non sequitur

RIP Erich Segal: A Class Act

I just came across this news. Erich Segal, the writer of books set in the backdrop of Havard and MIT, is dead.

I first picked up Erich Segal 10 years ago on the recommendation of a very dear friend. After 10 years and probably 100s of books, Erich Segal still remains one of my favorite writers and 'The Class' ranks among the best books I have ever read in my life. 'Love Story' happens to be my friend's favorite book.

Of the books I have read by Erich Segal - Love Story, The Class, Man, Woman and Child, Doctors, Prizes, necessarily in that order, Love Story remains his most popular while I like The Class, Doctors and Prizes. The one I liked least was Man, Woman and Child and I have always been indifferent towards Love Story - 'love means not having to say you're sorry' notwithstanding. Love Story is full of great repartees between the hero and heroine but my favorite scene is the last scene where the hero breaks down in the arms of his father. I guess the novel ends with the words 'I cried'. No other writer I have read has created more life-like characters or more scenes that tug the proverbial strings of the heart than Erich Segal. Barney Livingston, Sandy Raven, Andrew Eliot, Jason Gilbert, Ted Lambros, Danny Rossi, George Keller - there was a time in my life when I was intensely involved in the happenings in their lives. Andrew Eliot is one of my favorite characters in Literature.

Segal's books contain some of the most beautifully constructed long English sentences replete with original metaphors. This might sound like I am confusing Segal with Wodehouse - but no, I am not.

Sample this sentence from 'Doctors': Amazing sun, isnt it? Looks like God has put a shiny copper penny into the slot to buy us a skyful of stars.

'The Class' begins with "They looked at one another like tigers taking measure of a menacing new rival."

Here are a few thoughts on 'The Class' and here are a few more on the pathetic Hindi remake of 'Love Story'. I am in mourning.

Reflections on Dumbledore

Dear Potter Fan,

Since I finished reading the seventh book, I have been wondering what Dumbledore would see in the mirror of Erised. I want your thoughts on the subject and I am presenting mine over here. Have you thought about it or is it too trivial a pursuit for your already busy mind? Nevertheless, I encourage you to reflect on the subject for a while.

Of course, the simplest explanation, after reading the last book, would be that he sees his family; even worse, you can point to Philosopher's Stone and say that he sees himself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks. But that is too easy and you just can’t have everyone in the series finding their family in the mirror (remember, Harry already sees his family). That’s too unimaginative and that is the last adjective one would attribute to JK Rowling.

I am quoting from the book. The lines below might explain why I have my little idea about what Dumbledore must see in the mirror.

"Another silence. Harry did not ask whether Dumbledore had ever found out who struck Ariana dead. He did not want to know, and even less did he want Dumbledore to have to tell him. At last he knew what Dumbledore would have seen when he looked in the Mirror of Erised, and why Dumbledore had been so understanding of the fascination it had exercised over Harry."

According to me there is a good indication in the above lines. Also, in the first book Dumbledore describes the mirror thus.

"Let me explain. The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is."

You must be wondering what my little idea is. Now assume a scenario where Dumbledore was the fellow who stuck Ariana down. Dumbledore is definitely not the happiest man on Earth, as we learn from the life and lies of Dumbledore in Deathly Hallows. What a fine irony it would create - the mirror reflecting Dumbledore just like a normal mirror but for an entirely different reason.

What do you think of it?

I am, as you see, increasingly getting obsessed with my little theory. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that my theory is right. In fact, it is the only obvious thing that he would either see Grindelwald or himself in the mirror and it gives a nice element of drama to assume that he is the guilty party.

Have a good day.

Arvind

Potter Wars:

I had, only a few months back, recently acquainted myself with the Star Wars franchise. I am referring to the episodes 4, 5 and 6 and not the more recent ones. There could be websites probably dedicated to the subject of what I am about to say – in fact I have verified in Google that there actually are - but after watching the movies this particular thought crossed my mind.

Don’t you think there are characters in Harry Potter that have close counter parts in Star Wars?

Luke Skywalker could be a Harry Potter figure with Lord Vader killing his father Anakin Skywalker.(at least as it is presented in ‘A New Hope’)

In Obi Wan Kenobi/Yoda we see the Albus Dumbledore motif.

Han Solo can easily be seen as Luke's sidekick in the lines of Ron Weasley. In fact he even is insecure about his relationship with Liea.

Liea of course is Hermione Granger.

