tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55230282011-09-17T16:51:10.992+05:30Literary Musings...G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.comBlogger771100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-87235360571516764432009-09-17T10:04:00.003+05:302009-09-17T10:10:24.369+05:30

WHAT is this life if, full of care,We have no time to stand and stare?—No time to stand beneath the boughs,And stare as long as sheep and cows:No time to see, when woods we pass,Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:No time to see, in broad daylight,Streams full of stars, like skies at night:No time to turn at Beauty's glance,And watch her feet, how they can dance:No time to wait till her

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-6489965215180016842009-03-04T17:18:00.001+05:302009-03-04T17:27:09.009+05:30

You do not do, you do not doAny more, black shoeIn which I have lived like a footFor thirty years, poor and white,Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.Daddy, I have had to kill you.You died before I had time--Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco sealAnd a head in the freakish AtlanticWhere it pours bean green over blueIn the waters off beautiful Nauset.I

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-34569707711715918422008-12-31T22:56:00.003+05:302008-12-31T23:02:44.553+05:30

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,The flying cloud, the frosty light;The year is dying in the night;Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.Ring out the old, ring in the new,Ring, happy bells, across the snow;The year is going, let him go;Ring out the false, ring in the true.Ring out the grief that saps the mind,For those that here we see no more;Ring out the feud of rich and poor,Ring in

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-40164156861571369932008-12-16T08:19:00.004+05:302008-12-17T22:49:03.846+05:30

Mémoire des poissons dans les criques profondes,Que puis-je faire ici de vos lents souvenirs,Je ne sais rien de vous qu'un peu d'écume et d'ombreEt qu'un jour, comme moi, il vous faudra mourir.( Memory of fish in the deep-water coves,what can I do here with your slow-moving recollections,I know no more of your than a hint of foam and shadow,and that one day, like me, you will have to die.)Alors

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-80089200888942438202008-10-30T20:40:00.002+05:302008-10-30T20:44:05.065+05:30

On winter nights beside the nursery fireWe read the fairy tale, while glowing coalsBuilded its pictures. There before our eyesWe saw the vaulted hall of traceried stoneUprear itself, the distant ceiling hungWith pendent stalactites like frozen vines;And all along the walls at intervals,Curled upwards into pillars, roses climbed,And ramped and were confined, and clustered leavesDivided where there

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-3005382630942845052008-10-02T12:29:00.005+05:302008-10-02T14:05:01.285+05:30

There was once upon a time, in a big city, a colony of fish who lived in a pretty plain little aquarium on a bedside table. There were three couples - goldfish, angelfish and shark. They lived in mutual harmony, swimming around the tank peacefully, with no reason for any discord. They were fed, they had plenty of fresh water, air and light. Then one day, they were shifted to a smaller city (a

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-26766956687202511572008-09-01T20:13:00.003+05:302008-09-01T22:41:25.814+05:30

Une Vie de Boy (Ferdinand Oyono) - a beautiful novel - has been written in the diary form, making it much more realistic and lending it a more personal touch thus making the reader feel like he's privy to the innermost thoughts of the main character, in this case Joseph Toundi a.k.a the Boy. Houseboy or Une Vie de Boy narrates the story of a young Black who runs away from his tribal village,

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-6699533633651923642008-08-31T11:54:00.003+05:302008-08-31T12:13:49.356+05:30

A play that can be interpreted at many levels, I've always favoured the existentialist interpretation which deals with the meaning of human existence and the onus of each man to carry his own burden and make of his life what he can, however difficult it might be...An excerpt I once knew by heart and could recite at the drop of a hat and to me, perhaps the most important part of the text...

