Excerpts: A Tale of Two Cities

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received. for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

One of the best beginning lines in literature!

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It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing tress when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history.

This is one of the distinct characteristics of this book;it has these ominous,indirect hints about the Revolution that is to come. It gives me goosebumps!

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It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rags and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; hunger was shred into atomies in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil.

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Only one soul was to be seen, and that was Madame Defarge- who leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing.

Saw nothing indeed :D Only Dickens can describe it so superbly!

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Mr Lorry: I hope you care to be recalled to life?

Dr Manette: I can't say.

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Mr Stryver: I had to get into the front rank; I was not born there, was I?

Sydney Carton: I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you were.

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Monseigneur could swallow a great many things with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to be rather rapidly swallowing France.

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Defarge: It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment, without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?

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The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life in the city ran into death according to the rule, time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all things ran their course.

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All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life and the return of the morning. surely, not so the ringing of the great bell of the chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs; nor the hurried figures on the terrace; nor the booting and tramping here and there and everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses and riding away?

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It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at the chateau.

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Defarge: It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives, to erase himself from existence, than erase one letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge.

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But, madame sat all day at her counter, so expressly unconscious of him, and so particularly determined not to perceive that his being there had any connection with anything below the surface, that he shook in his wooden shoes whenever his eyes lighted on her. For, he contended with himself that it was impossible to foresee what that lady might pretend next;and he felt assured that should she take it into her brightly ornamented head to pretend that she had seen him do a murder and afterwards flay the victim, she would infallibly go through with it until the play was played out.

One of the most enjoyable things in this book is the descriptions of Madame Defarge's character and manners and their effect on others.

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Man: You work hard, madame

Madame Defarge: Yes, I have a good deal to do.

Man: What to you make, madame?

Madame Defarge: Many things.

Man: For instance-

Madame Defarge: For instance, shrouds.

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Madame Defarge: You have seen both dolls and birds today, now, go home!

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Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well- thousands of acres of land-a whole province of France-all France itself-lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line.So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star.

You can almost picture this, zooming out from the chateau to look at the world as a little speck from far away. 

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The day was very hot, and heaps of flies, who were extending their inquisitive and adventurous perquisitions into all the glutinous little glasses near madame, fell dead at the bottom. Their decease made no impression on the other flies out promenading, who looked at them in the coolest manner (as if they themselves were elephants, or something as far removed), until they met the same fate. Curious to consider how heedless flies are!--perhaps they thought as much at Court that sunny summer day.


Again the ominous hint :)

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Madame Defarge: "Hah! Good day, age about forty, height about five feet nine, black hair, generally rather handsome visage, complexion dark, eyes dark, thin, long and sallow face, aquiline nose but not straight, having a peculiar inclination towards the left cheek which imparts a sinister expression! Good day, one and all!"


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John Barsad: "A pretty pattern too!"

"YOU think so?" said madame, looking at him with a smile.

This lady gives me the chills!

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It was remarkable; but, the taste of Saint Antoine seemed to be decidedly opposed to a rose on the head-dress of Madame Defarge.

The frequent personification of Saint Antoine gives a different feel to the situation..as if the town itself has come alive to demand justice and revenge

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The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive upheaving of wave against wave, whose depths were yet unfathomed and whose forces were yet unknown. The remorseless sea of turbulently swaying shapes, voices of vengeance, and faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering until the touch of pity could make no mark on them.

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The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it that the sun had never given, and would never take away. 

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As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften to , it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl.

Brings out the finality of death quite well!

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"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

The last lines of courage for Sydney Carton when he is called to the guillotine

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"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

The last thoughts of Sydney Carton and the last lines of the book!

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A Tale of Two Cities is one of the best written of Charles Dickens' books. One of the highlights of the book is the significant, ominous hints Dickens keeps throwing throughout the first half on the upcoming Revolution and his description of the Revolution when it comes. The other is some really wonderful characters, which is kind of his specialty across all his books. I don't know if any other writer has devised as many quirky characters as him (think Miss Havisham, Uriah Heep, Mr.Dick, Betsey Trotwood, and Daniel Quilp)! Here it is Sydney Carton and Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge is one of the scariest people ever and just gives you the chills whenever she makes an appearance! :D The book is definitely a masterpiece, especially for anyone who enjoys the journey of reading and not just the destination!

