Literature

04
Dec
2020

The Association of Small Bombs

I just finished reading ‘The Association of Small Bombs’, Karan Mahajan’s second novel. I really enjoyed it and, apparently, so did many others:

National Book Award Finalist
Winner of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award
Winner of the American Academy of Arts & Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award
Winner of the Bard Fiction Prize
One of the New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of the Year
One of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists
A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book of the Year
PEN Center USA Literary Award Finalist for Fiction
Simpson Family Literary Prize Finalist
Shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 
Longlisted for the FT/Oppenheimer Emerging Voices Award

Named a Best Book of the Year by: Buzzfeed, Esquire, New York magazine, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, The AV Club, The Fader, Redbook, Electric Literature, Book Riot, Bustle, Good magazine, PureWow, and PopSugar

We read from time to time about terrorist attacks in western cities but hear little about many similar attacks in other parts of the world including South Asia as though we consider it to be normal. This is an expansive and humane novel that explores the makers of those ‘small bombs’, the victims, the lives of those who place the bombs and the long-lasting effects of the bombs.

When brothers Tushar and Nakul Khurana, two Delhi schoolboys, pick up their family’s television set at a repair shop with their friend Mansoor Ahmed one day in 1996, disaster strikes without warning. A bomb—one of the many “small” bombs that go off seemingly unheralded across the world—detonates in the Delhi marketplace, instantly claiming the lives of the Khurana boys, to the devastation of their parents. Mansoor survives, bearing the physical and psychological effects of the bomb. After a brief stint at university in America, Mansoor returns to Delhi, where his life becomes entangled with the mysterious and charismatic Ayub, a fearless young activist whose own allegiances and beliefs are more malleable than Mansoor could imagine. Woven among the story of the Khuranas and the Ahmeds is the gripping tale of Shockie, a Kashmiri bomb maker who has forsaken his own life for the independence of his homeland.

The book explores not only the lives of the victims but the inner lives of the terrorists – their ex-girlfriends, their diabetic parents and their dreams and doubts. It’s interesting that none of the terrorists in this novel are radicalized Muslims. Instead they political activists in pursuit of independence for Kashmir or an end to political violence against Muslims under the government of Narendra Modi.

As I said at the beginning, I really enjoyed this book and you might enjoy it too. The New York Times has an excellent review which you can find HERE.

Posted by Tom in Books, Literature
14
Nov
2020

The Testaments

I recently finished reading ‘The Testaments’, Margaret Atwood’s sequel to her 1985 novel ‘The Handmaid’s Tale. It is set 15 years later after Offred, the narrator of The Handmaid’s Tale makes her perilous attempt at escape from Gilead to Canada.

Offred has little to say in this book – two or three lines at most. Instead, the tale is left to three narrators: Agnes who grew up in Gilead as the daughter of an important commander, Daisy, an anti-Gilead activist teenager living in Canada and Aunt Lydia who was an important character in the earlier work and who has a lot more to say here.

Gilead, formerly most of the United States, is still a dystopian, highly misogynistic society that it was in the earlier work and we learn a lot more about how it was founded (and it reminds me scarily of some recent events).

Lydia is the leader of the ‘aunts’ – the gender norm enforcers who preside over the lives of the handmaids and train the wives. But Lydia, underneath her outspoken strong support for Gilead is really collecting information on its corruption and deceit with the aim of eventually bringing it down. We learn that, before the creation of Gilead, she was a judge and used some deft political maneuvering to avoid the fate of most other educated women of the time – execution.

The Testaments is more plot-driven than The Handmaid’s Tale and Atwood is very good at releasing little bits of information that move the plot forward and reveal the relationship between the various characters.

I like it a lot and, if you like any of Atwood’s earlier works, you will too. It’s available on the Maryland Digital Library. Give it a try!!

Posted by Tom in Books, Literature
28
Oct
2020

Exciting Times

Exciting Times

I just finished reading ‘Exciting Times’ the debut novel by Irish write Naoise Dolan. I liked it a lot. It reminds me more than a little bit of Sally Rooney and there’s a bit of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ in there too. It’s a recommended book by The New York Times Book Review * Vogue * TIME * Marie Claire * Elle * O, the Oprah Magazine * Esquire * Harper’s Bazaar * Bustle * PopSugar * Refinery 29 * LitHub.