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-11863311336471323952008-08-17T19:14:00.003+05:302008-08-17T21:42:29.190+05:30

An autobiographical work by Michel del Castillo, a Spanish born writer who writes in French, Tanguy is a powerfully moving novel highly reminiscent of The Diary of Anne Frank (due mainly to the child's point of view as opposed to that of the adult). Narrating in first person, the story of a young Spanish boy, Tanguy, the novel is set against the backdrop of the war. The novel starts in Spain in

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-85454943022389913662008-08-10T10:31:00.008+05:302008-08-10T11:32:28.700+05:30

I like animals. I understand their importance in our ecological system. I even admire and appreciate certain species. But I wouldn't go as far as calling myself a generic animal lover, because frankly there are some whose existence is quite beyond my grasp. Lizards for example, or snakes, or crocodiles...basically the entire gamut of animals that are categorised as reptiles. And thus when I

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-58807407521313486682008-07-11T19:52:00.002+05:302008-08-04T19:55:18.411+05:30

Margaret Atwood, steals yet again and presents us a delightfully tongue-in-cheek feminist version of an otherwise accepted, rarely questioned and highly glorified tale. Re-interpreting the Greek myth of Odysseus as a part of The Myths series, Atwood presents The Odyssey (originally written by Homer) from Penelope's point of view, in The Penelopiad.Unlike her beautiful cousin, Helen of Troy,

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-71803881835674369452008-07-07T20:13:00.008+05:302008-07-08T14:44:15.492+05:30

Rare is it that I devour a book within a couple of hours. Rarer that I find myself unable to lift my eyes from a book when I am in a moving bus. Yesterday on my way back from the Tinsel Town I started Milan Kundera's Slowness and before I knew it, I had turned the last page, having spent two hours nodding in admiration at the weight in the words chosen to weave this delightfully tongue-in-cheek

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-84701949998226050792008-07-07T19:44:00.003+05:302008-07-07T20:09:47.159+05:30

I am standing for peace and non violenceWhy the world is fighting fightingWhy all people of worldAre not following Mahatma GandhiI am simply not understandingAncient indian wisdom is 100% correct,I shuold sayeven 200% correct,But mordern generation is neglecting-Too much going for fashion and foreign thing.Other day i'm reading newspaper(Everyday i'm reading Times Of IndiaTo improve my English

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-11300318874221281642008-07-01T19:22:00.005+05:302008-07-01T21:23:45.158+05:30

I was born in a book. This is not a metaphor. I was born to myself by reading. I was born to rejection, to excess, to enigmas, I was born to the incomprehensibleness of things, I was born to what is called the inner life thanks to a book. I was ten. I remember it well. The book was called "Sans Famille" (Nobody's Boy) by Hector Malot.I belong to books. All other affiliations reduce me and sut me

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-15483297156661342092008-07-01T19:17:00.003+05:302008-07-01T21:23:04.678+05:30

Reading is absenting yourself from the worldreading is finding the world againreading is being alone with the world in your handsreading is being alone in the company of othersreading is thinking before actingreading is taking the time to thinkreading is imaginingimagining is putting yourself in the Other's placereading is an act of humanityreading is being with the other and with yourselfreading

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-85101444113094530592008-06-19T19:45:00.002+05:302008-06-19T20:07:50.045+05:30

Why has the pleasure of slowness disappeared? Ah, where have they gone, the amblers of yesteryear? Where have they gone, those loafing heroes of folk song, those vagabonds who roam from one mill to another and bed down under the stars? Have they vanished along with the footpaths, with grasslands and clearings, with nature? There is a Czech proverb that describes their easy indolence by a metaphor

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-66687637734554085602008-06-17T19:52:00.005+05:302008-06-17T12:54:36.769+05:30

Why is French such a complicated language(with such impossible to conceive pronounciations)?Oft has this question been posed to me and I've always shrugged in response, saying that the people responsible have long been interred and are by now decomposed to the point that even if you tried tracking them down in hell (they couldn't have gone to heaven, surely, after having been this cruel and come

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-85301606275042668302008-06-16T19:33:00.007+05:302008-06-17T12:35:34.469+05:30

