L.A. Weather - María Amparo Escandón - A Review

L.A. Weather
María Amparo Escandón


Author Maria Amparo Escandon writes a seemingly dramatic tale of the Alvarados - a Mexican American family living in Los Angeles. Oscar Alvarado and wife Keila have three adult daughters - Claudia, Olivia, and Patricia.



Claudia is a celebrity chef with a successful cooking show under her belt. Olivia is an architect and has twin daughters. Patricia is a millennial-type social media manager. The Alvarado family comes from money, allowing themselves the luxury and lifestyle that one can imagine but they are miserable in their ways.


The patriarch, Oscar, is suddenly showing signs of retreat and moodiness, a seemingly indifferent attitude which prompts Keila to question their marriage. All Oscar seems interested in is to watch the weather channel, much to his family's annoyance (and also to the reader ). Exasperated, Keila announces to the daughters that she plans to divorce him.

So we assume this book is about marriage and its complications? Not just yet.


The bomb drops at a time when an earlier catastrophe has just taken its toll on the family. The twins of Olivia had nearly drowned in the family pool much to the chagrin and anger of Olivia who blames her parents for lack of proper care. She too soon is at odds with her husband. So is this book about family dysfunctionality? Not really.


Slowly, the individual lives of the daughters come affront. Claudia suffers from a tumour and soon her husband’s reality is revealed. The third and youngest, Patricia begins to question the men in her life.

Supporting characters include their old nanny Lola who is currently taking up a self-proclaimed role of saving their neighbourhood from the greedy upmarket real estate companies - one of which is Olivia's. So is this book about ethnic neighbourhoods losing their houses? Umm,no.


This is a supposedly funny novel seeped in Latin American culture, that looks at a year in the life of one affluent Mexican-American family. But there is hardly time to connect with any one character. And nothing seems humorous here. Did the author mean to have a flavour of black comedy? Well the writing is just too poor and pointless for that. There is a sprinkling of many things at once. Children drowning, impending divorce, too much sex, a secret, memories, some more sex, real estate problems and a successful chef with a tendency to steal things. I mean why?




Weather as a character

The weather does figure significantly in the novel. Escandon made the weather the main character, so much so that Oscar seems to have some worry about the irregular weather patterns, keeping the reader on the edge ( for like 10 pages). But the girls and their problems envelope and cloud (yes pun intended) any climatic notions.


Problems with the book


Hard time finishing
There is nothing to keep going. Every issue is described badly and even the characters seem to be drafted lazily.


TV more than literature
Contemporary authors need to stop writing for TV and Netflix. Family issues, separation and divorce, affairs, secrets, insemination, crazy weather - all the makings for a TV show and hence no literary quality to the book at all.


Character shaping
I didn't connect with the characters (which is my biggest pet peeve with contemporary books) and too many of them.


Too polarized
All men are wrong, all husbands are cheating or useless or ‘ not the type.’
Enough said.

Morally lacking
What exactly is the author justifying here? Its ok to have sex with multiple partners to get clarity in your notion of a partner? Or to check which guy is good in bed? Or that it's fine to drop the plan of separation after thirty plus years of marriage on one fine unsuspecting day?



The storylines keep jumping and one cannot keep track of what or where the direction of the novel is.


Injustice to Latin American culture
Truly, because I have read amazing books over the years.

One good and only good takeway?  Picturesque description of the lovely city of L.A. Thats about it.

Weyward - A review and missing of Gilbert's Signature of Things

Weyward - Emilia Hart

Three timelines - three women. Switching back and forth between the 1600s and 2019, the novel shows the plight of women unable to live and have a life and career which they desire- healing, education, freedom and even essential safety.




In 2019, twenty-nine-year-old Kate Ayres escapes from her abusive boyfriend in London to Weyward Cottage, Crows Beck, Cumbria. This almost hauntingly described property is bequeathed to her by her late Aunt Violet. Initially deeming it only as a temporary refuge, Kate is just relieved to be safe. But then she starts to discover her lineage, her family’s history and the incredible story of her Aunt.