A Life Well Lived: J.R.D. Tata

Finally done with 'Beyond the Last Blue Mountain', a biography of J.R.D. Tata by R.M. Lala. It was every bit as wonderful as I expected it to be! For a long time in life, I had no role models and felt quite some pressure when we were asked to write essays about our role model and all :D I couldn't understand that concept of keeping someone as a benchmark for how you want to live your life (I was all about individuality you see). But JRD changed all that! He is one person whose life I would happily hold as a benchmark for my own because it was just so damn fantastic! Every time I read the book, I was almost overwhelmed by how there could be so much good in one person: in terms of capability, wisdom, attitude, everything!

They don't make leaders like him anymore: people who can balance excellence with humility and humanity. India owes him so many of her finest institutions like TIFR, BARC (which benefited from TIFR talent), TISS, Tata Memorial Hospital, NCPA etc. We also owe him our foray into civil aviation and atomic energy and truckloads of self-belief in ourself as a country :) Here is a great example of how humble a person he was, related by his driver:

If he was having lunch at Air India, he would inform me or say, "If I don't come by 1.15 you can go for lunch". If he unexpectedly made a lunch date, he would come down himself, 22 floors in the lift, tell me not to wait, and go to lunch. Sometimes I went to lunch and if he came down after that, he would take another car and come to Bombay House. Never once did he take it up with me.

I think the Air India connection is another reason why I like JRD so much. My daddy had his entire career at Air India (so different in its good days) and my childhood at Air India colony and school was a special time (for some reason, most of the people from Air India colony are super-attached to it even now...there was something special about that place). I also strongly identify with JRD's love for Mumbai: it is something like Scarlett O'Hara with Tara :D Even now, while I miss my home, I also miss Mumbai as a city very much. And the cherry on the cake was when I found out that JRD was also a fan of Disneyland and one of the last plans of his life was a trip there :)

While JRD's life is too awesome to make a boring book, due credit must also be given to R.M. Lala for researching and writing it really well. His language is very good too, as was that of many Indians when those stiff-upper-lip Brits were around :D I will finish this write-up with the last lines of the book, so beautifully written by the author:

And as the evening mellows and the shadows lengthen, somewhere above in the sky, in an invisible Puss Moth, is a voyager still pressing ahead to cross beyond the last blue mountain where a glorious sunset awaits him.

A Curious Book about a Curious Boy

Such is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. Finally read this book that I had been wanting to read for quite some time because it is praised so much. I liked it too. Christopher is an interesting character and he looks at the world in a very interesting way. Some of it is so surprisingly insightful: such as his observations on how likes and dislikes are meaningless but necessary so that we can make unimportant decisions faster (like which dish to order at the restaurant) and how humans sub-consciously fashion alien beings after themselves though for all we know, spaceships could be made of clouds instead of metal. And that logic presents the very interesting possibility that aliens are already amongst us but we just don't recognize them! The style of the book is nice and different too (the chapters are numbered according to the prime number series!).

I felt very bad about Christopher's inability to understand emotions more for the sake of his father than himself. I felt really bad that Christopher could not understand how much his father had done for him. I don't condone dog-killing under any circumstances but if Christopher had been emotionally mature, he might have understood that the lie was to protect him. Wouldn't it have hurt anyone to know that they were the reason their mother went away? Writing weekly letters is not the same as staying and dealing with the situation, and it was really sad to see his father being treated like a villain by everyone after all that he did for Christopher :( Anyway, it was good to see that things were slowly working out in the end and my happiness would have been complete if the mom and dad had got back together :D Another very positive thing in the end, though I'm not sure the author intended it so, was how Christopher's confidence increases and he plans an independent future for himself. Note how he talks about himself living in a flat and taking Sandy and his stuff but does not mention his parents. It sounds like he is ready to take on the world!

Partial Relief

One of my favouritest books in the world is Alice in Wonderland. It's so funny and so wonderfully imaginative with all those cute, easily offended animals. I love how reality, order and logic all go topsy-turvy, the crazy conversations Alice gets into with Wonderland inhabitants, and the language (especially the cute way in which the word 'very' is often stressed). Most importantly, it was my refuge when reality got too nasty or disturbing and I had made it an unofficial symbol of all that is innocent. The fact that Lewis Carroll was himself childlike and preferred the company of children made it even better!

