Rebecca – Hauntingly Beautiful

“Last night I Dreamt I went to Manderley again”

Rebecca is a classic that belongs to its own genre, a piece of artistry that will always remain dear to the literary community. The novel still attracts a tremendous fanfare, over 80 years after its release. But it really didn’t begin all too well for the author; she had tossed 15,000 words of her first draft into the wastepaper basket, terming it as a literary miscarriage.

And then it all came together again to emerge as one of the finest literary masterpieces that even went on to break some conventional storytelling rules. It is the only book, or one of the few, wherein the protagonist plays a commanding role – from her grave (nah, it’s much more than a haunted story).

Daphne De Maurier’s narrator is a young unnamed girl, who meets the dashing Maxim De Winter, the owner of the sprawling Manderley. The girl surely has the fruits of her youth and a tinge of innocence. She is romantic and dreamy, but little did she expect her wild hopes to crash at her dreamy new home. She was deceived, her existence marred by a presence of the invisible. It is her vulnerability, her rawness, that gets exploited in the haunted spaces of Manderley. She was being tossed and turned around in what she thought would be her haven.

The late Rebecca, Manderley’s first bride, was a woman full of life and adventure. She created the house, transforming its dull and mundane existence. To the public eye, she was an epitome of perfection and splendid beauty.

Manderley, fashioned after Menabilly, where du Maurier lived for decades — had a dominant presence among the other characters, a man, two women and the formidable housekeeper, Mrs Danvers. – Alfred Hitchcock, Director of the Movie Rebecca

It is a book that is coated with a unique charm and innocence at the beginning, but you know what’s coming as a reader. It talks of a yearning towards that past, of a woman who was haunted by a memory that wasn’t hers. 

It has an intrigue and suspense that only the best of books can provide. There was an eerie sense of unease that pervaded this novel. Despite being nearly a century old, Rebecca continues to haunt readers and movie-goers alike. It’s an experience that will remain in the darker recesses of your mind.

There are many ways to read the original, One way is to accept it as a “convention-ridden love story, in which the good woman triumphs over the bad by winning a man’s love”; another way is to see its imaginative links, with Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre for example, and its “mythic resonance and psychological truth.” – Sally Beuman, English Journalist and Writer

The Hobbit- Good vs Evil in the Misty Mountains

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort

The Hobbit is one of the most enchanting reads of the English language. The tale of getting back the long-forgotten gold from the misty mountains cold, of a Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, whose sabbatical was one day interrupted with a riveting adventure.

Much of Tolkien’s works, including the Hobbit, is inspired by the Catholic faith, and follows the pattern of good vs evil. First introduced orally to Tolkien’s children as a story, Tolkien’s world – the misty mountains of Hobbits and Dwarves, orcs and goblins, hidden treasures and fairy tales, dragons and monstrous spiders, is alluring and magical. I’m not sure if the Lord of the Rings does justice to this epic prequel (opinions vary), but this is a book that has created its own identity in fantasy literature while charting a pathway for many others.  

The Hobbit is quite unlike your typical superhero. He looks mean and underwhelming, and too frightened to seem like a warrior, but underestimate him at your own peril.

The Hobbit and the dwarves journeyed through treacherous terrains, with mighty enemies to counter. En route to the mountain, they were exposed to the most unpleasant surprises and battles for which they were not prepared for. The enemy isn’t mean by any accounts. In his own words, – ‘My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death’. However, fortune always favored them, as they were salvaged from near-death situations. Yes, victory always comes searching to the good.

The book (and I think Lord of the Rings does too) testifies that the mind of man begins to lose sanity when it thirst for something. It is a true fairy tale that will have its name etched as one of the most joyous reads ever, a tale that would just refuse to die, one that is incredibly hard to emulate by anyone other than Tolkien himself. 

Animal Farm – George Orwell

“Beasts of England, beasts of Ireland Beasts of every land and clime Hearken to my joyful Tidings Of the golden future time“

George Orwell’s political works are staggering in context, and bizarrely accurate. His work Animal Farm was supposedly an allegorical parody of Stalinistic Russia (drawn from the author’s own illustrative experiences), but could refer to any authoritative governmental regime of today. 

Lyrical in style, the book masterfully tells a tale of the rise and fall of a regime governed by animals. It beautifully describes the onset of a rebellion; a rebellion by the animal victims to have a kingdom of their own, a rebellion against selfish and irresponsible masters which has significant political proportions. 