In 1942, sixteen-year-old Violet Ayres leads an unfair and discriminatory life in her home at Orton Hall. Her proud aristocratic father and younger brother Graham is all the family she has after the mysterious death of her mother. Her days are filled with findings in the natural world, insects and birds and tiny creatures of soil and air. She is bright and quick to learn but is constantly put down by her merciless father who only wants to see her married off well to a treacherous cousin. After an innocent mistake on her part, she is cast off from all that she was familiar with - even her education. But this turn of events sheds light on her mother’s death.



In 1619, twenty-one-year-old Altha Weyward, a natural healer, is on trial after the death of a villager. Accused of witchcraft and imprisoned in a dungeon cruelly, she recalls the incidents which led to her state.



Problems with the book which are my personal opinion


Uninspired writing

I wonder how and why this book really is in the top read of 2023. The prose is commonplace, the story is predictable and the style is not really page-turner even though it's made out to be one. Writing style was stale and the charm of a classic was missing for a book which has elements of historical fiction.



The magical realism to me really felt flat and not magical at all. For a novel which is about witchcraft or atleast its history, the element of surprise and delight were hardly there. The raven which flies at the climax to save Kate could very well be like an alarm clock buzzing at an expected time, thats about it.


Nature connection is bland
I remember reading The Signature of Things by Elizabeth Gilbert and to date I can feel the magical quality of nature described in the book, of Alma Whittaker’s passion for botany, the wildness and danger and enigma of woods and forests when one is on your own or out only to discover and learn.


Characters are not well articulated. The relations are not drawn from a descriptive place. We are so much into the action that just the abusive relationship between Kate and her boyfriend is depicted. What about her mother, why isn't more of graham and violet shown? And why not a portrayal of Violet's mother and she with her husband?


Polarized Femininity
I am done with books in the garb of contemporary fiction which should actually have a flag of wokeness. I mean every man in this book is bad. Either authoritative, dictator, rapist or abusive. Yes there are very real and hurtful cases in the world but will a novel like this begin to care about real women? I don't believe so.


Fitting in
I agree with this viewpoint I found on Goodreads -

‘It seems like Weyward was maybe trying to fit in amongst the canon of female rage or revenge stories, but there's just something that's missing. This doesn't provide the catharsis that I want from a female revenge story, as there's too much time spent on women being brutalised. Justice is fleeting and the solution to being unsafe is being alone.'

Lincoln in the Bardo - George Saunders - Book review. Parallel lives supported by tendrils of heaven.

How is it possible for a book to be both witty and melancholy?

This book is everything. I have read books on death, on loss, on ghosts, on the supernatural. But I have never read anything with a thread connecting all of these.




Set in 1862, at the time of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln's eleven-year-old son Willie dies after an illness. Willie doesn't realize he's dead. His soul is not ready to go to heaven yet along with the other ghosts who populate the cemetery and are stuck at that transitional phase. Lincoln goes back to the crypt and ‘visits’ his dead son. The ghosts watching this encounter start to talk one by one and we come to know a bit of their past. Each of them are halfway to their final abode because of something unfinished on earth. In the course of the novel we read about them too. So it's not a story about Lincoln alone. The ghosts, all wise and old and adults, do not deem it fit that a child is in this phase as them. They want him to be ‘pushed’ to heaven. And so they start having a conference.

That's it. Is that the whole novel…..which won the ManBooker prize of 2017?

Which parts of the novel are true? Ofcourse, lets have a conference too! Any good book is worth being discussed. Any weird, Pultizer winning book is definitely worth being discussed!!


A bit of background first. Any acclaimed novel will always have an inspiration as to why the author wanted to write it. Saunders, heard from verified newspaper accounts and from his wife’s cousin, that Lincoln was so grieved by his son’s early demise that he used to visit the cemetery many times. This story and it’s paranormal element stayed with Saunders for many years. When he decided to finally turn it into a novel, he did not want to give it a Gabriel Marquez’ magic realism style. That is why the newspaper sources are cited in it. Yet, the conversations of the ghosts were a figment of Saunders’ perception of the afterlife - heaven, hell, final resting place. So while you read, at various points there are short formats of writing and then there are cited paragraphs. Back and forth we go forever seeing the tender love of father and son and equally comical ‘chats’ of the ghosts.