Tagged by Extempore, a.k.a the Mother Hen, to :-Pick up the nearest book. Open to page 123. Find the fifth sentence.Post the next three sentences. Tag five people, and acknowledge the person who tagged you.She declares having struggled with the choice of book since she often reads more than one book at a time. I must admit, a similar dilemma awaited me, since my bed-side table currently hosts a

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-68470130861654521562008-03-21T20:55:00.007+05:302008-06-17T12:37:00.185+05:30

Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride, offers us a feminist version of the fairy-tale The Robber Bridegroom. Familiar with the world of fairy tales, this isn’t the first time Atwood has been inspired by one, having spun off the Blue Beard tale in her collection of short stories, Blue Beard’s Egg. While the original fairytale is about a band of robbers with predatory, cannibalistic characteristics,

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-82400946163852015582008-02-10T16:28:00.003+05:302008-02-13T22:01:43.279+05:30

Oft do I miss my Literature days, the thrill of discovering yet another brilliant author, the awe that coursed through my veins discussing the genius behind the words, the complete satisfaction after having discussed, interpreted and analysed a particular work. The module on francophone literature that I had taken up during my stage at Montpellier not only gave me the opportunity to go back to

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-3507976905782491892007-12-22T14:17:00.000+05:302007-12-22T15:16:14.582+05:30

In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern and women. The streets stank of manure, the courtyards of urine, the stairwells stank of mouldering wood and rat droppings, the kitchens of spoiled cabbage and mutton fat; the unaired parlours stank of stale dust, the bedrooms of greasy sheets, damp featherbeds, and the pungently sweet aroma of

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-55149927454643422252007-12-15T20:10:00.000+05:302007-12-22T15:19:57.508+05:30

Translated by Ina Rilke from the French original La Petite Chartreuse (2002), The Girl from the Chartreuse is a heart-breaking story about Vollard, a book-seller who accidentally runs over a 10-year old girl with his van. The novel revolves around the three protagonists of Vollard, the little girl Éva and her mother Thérèse. Struck by the accident, Vollard reads fairytales to Éva, who sinks into

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1157045555787659782006-08-31T22:52:00.000+05:302006-08-31T23:02:35.810+05:30

I really didn’t expect to come away impressed this time, specially when I was still crawling slower than a snail through the book a 100 pages down – but Jesus, this woman knows how to spin her tales, for just when I was beginning to desultorily flip the pages and start preparing myself to either trudge through the book or abandon it completely, she reached out and ensnared me in the fine web of

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1149170134309905672006-06-01T18:57:00.000+05:302006-06-01T19:25:34.386+05:30

The third Margaret Atwood I’m reading after Handmaid’s Tale and Bluebeard’s Egg, it has lived upto my expectations. When I started the novel I didn’t expect it to hold my attention for long – I was sure that one author couldn’t possibly churn out novel after novel, all of which would succeed in pulling me into the intricate mesh of its plot, make my chuckle, smile, shed the occasional tear…feel.

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1147021651655397182006-05-07T22:34:00.000+05:302006-05-07T22:37:31.670+05:30

Charles Perrault. Jean de la Fontaine. The Brothers Grimm.Do these names mean anything to you? If not, then I must say you've had a very deprived childhood, for they are the names of the authors of the world's best-known and most-read fairy tales...or maybe not so deprived after all. For quite a while now, even before the arrival of my nephew I'd been taking little jogs down memory lane thinking

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1145979534689460942006-04-25T20:58:00.000+05:302006-04-25T21:08:54.766+05:30

I've done this before, on Geebaby, but my dear friend Aristera tagged me sometime back, reminding me that Keya too had tagged me before that, and I thought to myself - Why not?Why not on Literary Mosaic, my much ignored second baby? So here goes, the Book Meme -1. What is the total number of books you've owned? I've not counted them in a while, but I'd say more than 300.2. What is the last book

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1127742765632866492005-09-26T19:18:00.000+05:302005-09-26T19:22:45.640+05:30

