9 May 2009, 8:56pm
I have been blogging in this space for a good five years now. Yet aside from the MAD tribute post and the porn movies post I have desisted from making 'list' posts - you know posts in which I list things I love, hate, lust after, masturbate to, decapitate, skin, embalm, burn, emasculate, etc. There is a good reason for that, and it goes beyond my caring for the general public by not shoving in their face something subliminally gut-wrenching and nauseating.
As I have an opinion on anything and everything, my list posts would probably rival Robert Ludlum or Irving Wallace books in their length. I would have slipped in one of my favourite authors in the previous sentence if it was not for the fact that his work often gets mislabelled. He has the capacity to make you cry vociferously on one page and then give you a raging hard-on in the next. Of course, the latter is much better remembered especially if you are a man who wears boxers. Women should feel free to remark in the comments section if his books have, well... wet them down there. I don't need to name the author. Only one author had the ability to do that.
Let's see if I can make a list now. 9 items or less. Since we have touched upon authors, books is a good place to start. Well, not exactly but I am really not willing to think up something else to list. So here goes a list of 9 books. They may not necessarily be top 9 good or top 9 bad. They are just the 9 off the top of my head, in no particular order.
Current Mood: Gloomy
Current Music: Gloria Gaynor - I will Surivive
As I have an opinion on anything and everything, my list posts would probably rival Robert Ludlum or Irving Wallace books in their length. I would have slipped in one of my favourite authors in the previous sentence if it was not for the fact that his work often gets mislabelled. He has the capacity to make you cry vociferously on one page and then give you a raging hard-on in the next. Of course, the latter is much better remembered especially if you are a man who wears boxers. Women should feel free to remark in the comments section if his books have, well... wet them down there. I don't need to name the author. Only one author had the ability to do that.
Let's see if I can make a list now. 9 items or less. Since we have touched upon authors, books is a good place to start. Well, not exactly but I am really not willing to think up something else to list. So here goes a list of 9 books. They may not necessarily be top 9 good or top 9 bad. They are just the 9 off the top of my head, in no particular order.
- Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead - A gem of a book, not because it is fantastic in the accepted sense of the word. It is fantastic in the sense that the book proved for itself what it set out to preach - that humanity accords an exalted status to the mediocre. I have not come across a more mediocre book. Its only saving grace is the physical scene between the lead characters that treads a very fine line between rape and animalistic sex.
- Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity - If ever a case had to be made against cinematic adaptations then this would convince even the most liberal of juries. The book has a lot to thank the movie for though. Just because the movie was this bad the book has instantly turned into a classic.
- Mikhail Sholokov's Quiet Flows the Don - Quite possibly Sholokov was the last of the great Russian authors. This book won him the Nobel for literature, illustrating to all of us that sometimes the Nobel judges get things right after all. An account of Czarist Russia on either side of the great war from the view point of Gregory Milekhov, a simple farmer turned warrior, this book has that rare ability to leave that lump in your throat right through all of its two thousand or so pages.
- Leon Uris' The Exodus - I admit. I am a sucker for all stories involving Israel's struggle for nationhood. Most of them I have read in the form of 'fact'ions. There is something romantically gory about them. It is like sleeping under heavy blankets with the air-con on full blast - you enjoy it while it lasts but don't quite look forward to a power outage.
- Irving Wallace's The Almighty - Before bond made it famous in 'Tomorrow Never Dies', Irving Wallace wrote this book about a news corporation that makes its own news. Eventually they ended up biting more than they could chew when they tried to blast Air Force One mid-air.
- Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers - This book is in a league of its own - it wove fact so brilliantly with fiction that the reader is hard-pressed to find out which is which. That and the author's flair for characterisation (you could tell what Jonas Cord would have for breakfast or what Rina Marlow would carry in her handbag) make it one of the most spellbinding books I have ever read. Every character is still etched in my memory.
- Dan Brown's Angels and Demons - The prequel to 'The Da Vinci Code', this book has more blood and gore. The finesse with which Brown interweaves urban legend with history can only be appreciated. However, like all Dan Brown books the ending leaves you feeling cheated - it promised to deliver so much more but got weighed down by its own expectations.
- Sidney Sheldon's Rage of Angels - Sidney Sheldon just had to make the list, didn't he? He is to books what Britney Spears is to music - extremely popular but lacking all class. Rage of Angels is from those times when he wrote freely, without the pressure of matching the sales of his previous bestsellers. And it had a woman lead in Jennifer Parker which pleased all the feminists greatly.
- Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things - Just how brilliant this book is can be gauged by Roy's permanent writer's block. She has not written since, probably giving away all she had in that one book. No wonder she won The Booker. She had to for this one.
Current Mood: Gloomy
Current Music: Gloria Gaynor - I will Surivive
9 May 2009, 9:56pm
You are such a man, Scripto.
Anyway. I have never read a book that is more overrated than The God of Small Things. She suffers from the curse that haunts Indian authors who write in English. The language is so sickly sweet, bogged down. They whore themselves out to western readers, these authors. Why is it that they haven't been able to come up to contemporary English writing if that is the medium they choose to write in? Why present and reinforce the image of India that is in westerners' heads instead of writing stories that happen every day, like it really is? Anyway, end of rant.
I have been reading a few books written by Indian authors recently that I think are better than Ms. Roy's Booker-winning effort - The Space Between Us and First Daring of the Morning by Thrity Umrigar and The Song of the Cuckoo Bird or Cooking Crazy with Curry by Amulya Malladi.
9 May 2009, 10:10pm
Aran, being a man is a good thing no?
Like I said, this is top 9 off the top of my head. But in doing so have I inadvertently given this blog an intellectual direction? That would be horrid.
