Hearts in Atlantis
“Consider it. Good books are for consideration after too,” Ted Brautigan says.
Stephen King writes one fascinating tale by linking five unlinked stories. The first story, “Low Men in Yellow Coats” is set in the 60s and lays the ground, as little as it can, for the next four stories. This story, borrows characters from King’s “Dark Tower” series. The rest of the stories borrow at least one character from the first one. The last story provides a closure to all other stories. This strategy alone makes the book worth considering.
“Low Men in Yellow Coats” is a story of an 11-year old boy, his confused mother, his two friends, and his elderly pally neighbor who sees men from the other world. This story is very well told and represents both children and aliens in an intriguing fashion.
The other stories - “Hearts in Atlantis,” “Blind Willie,” “Why We’re in Vietnam,” and “Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling” deal with the Vietnam war, its affects and aftermaths. Each story picks one not so important character from “Low Men in Yellow Coats” and tells the tale of people around that character in latter years. The book ends in 1999.
King does not aim to give you goosebumps this time around. The idea is very novel to me, thought I did not like the second story much. It ran far too long and got into details that did not interest me. I wanted to know more about Yellow-Jacketed Men. The book does not tell me about them. Apparently, I have to read Dark Tower Series now!! As an anthology, this works.
11/14/2005
One Night @ the Call Centre
Let me put this straight, this is not close to Five Point Someone, but that does not make it a bad second effort. No, not bad at all.
This time around, Chetan Bhagat tells a story closer to a larger section of the youth population. If you have ever worked in corporate environment, not necessarily a call centre, you can relate to bits and pieces of the book.
This is a story of five friends who work in just another call center in Gurgaon. They do the usual stuff that you and I do, they visit the same places as us, they have similar aspirations and similar problems – well more or less similar problems.
This story of one night takes off pretty well, and grows on you fast. However, as morning approaches, the story begins to stagger. It wobbles and falls flat in the end. No, I did not like the treatment of the last bit. I am not talking about the important call they receive but about how these friends react to the call and save the world. It is very Bollywood-ish.
But in Bhagat’s defense, he manages to give us another easy read. Good to kill time during your train travel to visit your mother.
American Gods
Neil Gaiman’s imagination rocks! And, this in itself is a fabulous reason to pick up American Gods.
Gaiman tells the story of Gods, who have traveled from different distant lands to America, with their believers who moved to this land in search of their dreams. This is also a story of Shadow, just another ordinary guy deeply in love with his wife. Only, his life is anything but ordinary. Shadow is let out of the prison a few days before the planned date to make it on time for his wife’s funeral. Shocks galore when he is faced with the reality of the outside world; while trying to escape one such reality, he bumps into God. Life is a thrilling whirlwind from there. Shadow hops from one place to the other, meeting intriguing characters, dodging goons, robbers, and Gods, and making the readers flip the pages in frenzy.
Presence of umpteen complex characters does not harm the razor-sharp plot of the book. The segregation of old and new Gods is a treat to read. The wit is interwoven in the storyline making every sentence a joy to read.
However, in the middle of the book, you reach a point where nothing much happens and you want to rush to the end. There is a separate storyline about Gods moving to America, which runs in parallel. At places, it bored me. I like flow and proper transition. But its absence is also a style in its own right.
All in all, a fascinating, unputdownable read. Take my word, you have never read anything like American Gods before. Go for it.