The friendship of Luke, Han and Liea could well be connected to the friendship shared by Harry, Ron and Hermione.

if you look at it, like Harry having special powers superior to the rest of his friends, Luke is a Jedi Knight specially meant to destroy Lord Vader.

Harry has to fight a lot of his demons with-in him and you see Luke having lost his father and stuff to that effect.

Lord Vader and Lord Voldemort are too close to one another in their superior powers which are used for the dark side.

Chewbacca; Hagrid anyone?

I will go a step ahead and outrageously compare Fred and George to C-3PO and R2-D2 as the characters that bring in the comic respite in the drama.

An aside: To paraphrase Rick Blaine, I would say of the Trent Bridge Test which increasingly is threatening to go down history as The Jelly Beans Test, 'it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of jelly beans in this crazy world.'

Captain Haddock's Prototype?

Despicable Creatures!! Suffering Samurais!! Seven Suffering Samurais!! Kamikaze! Seventy Suffering Samurais!! Bungling Blockheads! Flaming Fujiyama!!!

Curses, exclamations, alliterations - when one comes across them who does one get reminded of? Captain Haddock from Tintin indeed. Now brace yourself up for a surprise. All these expressions are not uttered by Captain Haddock. Much earlier to Captain Haddock making his debut in 'Crab with Golden Claws' Hergé allows another character of his, Mitsuhirato, the main villain in 'The Blue Lotus' mouth these colourful phrases. Don’t the permutations in the suffering samurai remind one of the same techniques employed with thundering typhoons? Clearly Hergé recognised the potential the harmless and amusing curses had and developed the theme into a full fledged character in Captain Haddock.

Literature always has instances of a minor character developed by its creator (most times) into a more significant one. At the moment, I can think of Reggie Pepper, the prototype of one of the most famous creations of Wodehouse - Bertie Wooster, as an example. In C. Auguste Dupin Edgar Allan Poe provided Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with the prototype of what turned out to the most recognised detective ever. Caroline Sheppard, the narrator’s spinster sister in 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' was later developed into a full length detective Miss Marple by Agatha Christie. Television over the decades, I am sure can provide a few examples too.

What do you think? Tell me.

On a completely different note, while reading 'The Blue Lotus', I came across the comic book equivalent of what Roger Ebert calls the 'Fallacy of the Talking Killer' or 'Talking Killer Syndrome' in his 'Little Movie Glossary'

The villain wants to kill the hero. He has him cornered at gunpoint. All he has to do is pull the trigger. But he always talks first. He explains the hero's mistakes to him. Jeers. Laughs. And gives the hero time to think his way out of the situation, or be rescued by his buddy. Cf. most JAMES BOND movies.

Getting didactic on the subject, there is a variant of the rule called 'Tuco's Advice'

Named for the character played by Eli Wallach in THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY. It comes in the scene where Tuco is taking a bath, and a guy bursts in the room, promising Tuco how he plans to have his revenge, only to have Tuco kill him. Tuco then advises the corpse, "If you have to shoot, shoot don't talk."

Now take a look at this...

As expected, after this scene Tintin is rescued by his buddies.

Do you remember the talking killers in the movies you have watched or the books you have read? Tell me.

Holmes comes Home

Starting 12th December - today - History Channel is airing the 'Sherlock Holmes' series featuring Jeremy Brett every Tuesday at 9 PM. Jeremy Brett is supposed to have given the definitive portrayal of the character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - arguably the most famous detective in all literature. He has breathed life into the character, walked out of the pages of the book and all that sort of thing and here comes your opportunity to catch up with one of the most famous TV series of all time.

You can take a horse to the water but you cant make it drink, so goes the old adage; drawing your attention is what I can do, if you are interested in acquainting yourself with the best in business, you will take time to watch it. Do try.

A Favorite Wodehouse?

"...write about Wodehouse and you tread on hallowed ground. He's a writer people mind about intensely, a writer who, without strong feelings himself, encourages the most vehement reactions." - Robert McCrum

An acquaintance of mine who was then recently introduced to Wodehouse, when I was trying to encourage him to embark on the journey of devouring the whole canon, asked me a question that is often put to Plum(Wodehouse was called Plum by those who loved him - he still is) devotees, "What is your favorite Wodehouse?" Now, that is what I call a very difficult question to answer. Take the case of someone visiting the Tulip Gardens of Holland being asked about the single flower he liked most among the breathtaking sight of all the flower beds symmetrically laid; wouldn’t that someone be baffled to no end? Or like Shakespeare’s Othello, be perplex’d in the extreme? I feel very similar when I am faced with the question. Smiles. I love all of the master’s works like "how the male codfish which, suddenly finding itself the parent of three million five hundred thousand little codfish, cheerfully resolves to love them all". The books have never failed to put a smile on my face in many a dull moment of life caused by the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.

