Kick starting 2016

January began with two great books, John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman and the non- fictional 'Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad' by May Witwit and Bee Rowlatt.

Two books with premises which starkly contrasting one other, they provide a sense of fulfillment to the reader, and I can very contentedly say that my year indeed began well.

My edition of John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman was bought when I was in college. Somehow, having lived a very colourful and packed life of an undergraduate, I never got around to reading it. I picked up my many unread and half-read books in the long holiday dengue provided me, and managed to do a substantial amount of reading.

Written in 1969, the story is set in 1867, but weaves in comparisons with the contemporary era. The uniqueness lies in the novel's recognition of the 'meta'. The author uses  even cuts into the plot drawing comparisons between the Victorian and the present age. This I like. Fowles provides the reader a nice little surprise, weaving himself in twice into the storyline. I do like it when the author intervenes to explain a bit of the plot and narrative. It's chatty, requires a certain element of wit, without being pedantic... and Fowles does just that. He mesmerises the reader with his erudition of the Victorian era. Anyone will be left awed on seeing the well-researched quotes instead of the chapter names. Personally, I love this trend. Reminds me of other stalwarts who did the same, Mary Stewart and H. Rider Haggard, to name a few.

It follows the story of the wealthy Charles Smithson, who is already engaged to the spoilt Ernestina Freeman. He is a likeable character, despite being the prodigal Victorian English gentleman, straitjacketed by duty, honour and striving to be the perfect gentleman.

The real protagonist of the novel, however, is Sarah Woodruff, also known as 'poor Tragedy' or the French lieutenant's woman. Fowles weaves a character, who is enigmatic, yet simple, wild yet delicate, tragic yet redeeming. She is impulsive but all her actions are a result of her keen intuition and intelligence. A fatal combination, at least for Charles, who is fascinated by Miss Woodruff.

Fowles uses all kinds of spellbinding literary condiments and the final result leaves the reader in a bittersweet daze.

The end surprises you, not once, but twice. Famous for its double ending, the book gave me a beautiful start to the year.

The second book I sneakily read simultaneously,  flung me into a timeline and a geography far removed from the first. 'Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad' is a non-fictional epistolary exchange, between the England-born professor of English, May Witwit, living in Baghdad and a journalist from the BBC's World Service, Bee Rowlatt.  The beauty of the book lies in a kind of silver lining, formed by human compassion, resilience and hope, with the background of war-torn Iraq.

The two individuals strike a friendship transgressing war zones and find life in a bleak world of gunshots and civil war.

The entire book is a series of emails exchanged between Witwit and Rowlatt, between 2005-2008. The mails forge a sisterhood between the two.

Based in London and a mum-of-three, Bee, provides May with supports and encourages her dreams of finding a peaceful future. May gets a fellowship to a university in the UK to study for a PhD and is finally able to get out of her country. However, the journey to getting there is fraught with trials and tribulations challenging the human spirit to the extreme.

The two friends are diametrically different to one another. The reader will notice Bee as a friendly and open woman as she herself describes her to be. May on the other hand is more of a 'dark horse' as Bee refers to her, but it is her indomitable strength that guides her on. She is deep and true hero of the book.

The novel is deeply redeeming and offers the reader a fist-hand insight into the politics of Iraq. The ladies balance domestic duties and workplace woes. May trudges through her neighbourhood, which is strewn with corpses and the militia, to get to work. She gets back home to fix dinner for her husband, and tries to maintain a normal life at a home, despite it being threatened by its proximity to extremists.

The book proves to be a brilliant document of humanism, as it curates friendship, endurance and the will to not survive, but live.

I hate it when the murderer entices you to the very cliff and then gets bored with you, all of a sudden, turns and walks away without even turning back. Yeah, yeah its all in the game and setting it out but at least finish the kill now that completion is this close. You face the vast nothingness, you turn to see the murderer walk away, disinterested and distant. You look in  front, you look down at the height, feeling your every nerve tingle at the fact that the ground is so beneath you. You wiggle your toes to assure yourself that the feet are nearer to you than the next step they may take.

I hate it when the murderer loses interest in you. It hurts.

Confused, you look up and ahead. Again nothingness.

Then an unexpected push and then the fall....

You smile. He did finish the job for you after all.

Ever read Rimbaud?

I wrote this somewhere some time ago and rediscovering it, decided to post it.

Reckless Rimbaud reading colour

Giving Greasy Grays

To his demon lover

I'd read A Season in Hell once. Rimbaud wrote it when he was going through a bad phase with Paul Veraline. He was 20.

When you 'read' Rimbaud, just remember that he can't be read. He can only be experienced.  

http://www.dwildepress.net/critica/awakening31.html

For those who want to know who the hell Dana Wilde is- http://www.dwildepress.net/11whoisthis.html

Yeah, it's a guy.

The wind wafted softly caressing her face. The leaves glistened partly because of the moonlight and partly because of the lamp that hung pretty close to it. Somehow it seemed to be the perfect night.  Everything, calm and serene. Then, the insects started creeping in. It all started with a little dark one which seemed to be intrigued by her computer screen and refused to let go of it no matter however much she blew at it.

Fine! I have to share the screen with you then. She thought to herself.

He had been watching her and laughed at her defeat.

"Why don’t you just crush the damn thing?"

