Rendezvous by Nelson DeMille, 2012

“I saw her in my field glasses. It was a woman.” I added, “They make good snipers.”

Remember the alien that haunted and hunted a US special forces team in the jungles of Central America in Predator, where only the head of the commando unit survives in the end? Cut back to the Vietnam War and imagine a sniper eliminating an elite reconnaissance patrol, where again only the leader of the detachment lives to tell the tale. Except, in Nelson DeMille’s Rendezvous, the sniper is neither man nor alien. It’s a young woman who is as deadly with a long-range Russian-make Draganov rifle as she is sensuous bathing naked under a waterfall, in full view of the lieutenant whose men she is taking down one by one.

The female sniper, clad in black silk pajamas, plays mind games with the ten-man recon patrol which, in spite of being entrenched in the dark and treacherous jungles of Vietnam, has nowhere to run or hide. They are lost and confused and are sitting ducks for the “bitch,” and DeMille shows them no mercy in this crisply written story.

The sniper torments the nameless lieutenant by killing all his men and then mocks him by sparing his life, so that he can go back and tell everyone about her, and thus create the legend of the female sniper. Her trophies should not go in vain.

Rendezvous is entertaining with an element of unintended humour, and it moves at a brisk pace. I don’t know if there were female snipers in the Viet Cong that fought the carpet-bombing Americans, but there were highly-trained insurgents whose guerrilla tactics often won the battle against the enemy.

Rendezvous is the second of Nelson DeMille's Kindle Single; his first was The Book Case (2012), a delightful story about a murder in a bookstore, which I reviewed a couple of years ago. I recommend both the novellas.

Love Ageth Not by Ramabai C. Trikannad

On August 16, I reproduced a poem titled How Long? by my late grandmother Ramabai C. Trikannad who was a writer, columnist, poet, and a spiritual aspirant. Below is another of her poems, Love Ageth Not, which I’d like to offer as an ode to all those who have found their soul mates and have loved and cherished them all their lives.

I sit in my garden chair,
Musing on faraway things.
The hush of the evening air,
Rest to the weary heart brings.

My hair is turning a grey,
Lines in my hands I can trace.
Long years have passed since the day,
I loved to gaze on her face.

The bud of love would unfold,
To blossom and fade away.
But my worn, feeble life holds,
Perfume of the longpast day.

The strength of our arms is run,
We make our aged pair.
But the spirit of love won,
Still with each other we share.

A deep voice calls and I rise,
“It’s so cold, the wind is blowing,
To linger, dear, is unwise,
Come in, the fire is glowing.”

© Ramabai C. Trikannad

B(l)ogged down

You might have noticed that I haven't posted anything significant since my review of the first Hardy Boys adventure on November 21. I have been rather busy with work-related commitments and deadlines. Although I do get the time to read, especially while commuting to and from my office—a good 45-minute journey one way—I prefer to play chess online, listen to music, or play scrabble on my tab with Android as my opponent. All three activities reduce stress. I find a game of chess extremely relaxing and addictive. It keeps the mind off mundane thoughts. There is immense satisfaction in checkmating your opponent or getting your opponent to resign, and you don’t need anyone to rejoice in your victory.

Meanwhile, I completed John Grisham’s latest Gray Mountain and read a short story by Leonard Finley Hilts called Murder Rides High, both of which I’ll be reviewing soon. For now, though, I'm content visiting blogs and leaving comments, if I have something to say. It’s actually a relief for me not to post my own.

Musings on a tired Tuesday

There are some things you don't forget. In my case there is a line someone said to me. Rather it was a question to which I had no answer. It has stayed with me.

I was in my late teens and on a trek to a mountain top 3,000 km (1,864 miles) above sea level. We were a big group and I was part of a small bunch of college friends and new acquaintances. The night before the long trek we halted at a desolate railway station and slept on the platforms. Some of us walked along the tracks, others sat huddled on the platform, talking and joking and laughing. It was winter and quite cold even by western India standards.

The conversation veered to sun signs and ego trips for that is what discussing sun signs are usually about. Linda Goodman was the unseen referee. We talked about each other’s sun signs, our good and rotten characteristics, and bragged about famous people born under our signs. A Gandhi here, an Einstein there, a Churchill above, a Hitler below.

