2011: Challenges and how I fared

I signed up for a few challenges in 2011, something I did for the first time. I am glad I got to read new authors and books as part of this challenge, which I would not have otherwise.

• Nordic Challenge
  Challenge: 3-5 books
  Read: 3 books

I took this challenge mainly because I was so ignorant of the books coming from this beautiful region. I discovered a beautiful book (Sophie’s World) and a wonderful author (Henning Mankell).

• Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge
  Challenge: 3
  Read: 3

I am so happy I took up this challenge. I discovered such a great author. I absolutely loved After Dark, but the other two books were a disappointment. I will definitely read more from this author.

• New Authors Reading Challenge
  Challenge: 15
  Read: 15

Read a few new authors, some were great, some were not.

• Seconds Challenge
  Challenge: 3
  Read: 3

I gave Gabriel García Márquez and Amitava Ghosh a second chance as part of this challenge. I could not read Márquez’s A Hundred Years of Solitude, but A News of a Kidnapping was a surprisingly good read. On the other hand, Ghosh disappointed me further with his A Circle of Reason.

• 1001 Books to Read Before You Die
  Challenge: 5
  Read: 1

Disappointing. Both the challenge and the book I read as part of this challenge.

• TBR Challenge
  Challenge: 12
  Read: 3

I finally read 3 books that I had wanted to read from a long time. An interesting thing to note is I did not like any of them. That should say something about my TBR list, huh?
I have decided what challenges I will be taking up in the coming year. Sign up post coming soon.

 

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Title: Wuthering Heights
Author: Emily Brontë (originally published under the pseudonym Ellis Bell)
Year Published: 1847
Genre: Romance, Classic
My Rating: 2 on 5

What is it about me and classics? When the entire world is raving about classics, I only end up getting disappointed. After having many bad experiences with classics before, I vowed never to read one again, but I did it anyway hoping atleast this time, I will be proved wrong. I wasn’t.

Wuthering Heights is the name of the house where most of the book is set in. This is where Heathcliff is brought in as an adopted orphan and takes a more important place in the household and thus invokes wrath from the natural heirs of the property – Hareton and Catherine, which eventually turns into a blooming romance between Heathcliff and Catherine. Though the couple is very much in love, Catherine ends up marrying another guy and Heathcliff takes that as a personal insult to him and vows to take revenge. The story continues to the next generation where Catherine’s daughter ends up getting married to Heathcliff’s son and what happens later on.

Wikipedia says wuthering means turbulent weather in Yorkshire and this best describes the happenings at this bizarre house. Heathcliff, whose love for Catherine takes the centre stage in the initial part of the book and his hatred and revenge forms the later part, is one strange character. He starts off as being innocent and guileless, who then turns into a headstrong teenager who thinks the entire world is against him, who then turns into an out and out monster. Without marking this review as spoiler, I can’t reveal his heinous crimes, but it’s suffice to say I was revolted and disturbed by certain parts of the story. I had to pause and ask myself if this character is for real – I mean, this person is too evil even for a fictitious character. Most of the characters in the prologue are like this – evil, sharp tongued, foul mouthed – I thought the name ‘Mad House’ was a better name for the novel.

I fail to see why this novel has this amount of attention and praise. It is a decent novel, no doubt, but what is so great about it that it has to be listed as one of the must reads. I have a similar opinion about Jane Eyre and most of the other classics, so I guess it’s just me. Go ahead and enjoy reading this classic while I figure what gene is responsible for appreciating classics and how do I go about procuring it.

This book was read as part of a read-along. See what my read-along buddies have to say about this book: JoV and Jenny. JoV, thanks for hosting this read-along.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Title: The Metamorphosis
Author: Franz Kafka
Year Published: 1915
Genre: Fiction
My Rating: 3 on 5

I know! Even I can’t believe I hadn’t read this classic all these years. Better late than never, so here I am trying to fill in all those gaps in my literary life. Franz Kafka has always been spoken about with a lot of respect among my literary friends. And ‘The Metamorphosis’ is considered as one of his best works which has been analyzed enough and more. When you hear or read such high praise about a book, your expectation from the book naturally is high. And when you pick up a book with very high expectations, you are very likely to be disappointed and that’s what happened with me.

‘The Metamorphosis’ is about a young man who finds himself transformed into a monstrous insect and about how things around him change due to his transformation. Gregor is a marketing salesman who is the sole bread earner of the family. He wakes up on a routine day to find that he has turned into a beetle (The closest translation of the German word Ungeziefer that appears in the original work). His family is unaware of this and urge him to get up and be off to work. When he doesn’t turn up at his workplace, his manager comes over to his house to see what is keeping Gregor from work. The manager and Gregor’s family are in for a shock when Gregor reveals his new ‘avatar’. The author takes us through how his family tries to cope with the fact that Gregor is no longer a human. Gregor’s sister, Greta, is burdened with the task of cleaning Gregor’s room and she can’t stand being in that room without feeling suffocated. His mother with her weak nerves cannot muster enough courage to even look at her son. His father blames Gregor for the whole mess. The author shows us how the family adapts to this crisis and how Gregor copes with it.

What struck me most was the fact that Gregor on realizing his transformation does not wonder about the cause or worry about how he is going to lead a life as an insect. Instead, all he is bothered about is how he can get up from the bed and get to work because his manager and his dad will get mad at him. Greta comes across as a kind sister who tries to make it easy for Gregor by leaving the window open so that he can see the world outside and offering him food which is fit for insects and so on. With time, the kind sister transforms into an unsympathetic woman because of the frustration and the embarrassment she has to endure. Gregor’s helplessness and the family’s indifference tugs at your heart. You pity Gregor and start despising his family for not understanding his plight. The ending, oh my God, the ending – it is disturbing. Though I could predict what was coming, I was left aghast when it actually happened.

