Book Review : Exogene
Written By: amodini
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Jun•
06•12
[amazon_link id=”0316128155″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]
[/amazon_link]Title : Exogene
Author : T.C. McCarthy
Genre : War/Sci-fi
Publisher : Hachette
Pages : 401
Source : Publisher/NetGalley ARC
Rating : 4/5
I elected to read this book because I thought it sci-fi. And while there is sci-fi, Exogene reads more like a war novel. It is set in the future where many countries are engaged in war and have started to use genetically modified soldiers to defend the most difficult terrains. The American forces have garrisons of such soldiers – all female and all bred in labs to come to life at age 15 – full-grown and fighting fit. Then they are kept in monastic surroundings and indoctrinated in the ways of war.
“Rejoice, for you are His daughters and ours, a holy Germline, Germline-one-A, and you will bring to Him eternal glory through death and with sacrifice. So sayeth the Modern Combat Manual.”
For these “genetics”, war is life, and killing the enemy is glory; they can perceive nothing else. After their “useful” life is over at age 18, they are shot.
Catherine “Little Murderer” is one such soldier fighting the war in a pack of her sisters. They are called GermLine 1, and are all lead by their “Lily”, Megan – a strong leader and Catherine’s good friend. As the fighting continues, Catherine can feel her “spoiling” begin – she hallucinates, gets jittery and nervous and begins to doubt her purpose in life. Though, in their prime these soldiers have great strength, and can block pain at will, they have been warned about the “spoiling”, a process which can impede their physical capabilities and which precedes the end of their “useful” life.
When Catherine’s unit is taken by surprise and almost destroyed, she and Megan manage to get away and turn awol. Their goal is to reach Thailand, where other genetic soldiers, gone awol like them, have formed a camp of their own, and have relative freedom. The journey is not easy. They must dodge the enemy, and their own army which has sent out drones to find and kill them.
I probably wouldn’t have picked this up had I realized that this was a war novel. But am I glad I did. Yes, it is brutal, and sometimes pedantic in its descriptions, but the descriptions are detailed. The futuristic landscape, much of it irradiated seems to come to life in T. C. McCarthy’s words. There are a lot of details on war maneuvers, “plasma” weapons, “tracer flechettes”, APCs and grenade launchers.
We hear of the story in the first person; Catherine is the narrator. And through her voice, and it is a voice filled with doubt, we glimpse humanity. For all her killer instinct and cold reasoning, Catherine is a heroine we can empathize with. Not having any sense of normalcy besides the normalcy of war, she still begins to doubt the “rightness” of unceasing war, weighing the “good” and the “evil” in her heavily indoctrinated and medicinally dosed mind.
I thought McCarthy’s idea novel, and the book itself (which is the second of “The Subterrene War” series, I find out now) an ode to humanity’s incessant greed and corruption. While on the face of it, this is a war novel, this also probes beneath the surface to raise questions about the relative nature of right and wrong. Well-written, this is an engrossing, thought-provoking read. Recommended.
New Books : Little Night by Luanne Rice
Written By: amodini
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May•
30•12
I look forward to reading and reviewing Little Night by Luanne Rice. It releases June 5th and deals with themes of domestic violence and how it affects the entire family. In winter 2011, Luanne interviewed women whose lives have been touched by abuse. Three women told their stories on camera, including Luanne, who was in an abusive marriage herself. Between now and June 5th, when LITTLE NIGHT is published, Luanne will be posting the videos to her website, starting with Tamara Edwards’ story , which is also here on Youtube :
Book Review : The Invitation
Written By: amodini
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May•
24•12
[amazon_link id=”0393081605″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]
[/amazon_link]Title : The Invitation
Author : Anne Cherian
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Pages : 304
Source : Publisher/Netgalley ARC
Rating : 3.5/5
Vikram (“Vic”) Jha, Lali, Jay and Frances were at UCLA together in the 1970s. Now they live in different cities, and have different lives. Jay and Frances who were a couple then have married, had kids and descended into suburban domesticity. Lali has married Jonathan, a Caucasian man and now has a Harvard-going son Aaron. Vikram, the social bumbler of the four is materially the most successful. Not only has he realized his dream of starting up a computer company, but he has turned it into a profitable business – a business which he would like to bequeath to his son.