One of the girls in the group wanted to know my sun sign.

“I’m a cusp,” I said.

“Between which two signs?”

“Libra and Scorpio,” I replied. “Bang in the middle.”

“What!” she said, and then came the unexpected question, “How do you manage?”

That took me by surprise. I didn’t know what to say.

Since then, I have always considered myself to be more Libra than Scorpio. I owe allegiance to the scales even though there is seldom any balance in my life. The signs are all there. Show me a menu with more than one dish on it and I’ll show you how not to make up your mind. Suggest a dozen lovely places to visit and I’ll come right back at you with, “So where do we go?” Point me in the right direction at an intersection and I’ll scratch my head and look the other way. Watch me make a decision to write a book and then watch me dream about winning the Booker already. And that’s just tipping the scales. For a Libra-Scorpio cusp, I manage quite well. I do, don’t I?

What was the wisest, weirdest or wackiest question you were asked?

Self-styled challenge: first novels

Last Friday, I reviewed The Hardy Boys No.1: The Tower Treasure as part of a self-styled challenge to read the first novels by both famous and not so well-known authors. These will also comprise writers, including pseudonymous writers, whose novels I read in my younger days. Short stories don’t count but novellas do. My goal is to read and review at least one such novel every week and retrace a part of my book route over the past four decades.. I could mention some of the authors I intend to read but it’ll take away the element of surprise, for whatever it’s worth. Nonetheless, author selection is a challenge.

I kicked off this challenge with The Hardy Boys because it was the first of any kind of fiction I read. By this time next year I hope to have read some 50 first novels by 50 different authors.

I have no rules. The first novels could be classic, vintage, golden, modern, or contemporary spanning every genre there is. I may read more novels in one genre like western, espionage or mystery. I’ll publish a scorecard every quarter. And the reviews could be as short as two paragraphs or as long as ten paragraphs. The idea is to keep it as simple as possible and in a way that suits me best. No pressure. I also reserve the right to pull out of the challenge any time I want although the excuse won’t be as feeble as a shortage of novels. That just won’t hold.

I’m fairly excited and a little scared about this challenge because I’m not the fastest of readers or reviewers and I can be easily distracted from my reading. Still, I’m looking forward to it and with your encouragement, I’m sure I’ll succeed, at least a good part of the way of first novels.

The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure, 1927

This is the first Hardy Boys adventure and it commences my plan to read the maiden works of authors in genres I usually read. I also offer this review for Friday’s Forgotten Books at Patti Abbott’s blog Pattinase.

© Wikimedia Commons

Some things have stayed with me since my school days. The Hardy Boys, which introduced me to the joy of reading books, is one of them. I have read most of the imaginatively titled books. Since my teens nearly three decades ago, I have been reading the Hardy Boys off and on.

Yesterday, I finished rereading The Tower Treasure, the No.1 adventure of Frank and Joe Hardy published on June 1, 1927. Did it hold up as well as it did in the seventies? Yes and no.

Yes, because I knew what to expect and I was reading for the pleasure of it. And no, because I found the story and the characters juvenile and unrealistic, which was to be expected at my age. But it was fun.

Today, teenagers are no longer exposed to the idyllic world of Frank and Joe and their friends. Instead, they are thrown into the terrifying world of Harry Potter and his friends. The Hardy boys live with their doting parents, Fenton and Laura, in a secure and comfortable family environment. Harry is orphaned by the evil Voldemort even before he takes his first baby steps and then raised by equally evil relatives, in a cupboard under the stairs. The small ocean-side city of Bayport has been substituted by the dark and imposing Hogwarts and its dreadful secrets. Everyday thieves have made way for the Dark Lord, the Death Eaters, and the Dementors. These are the creatures that inhabit our world today. Only we call them terrorists, gunmen, and militias.

© Wikimedia Commons

With the line between the fictional and the real blurring, as often as it does, it helps to escape into sunny Bayport once in a while. My recent trip into the annals of The Tower Treasure was a pleasant experience as I retraced my youth through Frank and Joe Hardy’s maiden case—first helping their best friend Chet Morton recover his stolen jalopy, The Queen, and then assisting their father, Fenton Hardy, the famous private detective, recover thousands of dollars worth of securities and jewels stolen from the Tower Mansion owned by a rich old man called Hurd Applegate and his sister Adelia.

