Peter Pan and Wendy the mom

I am a great fan of Enid Blyton, but that doesnt mean that I loved all her characters. Inspite of being a woman author, she stuck to the gender roles. There was atleast one character in all her series which was a typical girly girl, and she would play mom to the other kids. But Wendy in Peter Pan takes this mothering role to an entirely new level.

Peter Pan is seeking a girl so that she can be  a mother to the Lost Boys. In other words, someone who will tell them not to fall for poisoned cakes, someone who will tuck them to bed, tell them bedtime stories- if Grimm bros could compile a fairy tale collection, i am sure boys can tell stories too, and, wait for it, someone who will darn their stockings. Eww! I agree that the character is created in 1912, when lets face it, most women were housewives. But wasnt 1912 also the year of Amelia Earhart?

Recently, my colleague and his wife have a baby. He was telling us how it needs to be fed every 3 hours. And each feeding session is around an hour long. So he was stressing how motherhood is a triple duty full-time job. But at what point in the evolution chain did women become solely child-bearers and child/home-rearers and just gave up doing anything else?

Funnily enough, Peter Pan's author portrays boys as completely devoid of any common sense too. For instance, when Peter Pan wants his shadow back, he doesnt look around for a gluestick, but tries to stick it with a SOAP for god's sake. This otherwise lame Wendy stands up to Peter Pan in their first meeting saying he is not the captain in her house, and so he should behave himself.

What strikes me odd is that the Darling kids forget all about their parents. Only Wendy has a hope in her heart that her mom will never forget them and will always have a window open for them to fly back in. Personally, that scene was the cutest in the book, the real "awwww" scene Vs all of Wendy's irritating motherliness.

In one of the scenes Wendy points out that she thinks Peter is the "father" of the Lost Boys and she the mom, and a hint of romantic feelings towards Peter. How Peter returns it is immaterial, when Peter asks that Wendy should visit him once in a while, its Wendy's mom who says that Wendy will come and do Spring Cleaning for Peter. And not just Wendy, Peter ends up taking all of Wendy's female descendents to do spring cleaning for him. Gulliver's travels made me realize that what we read as children's stories could actually be allegory/ political satire. If this is not some sort of a bonded slavery then please explain what it is!

Dear children's authors, it is bad enough that girl kids are given dolls and boys Lego kits, but please dont reinforce the notions through stories too. I am no "feminist" in the political sense of the word, but I know girls can make excellent engineers too. Dear adolescent book authors, you dont have to tone down Nancy Drew's sarcasm to make her "acceptable" to readers, if we can love Chandler Bing surely we can learn to appreciate Nancy Drew?   And dear Adult book authors, there is so much more to a woman's life than being a beautiful blonde and attracting the man of her dreams. 

The Hobbit

 Books are definitely more interesting than the movies based on them (except I guess for HP3). For one, a book lets you imagine your story and fill your own colours to the scene. My friends - esp. Varun and S are great fans of Tolkien. I had seen the LOTR movies, and could honestly not see what was the big deal about. I chanced upon LOTR 2 and 3 at the Friends of the Library book sale. Another friend, Teja, got the Hobbit, and I too found one at the MLB library. 

The choice of the protagonist is really the key to the success of the book. The protagonist is not a wise wizard, but someone as prone to err as anyone else. Not an over-zealous kid always getting into trouble, but a "respectable" middle-aged guy with a bulging belly. The word-ly imagery is simply marvelous, you can literally see the bearded dwarves, their tired ponies, and the endless journey. 

The book follows Bilbo Baggins' journey as he leaves his comfortable hobbit-home to follow his Took genes. The journey is full of adventures, right from being sacked by the trolls, packed in a barrel, webbed by giant spiders and ebbed by a magical stream to an eagle-top flight. Bilbo soon learns to defend himself, than be dependent on Gandalf and the dwarves. He lets words slip, as in the case of the talk with dragon, but also has the presence of mind to pose an un-guessable riddle which leads him to safety from Gollum. Bilbo is fiercely loyal to his dwarf company, yet when the time comes, he tries to avert the war by apparently ditching the dwarves.

I can only guess about the period of the books, but I do see allusions to pre-World war Europe. Throughout the book, Bilbo keeps reminding the readers that he yearns for his idyllic (read unindustrialized) life and lowly home than the massive gold that he might earn. For though power gives a lot, it corrodes much more! 

The Mockingbird

I recently stumbled upon an amazing lady..Scout Finch. My rank #2 favourite heroine position is now shared by Jo from Little Women and Scout. (rank #1 being Anne Frank).

My admiration started because like me, Scout knows reading and writing before she goes to school. The author succeeds to bring out emotions even during the minor subplots, like shocking the readers with the first-grader teacher's attitude.  Mr Atticus Finch is a lawyer and is defending an innocent (the mockingbird allegory) against a prejudiced society. For me, the best part of the book is when the 8 yr old Scout talks to one in an angry mob, and brings out the human in him! Hats off! I agree that it is a bit far fetched to imagine that an 8 yr old can be so wise, but the author has won hands down in this part.

