The American Classic of the 09:18 train

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s… book.”. If such commandment existed I would be the most sinful of all sinners! It doesn’t matter how good the book/magazine article/bottle label I’m reading is, I will always be interested in what people around me are reading. If in the corner of my eye I see a a book cover…  I will, most likely, take a break of whatever I’m reading, and start coveting my neighbor’s book. I’m not proud of it, of course, but it is what it is.

Not only will I (quite absentmindedly) envy in silence what other people are reading, but I will also make quick mental notes about it. Oh yes, “though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t” as Polonius said to Hamlet. I’ll find myself laying about mental notes “hmm… interesting!”, “aaaah, that’s on my to read list, yes”, “really?! You’re wasting precious brain cells on THAT?”, “I wonder if the translation is any good?”, “Oh I loved that! Isn’t it wonderful?”, “You are in for some great hours of entertainment!”, “there’s a sequel?!”, “mom and dad have that one, I should borrow it from them…”, and so forth. But rarely do I take notice of the reader, the object of my attention (and coveting…) is solely the book.

Of course, commuting, only heightens my coveting skills: there’s so much supply! I think it was last year, as I was getting out of the train and walking towards the tube I saw “…wain… berry… ventures”. I had an immediate laughing mental note “Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn! Who doesn’t like an old fashioned boyish adventure? Well Huckleberry Finn is a bit more serious, but still… I really need to borrow it from Mom and Dad…”. When I was in the tube platform waiting for the train, I bothered to take a look at the reader of such adventures. First I noticed the well cared for hand, with the shiny band of gold in the ring finger, that was holding “…wain… berry… ventures”. Then the light blue shirt, the impeccable navy blue suit jacket and trousers, the dark shiny shone shoes, the trimmed, well combed hair, the marble smooth shaved face, the chiseled profile, the striking dark brown eyes. Everything about him was sharp and elegant. Though he wasn’t very tall, he stood out in the platform of tired, sleepy, grumpy commuters like myself. Even the way he walked on the platform was striking, he wasn’t walking really, he was strolling purposefully,  with poise, balancing his suitcase on one hand and the book in the other. I’ll admit I was mesmerized: he was a walking, living, breathing handsome advert for Hugo Boss, with a Mediterranean flair. I sighed, I was coveting, all right, but not the book anymore…

Some time ago, I was running late and rushed into the 09:18 train to Lisboa, sitting in whatever seat was available. And there it was “…iamond…ig…Ritz”, another American classic, but by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I have always wondered what a diamond as big as the Ritz was, and made a mental note to read the book. And then, to my surprise, who else but the elegant commuter, was sitting across from me, reading “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and other stories”. Again, he looked impeccable, his coat neatly folded resting on his knees, the suitcase by his side. However,  my American Classic was sleepy, so he carefully kept his book in the suitcase, lowered his chin and took a nap. I tried very hard to concentrate on my own book, but it was quite difficult: the American Classic, even sleeping and slouching, with one of the shirt buttons undone was quite handsome.

Since then, I’ve been curious: what is a diamond as big as the Ritz, really? And does he only read American classics? Is he like the tall, slim, pale, curly hair “thronie”* on black skinny jeans, that is devoted to the one genre? I feel tempted to recommend Steinbeck to him, but I’m still mustering up the courage to do it. Until then, the American Classic of 09:18 train, is the highlight of my tardiness.

Note: “thronie” was the suggested name, from a friend on Facebook, for a fan of The Game of Thrones.

Here’s a little bit of gossip

You know the difference between news and gossip, don't  you? News tells you what people did. Gossip tells you how much they enjoyed it.

― Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram.

Dear Mr. Roberts,

Yesterday, I finished reading Shantaram… for the second time. And I’ve got tell you, I enjoyed it even more than the first time around!

My fellow commuters endured nervous laughs, sighs, discreet swearing, tears and yes… waggling of the head, for a month or so, in my daily 20 minutes train ride. Oh yes, I found myself crying, weeping really, on the train, during my morning commute, when I read about Prabaker’s death. And I knew it was going to happen! But how can you not love Prabaker? How can you not be moved my Anand’s sense of honour? How can you not go “way to go Vikram!”, when Lettie finally says yes? How can you not cry with Rukhmabai, when she cuts her hair? How can you not smile when you see young Prabu? You cannot, you just can’t.