Frank and Joe do more than crack a robbery case. The boys, aged 17 and 16, along with their parents, show compassion towards Henry Robinson, caretaker of the Tower Mansion, and his family. Applegate charges Robinson with the robbery, fires him from his job, and removes him and his family from the mansion. Robinson, whose son Slim studies with the Hardy boys at Bayport High, is forced to leave town and find accommodation in a seedy quarter of Bayport. Slim leaves school to find a job and support his family. The detective and his sons are determined to clear Robinson's name and restore his honour and his job.

© www.hardyboys.co.uk

The Tower Treasure, written under the collective pseudonym of Franklin W. Dixon and published by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, is as much a story of human values as it is about solving a mystery. Those values are inculcated into Frank and Joe by their parents, Fenton and Laura. The Hardys are the epitome of a happy middle-class American family. The boys are dutiful, well-behaved, and always helpful, the cynosure of most parents. They run errands for their father and mother, attend school and do their homework regularly, and stay loyal to their friends. They are naïve and innocent in their ways. It’s what makes the Hardy Boys series still appealing for old readers like me.

Anxiety attacks in films and sitcoms

Can superheroes get anxiety attacks? Apparently, they do. Tony Stark or Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) gets a few of them in Iron Man 3. The billionaire-playboy experiences the nervy episodes both inside and outside his impregnable armoured suit. Inside the suit, Stark panics and feels claustrophobic and his AI buddy, Jarvis, coolly tells him that he is having an anxiety attack, like an indifferent butler announcing dinner is served. Outside of it, he goes weak in the knees and drops to the ground. The founding member of The Avengers doesn’t have a clue what hit him. In one scene, it takes a precocious kid to bring him out of it. 

Each time Stark has an episode, he is very afraid but still manages to joke about it. Those who have experienced anxiety or panic attacks will tell you that it is no laughing matter—it all seems horribly real at the time—even as those who haven’t will insist that it’s all in your head and ask you to snap out of it or, better still, out of yourself. Never easy. In Stark’s case, the attacks are probably understandable: the Mandarin has aerial bombed his hilltop Malibu mansion, nearly killing him, and he holds himself responsible for putting Pepper in harm’s way.

Anxiety or panic attacks are 21st century’s new urban malaise fuelled and driven by 24x7 stresses and rat races. So widespread and debilitating are these so-called mental disorders that they are beginning to find their way into films and sitcoms, perhaps to add a touch of perverse realism to the shows.

© www.raymond.wikia.com

In one particular episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray Barone (Ray Romano) has his first anxiety attack when he is playing golf with his brother Robert (Brad Garrett) and his friend Kevin Daniels (Kevin James). As in the case of Stark, the reason for Ray’s episode is guilt. Ray has lied to his wife, Debra (Patricia Heaton), so that he can avoid household chores and run off and play golf. The scary episode has him scurrying back to Debra for comfort.

Similarly, in an episode of Becker, Reggie (Terry Farrell), the owner of a diner and friend of Dr. John Becker (Ted Danson), has a panic attack on top of the Empire State Building and the only person she thinks of calling to her ‘rescue’ is the misanthropic doctor who practices in the Bronx. Reggie breaks down because of low self-esteem, of having achieved nothing in her life, by way of money, men, and marriage.

In one scene in Three and a Half Men, Alan Harper (Jon Cryer) has an emotional breakdown, first in a library and then in a movie theatre, and his brother Charlie (Charlie Sheen) is off to see a therapist on how he can deal with the situation or more likely how he can get rid of his brother. If I'm not mistaken, Charlie also has an attack or two elsewhere in the series.

I was thinking, given their emotional insecurities, most superheroes ought to be prone to anxiety attacks. Batman instantly comes to mind. But, however funny it might seem even on screen, it’s never fun to watch someone go through a nerve-wracking episode. Not that you'd know in real life as most adult sufferers disguise it well owing to a sense of self-preservation.