11 May 2009, 6:13pm
Your being a man is good for me, yes. Otherwise, I don't know. And don't much care.
You did not. I think my comment did. You are right in ignoring it, I suppose. :)
11 May 2009, 6:53pm
Would you even go out on a limb and say that I am uber-male?
Isn't that my charm? I ignore the obvious so brilliantly that most people do not even notice it.
11 May 2009, 7:46pm
uber-male as in super-male? That's a psychological disorder.Most criminals, serial killers and mn attempted of homicide in jail have been diagnosed with Super-male disordr which is recognised by an xtremely aggressive personality and violent behavior among other things. Super males have a YY chromosome,I blieve (I'm not sure about that, check that up). you can also google some more info about super male syndrome if ur still intersted.
11 May 2009, 7:48pm
correction: that would be "men convicted of homicide, languishing in jail", and not "mn attempted of homicide in jail". Forgive the blah.
11 May 2009, 7:57pm
Jaiwantika, I mean this only in the following sense:
If Paris Hilton is the uber-female then I should be the uber-male.
Not that I am saying Miss Hilton is anything more than a waif-like creature who has been accorded the status of a sex-goddess by our ever-sex-symbol-starved media, but you get the drift.
PS: I thought super-males had XYY chromosomes?
11 May 2009, 8:21pm
Ah, yes. XYY. I told you I wasn't sure.
By whatever standards of starved media imagination, if you MUST rule as uber male, then I guess you must.
11 May 2009, 8:27pm
Ah yes, I RULE!!!
PS: You are too good for my ego. Spoiling me, even.
11 May 2009, 8:36pm
Which ought to be a good thing. I'm surprised ur complaining!
11 May 2009, 9:13pm
Who's complaining? Just warning you that too much pampering spoils the man.
11 May 2009, 9:39pm
And then,when the man is spoilt?
11 May 2009, 9:51pm
Then, as all men, he turns into a fries-munching, butt-scratching, sports-watching fart.
11 May 2009, 10:15pm
Oh,don't we love stereotypes, here :D And you're sure I can do such long-term damage just by paying compliments?
11 May 2009, 10:28pm
In the times that we live in (post 9/11) one can never be sure of anything. But if pampering does not turn men unto slobs then what does? Are we genetically pre-disposed to slobbery?
11 May 2009, 11:04pm
No, you wear pink shirts.
Yes, it is. Most times.
The above is in response to your last message directed at me. :)
To your last comment for Jaiwantika, I have -- http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/for/lowres/forn1199l.jpg
11 May 2009, 11:14pm
Uber-males do not wear pink shirts? That is stereotyping, is it not?
12 May 2009, 1:39am
Is. And your point? :P
12 May 2009, 9:25am
I think men wearing pink does demonstrate certain mental barriers being broken with regard to social convention. I can think of quite a few men, now, who've worn pink and seemed to have liked the way it suited them.
Men today are pretty much on their own trip,and I can't say I find that very amusing.It's genuinely not the most comfortable thing in the world to be around a man who may very well be competing for the same men that you want.And it's not even like he is more 'sensitive' or anything-because heaven knows being effeminate never guaranteed sensitivity.It's so much simpler to just have some stupid guy around, who doesn't try to do funny things like wearing pink and lace and floral scents and fruity tints in makeup. Atleast you know you are dating a lower species, but atlast it IS a man.
12 May 2009, 1:41pm
Aran, there is no point. Do I ever make a point?
Jaiwantika, I know exactly how you feel. I felt the same way when a woman I was chatting up at a bar went home with my dyke friend. I would have let that slide but they did not even have the courtesy to let me watch. I have never been the same man ever since - been compensating with my pink shirts, I suppose.
12 May 2009, 6:15pm
It's okay, Scripto. They don't look so bad on you.
12 May 2009, 7:22pm
No,No.You look like Hagar the Horrible meets Dilbert when you wear pink.I prefer your fuchsia drag costume, with the synthetic magenta wig.Not to forget the pink baby doll and the pink fur boa which you keep for special occasions that Aran is not invited for...
12 May 2009, 7:27pm
*Correction: plz add "shirts" after "when you wear pink".
12 May 2009, 7:50pm
Umm, do I know you? As I recall, I have worn the fuchsia drag costume on more than one occasion. All the booze and pot makes it hard to recall if you were around.
PS: Aran, that was sweet.
12 May 2009, 9:44pm
Of course you know me.Everybody knows me, just like (I'm sure) everybody knows you. So you do shows?AND you repeat your outfits? How ghettoish.Anyhow, what you did the other day was a private performance (obviously)which is why Aran couldn't buy a pass.To think you wore that special costume with somebody else; how could you, scriptwriter...you made me feel so special:( Till now.
12 May 2009, 9:57pm
And then there was the time I met you at the vet's and you had contracted eczema from your dog; it was a boxer with a pink collar, right.You were wearing pink there too!!What was it..patent leather pointy-toed pink pumps. They were so awesome.
12 May 2009, 10:56pm
Love the little side digs you keep making at me, Jaiwantika.
ps. Scripto, I know.
12 May 2009, 11:07pm
@Aran: :D No offence meant, genuinely.
13 May 2009, 10:50am
kilroy was here.
13 May 2009, 3:12pm
Ssh... Don't say that out loud, Jaiwantika! Least of all when my wife prowls in this space. The last thing I would want her to know is that I have a dog. She has been wanting one ever since we got married, and I have been putting it off. You know how women get when they don't get what they want.
Aran, is there something going on between Jaiwantika and you?
poa, more like kill joy I should say!
PS: It is such a pain typing on a mobile phone!