"bardo" is the state of existence between two lives on earth, according to Tibetan tradition.


Writing style
Written as a play and in short format writing, some parts are excerpts of sources like newspapers, media etc.
Conversational
Cited sources extracts from supposed letters and reports of the 1860s.
First person narrative in parts.


What were the broad themes of the novel ?

Depression from loss - the aching heart of Lincoln is not totally buried in the conversations. We see him as a father, a helpless husband and a human being who only has his visits to the crypt as his outlet of grief. There are so many hints of human sadness throughout the novel - unrequited love, a priest’s moral uncertainty, a slave’s sad and unfair death, a couple’s fight.etc

Duty over family - the novel takes place during the war and Lincoln is torn away from his mourning time to take tough decisions for the country. The weight of his grief and of the casualties of war is heavy on him, but the fact that he considers both at the time of his loss is a statement to true presidency.

Afterlife -how poetically and funnily has the novel shown the state of afterlife. I, for one, have always been curious about the transience of life and the state of things in the other world. Even though the novel takes place in a single night, the conversations of the ghosts give a picture of the place.

Unfinished business/ goals of life - The tendrils which drop from heaven to ‘rope’ back a soul stuck in transition is a symbolic aspect of unfinished business of the ghosts. Each of them have a story to say, an appreciation of life they had which they denied or were unaware before.


Characters

Hans Vollman
A former printer who couldn't consummate his marriage to his wife. On the first night he dies unfortunately. His unfinished lusty excitement is why he is in the bardo. He walks around as a naked man with his desire clearly on his manhood! He is not just a lusty animal here though.
Along with his friends, he does everything in his ability to convince Willie that children aren’t meant to “tarry”. To make his point clearly, he even enters President Lincoln’s body hoping hat the president will be able to convince and instruct (as a father ) the child into leaving.



Roger Bevins III
A young man who slashed his wrists because he was heartbroken. Bevins is gay and has a preference for men. Just when he is about to die, with the blood already on the floor, realized that life is a wonderful gift that shouldn’t be just wasted on a mere lover. As such, his time in the bardo is a perception of the physical world’s beauty, riches, urban sense. Whenever he talks about the sensory pleasures of his past worldly existence, his body parts multiply, into thousands of body parts. Probably a metaphor that if you love the world too much, your senses are all over the place. For eg. even if we can’t visit Prague, our minds are there, our eyes seek its beauty even though we are physically in our home.



The Reverend Everly Thomas
Unlike his friends the Reverend has no misconceptions regarding the fact that he is dead. But he is not sure that ,if as a priest, he was morally upright. And so he is afraid of God’s judgement. He tries to run back and is stuck in the bardo.
The Reverend is the one who tries hard to save Willie, ultimately sacrificing himself and ascending from the bardo so that the child can make his way too.

Willie Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln’s son, who died of typhoid during the Civil War. He is in the bardo, where he resolves to wait for his father. He is ‘greedy’ to see his father and go back to the life he knew and to the comfort of his home. ‘Willie eventually enters his father while the president remembers his funeral, and this experience helps the boy realize that he is dead. Exiting Lincoln, he tells the Bardo-dwellers the truth about their situation, yelling, “Everyone, we are dead!” As a result, souls begin departing in great numbers.’

Abraham Lincoln
The president of the United States during the Civil War, and Willie Lincoln’s father.
He must find a way to move ahead bravely in his duty as the leader of the Union, though many of the citizens he represents are against his efforts to keep the South from seceding and free the country’s slaves.

As he fusses over his son, Lincoln wonders how he can possibly go on under the weight of his grief. Throughout the night—which he spends walking through the cemetery, returning to the crypt, and visiting the graveyard chapel—Lincoln periodically lets his mind turn to the War, and he is torn between the right step for the War and the grief which pulls him down.
Upon Willie’s final departure, Lincoln feels as if a weight has been lifted. With this sense of closure, he leaves the cemetery, newly resolved to lead the country and “freshly inclined” to fight for equality, a sentiment perhaps instilled in him by Thomas Havens (also a character), a former slave who jumps into his body and refuses to leave.

