The Dying Animal - Phillip Roth

I avoid modern American fiction. I generally don't get it. However, the name 'Dying Animal' stirred something in me and I was really curious about reading this book. Well, it certainly is different, unfortunately not in a very good way. It, in fact, is the kind of book that you so badly want to be good and it starts out so but soon descends into utter apology of what it could've been. It is also the problem of single-idea stories or stories that really should remain short. This book even at 120 pages is a drag when you get to its 2nd half.

The Dying Animal in the story of an ageing professor and his relationship with a young attractive woman of Cuban origin. The book suffers from there being no plot of any sort, just a cheap trick employed at end as if to apologize for the brilliant, raw, jarring and difficult to read first-half of the book. Difficult to read because it is so true and deep down inside everything you've always known being a man about the feal desires lurking in your heart is there for you to confront. It is powerful and moving. You shake your head in disbelief, not because you don't believe but because you don't want to but you know you do.

And hence, what comes later is just such a pathetic ending that is no conclusion at all. What a pity.

Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

As I started reading 'Fooled by Randomness' about a month ago I could swear that I'd read this stuff before. A man of middle-eastern origin trading on Wall St. in options. Black Swans. I could swear I had read about him before. I went to The New Yorker's website and searched for this Taleb's name and sure I hit an article from 2000 written by Malcolm Gladwell, no less. I know I had really enjoyed that article then and I got excited about the book even more and read it pretty quickly (at least for me) right after that.

'Fooled by Randomness' is Mr. Taleb's attempt at analyzing success in its generally accepted form: wealth. Taleb writes in a forward to the book about how the first edition of this book got a ton of email from readers telling him that his book made them feel vindicated. It made them feel accomplished or successful in its own little but significant way. It seems that the readers were essentially on target. Mr. Taleb does seem to be obsessed with the idea that successful people aren't necessarily smart. This idea has become fairly popular in recent months among The New Yorker crowd. The magazine has lately featured many articles discussing success. Is success a result of smart people or is the result of the times or of luck or randomness or intuition or what exactly.


But this is about Taleb and his book about Randomness. Taleb is of course sitting pretty today. He is probably laughing his ass off today in some random bar in Manhattan. More practically he is probably working on a new book -- how about 'The Suburban Swan'?

The type of 'blow-up' Taleb talks about that happens to traders and others on Wall St. when they make foolish bets is much of what consumes Taleb. Today is his day. However, we'd be more cautious if we'd take his own advice of not paying too much attention to detail and waiting for the 'end' to make up your mind about something. Trouble with this approach is that there really is no such thing as an 'end.'

Taleb talks, brilliantly, I must say, about the inexact scale that tells you more about the scale than about what it measures. Taleb, of course, has first-hand experience. His book tells you so much more about Taleb than about randomness.

Taleb is very well-read and isn't afraid to show it to you. Again and again. He has what I call as the 'Gopnik-syndrome.' He is a brilliant man and has brilliant friends. He has Gladwell praising the book on front cover and he praises Gladwell's book inside the book. I guess they formed a 'partnership' in 2000 to promote each other's cause. Very un-Taleb-like if you ask me.  But then you don't really know the real Taleb. Is he the brilliant author who writes beautifully and excoriates the Wall St. for their 'exceses' or he the pompous ass who does not follow his own advice. Ever.

The book is still a lot of fun to read. His wild rants against journalists and financial wiz-kids is certainly very very entertaining. His stories are charming even if beside the point.

The biggest problem with the book is the cop-out in the last section where Taleb accepts that he is the worst offender of everything he criticizes. This attempt at self-apology is so out of character with the Taleb of everything before that it just leaves a horrible taste in your mouth. He is just not believable anymore. We cannot respect the rants of a man, an educated man, when he says he'd direct most severe criticism toward himself. It drains leadership. That would also make Taleb fit well, unfortunately, today. 

However, guys like Taleb will be right on certain days and these days are those. It is fitting that I should've read this book only a few weeks ago. It certainly makes me think about Wall St., if not differently, then in at least a different vocabulary. 


[Ravindra, thanks for gifting this book to me]

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon's small, tight, poignant novel is certainly a good read. It's narrator is 15-year old, mentally challenged kid Christopher Boone. The story revolves around the mysterious murdered dog of a neighbor and how Christopher's attempt to solve the murder mystery leads him to other (unpleasant) discoveries that threaten to ruin his life.

Haddon's strong characterization of the boy and judgemental portrayel of the post-modern adult life and its inherent flaws through the eyes of a mentally challenged (or autistic, it is never quite specified) is vivid and logical. Haddon's Christopher, the boy with special needs, is the only logical character and adults around him seem inefficient at best and completely unresaonable at worst.

Christopher's world is black & white. Crystal clear. Mathematical. He is oblivious to nuance and  does not deal in false currencies. He loves math and loves Sherlock Homes. He  His approach is so precise, so defined that he is a complete misfit. Haddon is clearly proclaiming that perfectly logical behavior can only be attributed to someone who will be perceived as...well, an idiot. 