When my parents first read the book they wouldn’t stop talking about it, they’d go on for hours, on how incredible the plot was, how faithfully the Indians were depicted, how you would be transported to India in a couple of sentences. And I, of course, as all children, was skeptical… surely they were exaggerating a bit, they read it  while on their yearly vacation in Goa. But then, when I borrowed the book and finished reading… I was  more of a Shantaram-Evangelist than they were! I would be the one who wouldn’t shut up about it, I would be the one describing my favourite bits and quotes,  I would be the one to say “yaar” and “arrey”, whenever appropriate. Besides, how can a Ahimsa not love a Shantaram?

So, this second time around, I found myself Shantaram-Evangelising, once again, to the extent of giving a copy in Portuguese, as a Christmas present, to one of my dearest friends, who had to hear all about it at lunch time. When she saw me after Christmas she gave me a huge hug, before I could even say a word, and said “Is that a bear hug? Is that how Abdullah did it?”. I smiled and nodded, you see, we don’t have the expression either in Portuguese.

My copy of Shantaram is earmarked, folded, the spine is broken… it’s in worse condition now, than when it travelled all the way from India to Portugal. So I guess I have to give a new copy to my parents, I cannot let go of this one, not just yet, because as my Mother said “… when you read it, you’re right in the middle of it, you feel you are right there with them [Indian people]…”. How can I ever give that up? 

The ingredients for a fantasy novel

As I was walking down Avenida da Liberdade, right in the heart of Lisboa, I realized how romantic it looked. In spite of the boisterous designer shops, the loud kiosks that serve hot drinks and cocktails and the constant cars driving up and down, if you walk right in the middle of it, in the large and wide sidewalk, of black and white cobbled stones, all that noise is hushed down by trees.

And then you notice it: the beautiful designs in the sidewalk, the statues, the shade, the quietness. And just in case you're lost amidst this bucolic scenery, there they are: arrows. One pointing to Praça da Alegria (Square of Joy), Príncipe Real (Royal Prince, if you cynical you can also translate to Real Prince) and Rato (Mouse).

I took another look (and a picture, too!) of the signs and laughed at the thought of Lisboa having just the right ingredients for a Louis Carrol/C.S. Lewis, fantasy novel.

Namaste!

A world of their own

We will manage our world ourselves, because it’s our world, cosa nostra. And we have to stick together to guard ourselves against outside meddlers.

The Godfather, Mario Puzo

Mario Puzo presents to us the all (discreetly) powerful Corleone family, with all its complexity. Puzo teaches us, by example, how a Godfather/a Don is made, what are the rites of passage and how every man has his own destiny, even if they deny it to themselves, even if a new era promises change. Besides the rich and colorful language of the New York Mafia world, which delighted this blogger, Puzo portrays beautifully how Michael grows into his father shoes, with his demeanour, the way he talks, the way he acts, the way he carries out vengeance. You can hear the command on the Vito Corleone’s voice, you can feel the iciness in Michael’s tone.

But this is not solely a man’s world, the Italian Mamma is not forgotten “You’re a very nice girl, you gotta nice legs, but you no gotta much brains”. And along her, other women pop up in the story: the battered wife, the sexually frustrated, the Hollywood has-beens, the betrayed, the divorced, the in love and the naïve, women are also at odds with a new era brought about with the end of the II World War, where they are both more modern, but tied to old fashioned values.

And, with every chapter, as the reader learns of how corrupt, vengeful and bitter the post-war world is, for both man and women, the more justifiable it seems a world apart, a world with its own rules, where no good/bad deed goes unrewarded/unpunished.

COSA NOSTRA it’s our thing, our world, our rules, our culture, we live by our own morality. We live by our code of silence, OMERTÀ, and when push comes to shove we “make our bones”,  we “go to the mattresses”, we do the job, we do not deny friendship, a friend in need is a friend indeed (or is it in debt?). These are all concepts of the smartly written “The Godfather”, by Mario Puzo, but they also rings true to “The Solitude of Prime Numbers”.

