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Aftertaste: A Novel in Five Courses by Meredith Mileti

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this book when I was checking out the newly released shelf of a bookstore. Needless to say, any story that has anything to do about food immediately catches my attention, be it a novel or a movie. This particular novel kept my interest going when I burned through the first few pages. I immediately checked the ratings on Amazon, and back then it only had five stars (although just a few of them). While this is not a sufficient indicator of a good book, I do use it as one of the parameters (especially to weed out books that I don’t want to spend my time reading).

The story is about a chef-owner in NYC who is trying to deal with her life after a recent divorce. The narration sounds almost like a memoir, and is full of familiar mentions of food, restaurants and people that you will recognize if you are a culinary enthusiast. Even if you are not, it is a great story with some very likable characters. This book is about how the love for cooking helps a woman find balance in life. It is also about family, and friends who love her. If books were food, then this novel is like some chai and pakodas on a rainy day, or like meatloaf and mashed potatoes on a cold winter night.

This book is definitely a keeper. It is going into my collection, to be fined under “comfort reads”.



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More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found the first tales of the city book at a library used book sale in New Jersey. It was a while before I picked up the first installment of “tales”, and I loved the characters right away.

More Tales of the City is the second installment in this series and it brings in more of the good things. Maupin’s writing is spellbinding, witty and funny. The amazing thing about this book (and the first one) is how little third person narrative is there. Most of the book is just dialogues (such good dialogues!) between the extremely well sketched out characters (both straight and gay) who are so human and charmingly flawed and lovable. The second book ties up a few loose ends from the first installment and makes the story-line more interesting.

Despite it being a signature Maupin novel, there are a few surprising elements of sleuthing. The mystery elements are well spaced out into the plot of the book.

The character of Michael Touliver is larger than life, and one wonders where Maupin got the inspiration for him. One of the most sensitive and well written pieces in the book is the letter in which Michael comes out of the closet to his parents. It is amazing to think that this story was written decades ago. One would think it is based in the San Francisco of today, if it were not for pop-culture references of the time.



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This book is the coming of age story of a girl in 15th century Florence, (and in many ways is also the coming of age story of the city itself). Alessandra grows up in Florence and witnesses the historical events that unfold in the city, like the death of Lorenzo de Medici, the iron fist of Girolamo Savonarola, and later, his downfall, the threat of the French invasion, and a terrible plague. There is also a serial killer on the lose who some readers believe, turned out to be a famous painter.

Alessandra is a young girl full of life, who is constrained by the mores of the society around her, as she struggles to find her freedom. Alessandra’s story is the central plot of the novel, although several fates of the women of that period are represented through various female characters in the story. Dunant has very cleverly blended fact with fiction to produce a masterful tale full of the colors and textures of Florence. She adds a very artistic touch by describing episodes from the lives of contemporary painters and even dropping intriguing hints about their involvement in the story.

I was at the National Book Festival yesterday in Washington DC where several authors including Rick Riordan, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and the like did book signings and talked to their fans. The event by itself was sort of poorly managed because the management probably did not expect a crowd on such a big scale (the Smithsonian metro station was closed in the afternoon due to too much crowd!).

But all that apart, people who went with the intention of meeting their favourite authors had a successful day, and that was perhaps the only worthy reason to go to the festival because the book festival did not have any book stalls (other than a jam packed Borders tent selling only very specific books).

Anyway, so I wen’t to catch a glimpse of  Rick Riordan since I am an insane Percy Jackson fan.I got to the pavilion atleast 15 minutes in advance while the previous author was still speaking. After some pushing and jostling I finally edged into the tent and escaped the rain outside. There was hardly any place to stand but I positioned myself so that I could operate my camera.

His talk was quite funny in general and he gave his eager fans a glimpse of what is in store for them in the upcoming months:

1. There will a second Camp Half Blood series of books (yes you heard it right!) coming up soon. I forget if he mentioned when it will be out, but he mentioned that there will be more of Percy and Annabeth to come although Percy will not be the main character in the new series and there will be a new generation of demigods. The new series will probably be based on the next big prophecy that we encountered in “the last olympian”.

2. May next year is going to be about Riordan’s next novel that is based on Egyptian mythology. Now that is something that sounds really exciting. Riordan even read the first few lines from this upcoming book that he says is currently with his editor now!

3. Finally he talked about the Lightning Thief movie that is set to release in February next year. He mentioned that the role of Chiron will be played by Pierce Brosnan and that of Medusa will be played by Uma Thurman. Now that is some interesting cast.

Since I am travelling currently, I will upload pictures soon.