Elise Traynor (or “The Traynor Girl”)
A fourteen-year-old girl 

Litzie Wright - A former slave

Lieutenant Cecil Stone -A racist lieutenant

Eddie Barron
A poor white man who exists in the Bardo with his wife, Betsy Barron. Eddie is vulgar and crass.

The Three Bachelors
Three young men who never fell in love in the living world and are thus intent upon finding romance in the Bardo. The only Bardo-dwellers who can fly, the Bachelors detest commitment,

Others identified by their voices - bass/ British /female/ Vermont accent




Lincoln in the Bardo is not easy to read. It needs a bit of knowledge of American history, an appreciation of the supernatural aspects and opening your mind to a different genre of writing. This novel is listed as an ‘ experimental novel ‘ and rightly so. It is unique and makes you blink many times while you read. But then what's reading without pushing your boundaries?


Author - George Saunders
Noted awards - 2017 Man Booker Prize
Year of publishing- 2017
Genre - experimental, historical
My rating- 4/5
Books like this - The Black Cathedral by Marcial Gala , The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold , The Seventh Day by Yu Hua.

Jan Neruda - Prague Tales

As an Indian and a connoisseur of small town tales I have loved and continue to be in love with R K Narayan and Ruskin Bond stories. They both have been influential in pulling me in a the cozy resting chair of semi urban living and slice of life stories. As I grew older and shuttled between two countries and their culture - Qatar and India and with access to so many books, documents, online reading of both the cultures, I continue to explore more on world culture.

So when I spotted this unknown(to me) book with a sweet little picture on the cover, I knew it would turn out to be a quaint one. I am a certified sucker for illustrated and painted covers of books and this one had me floored. Anyone else think that a great design for a cover is an indication that the book will be amazing?




Prague Tales by Jan Neruda is a collection of Jan Neruda's quirky, wry, daily life stories of a small population of Mala Strana, the Little Quarter of nineteenth century Prague. That is where Neruda spent his life, and one of the main streets is named after him.

Neruda was born in 1834 Prague (when it was a part of Bohemia) and was a Czech journalist, writer, poet, and art critic. His travel and poetry and philosophy backgrounds contributed to creating a great vision of his writings.
Neruda’s portrait is on a commemorative plaque on the wall of one of the narrow streets. So famous was he and the popularity he enjoyed in Prague that there is also his grave in the cemetery at Vyshera, making the town his own for eternity.


            


The plot is simple - daily life. But to enrich your reading experience, there are a host of lovely characters. Neruda portrays the lives of the young and the old, the rich and the miserly, the jolly and the moody, the quiet aloof shopkeepers and the chatterbox ladies. Most of the stories either start or end with a view from a window or a sun setting over the distant hills while a girl walks across the street to the tailor - ‘ painting a rich canvas of life in Prague as it were in the latter half of the 19th century.’

The first story - A Week in a Quiet House, starts with the description of a clock in a darkened room. As I said before, every story starts with an image which brings you instantly to the bits of the place.

The story of Mr Ryšánek and Mr Schlegel is more on the relationship between these two characters ,which on a larger scale shows friendships universally.

Ordinary people with ordinary cares: Mrs. Lakmus who is ever the fretful, murmuring mother, worried about the future of her daughter, ready to get her married to the first eligible (or not)man. An aging bachelor Doctor Loukota with a story of his own. The ever hopeful poet Bavor, the young ladies Matylda and Klára, and many more.





‘ Those images of young and old people inhabiting mid-19th-century Prague and their struggles around the great topics of life - love and death - is wonderful in its very own way of a bleak tragicomedy.’

Alice Munro

​Her stories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more than parade."

​​

I understand that well after reading two of her short story collection books. Nobel Prize winner Munro's storytelling is not in a plot around the corner with a surprise,it's in the details.

 Small town living and the community which observes happenings of another house, everyday life of a couple who are still discovering each other, the commute to office and the thoughts of a faraway place , strolling in the park but analysing an unlikely marriage proposal, a soldier from war casually walking from the station to a barn and striking a friendship with the lady who milks the cow.

