The latest novel from Frederick Forsyth, this one deals with the cocaine trade. An industry worth billions of dollars and which ruins millions of lives.
Paul Devereux an ex-CIA special ops is called out of retirement by the American President himself, to stop the drug trade at any cost.
The drug trade across the world, from suppliers in 3rd world countries to end users in developed nations flourishes in spite of the strictest laws, because they operate outside the law and international govenment agencies have to follow every rule in the book. What can happen when the forces against the drug cartels do not need to follow the strict guidelines of the laws is what forms the crux of this book.
While the story line sketched out by Forsyth, makes one wonder, why it can't be put into practice, one is forced to reconcile that such a solution can only happen in fiction. The basic hypotheses on which the "solutions" work in "The Cobra", is that there are just a handful of cartels who control the bulk of the global cocaine trade.
As usual, Forsyth is a master storyteller and once you are a few pages in, it is impossible to put the book down until you have finished. Another wonderful piece of fiction from one of my favorite fast-read fiction authors.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Monday, December 06, 2010
Book Review: Curses in Ivory
Curses in Ivory traverses three generations of women as seen through the eyes and memories of Sreya. The 3 main characters are Sreya, her grandmother Hansabati and mother Regina. The minor but still important characters are her mothers sister Queenie, her Fathers brothers wife Brishti and her sister-in-law Nilima.
The curse supposedly has its origin in the time of Hansabati's mother-in-law Kamala and carries on in various forms through the Rai Bahadurs family.
This novel is a subtle yet wonderful exploration on the status of women across 4 generations in West Bengal. Societal norms, the prevalence of purdah, the British influence, the lowered status of women who lost their mothers or were orphaned, the overwhelming obsession for a male heir all of these are explored in this novel.
Curses in Ivory is a relatively easy read but will leave lasting impressions on the reader. The slow decay of once wealthy households holding on to their past. Family secrets - explosive if revealed but even more destructive if concealed. Arranged marriages where pre-teen spouses grow up together and office romances that lead to marriage. The changing fabric of society reveals itself in the course of this book.
While Curses in Ivory is not chicklit, women readers will be more appreciative of the subtleties in the story telling and the implications of events.
Anjana Basu's story telling flows very smoothly and there are minor differences in the flow depending on which characters perspective is being put forth. The poetic turn of phrase around Brishti is the most palpable.
While not in the league of Saratchandra Chattopadhyay or Satyajit Ray, she still succeeds in bringing an older Bengal to life.
The curse supposedly has its origin in the time of Hansabati's mother-in-law Kamala and carries on in various forms through the Rai Bahadurs family.
This novel is a subtle yet wonderful exploration on the status of women across 4 generations in West Bengal. Societal norms, the prevalence of purdah, the British influence, the lowered status of women who lost their mothers or were orphaned, the overwhelming obsession for a male heir all of these are explored in this novel.
Curses in Ivory is a relatively easy read but will leave lasting impressions on the reader. The slow decay of once wealthy households holding on to their past. Family secrets - explosive if revealed but even more destructive if concealed. Arranged marriages where pre-teen spouses grow up together and office romances that lead to marriage. The changing fabric of society reveals itself in the course of this book.
While Curses in Ivory is not chicklit, women readers will be more appreciative of the subtleties in the story telling and the implications of events.
Anjana Basu's story telling flows very smoothly and there are minor differences in the flow depending on which characters perspective is being put forth. The poetic turn of phrase around Brishti is the most palpable.
While not in the league of Saratchandra Chattopadhyay or Satyajit Ray, she still succeeds in bringing an older Bengal to life.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Book Review: Disgraced by Saira Ahmed
Picked this book up on a whim, as it seemed to be in the vein of Jean Sasson's books. It promised a glimpse into the life of a young British-Pakistani girl growing up in a traditional Muslim immigrant family in the 1980's.
Was it a good book? Well, it won't win any awards for the writing, but the story did make me empathise with her. It created an emotional response in me and isn't that what good writing is supposed to be about?
Saira is brought up in an ultraconservative Pakistani muslim family that lives in Britain, where the entire extended family is involved in the family garment business. Men rule the household with iron fists and women are treated as property to be used and abused.
The danger for someone unfamilar with Islam reading the book, is seperating what stems from religious practice and cultural practice, since Saira herself is not sure of the distinction. Bullied into submission from a young age by all the men in her family, it is not possible for her to question any of their actions or decisions.
However, after being forced into an abusive arranged marriage with a distant family member on a trip back to Pakistan, she slowly summons her courage and uses all her wits to escape back to Britain where she finally lands in a safe house. It is here that she glimpses an alternate way of living her life and starts working outside the family business and outside the traditional ghettoes.
Unfortunately this respite is only temporary as she loses her job for no fault of hers and is forced to come up with money to pay off the debts incurred by her family. Her parents who keep sending money to relatives near and distant, back in Pakistan and her older brothers drug addictions.
The only way she can make money fast enough to repay the interests on the debts of the loan sharks is by selling herself as an escort. It is during this phase that Saira oscillates between guilt of doing something haram, even though her intention is halal - to help her parents.