There are two things you should be familiar with before beginning to read this book. These things are a) what prime numbers are; b) how leitmotif works in literature. I say this, because even though I’m quite familiar with both these concepts, in a stubborn desire for a happy ending I ignored them all throughout the 300 pages, just to have my heart broken in the end.

Alice and Mattia are scarred, and the more people want them to move on with their lives, the longer the deep wounds they have stay opened.  This pushes them to an incredible solitude, surrounded with non understanding peers and relatives, in an incomprehensible world. So when Alice and Mattia meet they are drawn to each other,  there’s familiarity in their awkwardness. Their relationship evolves, as they grow old they also grow more intimate, Alicia pushing the boundaries,  Mattia trying desperately to keep them in their place, refusing comfort. That which they have in common, in spite of their love for each other, is the one thing that it will keep them apart. Love does not heal old wounds, neither does time or distance.

Remember, remember the 25th of May!

Source: http://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/towel-day/

Euphemism!

• a gentleman does not drive insane, drives to distraction...
• shooting one's wall out of pure boredom is not proposterous it's just that pistol practice should be distincly an open-air pastime...
• bullet holes in one's flat walls is not horrible, but rather does not improve the atmosphere nor the appearance of the room...
• and relics are all over the place, they just have a way of wandering into unlikely positions...

An anomaly which often struck me in the character of my friend Sherlock Holmes was that, although in his methods of thought he was the neatest and most methodical of mankind, and although also he affected a certain quiet primness of dress, he was none the less in his personal habits one of the most untidy men that ever drove a fellow-lodger to distraction. Not that I am in the least conventional in that respect myself. [...] But with me there is a limit, and when I find a man who keeps his cigars in coalshuttle, his tobacco in the toe end of a Persian slipper, and his unanswered correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife into the very centre of his wooden mantelpiece, then I begin to give myself virtuous airs. I have always held, too, that pistol practice should be distincly an open-air pastime; and when Holmes, in one of his queer humours, would sit in an armchair with his hair-trigger and hundred Boxer cartridges and proceed to adorn the opposite wall with a patriotic V. R. done in bullet-pocks, I felt strongly that neither the atmosphere nor the appearance of our room improved by it.

Our chambers were always full of chemicals and of criminal relics which had a way of wandering into unlikely positions, and of turning up in the butter-dish or in even less desirable places.

The Musgrave Ritual, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The game’s afoot!

It all began with a very well defined purpose: get decent tennis shoes. But somehow,  after having walked over 3 km, I found myself with two bags, none carrying the sought after walking equipment. In fact, I arrived home with two new shirts, which I desperately needed and… a book. So much for my utilitarian rule “no shelves, no books!”.

Having become a huge fan of BBC’s Sherlock I was eager to re-read the Holmes Adventures. I had read most of them when I was 13, and a few in the original version.  In fact,  it was my sister who lent me The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in English for the first time, and got me hooked on original versions (as opposed to translations). I remember lying on my bed and being completely immersed in Victorian London, with its fog, black coaches, smoking trains and invisible telegraph wires. Somehow the stories seemed more real, entertaining, Holmes far more quirkier and Watson more gentlemanly. Something was indeed lost in translation.

Today, as I read the mysteries again, I feel the magic once more and I realize what has been lost in translation – the Victorian speech. The interjections “The game’s afoot!”, the politeness both kind “Pray take a seat (…) I shall be happy to do anything that I can to serve you” or down right insulting “You [Lestrade] do not add imagination to your other great qualities…”. And with each sentence, reply, exclamation Holmes, Watson and Lestrade materialize.

Capital! isn’t it?

Historia de Mayta

“¿Por qué no mentir más bien desde el principio?”
“Porque soy realista, en mis novelas trato siempre de mentir con conocimiento de causa – le explico”.

Mario Vargas Llosa, Historia de Mayta

Ladies and gentleman, I am proud to announce that the Summer of Reading Immersion is on! At the moment the score is quite good: one book and half in seven days. Why half a book? Well I did begin reading Historia de Mayta in Winter, took a break during Spring and picked it up again in sunny Cabanas.