That is why I was really upset when I read theories on him possibly being a paedophile. His relationship with Alice Liddell (who inspired Alice in Wonderland) and his photography of children led people to question the nature of his attachment to children. Thankfully, there were no instances of misbehaviour on his part so these remain speculations. Still, my doubt did not completely go away and I really wished there were some way to know about Lewis Carroll for sure!

Now recently, I read about this other crazy person called John Ruskin who was a great art critic, philosopher etc. Apparently, he did not consummate his marriage because real women turned out to be quite different from the marble statues he studied and he was not prepared for that (lol!). Then he went and fell in love with a nine year old girl :O This was really shocking but I think I understood what the problem with these people was. I think when these very intellectually advanced people live in an idealistic world of their own, their minds are distanced from their physical self. So when they are forced to confront with baser needs of their own and those of others, they are unable to understand it (because they try to understand/study it in the first place) and they are repelled by it. The conflict between their minds and bodies then exhibits itself in strange and often questionable behaviour of this sort. That is why both of them showed a more-than-natural attraction to children because relationships with children did not require any cunning or crudeness from them (I got this analysis partially from Wikipedia). So I don't think either of them ever meant to harm children: they were just two men sadly out of touch with reality and unable to cope with it in a healthy manner.

I think even Nikola Tesla might have been of this category because he never had intimate relationships with women and towards the end of his life, he is said to have fancied a pigeon. Now we all love children and animals for their innocence. But the problem with these men was their inability to accept life as it was which made them look at normal things in a warped way. So the sad and ironical thing here is that these geniuses have sort of tainted the very innocence they desperately tried to cling to! That is why I'm only partially relieved. (Disclaimer: I don't really know much about John Ruskin so all my rambling is speculation based on superficial knowledge only!) 

Books to Read

I'm really liking this 10 books game on Facebook! I'm learning about so many new books and also realizing that I have a looong way to go in terms of literature. My reading has been quite narrow so far: limited to the most famous classics and contemporary best-sellers. I still haven't read Ayn Rand or explored any different kind of writing. Of course, I have always believed that it is quality and not quantity that matters; I never want to read a book just so that I can say I have read it! I'll read only what I really feel like reading and no MBA admission interview is going to change that :D

Here are some books that I plan to read, compiled from lists of my Facebook friends:

• Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
• The Mother - Maxim Gorky
• Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
• The Great Gatsby - Scott F. Fitzgerald
• Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
• War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
• Heidi - Johanna Spyri
• Blandings series - P.G. Wodehouse
• A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
• Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
• The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
• Haruki Murakami
• Orhan Pamuk
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Metamorphosis - Frank Kafka
• Mrityunjay

That's all I can find for now! I'm sure there were more and I'm not able to remember who posted them :(

It was interesting to see how many people mentioned one of Khaled Hosseini's books. Considering he has written only 3-4, he should be proud of himself for making such an impact. Also, it was nice to see almost all readers giving due credit to Enid Blyton! I had thought people might feel she's too chindi to be mentioned. She has certainly made most of our childhoods though she has her share of critics (infact, even I have noticed she is a bit of a racist). But we can't ignore all the good she's done us!

Now, good luck to me with this list!

Ode to Saki

He is undoubtedly THE funniest author I have ever read!He is like a cross between Oscar Wilde and P.G. Wodehouse. The Clovis series reminds me of Bertie Wooster adventures with absolutely ridiculous things happening while the Reginald series reminds me of Oscar Wilde plays with all its sarcasm and biting social commentary (It's funny how well the old British aristocratic society lent itself to satire and how it was probably also one of the biggest consumers of this satire).

My favourites are the incredibly funny nieces who fooled people with their crazy tales and the scary little nephews who seriously knew how to punish aunts back :O God knows what Saki's aunts had to go through! I'm sure those stories are a little autobiographical :D

Anyway, he is one of the best authors I've read. I'm very grateful to my friends who gifted me his book!