Now, many years later, Vic has arranged for a grand party to celebrate his son’s graduation from M.I.T. and has invited, among others, his old friends from UCLA. Jay and Frances who aren’t doing so well career-wise and family-wise are tense about putting up a brave front at the party. Lali is feeling distant to her husband, and at odds with her son who wants to take a break from his education. She too is worried about appearing sure-footed and successful at Vikram’s big celebration. And Vikram is so bent upon having his son join his computer business, that he does not realize that his wife Priya and son Nikhil may not wish the same. All of them come together that evening in their best clothes and most pleasant personas, guarding their struggles, and hugging their weaknesses to themselves.
The author describes the immigrant experience well; the cultural need for good education, wealth and keeping up with the Joneses is typical of desi society. Moreover this celebration functions as a reunion of sorts and, as most people would, the four friends want to look successful and happy to each other – an affirmation of their life’s philosophies. Thus good jobs, luxurious cars, big homes and dutiful children are called for. Each of the four have a part of the great Indian-American dream; the rest, each hopes, will be hidden by a brave facade.
Cherian pulls her characters from different parts and different social stratas of the country (India, I mean). Vikram is a poor farmer’s son from the Hindi belt. Jay is a Hindu from a well-to-do family and has taken his comforts and successes for granted. Frances Dias is a Christian from Goa, and considers herself lucky to have married Jay. Lali Chacko is a Malyalee Christian who has found life with a Jewish man. When the four come together at UCLA it is with baggage of their own, and preset notions of each other’s worlds. Thus while Jay appears suave and polished, Vic has awkward social graces. When Lali lands up in the US with loads of hard-to-launder sarees and salwar-kameezes, Frances must help change her wardrobe to a more comfortable one.
In these different people, one thread is common – they all must play the “immigrant game of one-upmanship”:
Jay called it the social version of cricket. “The conversational ball comes your way,” he had joked after a party they had attended years ago, where one man had bragged about the size of his house, the leather seats in his car, and the tuition at his children’s private school. “You hold out your responsive bat, and then you thwack the show-off ball as hard as you can. If your house is bigger, or your car is a newer model, then you get to run between the wickets, and it’s your score.”
This is almost desi-chick-lit, but heftier. I do like the book; Cherian fleshes out her characters very believably. I have probably in my life met a Jay or a Frances, a Lali or a Vic. I had anticipated the inconclusive ending because this is how such things go. A quick and pleasurable read, although a tad predictable – recommended.
P.S. : Love the gorgeous cover, and sarees in general, but why do both Cherian’s novels have women in sarees on them ? Same woman, different sarees 🙂 ?
Book Review : The Sisters Brothers
Written By: amodini
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May•
16•12
[amazon_link id=”B004CFA91Y” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]
[/amazon_link]Title : The Sisters Brothers
Author : Patrick DeWitt
Genre : Western
Publisher : HarperCollins
Pages : 325
Rating 4/5
I generally do not read westerns; this is my first. And having said that that, I will say that this is not a traditional western, because it seems quite “literary”. A story set during the Gold Rush of the 1850s, this book is violent, dark, poetic and funny all at the same time. And that’s quite surprising because it is about a pair of for-hire killers.
Charlie and Eli Sisters are brothers who work for the Commodore. The Commodore gives them a task or a target and they make short shrift of it. Having been so long in this business, the brothers have built up a reputation for being ruthless. The Commodore has now asked them to kill a man named Hermann Kermit Warm, and to this end, the brothers travel by horseback (this is the 1800s remember) to California where Warm is situated. Henry Morris, the Commodore’s scout, has gone on ahead and is keeping an eye on Warm until the Sisters brothers get there.