Bengali poet, novelist, short-story writer, dramatist, painter, philospher and nationalist - Rabindranath Tagore is almost synonymous with the Indian Literature, being the first Indian to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. He is also known as the founder of the experimental school, Shanti Niketan, in which he tried to impart an education that was a blend of Indian and Western

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1126802978546683732005-09-15T22:09:00.000+05:302005-09-15T22:19:38.546+05:30

Lord of the Flies has been on my “To-Read” list ever since I first studied about it way back in FYBA…I went onto graduate, complete my Masters and a Diplome Superieur in French, before I finally picked it up. And once I did, I found it difficult to put it down unfinished. Deepak once remarked that it’s a book to be devoured in one go, a slim novel that has you engrossed in the twists and turns of

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1126802171545754402005-09-15T21:44:00.000+05:302005-09-15T22:06:11.586+05:30

Handmaid’s Tale was the first book by Margaret Atwood that I read, and as I posted in my review, I was a riveting work. As I resolutely put back a Peter Mayle and an André Gide I mentally crossed my prayers that I wouldn’t be disappointed by Bluebeard’s Egg. That this was a collection of short stories assured that I wouldn’t abandon the book mid-way, letting it languish uncompleted on my

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1126102027027551102005-09-07T19:23:00.000+05:302005-09-07T19:37:07.033+05:30

Salman Rushdie on WikipediaIn his Defense of Poetry, Shelley emphasized the importance of the role of imagination in the discovery and direction of our lives. According to him, laws and conventions derived from ‘ethical science’ may be necessary for the conduct of ‘civil and domestic life’, but it the imagination that unlocks our full humanity.At the end of the 20th century, many wars,

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1119863195644667152005-06-27T14:24:00.000+05:302005-06-27T14:45:11.433+05:30

I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together. I'm not sure where that is but I know what it is like. It's like Tiffany's. - Holly Golightly Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's appeared in 1958, and is perhaps the most influential and well-known of hs works, second only to Cold Blood. Everybody knows about the film and Audrey Hepburn's brilliant

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1115283381130471322005-05-05T14:19:00.000+05:302005-05-05T14:52:58.453+05:30

IHeat waves seemed to be rising from the tarmac as she made her way to the bus-stop. Weather reports on the Radio had said this was the hottest day that season and she couldn't help but agree. It had been excruciatingly hot the past few weeks, with no sign of relief but today the heat was simply unbearable. A droplet of sweat trickled its way from her scalp down her spine leaving an uncomfortably

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1114860415564182762005-04-30T16:45:00.000+05:302005-04-30T16:56:55.570+05:30

It was a sultry summer evening when the young girl emerged from her French class into the growing darkness of the city. Since she lived on the opposite corner of the city, rickshaws usually refused to go there unless she paid them double fare and public buses that she usually relied on, catered to the unsavoury sorts at that hour. So on days that she had classes in the evening, she usually had to

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1112980953437500492005-04-08T22:47:00.000+05:302005-04-08T22:52:33.440+05:30

(Bellowing out with all the strength in her lungs) HELLO!!!(Aside) I seem to have mastered the art of becoming invisible. It took me several years to do this, but now that I’m there, its not nice being invisible. Why won’t anyone notice me?? Damn but you there, standing there with the smirk on your face...listen to me! YOU!!!(Screeching with impatience) Guess there's no undoing it now is there.

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1111147099171436982005-03-18T17:20:00.000+05:302005-03-18T17:28:19.176+05:30

“There was once, in the country of Alifbay, a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad that it had forgotten its name. It stood by a mournful sea full of glumfish, which were so miserable to eat they made people belch with melancholy even though the skies were blue.”Thus begins the narrative of Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, a marvelously fantastic tale of

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1110568071874106622005-03-12T00:32:00.000+05:302005-03-12T14:57:30.133+05:30

