Guards! Guards!

I finished listening to One Hundred Years of Solitude today. (yes, I listen to books also, deal with it). Before that I finished The Trial. Now, I think it was bad decision to read two heavy books simultaneously. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I can’t differentiate between the two distinct story-lines and plots and way of writing or get confused between the two simultaneous reading. After all, I am a lawyer and handling more than one set of facts/ story/ matter on a given day is something I am used to and very adept at. But yes, because the two novels were so heavy, in retrospect, I shouldn’t have done that. But its done now. 

Before the Trial I finished Gachar Gochar. It was more of a novella, then a novel, but it was again intense and thought provoking and relate-able and sad. Prior to that I finished His Bloody Project, which again by no account was a happy novel. It was a thriller-murder case-mystery type of story which is why I had picked it up after finishing In Other Room, Other Wonders. But it was written in a manner that gave it a true story feel, which made the story more hard-hitting with being set in a backdrop which made me believe that being poor and being oppressed is not something confined to books like City of Joy or the Fine Balance. 

Prior to In Other Room, Other wonders, was The Buried Giant. Man, that book! the world that it was set in, the protagonist and his persistence to be by his wife’s side and the ending of the novel, just left me dumbstruck. It wasn’t what I expected at all. And that unexpected nature of the end is what makes me wonder about the insignificance of my being (hmmm, I don’t know where this came from, maybe just right now as I was writing this). 

And before all these was Grapes of Wrath. Again, I had to listen to it. And here, I would agree that it probably did not do justification to the book to the extent an actual reading would have done. But I don’t think I would have ever been able to read this book, so i am thankful to having at least listened to it. I would have gotten lost in understanding the English dialect that the author had used to give authenticity to the novel, but it wasn't just that. After reading the first few chapters only, I knew that it would have worn me down had i read it, not the way The Goldfinch or The Luminaries had done, which was because of its sheer size, but in the manner One Hundred Years of Solitude would have done, because of its sheer content. And that one, the one I am gonna end this peace with, which although comes at the beginning of time as far as this piece is concerned and is in the vast (to me that is, but in-reality is probably more on the limited side) expanse of my reading definitely not the first (I think in recent times, the novel that bought me back to the enjoyment of novels was The Book Thief in 2013?), is the one that shook me. To a core, if I have one, or to the core that I would have had, had I been a hard-working woman or a woman who was lost to the comforts of the world. Which, come to think of it, I have become, somewhat. and so, till today, I have been shaken the most by that novel. My comparison of that novel with the Weary Generation was so naive and dumb. Its nowhere close. The Grapes of Wrath is, in the words of so many others, a Masterpiece.

So here I am, from Grapes of Wrath (how is it pronounced, this word Wrath?) to the one I just finished, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and I am tired. I am tired and unsettled and restless and hungry for more yet knowing that I don’t think my feeble mind can assimilate any more. I have barely been able to comprehend all that I have written about above, not to mention the Sympathizer, which I had to abandon in the middle there somewhere. 

And I don’t think I should take on any serious book, at least not at this moment. Definitely not the Sympathizer or My Name is Red. Maybe something by Terry Pratchett with Rincewind? I would like that. It sounds comforting. Maybe the next one of Guards Guards?

* P.S. In the spirit of honesty, I realized since writing the piece above that The Grapes of Wrath was finished right before His Bloody Project and after In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. But since I was listening to it, it started right after the Buried Giant. Though in the grand scheme of things, and in the muddled state of my being, it does not make any difference to what I wrote above. :D

*P.P.S And in between somewhere I read and finished Murder in Mahim also. Phew. I read a lot from second half of December to second half of February.