New books on New Year

I am not going to ring in 2012 without wishing you, dear readers and fellow-bloggers, on the dawn of the new year. So here goes: a Happy and Prosperous New Year to you all!

Neither am I going to start this wonderful year without posting something, anything. So again, here goes: this morning we revisited a place called King’s Circle at Matunga in central Bombay (now Mumbai) famous for its decades-old used and secondhand book-sellers and authentic south Indian cuisine. The book vendors sit on the footpath that runs around King’s Circle which is actually a garden in the centre of a bustling traffic junction. An ugly flyover now runs over the garden known in our parlance as Maheshwari Udyan (udyan means garden).

Many of the old sellers are gone, a few others are still around, and quite a few are hawking cheap pirated editions of Stephen R. Covey and John Grisham, and more.

We made our way directly to one particular book-seller who stocks just about everything, fiction and non-fiction, academics included, and all original. Most of the books are piled five-feet high, some are spread out on the floor, and others are lined up in open wooden shelves. The owner knows his books, what he doesn’t know is where. If you ask him for a particular author or title, he will point to a lot and say, “It should be somewhere in there.” So you browse through the lot at the risk of dirtying your hands and not finding what you are looking for, but it’s a risk worth taking.

I could have walked away with many more books and comics than I did but I did not want to exhaust my quota on the first day of 2012 itself. So this is what I finally settled for – Tarzan at the Earth’s Core and Thuvia, Maid of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (see exact covers); Beyond the Black Stump by Nevil Shute; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (original); The Mammoth Book of Golden Age of Science Fiction presented by Isaac Asimov; The Secret of Spiggy Holes by Enid Blyton; and eleven pocket-sized war and western comics, which included six Combat Picture Library, two War Stories in Pictures, two Cowboy Adventure Library, and one Sundance Western: Illustrated World Library Series.

The entire lot cost me Rs.350 ($7). The sf book cost just 20 cents. All in all, a very fruitful first day of the year, don’t you think? I am going back next Sunday!

#1 Amar Chitra Katha: Jesus Christ

Amar Chitra Katha (Immortal Picture Stories), the largest-selling comic-book series in India, has, from time to time, brought out special issues on epics and events that shaped history. This particular issue, published in 1980, tells the beautiful story of Christ from his birth to his crucifixion. A major portion of the comic-book is devoted to the time Jesus spent with the apostles and the miracles he performed. The speech bubbles and the coloured illustrations are clear and simple.

ACK, as it is known, has published more than 400 titles, mainly on the great Indian epics, mythology, history, folklore and fables, often revolving around people who made a difference. Since its launch in 1967, ACK has sold over 90 million copies in 20 Indian languages. 

You can read more about this educational series at www.amarchitrakatha.com

Books I read in 2011

“Predictable” is the word I would use to describe the sort of books I read in 2011, a diverse mix of fiction and non-fiction, including philosophy, but no surprises, really. I did not have a reading plan for this year and I don’t have one for next year either, save for a couple of authors I have mentioned in my posts. I intend to read more short stories, poetry and classics in 2012, though.

I read a few books over the past twelve months. This does not include the dozens of comics I read. To give you a rough idea, this is what my assorted ‘fiction’ list looks like…

Ernest Hemingway — For Whom the Bell Tolls

Tom Clancy — The Hunt for Red October

Agatha Christie — The Murder of Roger Ackroyd & The Mysterious Affair at Styles

A.J. Cronin — The Spanish Gardener

P.G. Wodehouse — Piccadilly Jim & Money for Nothing

Jack Higgins — Keys of Hell, Storm Warning & The Iron Tiger

John Irving — The 158-Pound Marriage, The World According to Garp (re-read) & The Hotel New Hampshire

Ed Gorman — Cavalry Man: The Killing Machine

Thomas Hardy — Jude the Obscure

Jonathan Kellerman — Dr. Death

Elmore Leonard — Pagan Babies

Don Pendleton — Mack Bolan, the Executioner: Death Load

Leon Uris — The Angry Hills

Boris Pasternak — Dr. Zhivago

Harold Robbins — A Stone for Danny Fisher (re-read)

Among non-fiction, I had fun reading The Complete Prose of Woody Allen.

Like I said, no surprises...

WISDOM FROM BOOKS & COMICS

Jean-Paul Sartre in Nausea

I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then anything, anything could happen.

I am going to outlive myself. Eat, sleep, sleep, eat. Exist slowly, softly, like these trees, like a puddle of water, like the red bench in the streetcar.

It left me breathless. Never, until these last few days, had I understood the meaning of "existence."

There is a universe behind and before him. And the day is approaching when closing the last book on the last shelf on the far left; he will say to himself, "now what"?

He is always becoming, and if it were not for the contingency of death, he would never end.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

When she was in Djibouti and I was in Aden, and I used to go and see her for twenty-four hours, she managed to multiply the misunderstandings between us until there were exactly sixty minutes before I had to leave; sixty minutes, just long enough to make you feel the seconds passing one by one.

Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do.