The story ends abruptly when she stops herself from committing suicide for the sake of her daughter and manages to follow her original dream of designing fabrics and textiles. A more "respectable" job.
The book gives the reader a glimpse into a slice of Saira's life. There are definitely a lot of questions, I would have liked answered. How does her family travel so frequently between UK and Pakistan if they are constantly in debt and money is tight?
A reader unfamiliar with the "extended familial responsibilities" concept in the sub-continent, would have many more questions as to why a lot of the personalities in this book, behave or react the way that they do. In that manner, Disgraced isn't very illuminating. But it is a story that might have been repeated in a number of immigrant families from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka to the UK. It is a story that deserves to be heard.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Book Review : Yajnaseni - the story of Draupadi
This is a translation of the work of Oriya writer Pratibha Ray on the story of Draupadi. This tale portrays Draupadi in a completely different light from Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's Draupadi, in Palace of Illusions
I feel this book has lost a lot in the translation. The first half of the book was very diffcult to get through. The language is clunky and for someone unfamiliar with the multiple names for Arjuna, Krishna, Yudhishtir and Draupadi, the characters can be extremely confusing.
The translator Pradip Bhattacharya, is an IAS officer and the text of the first half is very heavy with convoluted sentences which made me feel like I was reading a bureacuratic report. It takes until the second half, for Bhattacharyato get into his groove and start writing a bit more naturally which really helps the story flow more smoothly.
Pratibha's Draupadi/Yajnaseni/Krishnaa is a woman trapped by circumstances. First having given her heart to Krishna (then told by Krishna himself that her destiny lies elsewhere) and then to Arjun, she is forced to split her time as a wife between 5 husbands, each with their own personalities and peculiarities.
A pre-occupied Yudhisthir, a demanding Bhim, Arjun who blames her for accepting his brothers as her husbands (for not saying no to the suggestion, although he himself didn't), childlike Nakul and Sahadev. Each husband needing to be treated differently according to his temparament. It is easy to empathise with Ray's Draupadi and feel sorry for her predicament.
To love Arjun and want to be his alone and yet have to spend 80% of her time with her four other husbands. Plus Arjun's long travels, as penance for intruding on the privacy of Yudhisthir and Draupadi, to gain astras from the different devas while marrying different princesses along the way. The final straw is when he marries Subhadra and brings her back to Indraprasth, before Draupadi herself has had the chance to be a wife to Arjun (in Ray's sequence of events). Yet, she manages to reconcile herself to all of this with the help of Krishna's council.
In this interpretation of the Mahabharath, Draupadi and Krishna share a spiritual level of trust and love that her five husbands accept and understand unquestioningly. Draupadi, even instructs one of Krishna's wives on how the wives have got it wrong in their constant fighting to possess Krishna for themselves, while what they should be doing is surrendering themselves to him.
Karna is not the flawless noble hero, but an insecure man who nurses his insults and loses no opportunity to rub salt in Draupadi's wounds, even though he also saves her life at one point of time.
Ray, bases her novel on the Mahabharath by Vedvyas and the Oriya Mahabharath by Sarala Das. She also adds a few incidents from her imagination and mixes up the sequence of some events to help her own narrative.
Although Draupadi is one of the five satis, she is often insulted as the one with five husbands and hence implied to be a woman of loose character. Ray's objective in writing this tale was to clear this "negative" interpretation of her and to give her the honor she deserves for holding the Pandavs together and being an "agent of change" in her time.
Also published on desicritics.org
Yajnaseni - The Story of Draupadi
I feel this book has lost a lot in the translation. The first half of the book was very diffcult to get through. The language is clunky and for someone unfamiliar with the multiple names for Arjuna, Krishna, Yudhishtir and Draupadi, the characters can be extremely confusing.
The translator Pradip Bhattacharya, is an IAS officer and the text of the first half is very heavy with convoluted sentences which made me feel like I was reading a bureacuratic report. It takes until the second half, for Bhattacharyato get into his groove and start writing a bit more naturally which really helps the story flow more smoothly.
Pratibha's Draupadi/Yajnaseni/Krishnaa is a woman trapped by circumstances. First having given her heart to Krishna (then told by Krishna himself that her destiny lies elsewhere) and then to Arjun, she is forced to split her time as a wife between 5 husbands, each with their own personalities and peculiarities.
A pre-occupied Yudhisthir, a demanding Bhim, Arjun who blames her for accepting his brothers as her husbands (for not saying no to the suggestion, although he himself didn't), childlike Nakul and Sahadev. Each husband needing to be treated differently according to his temparament. It is easy to empathise with Ray's Draupadi and feel sorry for her predicament.
To love Arjun and want to be his alone and yet have to spend 80% of her time with her four other husbands. Plus Arjun's long travels, as penance for intruding on the privacy of Yudhisthir and Draupadi, to gain astras from the different devas while marrying different princesses along the way. The final straw is when he marries Subhadra and brings her back to Indraprasth, before Draupadi herself has had the chance to be a wife to Arjun (in Ray's sequence of events). Yet, she manages to reconcile herself to all of this with the help of Krishna's council.