And this brings me to Prince Myshkin. How Dostoevsky's Idiot lives through the ages and resurfaces in various different ways. The recurrence of 'Crime and Punishment' themes in modern entertainment is overwhelming but 'The Idiot' themed entertainment isn't far behind. The more I read the more amazing Dostoevsky's work becomes to me.

Also, Haddon's novel will have a different appeal for parents, specially new parents. Taking care of your children is clearly a task rendered excruciatingly difficult by the demands of post-modern life. Working parents, distractions, blackberrys and so on. While Haddon doesn't hammer on this and is generally sympathetic to the adults, it is hard for a parent to not cringe with guilt, earned or not.

Through "Curious incident..." Haddon cleverly disguises what is essentially the hardest possible thing for a parent to do (dealing with a child with special needs) into a poignant yet funny, touching and ultimately entertaining tale.

Snow - Orhan Pamuk

I have always been curious about Turkey. Several articles in the New Yorker about the role played by the military that is surprisingly secular and has been since the 1st world war have ignited my curiosity. The military has, on more than one occasion established a secular rule by overthrowing elected governments that seem to relent to the Islamists. The idea of a military doing the "right" thing, as would seem to an outsider, has always been quite fascinating to me. Turkey, in this strangely, sometimes of often forced, secular way has always stuck out in the otherwise oppressing world of mullahs and shieks. Unlike other Islamic countries, Turkey has insisted on modernism, based on the guidelines laid down by the father of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It has applied modernism by any means at the state's disposal. The women in Turkey are forbidden by law to wear head-scarves or burqas in public places and universities. (Incidentally, however, the trend seems to have given way, disappointingly for some, to an openly religious society following the general rightist shift in world socio-politics.)

Orhan Pamuk's (who recently won the Nobel prize for literature) "Snow" is the tale of Ka (the protagonist) who has spent several years in Frankfurt, in the season of Kar (aka Snow) goes to the city of Kars (in north-eastern Turkey bordering Russia) to report on the several suicides committed by the "head-scarf girls" and to meet his old lover Ipek in the hope of reviving the old romantic flame.

Snow is not an easy book to read or like. Contrary to its name, it is heavy, not because it is overly philosophical but because it is too less so. It is fluffy and yet leaden: which might also describe some of what Ka sees in Kars. A society torn between fanatical secularism proposed by the State and Islamic radicalism proposed by cultural roots. This is essentially what Mr. Pamuk has been trying to explore all his life. He is the classic immigrant who can see the provincialism of his original homeland and sneer at it but cannot help but reject the modernism of his new home either. It is the classic dilemma that defines immigration in general and brings about the middle-path that ends up changing societies: more to which people migrate than from where they migrate.

Unfortunately for us, Snow is pretentious and repetitive. It's overuse of 'Snow' as a metaphor for pretty much everything (love, distance, beauty, cover-up, joy, sadness, commonness, difference, you name it) is cloying and makes it impossible to plow ahead. It's overuse of the word 'Snow' not just as a metaphor but for itself every other sentence is also jarring. It starts to hurt.

Snow's style is literary with heavy influence from others before who explored the east or mid-east from Western eyes. Dostoevsky and Conrad come to mind immediately (but they do almost all the time) and one could see hints of Prince Mishkin and even glimpses of Raskonikov in Ka. However, as an outside but not necessarily a wild thought, Ka (following the the inclusive pattern of naming his prime characters: Kars - city, Kar -snow, Ka - the hero) might actually be at heart closer to Kafka's K than anyone else. His utter dislocation, albeit fueled by differing cultural views rather than just a general sense of being lost amidst the oppressing social structure, is basically an emotion personified by Joseph K (The Trial, The Castle). While K does not understand the world around him and generally doesn't make an attempt, Ka seems to make too much effort and then seems to give up to easily. He is essentially a coward once-to-often guised as a skeptic.

Snow is full of characters, alas only some of them interesting. Ka's love Ipek is a rather boring character though the final propulsion to the novel and its fulcrum is essentially provided by her indiscretion. In contrast, Kadife, Ipek's younger sister is feisty and far more elegant. However, the real force of the novel is two contrasting philosophies presented by the all-powerful stage actor Sunay Zaim (a shadow of Atatürk's) and the equally charming but enigmatic Blue, a fundamentalist who really is the only force that keeps the pages together. Pamuk never allows them to be face to face and he uses Ka as a sort of interpreter between the two presenting and digesting their ideas without being really touched by any. While Blue is the motor of the book, it is the young Islamist Najib who provides its soul and Pamuk clearly wanting to make a statement kills him early on (this is not a spoiler -- Pamuk tells you this upfront sort of laying down the foundation of his covert pessimism.)

I struggled through the almost 500 page book. I really did. There were many times, specially about half-way through, I saw no reason to move on because I thought I knew what was going to happen. However, Pamuk has some tricks up his sleeves, he pulls the right kind of gargoyle out at the right time and kept me going.

I wasn't utterly disappointed at the end. Books to me are a mirror into another life that I could never have or know about. The fantasy of Snow is the type where the fact that it is is often more important than the fact that it isn't fantastic.

Complications - Atul Gawande

It is something about New Yorker staff writers that I end up liking all the books that they write apart from their articles in the magazine. James Surowicki, Malcom Gladwell, Adam Gopnik and now Atul Gawande.