She looked at him. His features were just a blur in the shadows.

Why don’t I just crush him?

She didn’t know the answer to that. The creature, reassured by his minute victory, proceeded to examine his new found territory by crawling all over the screen. She watched it as it walked on the typed text transforming letters. All throughout, she had felt peace and somehow, she felt that the bug had something to do with it. It kept moving on the screen and she let it be.

A mosquito started buzzing near her ear and then she didn’t feel all that peaceful anymore.

Bloody Mosquito.

CRACK

He held a racquet shaped object in his hand and beamed at her happily. She looked away. And yet another victory... 

The Wait

You sit in the room, waiting. Waiting for a sound, even a small tiny little decibel of any sound. Made by a being oblivious to the listener. A sound that was intended to be made but was not intended to be heard. You wait. Staring into space. Your only companion that gives you some respite from the silence is the clock. Ticking the minutes away. Time sweeping by. Its face turned to you. The seconds speed on. No sound. But you wait. Endlessly. Your life slips by. Memories come rushing into your mind. Each jostling the other in its importance and its pettiness. You look up suddenly. Was that a sound? Some sign of life. No. Nothing. The silence weighs heavily in your ears. But you wait. That is the only thing to do. You look down again. You were told to sit. To be patient. That is what is expected and that must be fulfilled. You have to wait. No other option available. 

And so, you wait....

The Will to Communicate..

I remember seeing the movie, Mrs. Dalloway for the first time. I was still in what people would call the 'reluctant schoolgirl with a neat scrubbed face dragging her satchel to the education station' phase (courtesy Shakespeare's distinctly sectioned 7 stages of a man and my own adaptation to suit my needs). Even though I didn't understand much I was pretty overwhelmed by the story. My mother led me through the basics of the stream of consciousness, telling me that it was one of the greatest techniques ever used by (well, what else can I call them?)- the greats. 

I watched open mouthed as mum told me that this was how the technique worked. The characters thoughts, ideas, experiences and memories would flow in an uninterrupted and sometimes even interrupted continuity. The pastiche that was created was tremendous and stood out by itself. The effect was in simple words, awesome. I watched Vanessa Redgrave as Mrs. Dalloway standing serenely giving no external vent to her inner world. Surveying everything in her party contentedly, and yet being so very distant in her thoughts. Everything was brilliant.

Then I got hold of a paperback. Held it in my hand for some time, turning it round and round. It was like meeting an old friend who had been pretty close to you for quite some time, but now that time had passed you weren’t sure how to react. I had found the book in the part of our house which we call ‘study’ but its actually just a kitchen which has been converted into the so called study by lining the shelves with as many books we could. There's no dearth in that aspect so the conversion was easily accomplished. While rummaging through the rows I came across Mrs. Dalloway and silently sneaked ‘her’ back to my room (the silent sneaking being necessary as I was supposed to be concentrating on my studies and not distracting myself by reading ‘out of syllabus books’. As if there’s something like that even!) . The cover showed a painting depicting a corner of a table with a few well dressed and respectable looking people making merry eating good food and wine. At least I presumed it to be good food and wine.. Mrs. Dalloway lay on the shelf of my table for a good 7 months before I finally got round to reading it.

Mrs. Dalloway’s reaction to Warren Smith’s suicide was one that I guess  the hard core suicidal maniac will always agree to. "Death was defiance. Death was an attempt to communicate; people feeling the impossibility of reaching the centre which, mystically, evaded them; closeness drew apart; rapture faded, one was alone. There was an embrace in death,".An effort to communicate an existence. The lines hit me hard. Never before had I come across a more fitting definition to the ideology behind the act. I have always believed that the end to extraordinary and great lives are justified by violent deaths. These lines seemed a better explanation to my sentiments. Woolf herself committed suicide and had been known to have made attempts on her life earlier. The lines echo her thoughts and find an equal supporter in me.

Back from the Dead

Figuratively that is. Wow! It’s been quite some time since I last posted.  Hibernation suited me. It did wonders as a matter of fact. The rebel inside me is as noisy as ever but the causes and ideals have changed. A much needed face lift for my blog and I guess I’m all set to go. The time has given me an in depth view into not only human nature but also helped me discover my own! The hours, the days and months all of them combined have opened up ideas and experiences, each of them deepening my insight.

Down this sojourn, I made friends, I made foes, I reconnected, I broke away.  A little scarred and bruised, equally exhilarated but still hanging in there. These past months have taught me a lot of things about me which I guess I ignored or was just too scared to look at and to accept. It’s turned my view about many things to a humungous extent!   

So what happened in all these months? A lot of things - I learnt a new language, made a documentary, did a photography course, joined a band which sort of broke up after its first gig, got a job which i quit after 4 days, made new friends, found my soul sister, lost oodles of weight, read phenomenal but super depressed stuff  and became depressed myself, found that psychology is sometimes more of a self help seminar, finally accepted pop culture, started believing in signs and destiny and other stupid stuff, reassessed my goals and finally learnt you can trust no one but yourself  and your wits in the end. The list wasn’t exactly in perfect order but it pretty much describes what happened. It was quite something though. Interesting and enriching.

So here I am back again to my virtual sounding board, typing away as though my life depended on it.  Ready, rejuvenated and reborn!