I think the best way to go about reading Wodehouse - the way I employed to wade through the whole Canon of 100 odd books - is to start at the Jeeves and Wooster series featuring the adventures of the kind hearted blundering upper class British man about town Bertram Wilberforce Wooster and his omniscient, omnipotent, Spinoza reading Gentleman’s personal Gentleman, Reginald Jeeves and after that pounce on the Blandings Castle series featuring the absent-minded Peer, Clarence, the 9th Earl of Emsworth at the helm of affairs and his paraphernalia complete with his hat trick medal winning Berkshire sow, the Empress of Blandings. There are fourteen of Jeeves and Wooster Novels and an almost equal number of Blandings castle novels. After fraternizing with the above mentioned sterling creations of the master, one should not miss the escapades of Psmith (the P is psilent as in Pterodactyl), Uncle Fred and a lot more of other interesting creations. Before I proceed further, there is more to be said about Uncle Fred. He is a peer mostly confined to the country side and on the occasions he is unleashed on London, those being the occasions when his better four-fifths is away visiting friends or on some other errand that keeps the redoubtable Uncle Fred away from her temporarily, he tends to, to quote from the books, step high, wide and plentiful. When at liberty, "excesses" are what Uncle Fred invariably commits.

Steering back to the res, I wonder where else one would come across characters with elaborate names like Hildebrand Spencer Poynt de Burgh John Hannasyde Coombe-Crombie or say, Reginald Alexander Montacute James Bramfylde Tregemis Shipton-Bellinger. Douglas Adams may be, yes! But with all the credit that he is due, Mr. Adams is still not Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse. (Hazarding the possibility of getting didactical, I have to mention that the name is pronounced Wood-house as opposed to the popular notion Woad-house, for I every once in a while chance upon people referring the master as Woad-house) And those of the readers who start out on reading Wodehouse find themselves in a similar enviable posish of a sailing master pleased as a punch upon discovering a great chunk of land. In other('s) words, they would feel like how Columbus would have felt when he first set foot on America.

The plot in the books generally is very intricate and enters into sub-plots and sub-sub-plots like the nested parenthesis in a complex algebraic expression and finally ends with almost none of the characters disappointed; but for me, the plot itself is incidental. It is like a rope that holds the pearls and diamonds of the master’s free flowing lyrical prose replete with hilarious adjectives to describe characters and situations, Gilbertian metaphors, allusions to Shakespeare, the holy scriptures, references to the Greek and Roman Myths, the Arthurian Legend, the poems of yore and all this is done in a humorous manner that leaves you guffawing to no end. It is these things that have sent me back to the master again and again and yet again. Here I have to add a note of caution. It is not advisable to read Wodehouse in public places lest you would be considered leaky in the top floor by your suspicious and shifty-eyed onlookers.

I highly recommend PG Wodehouse to anyone who loves the English language. I myself call the favorite pastime of reading his books, ‘Gorging on Plums’. Not for nothing, I guess, does a friend of mine call me a ‘Wodehouse Crusader’.

Calvin and Hobbes: The Alpha and the Omega

So long, Pop! I'm off to check my Tiger Trap!

It's a Magical World, Hobbes, Ol' Buddy... let's go exploring!

A Picture is sure Worth a Thousand Words!!!

On writing Journals:

On Sports and Games:

watch out this space... More to come!!

My experiences at the WodehouseIndia Convention...

The much discussed Wodehouse India convention did finally happen. Well, it is happening. And when I say it is happening, I mean it in both the teeny bopper sense of the word and the present continuous tense form of the verb. It is closing by around afternoon today. Bobbie has taken the responsibility of writing the official minutes of the meeting and this happens to be the unofficial seconds.

The participants:

Swordfish
Pillingshot
PG
Gally
Sue Brown
Bobby
Stiffy
Claire
Sally
Psmith
Crumpet
Hamilton Beamish with his family
Brat
Reggie Pepper, which coincidentally happens to be my humble self.

Gally insisted that there has been a 40 percent increase in the participation rate since the last convention but I have a slight suspicion that he didn’t take into account the ever growing size of the group. So the magic number 40 should be taken with the proverbial pinch of salt.

