I have often wondered why is it that English translations of Russian authors seem to be much more widely available and read than writers from other languages. We have all heard of the great triad of Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Gogol and have come across the names of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Gorki, Nabokov and more but our [...]
Tag Archives: Book review
to Be or Not to Be
? That is the question - as Hamlet soliloquizes in one of the deepest, most biting reflections on the absurdity of life. His father has been murdered, his mother is married to the killer - which is the slain king's own brother, and Hamlet, writhing under the agony of inaction and helplessness, ponders lyrically over [...]
Steppenwolf
I read the book Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse over the weekend and here is an effort to glean some coherence out of its brilliantly ambitious and seemingly inchoate mass of ideas. I am glad to say that despite the back cover of the book containing phrases like 'blend of eastern mysticism and western culture', 'soul's [...]
So it goes.
Just finished reading Vonnegut's famous Slaughterhouse Five. New York Times, in their original review of the book, said something to the effect that you'd either love it or push it aside as a science fiction book. I suppose great works have that capability of sharply dividing public opinion but I just found the book... listless [...]
Lord of the Flies
It was one of those moments of lucidity when you abruptly realize that most of the time during the last 10 days that you did not spend sitting in front of the computer screen in the lab were spent sitting in front of the computer screen at home. And then you read a bit of [...]
The Golden Gate - Vikram Seth
A bittersweet lovestory it's in verse of hope and sadness, jealousy and loss, of love which always has hateful obverse, set against the lovely Francisco canvas. Language at once both beautiful and wise set in the tetrameter's confines, a work as evocative as Monet, unflinching rhymes, and refreshing sonnet. Through joy and sorrow the characters [...]
GEB
After days of diligent pouring, I have finally waded across 750 pages of paradoxes, logic, philosophy, mathematics, painting, music, and computation and crossed the checkered flag signaling the end of Hofstadter's 'Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.' Why, you might ask, is this important? Well, in the field of 'intelligent, thought provoking books', GEB [...]
Forster, Vonnegut, India et. al.
I guess it was the apt time to read Forster's 'A passage to India'. Any book that Kowsik recommends demands to be taken with a pinch of salt by me. Not to cast any aspersions on the merits of his choice for his is an extremely keen intellect and possesses a very envious literary repertoire, [...]
Posted in Book review, Miscellaneous Also tagged breakfast of champions, forster, passage to india, travel, vonnegut 4 Comments