Towards the end of the novel, another reference to the mockingbird is made. "Boo" Arthur radley is a misunderstood, and a much-gossiped-about man. He saves the lives of scout and Jem from a man bent on murder, but kills him instead in the process. The sheriff in the novel decides to let it be. Scout too decides to keep the incident to herself, lest Radley be subject to conjectures about his motives again.

It is a story about growing up,  be it learning when is it prudent to keep your mouth shut/ keep your fists to yourself  or learning that sometimes you have to take on a losing battle. But unforfunately, readers who praised the book failed to mature themselves, and alleged that the book could be ghost written, afterall, how can a female win a Pulitzer right! A mockingbird or two  keeps dying...thanks to the prejudiced society.  

Recent Reads

I came across the Melbourne public library when I needed to get the bus pass. My 1st few books were lycanthorpes etc, which have been on my hit list since Twilight series. The other "tends to supernatural/horror" was Stephen King's Rose Madder. I was completely disappointed by the book. Guess it really started a series of books, which I could have liked had I read it 10 years ago, but now I find them too vapid.

The new young adult series I started with was The Clique. I agree, Enid Blyton's school series are unparalleled, but some, like Sweet Valley twins series was a manageable mix of beauties with brains and more importantly, humility. But the Clique begs to differ. The protagonists are bitingly sardonic, its a shame to even call them protagonists. All they think of is their alpha position in their equally sycophanty school. And yeah, they have no issues ditching their friends who have really stood up for them.
The other series by Francine Pascal, is Fearless. Francine, I was aware of her thanks to the Sweet Valley series. Fearless is about a girl Gaia (I call the books "Gaia Gaia" series in tune to the bolly song "Maia Maia" much to the amusement of my new roomy) who is genetically fearless, and hence is the target of russian mafia and pharma companies. Did anyone consider that being brave Vs being fearless is as different as being wise Vs being intelligent?

And if the young adult books were a headache, the not-so-young adult books were a concussion on being hit on head with a comet. The books are called Harlequin Romances, and the definition of romance being that the pair is eager to shed their clothes at a moments notice.
Nora Roberts' Pagan Stone provided some respite from this crap. But again, whats the point of a thriller that doesnt even scare you?

The best book, currently being read, is To Kill a Mockingbird. Narrator is a smart girl who knows to read/write before she is formally schooled. The case being defended by her father is just hinted at at this point in the book.
So if all the worth reading books were by the likes of Enid Blytons n other authors of 1960's..what is the GenNext supposed to read? 

Of Alices and Elizas

Just saw Alice in Wonderland. No doubt there is a hint of romance between Mad Hatter and Alice.. and yes.. all the best people are a bit mad (Ron is impressed how mad his hero (Dumbledore) is.. when he says Nitwit Blubber Oddment Tweak!)
Alice promises Hatter that she'l be back, but she 1st has her father's business to put in order. She is brave, street-smart, independent enough to sail to the new territory by herself. And then there is Miss Eliza Dolittle, who, according to Shaw's original screenplay HAS to come to HER life.. 

Twilight

This witty analysis of Twilight series has captivated my interest..something that the original series failed to do. Dont get me wrong, I had liked Twilight and Midnight Sun. I had read them word-to-word.
As the author of the blog puts it, the other books are a serious waste of paper.Who is interested to read an entire book about how large the hole in heart after a breakup is, or whatever! I distinctly remember, skip 10 pages and the narrative is exactly where you left it, like watching a Ekta Kapoor serial after a month.

I read the books long past teenage crushes on strictly handsome men. Who cares that Edward is a dream-like hunk, I liked him coz he's a monster who spares humans. Yup..I loved Angela, Jacob too.
 :(
The blog pointed out gaping holes in the whole thing.
1. Edward is manipulative. Which jerk messes up a car so that his girl wont meet her best friend?
2. Edward watches Bella sleep EVERY NIGHT? OMG! That is sooo creepy and intrusive on privacy. 
3. Vampires kill humans. Werewolves atleast according to the Twilight legends were born to protect humans from vampires. Yet Edward thinks Bella isnt safe around Jacob!
4. Bella, or the Cullen clan do nothing to prevent innocent humans from becoming vampire food..in Italy, in Seattle (during the vampire army thing), in Forks (when vampires gathered to protect Renesmee). 
5. The whole thing about humans = 23 pairs of chromosomes, werewolves = 24 and vampires = 25 is the most illogical thing i have ever read. Oh yes, I have heard of mutations. But mutations simply CHANGE some ATCGs. You cant build 25 things from the material of 23 things. Biochemistry doesnt work that way.
You cant make 24 pairs from haploids of 23 and 25. It still gives us 23 nicely matched pairs and 2 extra unmatched chromosomes both present on the same longer strand. 
I dont even want to go into the details of how a super cold frozen-in-time vampire can still father kid, who is not frozen-in-time-at-the-zygote-stage. 
And who tries to give scientific backing to a fantasy anyway?
6. Volturi arent interested in curbing the vampire army..recruiting Cullens is all they care about.
7. Quill and Jacob are PAEDOPHILES. She cant attribute it to imprinting. Its still pervert.
8. Alice's visions are bent whichever way it suits the story.