Along the way the brothers encounter all sorts of colorful characters – a (sort of) witch, a dentist (when Eli has tooth problems), gold prospectors and crime bosses. Most of these characters are dangerous and wish them ill :
He cut a piteous figure with his little purse of money, pinching the strings the way one holds a dead mouse by its tail. We followed him outside and watched him tightening and refitting his clothing and saddlebags. He seemed to want to give a speech, but the words either did not come naturally or else he considered us unfit to receive them, and he remained silent. He mounted his horse, leaving with a curt nod and look in his eye that said: I do not like you people.
By the by we get better acquainted with the brothers, and they’re a peculiar twosome. We gather that Eli, the younger of the two is a bit of a softie, and a romantic at heart. Charlie is harder, often “brandy-sick”, and in his cold, unflinching attitude more the “traditional” assassin than Eli. The book is told in the first person, from Eli’s point of view, and in his voice there is humor and philosophy; if it came to choosing the thinker of the two, Eli would win hands down :
…And as we left the musty basement, heading up the stairs and into the light, I felt two things at once: A gladness at this turn of fortune, but also an emptiness that I didn’t feel more glad; or rather a fear that my gladness was forced or false. I thought, Perhaps a man is never meant to be truly happy. Perhaps there is no such thing in our world, after all.
Partick DeWitt develops this book by presenting characters and events in meticulous detail. His language is simple, but the words are structured in an archaic, round-a-bout fashion. The dialect the brothers speak is unusual – it is formal and wordy and grammatical, and to me, reflected the time of the 1850s. This story thus felt authentic – from the language to the characters to their day-to-day jaunts, peculiar as they were. It moved fast, the characters kept coming as the brothers moved from town to town. Yes, they committed many murders, but, and this will sound incongruous, they (especially Eli) really weren’t a bad sort. I’ve got to applaud DeWitt’s skill – to build two characters, both ruthless killers, and have the reader be interested in their well-being.
The humor in the book is quite natural, and embedded in the thoughts and conversations of the two brothers. Here are the two discussing their “crazy” father, and craziness in general. Keep in mind that these are two men who think little of separating a man from his body :
How is it that people go crazy?
>> It’s just a thing that sometimes happens.
Can you go truly crazy and then come back?
>> Not truly crazy. No, I don’t think so.
I’ve heard a father hands it down to the next.
>> I have never thought of it. Why, do you ever feel crazy?
Sometimes I feel a helplessness.
>> I don’t think that is the same thing.
Let’s hope.
This book has many violent encounters, but it not of the bloody/gore variety. It is an entertaining read – totally engrossing, and one which caused me to often collapse in laughter. Highly recommended.
Book Review : The Marriage Plot
Written By: amodini
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May•
09•12
[amazon_link id=”0374203059″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]
[/amazon_link]Title : The Marriage Plot
Author : Jeffrey Eugenides
Genre : Literary
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pages: 416
Rating : No rating – did not finish book
This is kind of a short review since I couldn’t finish the book. I have stopped on page 213, after doggedly slogging on (I hate giving up on books) but I have to say I’m relieved to not have to finish this. I had started with much anticipation, but the tale of three young people in an off-and-on love triangle hasn’t proved interesting.
Madeleine Hanna is in love with (or so she thinks) with Leonard Bankhead. Mitchell Grammaticus is in love with Madeleine. All three students face imminent graduation but on graduation day, all is awry. Madeleine and Leonard are no longer together, which makes her very sad. Grammaticus is still pining for Madeleine but she has eyes for none other than Leonard. Apparently it goes on, but I can’t tell you more (for obvious reasons).