I've always enjoyed reading Atul Gawande's articles in the New Yorker. He alway seemed insightful, circumspect and curious about a profession that I look at gingerly at best. In 'Complications: A surgeon's notes on an imperfect science', Atul Gawande takes it even further. He seems much more in control here given the much larger canvas of the book to present his thoughts in a cohesive and meaningful manner. He lists interesting anecdotes, presents great insights and tells stories with depth and understanding of both patients and doctors. He talks about what makes it so hard for doctors to be good at what they do, he speaks about the mystery and uncertainty of the profession and ultimately ends up both scaring you and liberating you in some sense.

Through the Children's Gate - Adam Gopnik (Part 2)

I finally completed this book yesterday. As always Mr. Gopnik gave me a lot. His fluid, introspective review of minutia that really makes up our life, is perceptive and often makes you want to be patient and introspective yourself. This follow-up to the 'Paris to the moon' is a somewhat different. The first book was more about Paris and less about child raising and this one is more about the personal experience and joy or bringing up your children but also the obvious pain of the knowledge that as you help your children grow you are also helping them go away from you. You raise them to lose them. This poignant dilemma it seems is the central driving force for Mr. Gopnik.

Candide - Voltaire

After a long long time I read a book that cracked me up in so many ways. Candide (or Optimism) is the story of a naive boy of that name who learns the true nature of the world and the rather messy life that we live in. It relives in hyperbole the horrors of the 18th century world. It is basically a blatant satire, to the point of shamelessness, at the philosophy of the 'good' and 'simple'. It ridicules almost all cultural aspects of its time and blasts away simplistic reductions of various peoples of the world.

Written in the 18th century, it is refreshingly politically incorrect. Reading it reminds us how our current world is taking away from us the freedom to express any idea no matter how outrageous it may be. How the pressure to conform to a unified moral code is stifling discussion and just plain old fun.

If you buy this book make sure you by this edition. It has an outstanding reference section. Most of the book will be lost without that.

Through the Children's Gate - Adam Gopnik

About 180 pages into the book I certainly have a much different feeling than I did about 80 pages in it. The book seemed tedious and predictable in the beginning when Gopnik builds the tenor of New York. Being in the area for so long I found most of his notes rather lame. However, now that he is over that into the simple life issues specially relating to children, he is at what he does best. Drawing life lessons from a chess game his 7 year old son plays and the wonderful Charlie Ravioli, his daughter's imaginary friend who is too busy to play with her -- a typically New York phenomenon.

I am at a place where I can barely put the book down. Gopnik is the master of style and when form and substance match it, it is almost giddy how good he is.

The Trial

I'm on the second track of this massive four track audiobook by Franz Kafka called "The Trial". A famous book, it is the story of a man, Joseph Kay, who is accused of a crime and a trial is initiated against him however the trial is so secretive that the defendant isn't told what he is accused of. Kafka basically plays on the "big brother" theme but adds some interesting human elements to it.

So far the book has been pretty interesting. It did drag a big at the end of the first track (each track is about 2 and a half hours so the book is about 10 hours) but now at the end of the second track it has become interesting again. The introduction of the crazy uncle, Lany and the lawyer were quite hilarious. However, the monologue where Kafka begins to describe the true nature of the judicial system is where the real meat of the book is and the story around it seems more of a means to demonstrate the central theme of judicial ineptness of a secretive court system. The story and characters add narrative element to this theme.

I comment that specially struck me as darkly humorous is that such trial are so secretive that they are kept a secret even from the defendant. The other one is about how the judicial system merely tolerates the defense because it is an annoying aspect of written law and how some even argue if there is merit in such tolerance.

Excerpt from 'Scoop'

I am reading this book called 'Scoop', a brilliant satire by Evelyn Waugh about a newspaper that sends a garden reporter William Boot as a war correspondent to an imaginary war torn country called Ishmaelia. Following is a small excerpt where The Foreign editor tries to explain the situation in Ishmaelia.

'Well, there is one thing. I don't read the papers very much. Can you tell me who is fighting who in Ishmaelai?', asked Boot.

'I think it is the Patriots and the Traitors', said the editor.

'Yes but which is which?', said Boot.

'Oh, I dont know that. That's policy, you see. It has nothing to do with me. You should have asked the management that.', informed the editor. He continued...

'I gather it's between the Reds and the Blacks. Yes, but it is not quite as easy as that. You see, they are all Negroes. And the Fascists wouldnt be called black because of their racia pride, so they are called White after the White Russians. And the Bolshevists want to be called Black because of their racial pride. So when you say Balck, you mean Red and when you mean Red, you say white. And when the party who call themselves blacks say Traitors they mean what we call blacks, but what we mean when we say Traitors, I really couldn't tell you. But from your point of view, it will be quite simple. Management only want Patriot victories and both sides call themselves Patriots and of course both sides will claim all the victories. But ofcourse its really a war between Russia and Germany and Italy and Japan who are all against one another on the Patriotic side. I hope I make myself plain?'

'Up to a point', said Boot, falling easily into the habit.