two? (the intended “monkey” would understand).
Its very sweet of you people that you reserved this telling-offs for gtalk, ym or phone, but I wont mind if you post also. Love you all. God bless you.

Odessa File

I heard a bad news today morning, real bad news, and was depressed and tired at the end of the day. So no study, no work even no novels……am in a mood to sulk. Today, something about a book I have read some two years back. It is “Odessa File”. My favorite Forsyth book, I know it is bit weird choice. People love the jackal, or at least Avenger, but am obsessed with this part holocaust part typical Forsyth type man hunt saga. Ethnic cleansing, according to me is an everlasting symbol of the beast within us. Holocaust is no doubt one of the darkest chapters of humanity, and this book depicts that with excellence. It is fast, thrilling and complex. All starts with a suicide of an elderly German Jew, almost a non entity, and thus begins the whirlwind journey which involves a Mafia-like organization called Odessa, a real-life fugitive known as the "Butcher of Riga", a young German journalist who wants justice for the historically tormented soul, a brilliant, ruthless plot to reestablish the worldwide power of SS mass murderers and to carry out Hitler's chilling "Final Solution." The novel was never burdened with all the details and history unlike Mr. Brown’s latest disaster. And till date it remains my favorite thriller.

" The more you think about illusions, the more they’ll swell up and take on the form. And no longer be an illusion"

Last night while I was waiting for my “chicken paratha” (yup we get such thing in my campus), to get packed I picked up ‘After the quake’ by Haruki Murakami in the next door bookshop. My earlier tryst with the writer was through ‘Kafka on the shore’. The book was magical, where magical realism, metaphor and allegory went hand in hand. A truly unputdownable book according to me. The book narrates two interrelated but distinct stories. The odd chapters depict Kafka a 15 year old in a quest and the even ones tell us about Nakata, a ‘cat finder’. I thought about “Durbin” time and again while reading it though I don’t know why. I strongly feel it is a must read, a bit on the heavier side, but you won’t regret it. It may be the magical surrealism that this book made me remember, a ‘once upon a time friend’, who suggested it and some idiotic incidents with fondness, which is otherwise pretty unlikely. Last but not the least Mr. Anonymous you should not miss this at any cost. This is absolutely your type of book.

WATCHMEN, 4 Down, 8 more to Go, started Foucault's Pendulum

Am through the first 4 issues of Watchmen, and ya am loving it. Its bit dark, violent bit explicit at times, but then that’s the point of it I guess. Who thought super heroes had such gray shades (its almost dark). Ever heard of retired superheroes bithching about each other? Lolz.. Its difficult to decide who is right and who is wrong there. But ya am not gonna tell anything more, it is not being called one of the best graphic novels ever for nothing. You have to read it to know. But regarding a minor let-down, at times it is too dark to read, at a stretch. So I guess it would take more time than expected to finish the series.

In the mean time I was reading Focault’s Pendulum, a gift from my best friend. Started it in an early morning flight from Kolkata but quickly realized this requires more attention and more dedication.

‘ Foucault's Pendulum (original title: Il pendolo di Foucault) is novel a by Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco. It was first published in 1988; the translation into English by William Weaver appeared a year later. Foucault's Pendulum is divided into ten segments represented by the ten Sefiroth. The novel is full of esoteric references to the Kabbalah, alchemy and conspiracy theory, so many that critic and novelist Anthony Burgess suggested that it needed an index. The title of the book refers to an actual pendulum designed by the French physicist Léon Foucault to demonstrate the rotation of the earth, which has symbolic significance within the novel.’ (credit goes to Wiki , as am at page 20 only, too early to comment about a so called ‘masterpiece’).

“When the Light of the Endless was drawn in the form of a straight line in the Void... it was not drawn and extended immediately downwards, indeed it extended slowly — that is to say, at first the Line of Light began to extend and at the very start of its extension in the secret of the Line it was drawn and shaped into a wheel, perfectly circular all around.”- that’s the starting point friends, so you understand it is a real long term project, in between can u suggest something light for a bed time reading?The first quotation was in Hebrew, got the translation from net, even got to know that its Hebrew from Google only, am such ignorant soul.

(once again credit for the images go to Google image and respective websites, am too lazy to scan my own copy. My book cover looks different and better, didn’t get an image of that)