If you want to learn or read more about Jean-Paul Sartre, I recommend www.sartre.org

2012 TBR Challenge: Friedrich Nietzsche

A lot of book-bloggers are making resolutions for Literary 2012—books they plan to read next year—and the lists I have read so far are impressive...and intimidating. They include titles I have never heard of. Ignorance is not always bliss. Some of these books I have added to my own tentative list which, as it stands, is nothing to write to the book club about. But there is one book that I intend to read: The Philosophy of Nietzsche. 

Big name, big book. The literary equivalent of heavy metal, you might say.

I have never read Nietzsche before, not in the way Nietzsche should be read. But I am familiar with all his books and from time to time I have read his assorted quotations and pondered over their deeper meaning.

My hardbound copy of The Philosophy of Nietzsche [The Modern Library, 1954] is a 1,120-page volume which contains the complete and unabridged texts of Nietzsche's five most famous works: Thus Spake Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, Genealogy of Morals, Ecce Homo and The Birth of Tragedy.

The German philosopher, who was plagued by ill-health through most of his adult life, was one of 19th century’s most radical and brilliant thinkers. As Willard Huntington Wright, a US art critic and author, says in his introduction to the volume, “He was constantly ill and for the most part alone, and this perturbed and restless period of his life resolved itself into a continuous struggle against melancholy and physical suffering.” It was during these difficult years that Nietzsche wrote all of the above works and more as well as “an enormous number of notes which were to constitute his final and culminating work, The Will to Power.”

Friedrich Nietzsche will live up to my expectations. The question is will I live up to his? Time to find out.

Meanwhile, here are a few random books with curious titles I found on The Modern Library website. Some are popular among readers.

We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live by Joan Didion

When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold S. Kushner

Classics to Read Aloud to Your Children by William F. Russell

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

A Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

The Key & Diary of a Mad Old Man by Junichiro Tanizaki (Translated by Howard Hibbett)

The Vintage Book of Classic Crime edited by Michael Dibdin

Photos: Scans of front and back covers of my copy of the book.

FILM REVIEW

Annapolis, no please

I had mixed feelings when director Sam Raimi got rid of James Franco in Spider-Man 3. On one hand, I thought his insufferable character, Harry Osborn, had outlived his usefulness even though he eventually helps his friends Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst) overcome the combined might of super-freaks Venom (Topher Grace) and Sandman (Thomas Haden Church). On the other hand, I felt Peter needed his best friend around considering he didn't have any other friends. Maybe, just maybe, his death at the hands of the alien symbiote Venom was premature.

Jordana Brewster and James Franco in a still from the film.

 
So it was with mixed feelings that I watched James Franco play naval rookie Jake Huard in Annapolis (2006) directed by Justin Lin. My first thought was: didn't they find anyone else? Apparently not.

Annapolis is the story of a young man from a not-too well-to-do family of shipbuilders who dreams of joining, and graduating, from Annapolis, the elite US naval academy, and he does so against odds that run only in one direction–his way. First of all, he arm-twists a Congressman into selecting him; second of all, his grades are below average; and third of all, he is not exactly an asset to his class of cadets.

But Huard is determined to see it through Annapolis for two reasons: one, a promise he made to his dying mother, and two, make his father, Bill Huard (Brian Goodman) believe in him. But life at the academy isn’t a cakewalk, as Huard’s inability to measure up to its high standards earns him the scorn of his superiors, particularly Cole (Tyrese Gibson), and the ridicule of his batch mates whom he lets down frequently.

A frustrated Huard confronts his academic ineptitude by walking out of Annapolis. Not for long, though. His father, whom he meets at the shipyard where he, himself, used to work as a welder, tells him, rather condescendingly, that he is not capable of pursuing his dream. Huard, in an I-gotta-make-my-daddy-proud-of-me moment, does an about turn and returns to the academy, only this time for real. He studies hard and for once remembers naval history; trains hard and helps his fat roommate train harder; endures punishment and punishment posting; and eventually enrolls his name in a boxing tournament, the prestige of Annapolis, which is open to all ranks.

The boxing contest, in fact, forms the backdrop of this movie, as Huard, an amateur boxer, trains under Ali (Jordana Brewster), his superior and love-interest, and goes on to defeat one opponent after another including a senior officer. Predictably, Huard meets reigning champion Cole in the final, a battle that proves to be the one redeeming feature in an otherwise forgettable tenure at the academy. Huard proves his true mettle against Cole and though he loses the crown, he wins hearts. As Huard makes his way back from the ring, he sees his father in the stands, beaming with pride.

Annapolis is probably the story of many real-life Jake Huards who, in spite of their poor social backgrounds and academic deficiencies, make it through some of the toughest US defence academies to, as Huard says with grim determination, “Serve my country, sir.”

In terms of acting skills, James Franco, as the cocky and bungling Jake Huard, is rather mediocre with his trademark smile being the only notable feature throughout the film. Annapolis is a film you should watch if you’ve nothing worthwhile to see. What was that I said about mixed feelings?


For Tuesday's Overlooked/Forgotten films, visit Todd Mason's blog Sweet Freedom.

A few of my war and western books