The Twenty-Seventh City - Jonathan Franzen

 

I read this book because, well, it's Franzen and I've read every other Franzen novel (I believe - I know I could check on Wikipedia, but I can't be bothered at the moment). 

Despite the low expectations, I enjoyed this book "enough". That said, I was a bit at odds with the scheming police officer's background. Indian people have got a little less than zero visibility in North-American literature as as I know, and in here Jammu essentially comes across as the Palpatine of St Louis. On the other hand, Franzen does look at one individual and the influence she has on "her people" (both in terms of those around her in general, and the Indian community in the city) and does not seem to make (too many) harsh generalizations. 

The book packs in a lot. As is the case at times with Franzen, it probably packs in too much. And by the time the final pages come, the novel and its author definitely jump the shark. 

Fury - Salman Rushdie

  

Another one of those books that I don't remember well (just a few weeks after having read it) and that have left me more with a vague feeling than with any specific recollections. This can't be a good sign, either for the book or for my growing forgetfulness...

Out of the few images that I can recall are the terrifying picture of a father looking at his wife and child sleeping with a knife in his hand, the creation of a doll called Little Brain (that I kept on mis-reading as Little Britain, probably another not-so-good sign), and a series of more and more problematic intercontinental phone calls. 

I actually don't even remember whether the main character ends up returning home or not, which again can't be a good thing. And I've by now decided that it's a problem with the book, and not with my memory.

The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie

  

If I was to just write about this as, well, a book, I'd mention the wonderful opening scene and how it made me appreciate magical realism for the first time since I was a teenager. And then I'd talk about how that magical realism grows stale with the passing chapters. 

I'd also talk about how the novel is a sign of an author whose life and allegiance is deeply divided between countries and cultures. 

I'd also say that, ultimately, I don't consider the book a masterwork. 

Yet, one cannot talk about The Satanic Verses without talking about how the novel changed our world and, most of all, Rushdie's own world. This was true before 2022, and it has only become more true now. We are not talking about a tasteless Italian politician showing off his t-shirt with a cartoon of Muhammad. We are talking about an author who wrote (and wrote well) dream sequences in a novel, but that also happened to criticize Khomeini in the process. And we're talking about an author whose life was then turned upside-down and threatened time and again by people who most likely didn't even read his novel.

Transmission – Hari Kunzru

The third Kunzru novel I’ve read, something considerably more light-hearted than My Revolutions but still really enjoyable. Both in literally and touristic terms, I’ve never really felt the pull of the Indian subcontinent with its charm and its mysteries – yet this book, split between India, the US and the UK, made me reconsider that.

Arjun, the novel’s main character, is so adorably ill-equipped to face the world that you just want to reach out to him through the pages and hug him. Most people who have left home to find work have probably faced some similar misadventures (I surely have) – but probably very few have had so many. The ease with which Kunzru portrays the challenges of life in India, in the UK, and in the USA are probably a reflection of his own life experiences between the three countries (and continents)

Many have tried to write modern love stories in the internet age, but very few have done it with the light touch of Kunzru, who in many ways also preceded the writers of The Big Bang Theory (seriously, some traits of Arjun’s personality really remind of Raj).

The God of Small Things – Arundathi Roy

To me this book is pretty much an Indian version of Ian McEwan’s Atonement (or probably the other way around, considering the years of publication of the two works). Yet, for much that I loved McEwan’s book, this one left me rather unmoved.

In both books the poor suffer and the rich get on with their lives (there is very little atonement – if at all – in both cases, at least in my opinion). The difference is that here the children are the ones being manipulated and they are not manipulating adults. Maybe that’s what I didn’t like about the book. Or maybe it’s the excessively romanticized scenes of inter-cast love. Or maybe it’s the myth of Oxbridge across the world that just annoys the hell out of me. I wish the Indian communists were given more of an actual role, rather than being left just on the side (crucial, but still on the side). I had really high expectations from this book. They just weren’t met.