Nicola let herself into her penthouse apartment and kicked the door shut behind her. Switching the lights on, as she walked down the length of the room, she kicked her high-heeled sandals off. With a flick of her wrist she flung the crimson red scarf that held back her hair, across the room. Floating lightly it came to rest on the back of her blood red couch. All the furniture in the room was the

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1109045915754908322005-02-22T09:44:00.000+05:302005-02-28T09:21:12.103+05:30

“Peace I ask of thee, o RiverPeace, peace, peaceWhen I learn to live serenelyCares will cease.From the hills I gather courageVisions of the days to beStrength to lead and faith to followAll are given unto mePeace I ask of thee, o RiverPeace, peace, peace.”(Camp song – Poet unknown)Everywhere she looked, vast expanses of rolling green countryside met her eyes, dotted at times with flocks of sheep

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1103295193461286842004-12-17T20:17:00.000+05:302004-12-27T12:19:48.610+05:30

She kicked into the castle, smiling bitterly as it collapsed. Its walls breached, the waves rushed into its courtyards, flooding it, destroying its foundations. She stood there watching it dissolve… “Anahita, jeez woman what’s gotten into you today? You can’t just get up and walk out on me in the middle of the conversation – that too, at Mocha! You know how bloody slow they are to reacting and

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1102326305147325372004-12-06T15:02:00.000+05:302004-12-09T10:37:56.893+05:30

"Hang your head Tom Dooley, Hang your head and cry, You killed Poor Laura, Poor boy you’re bound to die." The lines were stuck in her head like an unending refrain. Try as she might, she couldn’t get the words out of her mind. Hardly had it faded away, that it started all over again. Perhaps it was good that there was music in her head. It meant she still had the fighting spirit in her. She was

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1102060057335696092004-12-03T13:12:00.000+05:302004-12-03T13:17:37.336+05:30

Margaret Atwood, author of twenty-five books including fictions, poetry and essays, has written a classic that deserves to be placed next to Orwell’s 1984. Critics say it’s no less than Huxley’s Brave New World and Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, but since I’ve not read either of them, I can’t comment. (I tried reading the second since it was prescribed for the Novel Paper in MA-I, but I couldn’t

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1101811936241666312004-11-30T16:18:00.000+05:302004-11-30T16:22:16.240+05:30

“Encore Provence” – the third in series on Provence by Peter Mayle, is the most delightful read, if you love France, or even if you don’t. A Francophile (I’d prefer calling him an Anglais Francison) he couldn’t get Provence out his system even as he pursued international acclaim in America…so he returned to the south of France and fell in love all over again with la vie Provencal! In this

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1101811663384920052004-11-30T16:11:00.000+05:302004-11-30T16:17:43.383+05:30

FOR God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love ; Or chide my palsy, or my gout ; My five gray hairs, or ruin'd fortune flout ; With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve ; Take you a course, get you a place, Observe his Honour, or his Grace ; Or the king's real, or his stamp'd face Contemplate ; what you will, approve, So you will let me love. Alas ! alas ! who's injured by my love

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1101540978937225552004-11-27T13:03:00.000+05:302004-11-27T13:08:57.840+05:30

34-24-36. 5’6”. Shiny black tresses caressed the curve of her neck, brushing lovingly against her shoulder, much like a lover would. The red waist-coat faithfully moulded her body, highlighting her assets beautifully. She wore a skirt that stopped just short of her knees – some silky material that shifted sensuously against her legs with each step she took forward… Please have a seat... Thank you

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1097817556680353622004-10-15T10:41:00.000+05:302004-10-15T10:49:16.680+05:30

lives on moth soup the string keeping up his green pants strangled a barking dog outside the boarded up all night off-licence. For twenty years he delivered ice to fishmongers from the mouth of the Thames to Greenwich. They lived on the best salmon cuts lobster on her birthday Dover sole for his. He never accepted the Doctor's prognosis and when his beloved wife died he packed her body in bed

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1097428990534439162004-10-10T22:37:00.000+05:302004-10-10T23:04:28.320+05:30

