High Fidelity
Funny. Honest. Cute. Wise. Charming. Unputdownable.
High Fidelity is a story about a thirty-something British guy (Yes, a guy, not a man. You know the difference, right?), who owns a record store, collects records for his personal home collection, makes tapes for people, and has a fucked up love life. Let me rephrase, High Fidelity is a story of Rob, a guy with no life. Only, he thinks differently. Or maybe not. People have opinions, he has lists. For everything that happens in any given day, he makes a list. His girlfriend dumps him, he makes a list. His records don’t sell, he makes a list. His friends forget his birthday, he makes a list. His girlfriend’s father dies, well, he makes a list. If you are a girl, you don’t like Rob. But you know he is true and want him to be happy. If you are a guy, you relate to him, at one level or another.
Nick Hornby writes as we think in our heads – in simple, honest words. The conversation is sharp, the jokes are funny, and there is compassion. This book is not a work of super imagination, at least not a complete work of super imagination. Author’s deep insight into the shallowness of human nature makes me sure that the story is weaved from the experiences collected over time.
Hornby has done a great job of smoothly interlacing umpteen references to music with the story. Not even once does the mention of songs hinder the flow of the story. In fact, the story uses the songs to step forward. Another notable element is the strong characterization. Each character, however short its role may be, is depicted with such clarity and conviction that it comes alive in the reader’s head. I know Barry; I know Marie; I know Ray; I also know Rosy – the simultaneous orgasm, pain-in-the-arse girl. And yes, I love Hornby’s witty phrases.
So if you are looking for a charming, easy-to-read, out-and-out fun book about a man’s journey to getting sorted out, pick up High Fidelity.
5/12/2005
Batman:Broken City
Broken City is the story arch covering Batman #30-32 in the current Gotham Comics run, the last issue ending the story that turns the Dark Knight over to Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, the writer/artist team behind the series 100 Bullets.
Because it is Risso, it is genuinely eye-pleasing, but the story is no great shakes. The plot about a murder investigation among new and old villians, meanders a lot and culminates in a sort of mayhem, all set to Bats’ voiceover musings—a hard-boiled noir like narration that seems forced after a while.
There are predictable replays of his parents’ murder all through the story, though the tough as nails Bats smoothly investigating through Gotham City are kind of fun. What is NOT fun is the Spider-man-ization of Batman. Gone is the loathing he had for the Gotham’s corrupt and gone is his dark brooding manner. He is all jokes and puns and being pally with the riff raff, albeit in a rough way, so’s to get some information.
Azzarello ignores Batman’s larger-than-life, brooding persona; he turns him into a sadistic vigilante. Risso’s art, however, as brilliant as in 100 bullets. The images are sharp and crisp, the page flow dynamic, and the pencil work is masterful, mirroring Tim Sale’s earlier work on the Dark Knight. This gives the book a very distinctive european flavor, rarely seen in mainstream DC.
The plot in itself, meanders, as well as confuses the reader a fair bit. But as any body who has read Azzarello’s work knows, he takes a long time talkin about something, but he delivers a sucker punch in the end. The end, however, is a bit of a let down here, the shocker only lasting a page or two, and offering no explanations.
To sum it up: Visually great, confusing to read, but worth it if you’ve ever thought Killer Croc was one dimensional.
5/9/2005
Tokyo Cancelled
A storm grounds their flight to Tokyo, and thirteen strangers are stranded overnight at an airport. The travelers huddle togeteher, and decide to spend the night telling each other stories. And so begins Rana Dasgupta’s first book, Tokyo Cancelled, where thirteen stories about lives in transit are told and linked together. This schemeis not exactly novel, being borrowed from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. But Rana does more than give the classic format a modern flavor. He weaves his own post modern stories about lives uprooted, in transit, dislocated people.
All the stories are told ina aflavor best suited for their ethnicity and location. All the cities covered in the tales are modern, contemporary cosmopolitans and Rana views them through a dystopian eye and inserts his views on consumerism and present day commercialization in a sometimes witty and sometimes poignant manner.
A Ukrainian merchant is led by a wingless bird back to a lost lover; Robert De Niro’s son masters the transubstantiation of matter and turns it against his enemies; a man who manipulates other people’s memories has to confront his own past; a Japanese entrepreneur risks losing everything in his obsession with a doll; a mute Turkish girl is left alone in the house of a German man who is mapping the world.
The stories are largely fantasies told with huge dollops of didactic undertones and satire. They work sometimes, and not very often, fall flat. It is an experimantal project that fails to innovate, yet the stories linger. The project as a whole leaves an exotic flavor with you.
While I can not recommend this book to everyone, I personally liked a lot in the book; I look forward to Rana’s next outing, where he hopefully delivers a more uniform and decisive stroke.
4/13/2005
Sixty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong
I usually don’t post book reviews on my blog, and I don’t know whether this time is just a one off, but Sixty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong is the kind of book most of us are not likely to actively seek or even encounter in most bookstores. It is, however, a book that deserves to be read. I came across this book almost by chance in a Canary Wharf bookstore while waiting for some friends. The fact that my friends did not turn up at all meant that I had read through quite a bit of the book before I finally decided to buy it and head home.
The blurb goes something like this: “They work 35 hour weeks and take seven weeks of paid vacation every year, and yet they have one of the largest, most productive economies in the world. They smoke, drink, and eat the most fat in the world, yet they live longer and have fewer heart problems than most of the world.” The contrast instantly struck me. More so because the French have almost everything that we in the developing world so desire, and yet they don’t work half as long as we do in a week. Of course, they’re also pretty laid back with respect to the Americans, British, and other English-speaking societies and it is from their perspective that this book is written(The authors are French Canadians).
Another thing I noticed while reading the book was the number of parallels that I could draw between French and Indian culture as I read the book. I’m pretty sure that the authors never investigated the parallels between the Indians and the French, but if they did, they’d realise that as alien as they might be to each other, the Indians and French are very close in their attitude towards the State and each other. Like the French, Indians expect their State/Government to do a lot for them in their lives. This is highly unlike the Americans or the British, who are more comfortable taking the reins into their own hands. Also, the French have a close bond to their land despite living in a highly developed and industrial society. The reason that the French system works so much better than the Indian state is the sheer difference in the numbers the Indian state must support. The French government also seems to have a highly developed sense of social responsibility (what the authors refer to as Interet General, or general interest).
The book also does a good job at explaining a lot of the idiosyncracies (or rather the things we think of as idiosyncracies) of the French and the French societal structure. For instance, it explains why French politicians seem to get away even after outrageous claims are proven against them. Or why it is that most foreigners tend to get the raw end of the deal when they approach sales clerks or government service counters in French cities.
The book is divided into three parts: Spirit, Structure, and Change in that order. Each of these parts is full of insights into the French mindset, their system, and what shaped them. My personal favorite would have to be the Spirit section if only so for the large number of anecdotes and events the authors quote in their bid to prove their point. That brings me to another great thing about this book. Unlike most other books about the French in English, this one is definitely well-researched. The authors do not chose to live their time in France in some quiet country house. They live in a working class Paris neighbourhood and make it a point to interact with the people around them to understand them better. Although the book isn’t too objective, it does not pass any judgements on French society, which is a sad mistake most American authors make when approaching France/French as a subject. In other words, the authors do not set out to prove any stereotypes. If anything, they debunk some popular myths about the French along the way.
For those of you who are the least bit anthropologically inclined, or ever intend to visit France, this book is a must have. In fact, the cover of the edition I bought went so far as to quote a reviewer saying that the book is worth handing out at the Charles de Gaulle airport. I wholly agree with that view. We frequently tend to treat the French as just another western society. This book explains why we are so very, very wrong in doing that. The French are as different from the Britons or the Americans as chalk is from cheese. The book is also available through firstandsecond.com in India.
Unfortunately, I managed to leave my copy behind when I left for India. I was about 50 pages away from finishing the book. I’ll get it back the next time I go, but meanwhile, if somebody buys a copy, do lend it to me.