Essay: Middlemarch

I have finished yet another George Eliot book with the feeling of having lived through a lifetime through it. Even though Middlemarch hardly covers a span of 3/4 years, the characters (especially Dorothea) have come a long way by the end of the story. I can't say that I loved it completely because many bits made me very impatient. I could not understand why G.E. goes deep into the nature and history of many very temporary characters! I just didn't feel interested enough in them to read all that. I wish she had given more time to the Fred and Mary romance which I loved best :D :D But she did do them justice in the Finale. I also could not get myself interested in the local politics of that time so I didn't enjoy reading those scenes either. I think many of the things that bored me would have had more significance and meaning for readers of those times. I wonder if the times I'm living in has made me more impatient of too much data that does not have any information in it ;) 

But apart from that, the book did move me a great deal. I was inspired especially by Dorothea's character and with what grace she dealt with the problems she faced, how unselfish she was. I hope I learn to deal with life in a more selfless and courageous way myself. In this book, Eliot has delved deep into the human mind and laid bare many little inconsistencies and anomalies of the human nature that we often would be ashamed to admit even to ourselves. I will cover those in the excerpts which should come up soon! She has again made it very hard to feel in a consistent way for any character by making them as complicated as people in real life are :) I began by disliking Will and even Dorothea but loved them towards the end! This really does set her apart from other writers who have their characters more or less aligned with either the good side or the bad. Even her most useless side-characters often make a surprising show of courage or generosity and stump you. In this book, I was really surprised by how Mrs. Bulstrode dealt with the truth about her husband. The most touching scene in the book was when she gives him her silent support and they sit and cry together :( But I noticed that Eliot, like quite a few other female authors, could not resist exposing the true sly nature of the blonde coquette that male authors love to worship as angels :D I don't blame them...men have an annoying way of blindly attributing every other virtue where they see beauty (even my good ol' Dickens would not have any contradiction between beauty in appearance and in character). By the way, Eliot's pretty, blonde characters are really dangerous! Rosamond and Hetty( from Adam Bede) are two ladies I would stay away from :O Has she seen someone like that in her life?

Another way in which this book brought to light the realities of human nature is by showing how even the closest relationships are not devoid of private motives and judgements. For example, Dorothea and Celia truly love each other but each has her private unfavourable notions about the other. Many of Lydgate's tender gestures towards Rosamond are more a result of personal motives than any real feeling on his part. And it was a little sad when Sir James did not think his baby flawless in appearance. I always thought parents loved their children blindly so this possibility was a little shocking. Next thing you know, even your dog is judging you :O

Anyway, I have Virginia Woolf to thank for her recommendation of this book (I think in one of her own essays). But I must again bring up the point that she made about Austen being awesome enough to not use a pseudonym! Seeing the kind of frankness about human nature that Eliot and the Brontes had in their writing, you really can't blame them! Austen always played it safe...she was sarcastic but didn't really say anything that a 'lady' is not supposed to or have anything really bad happen in her stories (the worst I know is Lydia's elopement with Wickham). These women show that they know more about the vileness of things than is acceptable for a proper lady to know. So really, they can't be compared! 

Middlemarch sure gave me a lott to think about but I will stop this long essay here and hopefully, come up with the excerpts soon.

The Yellow Wallpaper

What a delightful and disturbing read! Especially because I didn't know it was fictional and I thought someone actually went through all that.There is nothing much I want to say about it, except highly recommend it, because I'm unable to explain why I liked it so much. I think it was the crazy imagination and beautiful language (there was something about her language). And somehow, after I came to know that it was one of the earliest feminist works, I liked it much more. Funny because it doesn't explicitly say anything about female suppression or female rebellion: it's just a crazy lady describing in great detail the wallpaper she's obsessed with! But it somehow makes me feel as if something important has been said on behalf of women. Of course, it's purpose was to show how women with mental ailments were neglected in those times so it's not all that random. But it's a very, very subtle feminist work because to me atleast, there didn't seem to be any attempt to convey a message and it was just a crazy story :) One that has to be read!

And Khalid Hosseini does it again!

There is no doubt that he is a master storyteller, just like Saboor in 'And the Mountains Echoed'. In MBA language, story telling is his core competency :D 'And the Mountains Echoed' is yet another beautiful book but also a lot different from the first two because the sorrows faced by the characters are less intense. Unlike the first two, which in a way rely on Afghanistan's unbelievable tragedies to move the reader by their own merit, this book leaves more work to the author because it is more general and less tragic. I think the author is trying to break away from getting into a reptitive theme and context for his books. The narrative by Marcos proves that Hosseini is really a good writer and not just riding on his country's misfortunes to make moving stories. I guess he'll move more towards neutral stories and characters from now.