The original book is in German and has been translated into English by many writers. German readers complain that the translated works do not have the same impact because of the difference in the structure of the sentences. Kafka ended his sentences with words which have the greatest impact and since this is not always possible in English, the impact of the sentences gets diluted. Much has been argued about the word Ungeziefer that appears in the first sentence (which is one of the most popular first sentences in English). While we see bug, insect, cockroach and beetle used in its place, experts argue none of them convey the real meaning.

While the book is an interesting (and slightly disturbing) read, I really don’t see what the hype is about. I fail to understand why this is so talked about and recommended as a must read. I know it is a metaphor and there are derived meanings, but I did not appreciate the book. At best, it taught me how a family should not behave in the time of crisis, especially when a dear one is at the center of it.

The book is in public domain and is available for free on gutenberg.

This book was read as part of The New Author Challenge 2011 and The 2011 TBR Pile Challenge.

Daddy Long-Legs by Jean Webster

Title: Daddy Long-Legs
Author: Jean Webster
Year Published: 1912 (I am reading this book a good 100 years after it was published. Amazing!)
Genre: Fiction
My Rating: 2 on 5

 

Daddy Long-Legs is about an orphan girl, Jerusha Judy Abbott, who is being brought up in John Grier Home for orphans. Her life takes a turn when one of the trustees of the orphanage offer her to pay her college fees. Her benefactor chooses to remain anonymous to Jerusha and his only condition is that she should update him regularly about her progress in college through letters.

On a routine day, Jerusha is called to the matron’s office and is informed that she is being sent to college by a kind-hearted trustee. The trustee is impressed by an article Jerusha wrote and wants her to study to become a writer. He wants to hide his identity from Jerusha, but she manages to get a glimpse of her benefactor – a disproportionate shadow of his, with unusually long legs. Jerusha decides to address her benefactor as Daddy Long-Legs.

Jerusha finds herself in a free life, far away from the clutches of the orphanage’s matron. She strives to keep up with the activities and conversation that girls have around her but is constantly reminded that she did not have a ‘normal life’ in the orphanage. She makes new friends, learns new subjects and thoroughly enjoys the unexpected freedom given to her. Her journey through the college is revealed to the reader only through her letters addressed to Daddy Long-Legs.

It’s hard to make an epistolary novel work. The writer has only the letters to show what’s going on in fictitious world.  He/She has to have a knack of including some information in the letter just for the reader and make it look like it was not intentional. Also, building characters becomes difficult because you can’t really describe the appearance and actions of a character. This book barely works on that front. Jerusha comes across as a vibrant, bubbly girl and she is the only character who comes alive. We know the benefactor only through Jerusha’s letters, so he remains in the dark. The matron is your tyrannical woman, which is nothing new. I would like to see a warm matron some day! Jerusha’s letters are lively and funny – she uses an informal tone and includes humorous bits which keeps the reader hooked. She draws portraits of herself and the life around her which brings a chuckle or two. This book was recommended to me as a good book in humor genre and I am disappointed because there is not much of humor in there. It’s a nice, little book which you can use as a filler, but there is nothing in the book that makes it memorable.

The book was made into a play and movies in many languages. The book looks well appreciated, so it’s probably me who didn’t find anything special about it. What I did like about the book is the dedication page. This book is dedicated ‘To You’. Now, how many books are there which are dedicated to the reader, huh?

The book is in public domain and is available for free on gutenberg.

This book was read as part of The New Author Challenge 2011 and The 2011 TBR Pile Challenge.

Life is full of challenges

The coming year is going to be eventful and interesting for me – atleast in terms of books and reading. I am going to sign up for challenges (and quite a few at that) which I have never done before.

1. I have already signed up for the Nordic Challenge 2011. I am aiming for Freya which requires me to read 3-5 books from Nordic authors.

2. I have always wanted to read Haruki Marukami and God knows why I haven’t done so till now. Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge 2011 will urge me to finally get down to doing that. I aim for Sheep Man which requires me to read 3 Murakami books.

3. Since I am always trying out new authors, The New Author Challenge 2011 suits me just right. The challenge here is to read a minimum of 15 new authors which sounds a bit difficult, but that’s why it’s called a challenge, right?

4. After I read a new author or a first book in the series, more often than not, I go back to read a second book from the same author or the second book in the series. So, it’s only natural that I sign up for the 2nds Challenge 2011. I am aiming for Just a Spoonful – 3 books. I already have a candidate for this – Amitava Ghosh. I read his The Calcutta Chromosome and wasn’t particularly impressed with it. I want to give him a try again and read The Hungry Tide or Sea of Poppies. This list will draw inspiration from the previous challenge.

5. There are so many books on the 1001 books to read before you die list that I want to read. I am signing up for the 1001 books to read before you die challenge and hoping to reduce the size of my TBR list. I aim for High School Diploma which requires me to read 5 books on the list.

6. I want to reduce the size of my TBR list, so I am signing up for The 2011 TBR Pile Challenge.

The most difficult part of this challenge is to make a list of books that you plan to read for this challenge. I had a tough time choosing only 12 from my humongous list.

1    The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
2    In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
3    Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
4    Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – Robert M. Pirsig
5    Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
6    Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
7    Daddy Long-Legs    – Jean Webster
8    A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
9    The Color of Magic – Terry Prachett
10  For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway
11   Frankenstein – Mary Shelly
12   The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka

Alternatives

1  The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
2  Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
3 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
4 The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
5 The Art of War – Sun Tzu
6 The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle

I am ready! I can’t wait for this year to end and the next one to begin.