I wish bon appetit to the frail old fisherwoman (tiny, she is no more than just an armload of bones grown weightless over the years and caught in a net of wrinkles) who, on her way to the market, has stopped to have a quick breakfast in a hole-in-the-wall teashop, and is sitting hunched over a plate of chickpeas — her favourite dish — on a shaky table, tearing a piece of bread with her sharp

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1097427032114918032004-10-10T22:07:00.000+05:302004-10-10T22:27:24.546+05:30

Love came to Flora asking for a flower That would of flowers be undisputed queen, The lily and the rose, long long had been Rivals for that high honour. Bards of power Had sung their claims. "The rose can never tower Like the pale lily with her Juno mien" - "But is the lily lovelier?" Thus between Flower fractions rang the strife in Psyche's bower. "Give me a flower delicious as the rose And

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1097212099307832372004-10-08T10:05:00.000+05:302004-10-08T10:38:19.306+05:30

Elfriede Jelinek - that's a name you can't not know. Why? Because she just won the much coveted Nobel Prize for Literature for the year 2004. An Austrian author, she is known best for her novel "The Piano Teacher" (1988)...her debut novel "Lisas Schatten" (1967) was followed by several politically conscious novels, till her most recent novels which deal with the role of women in society. Guess

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1095614228096106852004-09-19T22:39:00.000+05:302004-09-19T22:47:08.096+05:30

iWHEN daisies pied and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo! Cuckoo, cuckoo!—O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear! When shepherds pipe on oaten straws, And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1094894855543307372004-09-11T14:44:00.000+05:302004-09-12T10:17:04.600+05:30

I finally finished reading Hari Kunzru’s "Transmission" a few weeks back. I was quite excited about the book, having heard so much about this new diasporic author, who had won accolades for his debut novel - and I was just as disappointed. The book has absolutely nothing remarkable - I went through it without experiencing a single moment of delight or fascination at anything he said or how he

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1094618748759664772004-09-08T09:42:00.000+05:302004-09-09T10:51:13.266+05:30

Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, Alone and palely loitering; The sedge is wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing. Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel's granary is full, And the harvest's done. I see a lily on thy brow, With anguish moist and fever dew; And on thy cheek a fading rose Fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads Full

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1093542001475765052004-08-26T23:05:00.000+05:302004-08-26T23:10:01.476+05:30

Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know. If we should weep when clowns put on their show, If we should stumble when musicians play, Time will say nothing but I told you so. There are no fortunes to be told, although, Because I love you more than I can say, If I could tell you I would let you know. The winds

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1090603276321528042004-07-23T22:34:00.000+05:302004-07-23T22:55:25.830+05:30

Carol Shields is the author of eight novels and two collections of short stories. “The Stone Diaries” won the Pulitzer Prize and was short-listed for the Booker. “Larry’s Party” won the Orange Prize. But I’ve not read either of them. My first Carol Shields’ novel was “Unless” (2002) – the novel dealt with 44 year old Reta. A novelist by profession, Reta’s life has been easy, ordered and what on

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1085555163765129052004-05-26T12:20:00.000+05:302004-05-27T09:22:51.166+05:30

"Sybil", written by Flora Rheta Schreiber, is a true story of woman possessed by sixteen personalities. Sybil suffered a traumatic childhood as a victim of the most horrifying abuse inflcited on a child. She suffers mysterious black-outs and goes onto to develop sixteen personalities (male and female) as a defense against the horrifying truths of her life that she did not want and could not face.