Her stories are engaging yet not loud. There is quiet and almost soothing experience while reading her stories. If you like to take a break from fast-paced books and historical fiction, Alice Munro is a great choice.

​Strange Girls and Ordinary Women

​Strange Girls and Ordinary Women is a novel on interconnected stories of three women - one having an extramarital affair, a call girl, a woman protective about her male friend and finds in due course of her friendship the truth of her feelings.

The book drags a bit and some parts are predictable.


While reading some questions kept ringing back in my head - Why do stories about women always tell about suffering, heartbreak and injustice? Where are the women who can have fun and skip around? Where's the 'bromance' like stories of women bonding? I am not complaining here but speaking out thoughts. Of course there's room for all kinds of experiences here but are books truly a reflection of the real state of things? Has fiction become nonfiction in today's time​​s?

The Ballad of West Tenth Street - a book review

The Ballad of West Tenth Street

by 

Marjorie Kernan

I was curious to read a book that takes me in the streets of New York. I keep seeing these enviable pics of NY in IG and it's a place of my dreams - literally, without being cheesy. And I'm also watching Suits currently which is only adding to my agony. Oh all those well dressed people walking down the chic streets!

So though I liked the New Yorky casual tone of the book I felt Kernan could have brought out the New Yorky zing too. In the characters and in the absent plot I didn't see much in it. It could have been a story set anywhere. But when you set it in such an enigmatic place (yeah its a personal opinion but still its NY!) there needs to be something holding you to the book.

A West Village house is where the Hollanders live - Sadie, a modern mom, a widow of a singing star has her teens Hamish and Deen with her and her twenty something Gretchen is in a rehab place because she tends to harm herself. Then there is a Colonel's Guatemalan who comes to stay next door to them and his charming housekeeper Ellie who bring the cheer on the story. Add a few more wonderful characters - the raggedy Captain Meat, the plumber guy and Mrs. D and of course Uncle Brian (uncle to the children) who is hopelessly in love with Sadie. 

The story of all of these people weaves through the streets of NY and their past and their thoughts are drawn out. Its a very feel-good, cozy novel. Though I do wish Kernan had brought out more of Sadie and Brian. 

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The Little French Bistro - explore Brittany and a woman's heart.

The Little French Bistro - a novel by Nina George

This has to be my 2019's self aware book. That's how I felt while reading the protagonist Marianne's journey of escape to finding herself.

                                                    “Death is not free. Its price is life.” 

The book starts with Marianne, a sixty year old standing at the banks of Siene, jumping in to die after 40 years of loveless marriage. She is saved by an onlooker and then she decides to go to Brittany and find another suitable moment to die. There is a whole new world of people there who change the course of her life and make her question the motive to die. The funny chef Jean Remy at the bistro who pines after the Laurine the waitress. The aged couple Pascale and Emile who through their eccentricities show Marianne that life doesn't have to be perfect and never is.

Coast of Brittany

A fun host of other characters who have little pocketful of stories of their own fills up this book and balance out the darkness of Marianne's mind. A failing marriage,inattentive partner and feeling of self pity are matters of concern for a person enough to fall into depression. These issues are subtly portrayed through her voice as well as through others in this novel.

“I don't know why we women believe that sacrificing our desires makes us more attractive to men. What on earth are we thinking? That someone who goes without her wishes deserves to be loved more than she who follows her dreams?” 

Of course there is a  good looking guy for her right there in Brittany and who else could he be
but a painter. I wish Yann as a character and her light-through-the-crack was developed more and here is where the book becomes sort of a chick flick, a moony romantic story. However, I'm glad the focus on issues faced by women, importance of self and bits about Brittany is all well written.

A Brittany village

I've already got Nina George's The Little Paris Bookshop and I'm looking forward to reading that.

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Images from - TripSavvy and TheLocalFrance

A Suitable Boy - Book Review

1474 pages, 2 religious riots, 1 major landmark law, 3 suitors and 1 girl-not fair skinned in an India set in 1952 and the book released in 1993 India.

The narration of A Suitable Boy is set in Brahmpur, north part of India,a country just after Independence. An India awakening from the holds of a foreign regime, the landlords wrought up about letting go of their lands, the corporate landscape undergoing changes but the mothers absolutely sure of never letting their children get away from the grandiose traps of marriage planning.