Rather than a single story, this book is full of multiple small stories from the perspective of different characters. It is so rich in the variety and depth of characters that it is almost like a handbook of the many types of people exisitng in this world. There are people who are strongly shaped by circumstance and people who strongly retain their core inspite of it. He shows how people are so very complicated and makes one wonder if it even makes sense to judge people anymore. I found Parwana and Idris to be two really complex characters. Both of them may have turned out well but they are beaten into being what they are by incidents in their life. Parwana's horrible betrayal of her sister, twice, shows how deeply she must have been affected by the neglect and negative comparison she has faced all her life. And somehow I don't even know if I can blame her for being the way she is: heaven knows how her mind slowly hardened over the years with the constant wounding to her esteem and heart. Idris is such a real character!One of those people whose righteous(or otherwise) anger is expressed through resentment towards all and sundry rather than fruitful action. I guess I'm one of those people too though ;) The relationship between Idris and Timur is so complex. Timur is shown as being a person who is really good at heart despite all his antics and yet he did contribute in making Idris the bitter person he was.

One surprising thing about Hosseini is how sensitive he seems to be to what a plain woman feels and the fact that he brought this situation up in two books. In this book it is Parwana and in 'A Thousand Splendid Suns', it was Mariam. Both are neglected because they are plain and Hosseini describes their reaction to it with a surprising amount of insight. I thought you would have to be in the shoes of such a person, or atleast a girl, to understand it but Hosseini does a great job. For instance, when he points out in the book that Parwana was not angry that the boys threw pebbles but that they threw them only on Masooma! But I wonder what his connection to it is. Or as usual, I'm reading too much into things :D

My favourite excerpt in the book: "Pari spots an old woman across the street, wearing  a plastic rain bonnet, labouring up the sidewalk trailed by a small tan terrier. Not for the first time, a little puff breaks rank from the collective fog of Pari's memories and slowly takes the shape of a dog. Not a little toy like the old woman's, but a big mean specimen, furry, dirty, with a severed tail and ears. Pari is unsure whether this, in fact, is a memory or the ghost of one or neither. She had asked Maman once if they had ever owned a dog in Kabul and Maman said, You know I don't like dogs. They have no self-respect. You kick them and they still love you. It's depressing."

When I kindly overlook Maman's idiotic opinion, this para gives me goosebumps for some reason. The contrast between the two dogs is much like the contrast between Paris and Kabul and the two very different lives of Pari. It's beautifully put. And I love the fact that it's a dog that still binds Pari to her remote past. Dogs are like that :)

Memorable Book Beginnings

The first line of a book can be quite important because it often sets the tone for the rest of the book and writers have often used it to great effect. Here are a list of beginnings that are memorable. Some of them are obvious choices, some very witty and ironical, and some have this ring of significance that can be felt but cannot be explained(as with many of the best things in the world!)

Call me Ishmael.

-Moby Dick

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

- A Tale of Two Cities

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.

-David Copperfield

Scarlett O'Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

-Gone with the Wind

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. 

-Pride and Prejudice

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

-Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

This is just a few books and I'll keep adding more as and when I get them.

Essay:Feminism in literature

Do male authors ever write about average women?Female characters are almost unfailingly beautiful in books authored by men :D Infact, they are generally a perfect package of great looks, high intelligence and supreme confidence. I think male authors have a very black-and-white perception of women. To them, women are either angels from heaven or villains sent to break their hearts. Take Vanity Fair for example: Amelia and Becky Sharp are two extremes of womankind. One is too soft and innocent to defend even herself and the other, too manipulating and scheming. If there is one grouse I have with Dickens, it is his portrayal of women. Of course, it is a recent development!His heroines(Agnes Wickfield particularly) were my models of humanity. They were perfect in every way:kind, patient and loving. There was never a fault with them and they were incapable of hurting anyone. Indeed, they often put others before themselves. Now, I ask myself why!Why should women have to be angels who guide the hero of the novel to the path of righteousness?Women are as human as men and as liable to have their own weaknesses. We are all learning from life and though women's maternal instincts make them naturally kinder, they cannot, and need not, be flawless!