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1083304506048789452004-04-30T11:25:00.000+05:302004-04-30T11:28:12.246+05:30

Written in the vein of Postmodernist writing, Tom Stoppard's "Indian Ink " - a quietly elegant and moving drama adapted by the British playwright from an earlier radio play and turned into a modest stage hit in London in 1995 - is yet another artistic attempt to make sense of India, where Stoppard spent many years. Flora Crewe, an unconventional English poet visits India in 1930. Her

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1083222964023221912004-04-29T12:46:00.000+05:302004-04-29T12:58:14.060+05:30

Finished reading "A Doll's House" and decided I must blog about it..so here's some gyan first : Ibsenism = The dramatic practice or purpose characteristic of the writings of Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), Norwegian poet and dramatist, whose best-known plays deal with conventional hypocrisies, the story in each play thus developing a definite moral problem. "A Doll's House"exploded like a bomb into

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1081830670821985872004-04-13T10:01:00.000+05:302004-04-13T10:13:01.716+05:30

Written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Jhumpa Lahiri, the book is one of the most engrossing books I've read recently. I read the book from start to finish at a speed that I've not read at for quite a while now...I think the last novel that captured my attention in a similar fashion was Doris Lessing's "The Sweetest Dream." In "The Namesake" Lahiri enriches the themes that made her collection of

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1080623087942578672004-03-30T10:34:00.000+05:302004-03-30T10:40:57.216+05:30

Oh what a pity, Oh! Don't you agree that figs aren't found in the land of the free. Fig trees don't grow in my native land; there's never a fig-leaf near at hand when you want one; so I did without; and that is all the row's about. Virginal, pure policemen came and hid their faces for very shame, While they carried the shameless things away to gaol, to be hid from the light of the day. By

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1078238776513651182004-03-02T20:16:00.000+05:302004-03-02T20:20:50.843+05:30

Having given the plot line of the play, I thought I'd also toss in the 2 most famous scenes of the play - the witches prophecy and the scene in which Lady Macbeth tries to wash off blood from the wall - a sign of her guilt. She is haunted by this and eventually dies of insanity....I've marked the most famous lines in bold - these are most oft quoted even in contemporary parlance. ACT 1. SCENE

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1078208537875351312004-03-02T11:52:00.000+05:302004-03-02T11:54:25.436+05:30

Act 1: The play takes place in Scotland. Duncan, the king of Scotland, is at war with the king of Norway, and as the play opens, he learns of Macbeth's bravery in battle against a Scot who sided with Norway. At the same time, he hears of the treachery of the Thane of Cawdor, who was arrested. Duncan decides to give the title of Thane of Cawdor to Macbeth. Macbeth and Banquo, traveling home from

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1077512218128746382004-02-23T10:26:00.000+05:302004-02-23T10:28:57.983+05:30

Rohinton Mistry was born in 1952 in Mumbai, and shifted to Canada in 1975, when the emergency was declared. In the same way that Thomas Hardy sets the action in his novels against the backdrop of fictional Wessex, Rohinton Mistry uses Bombay as a setting to explore the complexities and moral dilemmas which face his characters and their families as they struggle with poverty, questions of religion

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1075618687751751952004-02-01T12:28:00.000+05:302004-02-01T12:30:51.250+05:30

I remember the night my mother was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours of steady rain had driven him to crawl beneath a sack of rice. Parting with his poison -- flash of diabolic tail in the dark room -- he risked the rain again. The peasants came like swarms of flies and buzzed the Name of God a hundred times to paralyse the Evil One. With candles and with lanterns throwing giant scorpion shadows on

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1070555664139022762003-12-04T22:04:00.000+05:302003-12-04T22:05:03.593+05:30

Alice Walker's The Colour Purple, published in 1982, tells the story of Celie, a Black woman in the South. Celie writes letters to God in which she tells about her life--her roles as daughter, wife, sister, and mother. In the course of her story, Celie meets a series of other Black women who shape her life: Nettie, Celie's sister, who becomes a missionary teacher in Africa; Shug Avery, the Blues

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1068743453939967622003-11-13T22:40:00.000+05:302003-11-13T22:41:12.966+05:30

O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The wingàd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1068743285157712602003-11-13T22:38:00.000+05:302003-11-13T22:41:38.606+05:30

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1063630394124676102003-09-15T18:23:00.000+05:302003-09-21T10:31:40.323+05:30