This monumental novel,at the heart, is about Lata and finding an eligible boy for her, but at the peripheral is everything the India left behind by the British was. The shackles were only loosely untangling. The rural land tenants' situation was far from developed. Caste was the social evil. The cushy white collar offices were going through a complex. And James Joyce was missed in college. This book rightly is a suitable Indian read.

There really cannot be a justifiable summary of such a long book. However I am delighted to talk about some of the characters who have stayed with readers  in the last twenty years since the book was written.


Mrs.Rupa Mehra
Why did I choose the mother as the heroine of this book? Because she is the driving force behind this story, according to me. She is quick, sharp, a go-getter, ambitious for her children and yet emotional - excessive at times and a basketful of most traditions of an Indian mother. Most of Lata's thoughts and the direction of them were always influenced by Mrs. Rupa Mehra.

Lata
The dutiful daughter. The unconventionally beautiful Indian girl who wasn't fair skinned in 1993 India. The shy, utopian girl who kisses a Muslim boy in 1993 India. Lata, seemingly demure but assuredly a rebel at heart, she shocks the reader, her brother and a sad old monkey.

Kabir
The lone survivor. One of the monkeys whom Lata loves. Kabir, infinite in patience, a persevering man and dreamy in sketch, he exemplifies the charming romance of 50s.

Maan Kapoor
Maan is the Gemini of the book. Effervescent, gallivanting about and winsome but also demented and daring. I felt he is often misunderstood and maybe presented in the book like so to prove the ambiguity of human nature.

The above four are the most important characters according to me who keep coming back in the novel. Some others are :

Pran Kapoor
Maan's elder brother, a lecturer and complete opposite of Maan. The academic state of universities and the situation is thrown light through Pran's thoughts and character. He is the husband of Savita,sister of Lata.


Arun Mehra
Eldest brother of the Mehra children. The corporate snob of the high rise in Calcutta. He is sharp, observant of the ways of a cultured,cosmopolitan life and of unsuitable suitors to his sister but hardly so when it comes to his cheating wife, Meenakshi.


The Chatterjis
The in-laws of Arun. The judge father-in-law and his five 'cases' with varying degrees of personality quirks all joined by couplets and rhymes. Amit, the eldest a poet, is one of the suitors to Lata and faintly a shadow of Vikram Seth, something I read in articles though the author denies it.

Mahesh Kapoor
The practical, shrewd politician in the Congress party and Minister of Revenue in Brahmpur. He is the father of Pran,Maan and Veena. And husband of a devoted patient wife, through whom the domestic scenes of a political household are outlined.

Haresh
The third suitor. The unsuitable white collar claimant ,according to Arun , the ideal man ,according to Mrs Mehra and the underdog, according to himself. According to Lata, he is the ones who wears the shoe if it fits even though it may not match.

Saeeda Bai
The singing and dancing ember of the novel. The one who causes destruction to two households but calms with her poetry and andaaz.

The Khans
Firoz Khan and Imtiaz, sons of Nawab Sahib of Biter. The Khans' friendship with the Kapoors and the various conflicts of interest result in significant turns to the story.

This is the second novel of Seth I read after The Golden Gate. There is no doubt about the style of his writing and the immense emphasis on every page being worth reading. Seth has an inherent love for poetry and it can be found in this long saga of four families. The Chatterjis' couplets, Kabir's pining, Lata's musings and Saeed Bai's songs - all weave their way to the reader's heart.

I cannot accentuate enough the importance of research in a book of this proportion, especially as it travels across historical, political, cultural and geographical boundaries. The Zamindari Act, the political scene in 1950s India, the rural landscape, the religious tensions and the urbane atmosphere of Calcutta is acutely presented. One can dwell in every little story which entwines two or more characters and the little and big twists are not just about good storytelling but also portray every background possible to give an apt view to the India in a bygone era.

The last time I read a book which blew my mind on literary, research and cultural premises was East of Eden, One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Signature of All Things and Anna Karenina. Its good to lose one's mind and strain the wrist once in a while.