Female authors have often tried to battle this perception. They rarely write about perfect women. You either have Scarlett O'Hara's looks or Melanie Hamilton's character, rarely both. Their heroines are not demi-gods but real people like Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Eyre or Jo. I almost feel as if female authors are pleading with the world, through their characters, to see that women are a mixture of good and bad, virtues and vices. Their women are more complex and vulnerable and want to be accepted the way they are. And they don't always have to be good!

Let alone the characters, the authors themselves have had to encounter prejudice of this kind in the reception of their books. Female authors often used pseudonyms to hide their gender because they didn't want people's opinions of their work to be distorted by it. Jane Austen was one of the few who didn't and Virginia Woolf praises her for it. But the Bronte sisters weren't as lucky. People thought their books were vulgar because they were too open about feelings and passions than women had any right to be. Wuthering Heights was criticized as being coarse and Jane Eyre, too passionate. The world has surely come a long way since then. Female authors are not ostracized for being frank anymore but do women still have to shoulder the responsibility for perfect morality?I don't know..I'm still stuck in the 19th century.

Essay:The Mill on the Floss

I had wanted for sometime to read a book by George Eliot for two reasons: she was liked by Charlotte Bronte and she was one of the Big Four(the others being Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte and Jane Austen) mentioned in a Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf(I'm not a big fan but still, the lady had some good judgement ;)). I randomly picked up The Mill on the Floss and am very happy that I did.

The book has moved me a great deal. It is one of those "epics" where you feel as if you have actually spent a lifetime through it rather than just a period of someone's life. I felt the same about Gone with the Wind: you go through various and strong emotions along with the characters in their intense joy and suffering and are left in awe by the end of the book. To my knowledge, this book has been very different from it's contemporaries in the way it has handled it's characters and most of all, in the way it ended. I really did not expect Tom and Maggie's life to be cut short like that but for me, it was a happy ending! I don't think it could have ended more beautifully. You might think I have a morose mind and the person who wrote the introduction to the story felt that G.E. could surely have conjured up a happier ending. However, to me, the central point was the love that existed between the brother and sister that was sorely obstructed by misfortune and their vastly different natures so I was just happy they loved each other again like they did as little children;nothing and noone could come again to spoil it! I just felt happy that Maggie was satisfied in her one great wish to be simply loved by Tom without judgement. It seems human nature rejoices as much in touching tragedy as in happy endings and authors have totally exploited that  :D Shakespeare's tragedies are more loved and admired than his comedies, aren't they?

This book initially put me in a lot of confusion. I was always used to utterly and completely siding with the protagonist of any book I read and I assumed that since, Maggie is the protagonist of this book, all my sympathy will be directed towards her. Yet, I often found myself supporting Tom over Maggie and couldn't help wondering if I had lost feelings like compassion and generosity. Of late, I have been suspecting myself of losing some of my idealistic notions and turning a little practical/cynical(honestly, the world seems too grey and complicated to have fixed ideas and opinions anymore!Live and let live seems to be the best policy to follow :)). This unusual reaction caused me to worry a little. Then I realised that's exactly what the book wants me to do. It doesn't want me to point out that this person is a hero and that person is a villain. Rather, it is showing me that everyone in the book, without exception, has both merits and demerits. Maggie is no angel, Tom is no villain, Philip is no long-suffering saint and Stephen is not a heartless traitor. They have all, including the dull Mrs Tulliver, done both good and bad things. Even the grouchy Aunt Glegg is redeemed in the end!I think George Eliot wants to convey that human nature is too complicated and mixed to be judged too severely and so, we must just help each other along the way rather than being bent on punishing everyone for their faults.

By some weird coincidence, many of the books I read have themes that are similar to my life at that point because of which I can relate better to them! Here, Tom and Maggie's passage into care-ridden adulthood coincided with what I've come to finally accept, that I must grow up :D But it brought back to me why childhood is so amazing. For one, we had time to stand and stare, as that poet says. I miss the balcony at 27/5 from where I had an awesome view of the vast sky that I would stare at joblessly. Nowadays, the sky has become a rare sight in Mumbai >:( Secondly, we had unalloyed fun. Fun was not analysed to find out if it was good enough or cool enough; it was just had. Thirdly, we had unalloyed affection. We just liked people till we had a reason not to. We were barely aware of their faults, let alone their virtues. But these are luxuries only a protected, dependent individual may enjoy without getting into a lot of trouble :D The Mill on the Floss was an amazing read and I'm looking forward to more of George Eliot in the future!