I found this novel very slow – too many words all going nowhere. I don’t want to use the word “pretentious” but this book contains 3 very self-involved characters. And while they might be interesting to each other, it is hard work reading about them. For they all seem to think and ponder very hard and are etched out in details that I couldn’t care about. They did not seem to be moored in the real world – they are lost in Semiotics/other artistic ventures. Pages and pages of expository writing slows the plot down, and I come away with a notion of self-indulgent meanderings on paper, all bound together and presented (rather deceivingly) in a smart hard-cover.
So, alas! I have stopped. On the other hand, I am now free to pick up something which hopefully reads better.
Book Review : The Lilac House
Written By: amodini
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Apr•
28•12
[amazon_link id=”031260677X” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]
[/amazon_link]Title : The Lilac House
Author : Anita Nair
Genre : Literary/South Asian
Publisher : St. Martins Griffin
Pages : 352
Source : NetGalley/Publisher ARC
Rating : 4/5
Meera is a smart society wife and cookbook author, caught up in tending to her family. She lives with husband Giri, son Nikhil, mother Saro and grandmother Lily in Lily’s beautiful home. The gracious old home is referred to as the “lilac house” for the unusual color of it’s walls. Nayantara, Meera’s older daughter lives in a different city. At a “page 3” soiree one day, Meera realizes that her husband is nowhere to be found. Finding themselves without a ride, Meera and son are dropped home by Professor J.A. Krishnamurthy (or Jak), a friend of the hostess. Meera later finds out that her husband has left her and her children to find himself a new life. She must now look after the household as Giri promises to be of little help. Thus she looks for employment and finds work as Jak’s research assistant.
Divorced Jak is in India looking after his disabled daughter Smriti. 19 year old Smriti living alone in India has met with an “accident” which has turned her into a paralyzed vegetable. No one knows how it happened, the police is of little help, but Jak is determined to find out the truth. As Meera goes about finding her feet as a single woman (her husband has a spiffy new apartment and a younger girlfriend) and Jak struggles with his parental rage at Smruti’s unhappy fate, both support each other in the search for closure.
“The Lilac House” is told from two points of view. There is Meera’s story and the characters within it. And then there is Jak’s story with his family and friends. Both characters are fleshed out by their memories of a time not so long ago. Some memories are happy and some are sad, but each tells us about Jak and Meera and how they came to be in the situations they are. I will say that both characters were likable and I felt empathy for them; Nair does develop them well.
I read Nair’s “Ladies Coupe” many years back and liked it very much. “The Lilac House” also touches upon the same topic – the status of women in Indian society. Via the two main characters, and the secondary female characters, Nair slowly brings into focus the plight of women in India. There is Meera who is savvy and sophisticated, but who as she herself puts it has gotten used to the comfort of being taken care of. Her children are torn between loyalty to both parents, and Nair refers to unjust expectations so entrenched in their (and our) minds :
Nayantara is clearly aghast at Nikhil’s line of thought. That Dad would make a new life was part of his leaving home. But Meera? Moms are meant to put aside dreams and grown old gracefully, like furniture.
There is Nina, Jak’s ex-wife, Indian born and living in the US, who considers herself an Indo-phile touting an affection for India she does not feel. There is Smriti herself, clear-hearted but rebellious, and naïve to the ways in which her egalitarian and liberal views will be perceived in a classist society. Jak’s elderly aunt Kala Chithi, who lives with Jak and Smriti has her own tale to tell – and I especially liked the way Nair told her story :
You didn’t know this, did you? Once I had hair that reached my knees. Hair that fell like a cascade when I unpinned it. Straight as rainwater hair, with not even a kink or even a wave. I could run a comb in one swift motion from the root to the tip. And every morning I would comb it though and braid it and pin it up. The weight of it made my head ache and my neck droop. The hair made me a demure girl first and then a demure woman. I was the daughter who pleased my father and later a wife who pleased her husband.