I don’t exactly know what happened around the lunch table because I happened to be one of those who came in late. In fact, come to think of it, I was the one who came in latest. Crumpet for a change seemed to be one of the early birds. A few were around the lunch table chewing the cud after giving their all to the excellent stuff provided by the chef, while the rest, I learnt, relapsed, if that is the word I am looking for, to a post lunch siesta.

There was this welcome board put up which said "Welcome to the members of Wodehouse India" or something to that effect. I was given to understand that the chappies had initially misspelled the master's name as woodspacehouse much to the members' chagrin. The marines were called in to rally round and quick damage control was insinuated.

Coming back, just like the rain outside, the members, one after another and sometimes in small groups started trickling back and the revels formally began after we had a full house. From here on I shall breeze through the events.

Quiz - conducted by Claire, with Psmith having most of the inside information.
Reading sessions - H Beamish, Pillingshot, Bobbie, Gally.

As the reading sessions progressed, there were these uninvited guests in the form of winged insects which some serious students of Biology prefer to call the dipterans, who started creating near mayhem causing us to move to more closed environs. And here was where one of the high points of the evening and the convention, when one looks at the big picture, occurred. Bobbie reads "Gussie Fink Nottle distributes the prizes". The whole group, at the end of it was roaring in laughter with tears of mirth running down their cheeks and some were clutching their respective tummies and rolling on the floor. Prior arrangements were made to accommodate all these happenings.

As an aside, there was entertainment in the form of, what history will have it written as “The Hot Chocolate Episode”, which Brat appropriately pointed out as "serious minutes material". I hope justice is done to this laudable observation and due credit and airtime the episode deserves is bestowed upon it in the minutes that are on the way.

Clarence called up and a speaker phone was brought in duly. Only thing was that it was wireless. So some of us had initial doubts if it is capable of receiving calls without the mandatory wire that curls in spirals, we always see at homes, but there was some one who said that the marvels of modern science made it possible. And that certain some one, whom I cannot presently recollect, I reckon did not speak a truer word. The telephone did ring and Clarence was promptly put on speaker for benefit of one and all. Clarence's call was followed by the call from Lord Bosham, who was referred to, in the course of the conversation, as a vociferous writer, by PG. Each of the members gave him a good deal of their respective tongues which Bosham negotiated in a manner far better than the manner Indian batsmen negotiate the Australian bowlers. Joss Wetherby's call followed, where he promised that he would positively meet the members today at the dinner table. Only time, the great healer, will tell how good Joss is at keeping promises.

The whole contingent, if one may call that that, is meeting at Indi Joe. This is an eatery behind TGIF on Airport road. The start time is 7pm and the end time is 9pm.

After the telephone conversations, dinner and drinks followed after which Psmith, Crumpet and self went back to our Cozy homes and the rest were seen tottering back to their rooms to get some good night's sleep that one deserves after a long and eventful day.

PS:    One can join in to the group thus:

Click to join WodehouseIndia

Hope Springs Eternal... ramblings on Different Seasons

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. It is a novella, one of the four stories of the book "Different Seasons" by Stephen King, the King of Macabre. This story has nothing remotely resembling macabre but King still Rules. Last evening I started reading it and finished it off. It made quite a riveting read. The book is very well written. One can feel the indomitable spirit, determination, patience, unyielding will power and conviction (these are all the words that come to my mind presently to describe what one feels while reading the book) of Andy all through.

The story itself, it is narrated by Red, who is serving life imprisonment in the Shawshank prison for committing two, (or is it three?) murders. He does not have any guilt for committing the murder he actually wanted to, but feels sad for the other two who accidentally and unexpectedly get killed in the process. Enter Andy, convicted to life imprisonment for killing his, Andy’s and not Red’s, wife and her lover in cold blood. Andy is quite the reclusive and aloof sort of guy who keeps himself to himself in the prison. Over the years, the only person gets friendly with is Red. Andy is convinced that he is not guilty and he has been wrongly condemned to the prison walls. Instead of accepting or resigning to fate, he patiently, slowly but surely plans his escape and while he is in prison, he finds ways of being alive, alive in the true sense of the word. Reminds me of the line ’’Living is more than merely existing’’.

There is this part towards the end of the book where Red comes out of the prison and then feels that he belongs more to the Shank than the outer world and the idea of committing a petty crime and getting back to prison crosses his mind. By then Andy has already made his jaw dropping escape and he, Red, says to himself that if he tries to get back to prison then it is equal to slapping on the face of everything that he held in awe and admiration of Andy’s spirit of freedom and Hope.