CORRECTION: The author Charlotte Bronte mentions is George Sand, not George Eliot.I conveniently mixed up the last names!

Essay: On sub-themes in literature

I have observed that, just as authors have pet themes that appear in more than one of their books, they also have sub-themes that recur across books. These are mostly inconspicuous, insignificant things but may provide a greater insight into the author and I feel they are a reflection of the author's personal experience or their wishes and fears that make their way into the author's works. Here are the authors with whom I have noticed this:

Jhumpa Lahiri - She is the one who made me notice this tendency first. In two books, she has an instance where the protagonist loses interest in their lover after a parent's death. It happens to Gogol in The Namesake and to Ruma in Unaccustomed Earth(if my memory is right!). Two times is not much but it is a strange thing to happen in the first place, the connection that is drawn between the death of a parent and the breaking up of a relationship. The fact that it appeared in another book made me wonder if she has seen this happen or thinks that it should happen!
Update: I think I understand what this is about. In both cases, the protagonist is a first generation NRI child with an identity crisis who has chosen the American culture over the Indian one. Both their partners are Americans and they find their parents a little backward. But the deaths of the parents makes them take the trouble to understand their parents and the parent's cultural roots, and appreciate both. The break-up with the American signifies that they accept their Indian heritage and themselves for who they are. Whew! Now that I think about it, this was very obviously implied in The Namesake.

Charles Dickens - I am pretty sure Dickens had an OCD of some sort because many of his characters do!Traddles' habit of drawing skeletons whenever he was nervous, Mr. Jaggers' repetitive washing of hands with soap, Sydney Carton dipping his head into a towel before getting to work, Dr. Manette's compulsive need to work on shoes when his trauma returns, Mr. Dick and the declaration or something that he used to copy out constantly: many of them had these compulsive habits. So, I wonder if Dickens had one too :) Another thing that has appeared in more than one book is marriage between a young woman and a much older man. This happens in David Copperfield(Dr. Strong and Anne), The Cricket on the Hearth and Hard Times. In the first two books, the woman is suspected of being attached to another man but it is proved false and the marriage takes place successfully. I know that Dickens, after being separated from his first wife, fell in love with a young actress. I'm not sure if this could explain the above situations though, as these books were most likely written earlier. But, it is all very interesting :D

Charlotte Bronte - Three recurring characteristics of her protagonists are they are orphans facing loneliness, they are plain-looking and the person they fall in love with is also plain-looking. Examples are Jane and Mr. Rochester, Lucy and M. Paul Emanuel, Shirley and Louis Moore(though in this case, Shirley is not plain) . Since, I've read Elizabeth Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bronte, I know that Bronte had strong feelings about beauty and plainness. She considered herself ugly and it affected her a lot mentally. I think this has reflected in her books and she wants to dispel the notion that beauty is essential for two people to love each other. Considering that beauty is given a lot of importance in romantic stories, she may have wanted to write about love between plain people for a change! I respect her for making the hero plain-looking too. It would have been hypocritical to have the plain heroine end up with a very handsome man :D Bronte's mother passed away when she was a small child and this may explain why her characters are without a family in more than one case. She writes about the pain of such a situation and the need for loved ones with great feeling in her books, especially in Jane Eyre.

Jane Austen - In her case, a situation where the heroine of the story has fallen for a dashing, young man only to find out that he was quite an idiot and the sulky fellow was Mr. Right after all, has occurred more than once :D Elizabeth Bennet is deceived by George Wickham's charms, Emma by Frank Churchill's attentions and Marianne by John Willoughby's. Maybe Jane Austen herself encountered such a young man. That is all, can't think of anything else on Jane Austen.

I may be making a mountain of a molehill here or I may have only touched the surface and left out many other authors and instances. Also, my knowledge of these authors is coloured by only those books I have read so it could be very incomplete. For instance, based on the short stories of Tolstoy that I've read, I would say he has a soft spot for cobblers because the protagonists are cobblers in the two stories I like best :D I also think Oscar Wilde has a tendency to play around with identities a lot: mistaken identities in The Importance of Being Earnest, hidden identity in Lady Windermere's Fan and manipulated identity in The Picture of Dorian Gray.There some authors, such as Wodehouse and Douglas Adams, whom I have read more than once without getting any idea about the author because I have only read the humorous stories written by them. Then there are authors such as JK Rowling and Louisa May Alcott whose books(that I've read) have been a series and I haven't really been able to see what they are like in different books. It's all very interesting though and if you have anything to add to it, you are most welcome!