One Summer: America, 1927 - Book Review

One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson

The 1920s in US was probably a game changer. There were some major inventions, technical breakthroughs, controversial happenings and in the midst of some small and big wars. And the great, enigmatic and contentious people behind all these are historically important even now. Some have left great legacies and some have been forgotten. Bill Bryson amalgamates stories of this era with an in-depth account of some major players.

Essentially a book about the summer of 1927, this book delves deep into every news of that time. However, in typical Bryson wit, there is no history lesson here.

For easy read and to keep up with this extensive dive into history, the book is systematically divided into sections according to the summer months. 

One of the famous names mentioned is Babe Ruth, the baseball champion. The book elucidates his transformation, rise from rags and his hits and 'missus'!

How can one forget Charles Lindbergh, the sphinxlike aviator who was in the news for a long long time ever since he flew non-stop from New York to Paris.

Henry Ford's ludicrous business plans (yes even the model T), the cynicism of presidents such as President Calvin Coolidge, the unfortunate Sacco and Vanzetti are also narrated in pocketful of tales.

The book, as is with all of his writings, is well researched. I loved the additional pictures provided in those wonderful sepia tones of the crazy bygone era.

 As Bryson puts it, 'it was one hell of a summer'. 

The Marriage Plot - Book Review

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Have you ever continued reading a book, even after you 'give it a couple of chances'? By that I mean,allowing a book a few pages to let you understand it. Not all books can capture your attention immediately. Some take certain number of pages to get used to.

The Marriage Plot was a book which even after been given chances and intermittent reading, I wasn't able to understand. The blurb describes it as a love triangle, the title sounds like a modern Mills and Boons but the book is neither.

(Spoiler)
Madeleine, Leonard and Mitchell are college students. The men respectively date Madeleine then break up. However, Madeleine and  Leonard date again. Mitchell leaves for a planned world tour, but ends up in France and then India.
The rest of the book is ONLY about the couple. Leonard is a patient of depression and the books goes to lengths about how Madeleine takes care of him, the wavy nature of their relationship and the minds of both of these strong personalities.

I'll speak about my positive views first.
I loved Eugenides' style of writing. He reminded me of Steinbeck's force. The kind that immediately hits you as you read the first page. He has a directness which brings the characters talk to you from the pages.
The book is well researched and gives an empathetic stand on depression and the toll it takes on the people affected directly and indirectly.

However as a novel and as a story there is nothing much to hold on to after some time. I felt Eugenides meanders a lot throughout the book. Getting into the individual characters and understanding their backgrounds was cultivated with so much time that I lost the plot.

An Old-Fashioned Girl - Louisa May Alcott

There is a Polly in all of us who sadly is getting extinct because of a Paris Hilton in the other half of us. That's how I would probably describe how I felt about An Old-Fashioned Girl. If you have ever taken your reading and books close to your heart and pause to take something away from what you read, then you may agree with what I say after reading this 19th century novel. The story about this vivacious but rooted girl and the simplicity she brings in the people who know her, is a classic favourite.

 The first edition of the book.

An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott is about Polly Milton who visits her family friends,the Shaws, in the city. Polly is poor and very down to earth. She is aware of her reality and yet a happy child with a peaceful demeanor. With her presence, the lifeless and hollow Shaw household brightens up and come to learn how to untangle their superficial lives.

Later Polly becomes a music teacher and we get to know a mature woman in her who manifests her thoughts about the world, adulthood and romance. She is an opinionated young lady, more confident and less naive but retains her innocence. The Shaws are almost bankrupt and the story moves around to feature Polly as once again a keen stance in their life. A delightful romance blossoms in her life and the book ends with fresh beginnings rather than a preachy tone.

 Another vintage cover

For readers who know Alcott's writings, it is easy to understand and accept the era and the school of thought it comes with. Written in 1869, when America was still reeling from the Civil war and its traditionalist views, the book would seem old fashioned and conservative. I preferred to not see it like that and to just enjoy the character of Polly as a strong, grounded girl who stood her own and not get swayed with the ways of the world. I believe such a quality is what the world is running after now and being talked about as 'being individual'.