This novel, published in the year 2008 won the Man Booker Prize in the same year. I bought the book out of instinct, although I haven’t had a very pleasant experience with a couple of other books that have won the same prize. Many people said that the books that won this award were difficult to read and not well accessible. One of my friends gave me a very bad review of the book, but I had no choice but to read it since I had already bought it. I approached the book without any pre-concieved  expectations and I was pleasantly surprised. While I did not bother asking my friend why she did not like the book, there are several reasons why I would recommend the book to any reader.
First of all, the book is an effortless read, and the story flows at a good pace. The story is narrated in first person by Balram Halwai, who is the protagonist. It is his account of his rise from lowly origins in a village in rural India amidst crushing poverty where even the basic amenities of life are hard to come by; to his current position as a successful entrepreneur in a big city. But the story is not one of inspiration as one would imagine from such an account. Instead it is a story full of intrigue, corruption and crime, but narrated with an innocent and brutally honest tone that makes you chuckle throughout. The story takes a swipe at the corrupt political system of the country and how the people are forced to play along with it if they want to survive. What moves you while reading this story is how the honest and hardworking village boy is transformed into a shrewd, scheming man who does not hesitate to take the law into his own hands.
Adiga has done a masterful job in this darkly comic debut novel of his with a sharp observation and sardonic voice.

This is Jhumpa Lahiri’s third piece of work (after Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake). Sticking to her theme, this is also a set of short stories, based on the lives of expatriate Bengali parents and their american-raised children. I used to really want happy endings from books and stories I read. Jhumpa Lahiri is not someone who would give me that. Her stories are colorful, full of real characters that you would come to love; her writing is superlative and flows with an effortless pace; but the stories end abruptly at a crucial emotional juncture when the characters are at some kind of an emotional high point. I am always left wanting for more, but I end up accepting the stories for what they are.
One thing I noticed in her first two works is her brilliant descriptions of food and cooking, so much so that I used to be amazed at her culinary knowledge. I was looking forward to the same, but found that missing in Unaccustomed Earth.
There are two parts in the book: the first one has 4 stories, and the 2nd part has 3 stories. I did not realize till the middle of the last story that the 3 stories in the 2nd part are actually related: based on the same two protagonists. Each story in the trilogy are spaced apart by a number of years .You could call me dim for not figuring this out earlier, but these stories are just like the previous ones, and each one could be read without any bearing on the previous ones, and none of them give any direct indication of a connection, except for the names of the characters (which could have been anything in any of the stories without affecting the plot). The first two parts are narrated by the two individual characters, based around their separate lives. The third story is narrated by the author, linking the two characters together finally. Being a fan of different narrative styles, I loved this.
Finally, Jhumpa proves that she can write not only about life in the US, but also Europe, where a considerable portion of the final story is based.
Brilliant piece of writing. Highly recommended reading.

I recently finished reading One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest: by Ken Kesey. This novel has been included in TIME Magazine’s 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

The novel is based in the mental ward in a psychiatric hospital in Oregon. It is an allegory on the psychopathic obsession of that time (the 1960s). The story is narrated by a gigantic, half-Indian “Chief Bromden”, a patient of the ward who suffers from hallucinations and delusions.The ward is controlled by a tyrannical nurse: Nurse Ratched who reigns over all the inhabitants of the ward, including the orderlies, the staff nurses, and even the doctor. He controls everyone with surgical precision, using underhanded tactics to render everyone helpless and submissive.

Things change with the arrival of Randal McMurphy, a Korean veteral who has a history of insubbordination and street brawls. McMurphy quickly realizes that several patients in the ward are sane and simply emasculated because of the nurse and her controlling tactics.

This novel is about the fight between authority and free spirit.

I started reading this book by Ken Follet over 5 months ago. When I just had a couple of dozen pages left to finish the book, I went away to the US and for some reason I did not carry the book with me. Now that I am back in India for a while, I finished the book today. It is a really big book with over a thousand pages. There are several plots in the story, and like most really long stories, you feel that some of those could have been avoided for the sake of a smaller and crisper story.

The plot of the story revolves around the building of a cathedral in medieval England during the period of civil war and how the lives of several people around the cathedral is embroiled in politics and powerplay. The book spans several years and hence the author has been able to sketch the characters in great detail (no surprise there).

Several  reviews on amazon tout this book as a breakthrough in the historical fiction genre, which I think is a bunch of nonsense (no wonder since the book was a part of Oprah’s book club). I don’t really have good things to say about Oprah’s book club and I would probably have not picked up this book had I known earlier, but the book did turn out to be entertaining, with a lot of gratuitous sex and violence thrown in. Sometimes it drags simply because the plot is very twisted and long.

I did learn a bit about medieval architecture, cathedrals, clergymen, nobles and the like. All in all, I recommend this book for a one time read. Entertaining, but long.