Excerpts: Macbeth

Macbeth: The Thane of Cawdor lives:why do you dress me in borrowed robes?

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Banquo: And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

Win us with him honest trifles, to betray's

In deepest consequence.

Though the meaning of the second half is clear,it doesn't seem well framed or

something's wrong with my book!

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Banquo: New honours come upon him

Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould

But with the aid of use.

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Malcolm: Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it

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Macbeth: The Prince of Cumberland!That is a step

On which I must fall down, or else o'er-leap,

For in my way it lies, Stars, hide your fires!

Let not light see my black and deep desires:

The eye wink at the hand, yet let that be;

Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.

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Lady Macbeth: Art not without ambition, but without the illness(that) should attend it.

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Lady Macbeth: The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements.

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Lady Macbeth: Come, thick night,

And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

That my keen knife see not the wound it makes

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry "Hold,hold!".

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Macbeth: If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well

It were done quickly.

This is quoted by Jeeves in one of the Jeeves books :D

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Lady Macbeth: Art thou afeared to be the same in thine own act and valour as

thou art in desire?

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Macbeth: Away, and mock the time with fairest show:

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

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Macbeth: Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,

The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,

Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,

Chief nourisher in life's feast

Shakespeare describes sleep like this in another play too.He seems to have thought about it a lot :)

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Lady Macbeth : My hands are of your colour; but I shame to wear a heart so white.

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Macbeth: To know my deed, 'twere best not know myself.

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Malcolm: To show an unfelt sorrow is an office which the false man does easy.

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Macbeth: Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown,

And put a barren sceptre in my gripe.

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Lady Macbeth: Nought's had, all's spent,

Where our desire is got without content;

'Tis safer to be that which we destroy

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.

Best lines in the play!

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Macbeth : After life's fitful fever he sleeps well.

Quoted in Jane Eyre, Jane says this about Aunt Reed I think.

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Hecate: And, which is worse, all you have done,

Hath been but for a wayward son,

Spiteful and wrathful, who(as others do)

Loves for his own ends, not for you.

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Hecate: He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear

His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear:

And you all know security is mortal's chiefest enemy.

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The Three Witches: For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

Scores for imagination and amazing choice of words!

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Apparition: Macbeth shall never vanquished be until

Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill

Shall come against him.

Clearly one of the most important lines of the story!

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Lady Macduff: When our actions do not, our fears do make us traitors.

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Macduff's son: Then the liars and swearers are fools; for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them.

A valid point..it never occurred to me! :D

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Lady Macduff: I have done no harm. But I remember now

I am in this earthly world; where to do harm

Is often laudable, to do good sometime

Accounted dangerous folly.

Well said!

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Malcolm: Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, yet grace must still look so.

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Lady Macbeth: All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

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Macbeth: Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

So true!Our thoughts, actions everything will vanish beyond proof and for all anyone knows, we may just not have existed at all!

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Ross: Your cause of sorrow must not be measured by his worth, for then it hath no end.

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NOTES: I am new to Shakespeare and have read only a few plays and I like this one best. An extremely clever plot: it is thrilling as one by one, the witches' promises come undone. There is no way Macbeth could've expected their assertions to go wrong; yet, there were tiny loopholes that proved more dangerous than any open threat. Shakespeare has little tidbits of wisdom scattered throughout the play, just as he does in almost every other play I've read. The best thing is they always tell you something new, something you hadn't thought of before. His imagination is amazing!The three witches upon the heath and Hecate, the things they do and say and some of the descriptions given by other characters("though palaces and pyramids do slope their heads to their foundations") show he had good capacity for fantasy! Lord and Lady Macbeth are real characters: people who were good in normal circumstances but equally capable of cruelty when faced with desire and temptation. Finally, the best thing about Shakespeare:beautiful language with lots of poetry and metaphors. He is undoubtedly a genius.It was difficult to filter out good excerpts because there were just too many!