GR-R-R--there go, my heart's abhorrence! Water your damned flower-pots, do! If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence, God's blood, would not mine kill you! What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming? Oh, that rose has prior claims-- Needs its leaden vase filled brimming? Hell dry you up with its flames! At the meal we sit together; Salve tibi! I must hear Wise talk of the kind of weather, Sort

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1063630114821794332003-09-15T18:18:00.000+05:302003-09-15T18:18:34.723+05:30

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1063629881274379192003-09-15T18:14:00.000+05:302003-09-15T18:14:41.186+05:30

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare. No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass. No time to see, in broad daylight, Streams full of stars, like skies at night. No time to turn at Beauty's glance, And watch her feet, how they can dance. No time to wait

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1063434889997648612003-09-13T12:04:00.000+05:302003-09-13T12:04:50.030+05:30

Bird Woman Once there was a child who sprouted wings. They sprang from her shoulder blades, and at first they were vestigial. But they grew rapidly, and in no time at all she had a sizeable wing span. The neighbours were horrified. 'You must have them cut,' they said to her parents. 'Why?' said the parents. 'Well it's obvious,' said the neighbours. 'No,' said the parents, and this seemed so

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1062651145913321222003-09-04T10:22:00.000+05:302003-09-04T10:22:25.933+05:30

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lighting they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1062651009838733412003-09-04T10:20:00.000+05:302003-09-04T10:21:15.486+05:30

Fear death?---to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the storm, The post of the foe; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form; Yet the strong man must go: For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, Though a battle's to fight ere the

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1062650808716190322003-09-04T10:16:00.000+05:302003-09-04T10:17:41.953+05:30

Looking for Maya, Atima Srivastava's second novel, is the story of Mira, a young woman fresh out of university and set to embark on a brilliant career. She is bright, ambitious, hungry for life and dangerously naive. When her boyfriend takes off for the summer Mira is left alone in London where she falls into the orbit of Amrit,older,sophisticated,a man accustomed to calling the tune. Both have

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1061400871085170962003-08-20T23:04:00.000+05:302003-08-20T23:05:23.330+05:30

(this is a story narrated by a champa tree, my biggest muse and inspiration. If the word romance were to take a physical form, I am convinced that it would be that of a champa tree, my champa tree.) Mandu, at this time of the year tends to get chilly. Early November. The evenings are so beautiful; I feel that Roopmati will walk down the Jahaj-Mahal steps any minute. Not that I have been around

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1057723727993595912003-07-09T09:38:00.000+05:302003-07-09T09:45:53.750+05:30

* Critics are a dissembling, dishonest, contempable race of men. Asking a working writer what he thinks of critics is like asking a lampost what it feels about dogs. * By John Osborne * Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves. * By Brendan Behan

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1057206418397878432003-07-03T09:56:00.000+05:302003-07-04T11:00:08.450+05:30

The Sweetest Dream - By Doris Lessing (2001) From the Book Jacket This story of a family, spanning most of the twentieth century, has its fulcrum in the Sixties, that contradictory and embattled decade about which argument becomes louder every day. The young of that time, bursting old bonds and demanding freedom, were seen by some of their elders not at all as they saw themselves, as romantic

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1056864800853301372003-06-29T11:03:00.000+05:302003-06-29T11:03:20.790+05:30

AUTHOR’S NOTE Be slow in choosing a friend but slower in changing him. Friend, frend ,n . One loving or attached to another; an intimate acquaintance: a favourer, well-wisher: one of a society so named; a relative. Friends, to me, are the most important people in life. One might think, but isn’t that position of utmost importance in life accorded to one’s family? Yes, certainly. But in an era

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1056818489582784122003-06-28T22:11:00.000+05:302003-06-28T22:16:51.650+05:30

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5523028.post-1056817947645200622003-06-28T22:02:00.000+05:302003-06-29T10:21:06.130+05:30

I wander'd lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretch'd in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly

G Shrivastavanoreply@blogger.com1