I am sure you understand, going by the way I am raving about the book, how much I loved reading the story. Smiles.

Then there are these lines one comes to, where Andy is convinced that one day he will be free and speaks at length, on Freedom. The part is truly amazing. Now I have to watch the movie one of these days.

Red says towards the end that it is his story. Then he goes on to say that the reader might think that Red actually plays a small part in the story and the story actually belongs to Andy. He then says that it is a part of him that wanted to be free for 37 years, (Red would have been in the Shawshank prison for that many years) the part of him that had Hope, Hope that was in larger quantity in Andy that made him do what he, Red, wished to do. Be Free.

For completion sake, the other three stories in the book are The Apt Pupil, Breathing Method and The Body.

This is Arvind Swarup speaking

The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are two books, especially the former, that have gained the status of Modern Classics. The thoughts expressed below are, well, my general thoughts on the two most popular works of Ayn Rand.

After I finished reading The Fountainhead, the character that impressed me the most was Gail Wynand, the next being the iconoclast Ellsworth Toohey. I found the final monologue, if monologue is the word I am looking for, of Toohey to Peter Keating and the defense of Roark(for those who have not read the book, Howard Roark happens to be the Hero of The Fountainhead) in the climax the most impressive parts of the book. It is definitely a book that is a must read for any bibliophile worth his salt. In fact, each of the characters sketched out by the writer in Fountain Head have something definite and unique. In stark contrast to this, Atlas Shrugged has most of the characters, the Heroes of the book, very similar to one another and after the point to be put across is put across, the theme repeats itself again and again and the writer tends to get excessively didactic. I must, at this point, confess that the 90-odd page radio speech by John Galt, in Atlas Shrugged, took a lot out of me, leaving me practically a spent force by the time I finished the Chapter ’’This is John Galt speaking’’. The sheer size of the book Atlas Shrugged is very intimidating. Anyway, I managed to read that, spreading it over a period of nearly four months.

Ayn Rand happens to be one of the most compelling and influential writers I have ever read. Though it is highly difficult to rise up to the standards set in her philosophies they definitely influence the reader immensely. The philosophy she professes though hard to live up to and emulate definitely sets standards to the way an ideal man has to live. I do not presently remember, but a writer or critic once pointed out that after reading The Fountainhead, one would feel that the rest of the writers through the generations have written their works while sitting on the potty or something to that effect. Though I would say that saying so is going a bit too far, it definitely gives an idea as to how powerful Ayn Rand’s writings are.

Delving for a while on the cover illustration of The Fountainhead, I have this little theory of mine that it shows the picture of the Titan Prometheus from Greek Mythology, stealing fire from Gods, which, as the legend goes, he gifts to mankind and for doing so Zeus punishes him by chaining him to a rock and leaving eagles (another version says it is vultures) to gnaw at him. The illustration in a way, I think, encompasses, or is symbolizes the word I really am looking for, the idea of the Creator, the first to go on an un-laid path only to get pilloried, inviting the world to point the finger of disdain and scorn, the idea Roark so convincingly presents in his defense.

In Ayn Rand’s own words, the philosophy of objectivism sums up to this:
"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." In a nutshell, one sees the Earth in the eyes of Ayn Rand as a place where there is no room for those wallowing in mediocrity. Well, that, if you practically look at, sends most of us packing to the outer space with a copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; but then, that is neither here nor there. The nearest antonym to ego, according to her, is altruism. Her theories severely pan the concept of Collectivism and glorify Individualism and the Virtue of Selfishness. In this context, it doesn’t need a rocket scientist to understand her views on Soviet Communism vis-a-vis American Capitalism. It would be of interest to psychologists to know that the writer was a Russian immigrant to the  United States.

The Ayn Rand Stereotype:
Ever observed? Ayn Rand definitely did not see eye-to-eye with Shakespeare on the subject of fat men. All her heroes have to possess lean frames with athletic builds and angular faces (Hank Rearden, Francisco d’Anconia, John Galt, Howard Roark). All the bad guys should be fat with flabby masses of flesh falling off their bodies (Peter Keating, James Taggart, Ellsworth Toohey et. al.). All her heroines (Dagny Taggart, Dominque Francon) have to invariably sleep with all her heroes. Of course, in pointing out the last observation, i don’t mean to say that Dagny Taggart from Atlas shrugged goes out all the way to sleep with Howard Roark who appears in The Fountainhead.