Occasionally, I pass by little shops–in the rue de Seine, for example. Dealers in antiques or small second-hand booksellers or vendors of engravings with overcrowded windows. No one ever enters their shops; they apparently do no business. But if one looks in, they are sitting there, sitting and reading, without a care; they take no [...]
Open City, Teju Cole‘s first novel, is an unusual read. I find myself drawn to the small things in the novel. Take for example the simple act of walking. In Open City, walking is a strange activity. It carries with it the possibility or even the necessity of wandering, of losing one’s way, of meeting [...]
What is Clear? A Transparent Novel. A story in a perspex box. You can see through Clear. I am guessing because you kinda know how its going to end. It’s about David Blaine. Isn’t it? And the televised starvation stunt. It’s on Wikipedia for Chrissakes! A rather comprehensive wiki entry too. In 2003, David Blaine [...]
My bookshelves have long since given up. They’ve taken to spitting out books on the carpet at the slightest ache from overload. And Starbook (2007) is one of such books. It is the fourth book from the bottom in a stack sitting on the bare floor, gathering dust. Ben Okri said in a Youtube video [...]
I needed something to jar me out of the stupor of a suburban Christmas eve. So I went to see Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. With all the trash that has come out of Hollywood this year, Black Swan is indeed a case of saving the best for last. Natalie Portman plays the role of Nina [...]
Abu Graib photos, like other photographs that represent suffering, are unsettling not because they are shocking but because they make demands on us. The act of looking at photographs like that is never quite simple because you come out of it thinking about the need for an ethical response. This tendency to link photography and [...]
Apart from the fact that the entire novel is one long paragraph, Austerlitz is also a novel that does not want to be a novel. Is it a mock-biography? A picture book of sorts? A reflection on architecture, time, and memory? It’s really hard to say. One thing that is certain however is that whatever [...]
Common sense tells us that a culture tends to require justification only when it’s existence is very seriously threatened. What better way is there to sound the death knell of books if not by writing a book in defense of the culture and production of books? This is what Robert Darnton, the director of Harvard’s [...]
No need for a pen when reading Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn. There are no memorable lines. There are mostly characters memorable in their own very different ways, moving about in the story so nimbly and charmingly that the pages turn with the slightest of effort. Brooklyn is not the typical Johnny-goes-to-the-city story. It is the story [...]
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[turns white] …I hate when I do that. You terrestrials don’t have to worry about that condition. Sure, I hear you might stutter occasionally, or slip in the Freud, or insert the pause of um, like, uh…. but at least you don’t have to worry about inking yourself. It’s kind of like an underwater Turret’s [...]
We move through life in chapters, as we learn to read them. Every lesson is not understood, Before we turn the page. As youth we move briskly through the book of life, Only skimming the text. Rushing to the next happenstance. Decreasingly illiterate, Nonetheless, remarkably unwise. Hastily making choices, Re-sculpting the pre-sent, before our eyes, [...]
After a good day of novel reading and cafe lounging, I ended up at the Salvation Army not far from my house. At the thrift shop, anything can happen. You could find the first artist print of a fairly popular American painter. Or you could spend a couple hours sniffing dust and Febreeze and find [...]
When the behind-the-scene video is cool enough to be an official video, you know it’s all going to be worth the wait. “Princess of China” is a song from Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto album. I’ve read enough fairytales to expect princesses to have their castles, ball gowns, and enchanted rings. But it’s Rihanna and she’s the Princess [...]
Songs of Solomon. Isoken did not leave the staff room of Patricia Primary School when the closing bell rang. Everyone else did. It would appear that she was inspecting the attendance booklet on her desk. Actually, her mind had taken her elsewhere, perhaps, to the room she was renting at no. 15 Furniture Rd. The [...]