In this interpretation of the Mahabharath, Draupadi and Krishna share a spiritual level of trust and love that her five husbands accept and understand unquestioningly. Draupadi, even instructs one of Krishna's wives on how the wives have got it wrong in their constant fighting to possess Krishna for themselves, while what they should be doing is surrendering themselves to him.
Karna is not the flawless noble hero, but an insecure man who nurses his insults and loses no opportunity to rub salt in Draupadi's wounds, even though he also saves her life at one point of time.
Ray, bases her novel on the Mahabharath by Vedvyas and the Oriya Mahabharath by Sarala Das. She also adds a few incidents from her imagination and mixes up the sequence of some events to help her own narrative.
Although Draupadi is one of the five satis, she is often insulted as the one with five husbands and hence implied to be a woman of loose character. Ray's objective in writing this tale was to clear this "negative" interpretation of her and to give her the honor she deserves for holding the Pandavs together and being an "agent of change" in her time.
Also published on desicritics.org
Yajnaseni - The Story of Draupadi
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Book Review : The Hadrian Enigma - A Forbidden History
The Hadrian Enigma - is a story of love, intrigue, politics, and scandal set in pagan Rome and Egypt, about 130 years after Christ.
The story is based on real characters and falls in the genre of speculative fiction. It starts with the discovery of the body of the Bythinian youth Antinous rumored to be Caesar Hadrian's lover or eromenos. While history says that his death was an accidental drowning in the Nile, George Gardiner weaves a story of intrigue around the incident that is quite entrancing.
The tale is revealed as a series of depositions to Special Investigator Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus who is charged by Caesar, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Antinous within 2 days.
Within the first few pages, it seems the suspect is so evident, that you wonder why the story runs to 476 pages, but as you read along, you realise there are many more players in the mix.
Gardiner has written an interesting and gripping story, but I do wish the editing was tighter. Given that large parts of the book are third person reports, a lot of the minute details included seem superfluous and out of place. He seems to have suffered from a typical writers problem of having done extensive research and then wanting to include as much of the details as possible into the end product.
The language keeps oscillating even when the same person is speaking, from high brow Latin and Greek peppered sentences (sending one scurrying to wikipedia and dictionary.com) to American colloquialisms like "that guy".
Font sizes change suddenly and inexplicably, quite often. Words are underlined for emphasis, which left me feeling like I was reading a manuscript or a draft, rather than a final copy.
While the novel is based on the same sex relationship of Caesar Hadrian and Antinous (currently deified as the God of Homosexuality by some) and marketed as a male-male romance novel, it isn't a turn off to the average reader who wants to read it as a mystery novel. What is vexing though, is the repeated use of the word "crutch" when the author actually means "crotch". Whether this is a problem of the "spell check" software or new slang (I checked urbandictionary.com which did not imply any such meaning to the word - crutch), I'm not sure.
Its an extremely readable story, shedding insight into the life and times of a not-as-renowned Caesar, who had one of the most peaceful and prosperous reigns of his dynasty. It's a page turner, once you get past the initial Greek and Latin terms. I just wish the editing could have been tighter. Then this book would have really stood out for me.
Also Published on desicritics.org
The story is based on real characters and falls in the genre of speculative fiction. It starts with the discovery of the body of the Bythinian youth Antinous rumored to be Caesar Hadrian's lover or eromenos. While history says that his death was an accidental drowning in the Nile, George Gardiner weaves a story of intrigue around the incident that is quite entrancing.
The tale is revealed as a series of depositions to Special Investigator Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus who is charged by Caesar, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Antinous within 2 days.
Within the first few pages, it seems the suspect is so evident, that you wonder why the story runs to 476 pages, but as you read along, you realise there are many more players in the mix.
Gardiner has written an interesting and gripping story, but I do wish the editing was tighter. Given that large parts of the book are third person reports, a lot of the minute details included seem superfluous and out of place. He seems to have suffered from a typical writers problem of having done extensive research and then wanting to include as much of the details as possible into the end product.
The language keeps oscillating even when the same person is speaking, from high brow Latin and Greek peppered sentences (sending one scurrying to wikipedia and dictionary.com) to American colloquialisms like "that guy".
Font sizes change suddenly and inexplicably, quite often. Words are underlined for emphasis, which left me feeling like I was reading a manuscript or a draft, rather than a final copy.
While the novel is based on the same sex relationship of Caesar Hadrian and Antinous (currently deified as the God of Homosexuality by some) and marketed as a male-male romance novel, it isn't a turn off to the average reader who wants to read it as a mystery novel. What is vexing though, is the repeated use of the word "crutch" when the author actually means "crotch". Whether this is a problem of the "spell check" software or new slang (I checked urbandictionary.com which did not imply any such meaning to the word - crutch), I'm not sure.
Its an extremely readable story, shedding insight into the life and times of a not-as-renowned Caesar, who had one of the most peaceful and prosperous reigns of his dynasty. It's a page turner, once you get past the initial Greek and Latin terms. I just wish the editing could have been tighter. Then this book would have really stood out for me.
Also Published on desicritics.org
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