In this age when people find even punching in the keyboard tedious and spend most of the waking hours in front of one screen or the other(monitor or TV) reading is almost a sign of a weakness. Of course you can be seen with a J K Rowling but that is about it. However as some bard whom I had to read as part of my linguistic development skills so aptly put it’ My Days among the dead are passed’.
A book gives us opportunity to question, develop & progress. Books are also an Indicator for assessing anybody for entrance into one’s inner circle. Without further ado here are my best five books. They are not in any particular order but all occupy a place in the core of my heart.
To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee T
This book is amoving story of a small girl and her attorney father(Atticus Finch) defending a black( or should it be now Afro-American?)in a southern state where racism is the order of the day. The language is simple the narrative plain but it hits bulls eye with its humanity. The strength of the narrative is that it is told through the eyes of the daughter . I honestly believe that after reading the book anyone would emerge as a more compassionate humane person . What more could one ask of a book?
By the way this book won a Pulitzer & was also adapted for screen with Gregory Peck playing the lawyer. It is also believed to be a classic but I have not seen it as I have savoured it with my own imagery and not for all the wealth in this world would I want it to be distorted.
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Like most people of my age( that I wouldn’t reveal now!) I have a strong contempt for what the US of A stands for, so most of my friends are surprised when I endorse another American author. I believe that masterpieces are always accidental . Every time I read this book reconfirms my belief. Heller went on to write other books, he was always intelligent, nobody could come closer in black humour but the cross of Catch 22 was too big aburden for even Heller.
US of A is never going to change, it will go on poking its nose in every part of the world where it percieves it has an interest and always fighting wars in foreign soil. As long as US Of a does it this book is relevant.
Oh I should mention that the plot -if there is one- is that the main character is a pilot who wants to get off the warzone. But there is a catch and that is catch 22. Read it and see tears well up your eyelids even you wouldn’t know whether you are sad or silly, mad or filled with melancholy.By the end of it all one thing is hammered into everybody’s head( except the successive administrations of US of A) the futility of war. But does US of A win everytime.
As the Italian grandfather(?) in a Milan whorehouse says to Yossarian’ The trick is to lose wars. Italy has not won a single war and look where we are’ The greatest plus of this tome is you can open up any page at random read twenty or so pages in bed and mull it over till you fall asleep.
Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse.
This man died when he was Ninety three-or was it ninety two. Does it matter? what matters was he was typing his eighty sixth book’ Sunset at Blandings’ from his hospital bed. Plum as he was affectionately called started writing in the nineteenth century( no typos here) yes his early books were written in the nineties(1890s! that is). He wrote about a time when British youngsters did precious little but live off their dads who got into money from where else India! They were always impersonating others, stealing from their hosts, pinching policemen’s helmets and always engaged to the wrong girl. In short acting silly.But do we feel bad no way . That is the magic of PGW. His world is closest to Utopia .PG says it did exist but who cares.
I could have just jotted down the entire list of books by the great master but Code of the Woosters would be a nice start for anyone new to PG. Bertram Wooster & Jeeves are a world apart but they gel as a team. The mild manner of poking fun at everything under the sun would not offend anybody . Many at ime in my teens have I read his books lying upside down in a sofa with the book below on the ground. I would holler out loudly at times, giggle at others and wipe the tears off without knowing what I was doing. Our neighbours had come into the drawing room on one such occassion and were rather confused.My mother who was used to this sort of thing nonchalantly told the neighbours’ Nothing to worry he is reading Wodehouse’ This had only confused them further who went out without a word.
A school friend of mind got so carried away by the loopy romance proposed to a girl who was four years his senior and got beaten
A word of caution though, PGW is highly addictive.I believe every title of his should bear the statutory warning. Do not read the book in public places like trains, buses or waiting rooms else what happened to me might happen to you and my mother wouldn’t be around. An added bonus would be that your english would improve and you would learn quotationsfrom as varied sources as Illyad and the Old testament, Pliny the younger to Spinoza.
Rem acu tetigisti
I’ll like to review two other books in
Part_II tomorrow.If you like it that is. To come 18vatthu Atchakkodu by Ashokamitran Tamil Mogha Mull by Thi Jaa Tamil