Historia de Mayta brings us to Peru of the 50s, boiling with revolutionary groups, a blinding theoretical hunger for change, pillared on ideals and weaponry, armed leftist ideals. Based on a true story of a small outburst of revolution in rural Peru, Jauja (who knows, maybe it’s the “darkest Peru” where Paddington comes from), Llosa goes through several interviews with people who, one way or another, witnessed the events, and portrays to us Mayta, the revolutionary.

Once again, as in La Fiesta del Chivo, I’m simultaneously marveled and disgusted at the corrupt, self-centered mind of the politician. Llosa describes it superbly, insightfully, leaving the reader with a bitter taste of foregone ideals, of corruption, treason and violent persecution of whomever is against the regime. When the disappointment is more than we can take, Llosa takes us a step further recounting the interview with the man on whom Mayta was based upon. This reader’s heart sunk: a battered man, forgiven once but persecuted forever, surrendered to shanty town life of making ends meet, but saddest of all, with no memory, a living ghost of himself.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

So far, along side "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy", the favourite of the triology of 4.
Incidentally, as I arrived home the movie was playing on TV.

Talk about Improbability Drive!

Mostly Harmless

Largo de São Carlos | Lisboa 

To my Sister, who by tirelessly encouraging me on all things literary, has introduced me to David Lodge, Kipling, H.G.Wells and Douglas Adams, amongst many others.

This has been the Summer of reading immersion. As the really short shorts and really mini mini-skirts parade in Lisboa, in its sunny, shining, foreign-accent crowded streets, I find myself travelling as well, through out England in particular and the Galaxy in general.

As my heart feels confused and my head tired of the blood pumping machine, I find it utterly important to read. It seems to do the trick. From David Lodge’s “A Man of Parts” and “Deaf Sentence”, to Nick Hornby’s “About a Boy” or back to Douglas Adams’ “The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, all this literary fiction gives me perspective. I find myself detaching from my own problems and through an English literary filter (I have a week spot for English writers) all seems to make sense again. Oddly enough, the books that have been helping me the most are the THHGG saga ones.

David Lodge reminds me, once again, of the beauty of language, English in particular. There’s a way in which he writes these stories that not only make the story and its characters stand out, with a vigor of its own, but that also enhance the wording. It seems that the words alone encapsulate meaning and beauty, in spite of context. But there’s more, his own university professor background helps the reader understand the literary, etymological value of the words, the story behind the story, the meaning behind mere vocabulary. And I’m gone, I’m lost in this world of sensitive men of letters, who appreciate a good book as much as a well written paragraph, who are lost in love and found in writing.

Nick Hornby was a quite different experience though: London of the nineties, of grunge, of support groups, of troubled teenagers and misguided adults. From cover to cover, page to page, I wished to see how the story unfolds, how these terrifically incompatible lives come together in harmony, because of a boy. An endearing 12 year old boy, too wise and sensible for his own good. And there’s hope: incompatible does not mean impossible, it means a long work in progress. I smile.

But it’s Adams, however, in its zany approach to Life, the Universe and Everything that takes the biscuit. In its over-simplistic but very colorful language, with all the absurdity and defiant Quantum Physics, makes me realize that love it’s pretty much like flying: “The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Pick a nice day, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] suggests, and try it. The first part is easy. All it requires is simply the ability to throw yourself forward with all your weight, and the willingness not to mind that it's going to hurt.”.

The Indians are the Italians of Asia

"The indians are the Italians of Asia", Didier pronounced with a sage and mischievious grin. "It can be said, certainly, with equal justice, that the Italians are the Indians of Europe, but you do understand me, I think. There is so much Italian in the Indians, and so much Indian in the Italians. They are both people of the Madonna - they demand a goddess, even if the religion does not provide one. Every man in both countries is a singer when he is happy, and every woman is a dancer when she walks to the shop at the corner. For them, food is music inside the body, and music is food inside the heart. The language of India and the language of Italy, they make every man a poet, and make something beautiful from every banalité.These are the nations where love - amore, pyaar - makes a cavalier of a Borsalino on a street corner, and makes a princess of a peasant girl, if only for the second that her eyes meet yours.

in, Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts