Book Review : Resident Dormitus

Title: Resident Dormitus

Author: Vikas Rathi

Publisher: Rupa Publications

Price: Rs 195

A new author, a new book. Unfortunately, this one does not meet my taste in books.

The book opens in the present, with 4 friends blaming each other over another friend’s untimely demise.

The scene then shifts to the past, and is narrated through the eyes of Achet, the protagonist of this story. He keeps speaking in riddles

The story revolves around Achet and his friends – Arjuna, Dev, Alex and Bala. They have all managed to be employed by an MNC and the story keeps shifting between India, Singapore and Malaysia. Achet is an Indian small-towner who has made it big (apparently the first to do so in his family). Arjuna is the son of Sri Lankan immigrants – turned- Australian and keeps jarring out “Hey Mate” in every few sentences. He seems to be the most sensible of the lot. Bala is an Indian, who is considered a slut by almost everyone (including herself), and is trying to climb the corporate ladder to prove her self-worth. Alex, a Greece-born Australian is another character in this unmelodious melody. It dwells on the young professionals who have stepped forth into the corporate jungle and are trying to make it big out there, the various traps (or enticements) each of them fall for. It depicts how easy it is to stray from the trodden path once you get complete financial freedom.

The jokes are off-colour and I felt as though the narrator kept trying to moralise his own and others’ behaviours. The book just bored the hell out of me, and irritated me to a great extent. A book ought to entertain, or atleast be a stimulation to the senses, forcing one to think and imagine. Vikas Rathi’s Resident Dormitus fails in both aspects – the moment you start reading it, you are left trying to find a reason why you should just not burn the book. Maybe that’s coming down a little too heavily, but it was precisely what I felt like doing.

The tale reads like some intellectuals trying to figure out themselves and the world with highfalutin language which is a definite no-no to a reader who reads for leisure. This book gives absolutely no pleasure to the leisure reader.

While reading the book, I felt like I was watching an art movie and trying to make some sense of what the characters were talking about. Most questions are answered with another question, which sends the reader into a deeper muddle trying to figure what they hell they were trying to convey. The narration is abysmal and sends the reader scampering to the far corners of the room just to get away from it.

It was with a great deal of difficulty that I managed to finish this book. And even now, I am not certain what the story is actually about – or why it was even written in the first place.

A book I will never recommend to anyone. As for the author, I would never recommend him now based on this story (if I can even call it that).

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Book Review : The Secret of the Nagas

Title: The Secret of the Nagas

Author: Amish Tripathi

Publisher: Westland Limited

Price: Rs 295

And the story continues. The Secret of the Nagas, the second offering in the Shiva Trilogy, picks up right where The Immortals of Meluha ends.

Shiva, a Tibetan immigrant and the acclaimed ‘Neelakanth‘ of Suryavanshi and Chandravanshi peoples’ legends, continues the battle against Evil, as well as trying to quell the demons within himself.

The story is characterised by a good deal of travelling done by Shiva and his aides throughout the land of India.

Book Review : The Immortals of Meluha

Title: The Immortals of Meluha

Author: Amish Tripathi

Publisher: Westland Limited

Price: Rs 195

Set in the India of 1900 B.C, The Immortals of Meluha is the first book of the Shiva Trilogy. It describes the rise of a Tibetan immigrant Shiva into the all powerful Mahadev, God of Gods.

The Book and The Movie – Eat Pray Love, PS I Love You

Recently, I had a chance to watch 2 movies – P.S. I Love You and the well-acclaimed Eat, Pray, Love.

Around 2 weeks later, I also got my hands on the original books – P.S. I Love You by Cecilia Ahern and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Actually I am still reading Eat, Pray, Love (Liz has just reached Rome now).

To put it in a nutshell, I hated the book version of P.S. I Love You and hated the movie version of Eat, Pray, Love.

Under the Dome

Under The Dome - Book Covers

The first time I laid my eyes on this book was last August at our nearest Reliance TimeOut store. The book was as big as the Bible. Another puzzling thing about the book was that it had multiple covers. One of the covers was that of a young girl, another was of an old man. This got me thinking – since the covers are different, it most certainly must be short stories. However, as far as I knew, Stephen King specialized in Horror genre and not short stories. Oh well, maybe he had decided to leap into the world of short stories – I decided.

Of course, now you must be wondering, why doesn’t the female just read the book cover and find out what on earth it was about – short stories or something else, instead of prancing about guessing. But being  a confirmed bibliophile, I was too busy poring over the multitude of books available at my fingertips at the store. Besides, seeing the size of the book, I was certain that I wouldn’t be buying it.

I left the store that day without any books (because Hubby was tired and grumpy after holding Baby while I was grazing on books). However, after getting a Reliance gift voucher within 2 weeks, I came running back to browse through at TimeOut again. This time I was sure that I would buy some book to keep me occupied. ‘Under the Dome’ was again looking at me curiously as if wondering – “Why does this lady pick me up every time she browses this aisle, and then puts me down again?”. Once again, I surmised that the book consisted of short stories. And decided to buy it. See, the thing with me is that, once I start a book I HAVE to finish it. However, if they are short stories, I can easily finish once story at a time and then decide when I want to read the next one. SO having a book with short stories was the best option.

I came home, and the bag containing the book lay undisturbed for a week or so. Then, I suddenly remembered that I had a book in queue for me and decided to start. Once I opened the book, I realised that it was a novel and not a short story as I had imagined.

Over a span of 2 months, I managed to finish the book. The book started off in a verrrrrrrrrrry boring tone with descriptions about the town and an ex-military guy named Dale Barbara (a.k.a ‘Barbie’), his thoughts and recollections. I would have thrown it into the rubbish heap if it hadn’t been a Stephen king book and I hadn’t shelled out Rs. 350 for it.

Then things began to get interesting. All of a sudden a huge dome is erected all around the perimeters of the Chester’s Mill town – a dome which lets air and water into the town in trickles. In other words, the 300 or so residents of the tow need to make do with the resources available to them. For added spice, other characters thrown in are a corrupt Selectman Big Jim, and his cronies and some upstanding citizens like the newspaper editor Julie Shumway.

The story has a strange parallel to the world of today, where we have limited natural resources and the huge amount of pollution. Instead of dragging the whole world into it, King has localised the effects of global warming and pollution to a tiny town and shown the effects quite effectively. It has its share of Al Gorelike people as well as ones like Corporations that try to make sure no regulations are passed with respect to carbon emissions et al.

It shows the psychological effects on people when they find that they are running out of resources like food, water and air, and how they react in such circumstances. Portrayed beautifully, I would say that it is a must read for anyone.