Exciting Times tells the story of Ada, a 22-year old Irish woman who moves to Hong Kong to teach English. She has no particular qualifications except that she is a university graduate and has a lot of millennial angst.

She meets Julian, an Oxford-educated young banker and, impressed by his high income, sees more of him. Soon they are sleeping together and she is living in his flat. She is very attuned to the situation and wonders if he wants her to depend on him as she adds up in her head the money she is saving.

Ava is very attuned to class and cultural advantages and her focus pops up in odd moments. As she As she explains the aspirated “th,” to her young students she thinks: “If the Irish didn’t aspirate and the English did then they were right, but if we did and the English didn’t then they were still right. The English taught us English to teach us they were right.”

While Julian is back in London, Ava meets Mei Ling ‘Edith’ Zhang, scion of a wealthy Chinese family. Edith also has an Oxbridge degree and a good job as a lawyer with a big firm. Ava envies Edith’s life and income and the two become lovers. When Julian returns it gets complicated.

There’s a lot of humor in this book as well as a fun and interesting story. It’s not a difficult or long read so give it a try. I think you’ll like it. Here’s the NYT review of the book.

Posted by Tom in Books, Literature
17
Oct
2020

The Falconer

I just finished reading ‘The Falconer’, Dana Czapnik’s debut novel and I loved it. Salman Rushdie has been a supporter of Czapnik and it shows in her splendid prose that immerses one in 1990’s New York City.

It’s the story of 17-year old Lucy Adler, a self proclaimed ‘pizza-bagel’ (half Jewish, half Italian). It’s written in the first person as we follow Lucy in her senior year in the private school where she doesn’t fit in at all. “But I’m a girl, and I’m really tall and I don’t have Pantene-commercial hair and I’m not, let’s say, une petite fleur, so everyone just assumes I’m a lesbian.”

We first meet her on the basketball court – she is an outstanding player – with her childhood friend and crush, Percy. Through his references to French nihilism and the moral bankruptcy of his banker father, we quickly glean that Percy is an aspiring existentialist determined to disavow his upper-class roots. Lucy turns a blind eye to Percy’s hypocrisy, his escapades with other more “womanly” women, his desire to go to San Diego upon graduation since, according to him, the girls there are “the way they should be,” and his strange bouts of jealousy as she secretly negotiates her ability to be both boy-obsessed and a tomboy. It is via the prism of her relationship with Percy that Lucy begins to forge her way through and against the current of normative gender roles.

Lucy loves her basketball and the descriptions of the game are some of the best I’ve read. Czapnik’s descriptions of the New York of the 90s are captivating and fun to read.

Lucy’s coming-of-age is tempered by her constant brush-ups against the constrictions society places on her sex. Happening upon “The Falconer,” a bronze of a boy in Elizabethan dress releasing a falcon in Central Park, Lucy is envious that statues of boys depict them in action poses while women are either demure nudes or Alice in Wonderland. “Don’t you wish they made statues of girls like that?” Lucy asks Alexis. “Just some girl having unapologetic fun.” Alexis replies: “I never apologize for the fun I have. And neither do you.” Reader, beware: Spending time with Lucy is unapologetic fun, and heartbreak, and awe as well.

‘The Falconer’ is a New York Times ‘Editor’s Choice’. I loved it and I think you will too. Give it a try.

Posted by Tom in Books, Literature
24
Sep
2020

If I Had Your Face

Book Cover

I just finished reading ‘If I Had Your Face’ a debut novel by Frances Cha. I very much liked it. It’s an interesting introduction to the lesser-known sides of South Korean culture.

It’s the story of four young women trying to make it in the brutally competitive world of modern Seoul. Covering everything from the unwritten rules of the country’s “room salons” to the excruciating pain one must endure following jawline surgery, the novel depicts South Korea’s oft extreme culture and obsessions through the lives of four young women in contemporary Seoul.

The story is narrated by the four women and is a fascinating introduction to the situations these women find themselves in as they try to find a life, and love, in a hyper-competitive world dominated by men. Rather than try to describe the book myself, here is a link to a NYT interview with the author. Give it a try – you’ll enjoy it! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/14/us/author-frances-cha-on-achieving-the-feminine-ideal.html

Posted by Tom in Books, Literature