The book charts its course by describing Manor Farm, which belonged to Mr Jones and his men; it did until the animals arrived at other plans. And so the humans, including Mr Jones, were chased out of the farm, resulting in the birth of Animal Farm –  a Farm to be reaped and ruled by the self-sufficient animals. 

It all started on a good note for the animal kingdom, but things started to go downhill. Greed and selfishness corrupted some of its elite –  opening doors to general destruction but not without some gains, earned malevolently by power-grabbing elites. 

It was, as Orwell intended it to be, a breathtaking take on how politicians conduct their affairs with selfish desires, on the disguise of general welfare. Evocative as they may be with their oration, it throws light on their thirst for self-prosperity at the cost of the powerless general populous. It is an intriguing political saga that holds good for generations past, present, and future and so deftly portrays the dark side of power and freedom won with the support of the exploited masses. 

The Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri

Writing short stories is blatantly more difficult than a novel, and writing reviews for the same is no different. It takes remarkable talent to develop touching plots in a mere two pages and make an impression on the ever-expectant reader. Jhumpa Lahiri falls among the list of very few writers who could make a short story poignant.

The author, who is well aware of her Bengali roots, pens fictional tales of Bengali immigrants living abroad. Her Pultizer Prize winning work takes a detour through their little joys and sorrows and their responses to it, their non-glamorous lives, their tender affections. It deals with the simple, and at times innocent aspects of our complicated lives in its different phases. She had so vividly sketched the characters, the likes of which may not be memorable (facts of life isn’t always) – characters like these do exist, in abundance. It has no over-the-counter romances, flashy tales or unrealistic depictions. It dwells on the little moments of life that we hardly care to notice. The stories here leave a chord but doesn’t necessarily make you happy.

The Kite Runner – a Soul-Stirring Read

“For you, a thousand times over.”

Some books are a Symphony to the lips, while some are to the soul. The Kite Runner undoubtedly belongs to the latter. This is the first ever time I wished to restart a book after finishing only 3/4th of it, so that I could I could recapture its beauty. It belongs to an entirely different league that other works of fiction could do well to emulate. The words weave magic even while the events border on absurdity. It is one of the poignant tales of Brotherhood you’ll ever get to read.

The Kite Runner is a story of two friends in Kabul, and their days of togetherness and separation amidst the vagaries of life. Life managed to tear them apart for a while, but eternal separation was not their fate; not even death managed to achieve that feat. In the author’s own profound words, “there was a brotherhood between people who had fed from the same breast, a kinship that not even time could break.”

The book testifies the fact that, sometimes the love, warmth and the need of a person in your life is only felt in the instance of a separation. Sad, but true! And these circumstances always involve the undeserved display of loyalty by one over the other, where the latter fail to recognize or reciprocate it. However, our most delicate of emotions rarely gives up, as it eventually goes on to win over, and even change the latter.

This remarkable piece of Literature doesn’t come with a prescribed code, nor does it portray a world that is unrealistically glamorous and artificial. It rather dwells on the very essence of the human spirit, and the varying emotions that decorate it.

Just William

Fiction requires imagination, but humour needs more than just that. Just William, by Richmal Crompton, is a series of short stories based on a cranky little boy named William who could drive you nuts, albeit not on purpose and at times with good intentions. The book has the potential to grab the attention of kids and avid readers who wouldn’t mind taking a detour to their childhood.

Try silencing a guy like William, and the little kid will bewilder you. Perhaps it is deserved, in a world where craziness is a misnomer, and where people with a sense of quirkiness is pounced upon by the so-called matured elite.

The boy is, as you can imagine, messy in appearance. He sometimes succeeds in pleasing people by his crazy demeanour, and sometimes not despite the best of his efforts; he follows his own rules for conduct and grammar; explanations to him go void; and here’s a warning – if you wish to entrust any responsibilities to him, do so at your own peril. He has his share of moments too where he attracted love and tenderness, despite being on the receiving end of severe and never-ending chastisement. It’s not all gloom for people of such kind. There’s no contesting that William needs some expert handling, but he is endowed with aspects to be cherished, and all you need to do is to have a closer look.

The book is supposedly for children. I’m betting that your kid will love this (be careful or he’ll end up emulating it), but classics like this one, the Harry Potter series, Cinderella, the Little Match Girl, and a few more that I haven’t experienced or fail to recollect at this moment, are meant for people of all ages.