The stories are appealing and interestingly told, but over and above that, I like this book because of its feminist undertones. I found Nair’s writing familiar and slid into it – sort of – the comfort of recognizable things? It might be because the terrain was so well-known and I recognized Indian terms and languages and mannerisms. So, yes I was totally engrossed and speed-read my way through.The author manages to tell an interesting tale even as she skillfully embeds life’s truth’s in them; I’m nodding my head and rereading passages.Highly recommended.
Book Review : The Book of Lost Fragrances
Written By: amodini
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Apr•
25•12
[amazon_link id=”1451621302″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]
[/amazon_link]Title : The Book of Lost Fragrances
Author : M.J. Rose
Publisher : Simon & Schuster
Genre : Mystery
Pages : 384
Source : NetGalley/Publisher ARC
Rating : 2.5/5
The Book of Lost Fragrances has an interesting premise about the afterlife and reincarnation. Robbie and Jacinthe L’Etoile are now the proprietors of the famous House of L’Etoile known for its perfumes. Their mother dead and father out of the picture, the two must come to grips with their new responsibilities. Reality is harsh though, and the business is in financial jeopardy. A way out of the predicament would be to sell two signature scents, but while Jac favors this, Robbie opposes it.
Also, during his efforts to make sense of his father’s perfume workshop, Robbie has come across ancient shards from a pot which contained an unknown perfume. History has it that the perfume was developed by Egyptian Queen Cleopatra’s chief perfumer as a memory aid – a tool to enable one in remembering past reincarnations and lives. All Robbie has are the shards. They do give out a faint scent but Robbie cannot fathom all the ingredients. It would need a skilled perfumer like Jac to nose out the exact composition, but Jac, given to delusions and mental frailty, is not upto the task. Complicating this is the fact that different factions from across the world would like access to the memory tool, so the shards are in high demand, and the greedy may stop at nothing to possess them . . .
This is the 4th book in M.J. Rose’s Reincarnationist series – a fact I found out after reading the book. This book stands well enough on its own; there are a few references to the past but not so much that they would affect the storyline. This book started off well with an introduction to Giles L’Etoile’s encounter with the Egyptian tombs and the unearthing of the memory tool. Then we progress pretty quickly to the modern world and Jac and Robbie. While Jac and Robbie were interesting characters, I couldn’t quite root for them, and found them shallowly and inconsistently described. For all the information on artistic Jac’s delusions and hallucinations, I feel I didn’t know her well enough to be interested in her life. What I did know of her hinted at conflicting character traits and made her seem flighty (which probably was the intent).
I found the writing choppy. Many times the narrative would abruptly shift to the other people in search of the memory tool, like the Buddhists, the shadowy governmental agencies or the lone reincarnationist and it was hard to tell who the person was and how they related to the story. The tale ties together in the end, but seems stretched out on very thin legs. The author did more “telling” instead of “doing”, which made it hard to “get” into the book. I felt that it needed more development – more meat so to speak.
Unfortunately this book didn’t work for me. It could be that this was not my genre (ethereal/paranormal premises aren’t my cup of tea) , but I’d like to think that the constraints for page-turning writing would stand strong in any genre.
Sunday Salon : The Fifty-Fifty Challenge
Written By: amodini
-
Apr•
22•12
Hello everyone and Happy Sunday! Am checking in today to announce that I am joining (yet) another Challenge. Thanks to fellow blogger maxqnz on whose blog/twitterfeed I first heard about this challenge, am now signed up todo the 50/50 Challenge, i.e.; read 50 books and see 50 films in 2012. Yes, 50. Now 50 films – that’s easy-peasy; I probably see way more than 50 anyway. 50 books – now that’s the kicker. That will take some reading. I’m already signed upto read 20 books, but am essentially more than doubling that number now.
I will review the films that I see on my Movie Blog (Amodini’s Movie Reviews) and some special mini-review posts might be called for if I am to document all this. The books you shall hear about here on this blog, of course. I’ve read 12 books this year so far, so better get going on the remaining 38!