My Name is Red (Benim Adım Kırmızı) is a turkish novel by Orhan Pamuk, a Nobel laureate. It won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2003, as well as the French Prix du meilleur livre étranger and Italian Premio Grinzane Cavour awards in 2002. The book in consideration in this article is the English translation by Erdağ M. Göknar. There have been questions about the English translation not being as good as the Turkish version and the word order being quite difficult. But honestly, I did not know that the book I was reading was actually an English translation and not an original English work.

The story is based in 16^th century Istanbul, a year before the thousandth anniversary (calculated in lunar years) of Hegira (the migration of Muhammad and his followers to the city of Medina). The Ottoman Sultan Murat III has commissioned an illustrated manuscript to display his power to the Venetian Doge. This manuscript is to be made utilizing the “controversial” aspects and techniques of the Frankish masters, namely portraiture and perspectives. Due to this reason, the Head Illuminator of the Sultan is bypassed and the work is commissioned to Enishte Effendi, who co-ordinates Master miniaturists Stork, Olive, Butterfly and Elegant. It is rumored that the paintings are blasphemous and an affront to Islam and The Prophet. Subsequently, the master guilder Elegant working on the manuscript is murdered. The book follows the path of a murder mystery where the identity of the murderer is revealed at the end. Pamuk’s knowledge of Islamic miniatures is mind-blowing. He goes on to narrate several stories from Islamic lore, stories of great miniaturists and their history, going back to Behzad and the Chinese influences brought by the Mongols. The book discusses and debates about various topics, the most prominent of these are:

·        Form and style,

·        The relationship of art to society, religion and God, and

·        The artistic, cultural and political differences between the Ottomans and the Venetians.

The first thing that strikes you while reading this novel is that the story is narrated in several different voices which recur throughout the story. No two consecutive chapters are narrated by the same narrator and all speak in the first person. There are a couple of rather unusual narrators: a gold coin, a tree, a dog, Satan, and even Death itself. I later figured that these narrators are in fact the central themes of the illustrations appearing in the secret manuscript in question in the book. One of the central points about traditional miniatures, I learned, is that they always appear as illustrations of a story, and never as independent paintings. Pamuk has adopted this style in his narration of the story: by describing the protagonists as part of an old manuscript, supporting the story. The characters are aware that they are characters in a story and address the reader with irony.

The setting of the story in late sixteenth century Istanbul is detailed; the plot is engaging (albeit a bit slow moving in certain places) with several interesting characters. Indeed there are too many themes in the book (art, religion, Allah, love, lust, jealousy, hatred, intrigue, murder) and I cannot do justice to all of them in this short article. If you are interested in Islamic art, Ottoman miniatures or medieval Istanbul, then pick up this book. But be warned, this is not an easy or quick read.

Slaughterhouse Five : Kurt Vonnegut
This book is widely regarded as one of the best anti war novels of all times. It begins as a memoir and is based around the Allied bombings of Dresden in World War II. The author Kurt Vonnegut is a minor character in the story as the narrator and is quite funny. Both Billy Pilgrim and Kurt Vonnegut are portrayed as prisoners of war in Germany.

The book has an unusual narrative style which is quite nonlinear in time since the protagonist Billy Pilgrim is “unstuck in time” i.e. he experiences different periods of his life in seemingly random order and he has no idea which part of his life he will visit next. As a result of this queer condition, Billy experiences his own death several times and he switches back and forth between prisoner camp in Germany and his life as an affluent optometrist in Ilium, NY, and sometimes his stay on the planet Tralfamadore. One of the important events in Billy’s life is when he gets abduced by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. The Tralfamadorians teach Billy about the concept of time as the fourth dimension, fate, and death’s lack of discrimination. To the Tralfamadorians, who can see in four dimensions, everything always exists and has always existed. Everyone is alive and has always been alive. They see time as we might see the Rocky Mountains, stretching endlessly on both ends. So if all events are predecided, then “what about free will?” asks Billy. The Tralfamadorian responds: “I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe… Only on Earth is there any talk of free will”. This lends to the belief that human beings do what they do because they must.

The book opens with the narrator’s account of his own relation with the Dresden bombings and his reasons for writing the book. Although there is no reason to believe that this account is also not fictional. Thus, the real story begins with chapter 2. I found this form of writing unusual (although amusing) which they say, is common to postmodern meta-fiction. Throughout the story, the author pokes fun at the concept of war, portraying the characters in sarcastically humorous light. Vonnegut says that the soldiers dying in these wars are young men barely out of high school. That is the reason he portrays these soldiers as scared young men instead of heroes of war. This is so that his book does not encourage more wars in which children would be sent to die (quite like the so called Childrens’ Crusades).

All in all, a very entertaining and funny book. Quite an easy read.