The author has another blog series about Harry Potter. I am not gonna read that...

"Cook" Books

I recently read Godplayer and Hades factor (Robert Ludlum). As a kid, I maintained a record of all the books  that I had read + a small summary. I stopped the register when i was in Std. 8th. So, when my roomy challenged me to name 5 Robin Cook's books that I had read, I was at loss. Wiki stepped in to help, and soon I had a list of the books that I had read: Acceptable Risk, Abduction, Mutation, Harmful Intent, and more recently Godplayer. (There is one more that I remember, which doesnt match any book in Wiki's list: One about a untested medicine to stop nausea in pregnancy, but led to deformed foetuses.) I wish there were likes of Shelfari when I was a kid and would read A LOT.

Medical Thrillers, at one point, can really scare you into not taking medicines at all. Infact the heroine of Acceptable Risk makes a statement that she was always wary of psychosomatic drugs, and in future will be more careful. In Hades factor, a pandemic is caused by spreading a live virus through antibiotics. Acceptable Risk deals with the researchers literally unleashing the "wild" side in them thanks to a fungus. Harmful intent had a fatal chemical in anaesthetics. Mutation talks of a genetically-made-super-smart kid, who kills other potentially super-smart kids. In a similar setting, the doctor playing God in Godplayer kills patients who he thinks are better off dead. Reminds me of I, Robot.
In comparison, Abduction offers a possibility of a goody-goody world some twenty thousand leagues under the sea. In this world, you can chose the traits you want to be born with in your next birth. You can have your organs transplanted with as-efficient-as-live-tissue machines etc.

Medicines are chemical miracles. If you are sceptical about how a small dose can work wonders, think about the naturally occurring minuscle quantity of hormones that regulate our chemical balance. One could also check the "mg"s of the active substance in a pill..it rarely exceeds 500 mg. But malicious entities try to wring maximum profits from them. Repacking old expired medicines is not unheard of. Medical thrillers explore the far cruel side of Med-men. Infact sometimes I fear that wrongdoers may get "inspired" by Med-thriller plots. Robin Cook acquaints readers with moral and social issues of medicine, but I sincerely hope that Med-thrillers not elucidate a "slippery slope to murder". 

Of Geishas and escaping iff with daughter

One of the books that I bought during the book fair was Memoirs of a Geisha. Previously, I had read about Geishas during wiki-hopping. Wiki, as usual, offers an impartial view and attempts to get the facts straight, albeit with a "citation needed". A novel has no such qualms, and with a few "artistic liberties", can twist the story to make it more appealing, or in some cases, make it more gruesome and hence appealing in some weird sense. Memoirs of a Geisha does offer some jolts: like the deflowering/ mizuage 1 ceremony, or when the older sister blatantly quips that men arent just solely interested in the Geisha's witty conversation.

Few days ago, I watched "Without my Daughter", the anti-thesis documentary of the novel/film Not without my Daughter. As always, I observe that the viewers' comments are more interesting than the book/film/documentary itself. All commenters agree that extreme marital violence can happen anywhere in the world, and we shouldnt be biased against a particular region/ religion.

What makes Memoirs of a Geisha or Not without my Daughter interesting is that we have limited knowledge about the other culture. Unfortunately, a large part of that limited knowledge is graphic descriptions of, say, foot binding in China, or general apathy towards women's rights elsewhere in the world. Books like these corroborate our prejudices. What we overlook is the fact that Woman's suffrage in our so-called liberal world  is contemporary to China abolishing foot binding. When ranting about cruelty to women elsewhere, witch burning in Salem is permanently shrouded from our memories.

Bottomline? These books make interesting reads, no doubt. But they should be taken with a pinch of salt. Afterall, those who stay in glass houses shouldnt throw stones at others.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizuage

Animorphs

Pre-script (If any such word exists): This one is for you Radha..

Hermione of our Harry Potter fan gang introduced me to Animorphs when I was in High school. We all enjoyed fantastic books, but somehow I never got a chance to read Animorphs. A few days back, there was this humungous book sale with an irrestible deal..any book for a dime. Me and my roommates bought 60 books between us. I chanced upon many must-reads that had somehow slipped my notice- LOTR, Animorphs, memoirs/autobiographies etc. Its heartening to see HUGE queues for a book sale in an era of Kindle and a general apathy to books.

Friends of the Library Book Sale

Back to the story. I read the book "The Alien", narrated by the alien Ax. Usually, the cover page shows a human morphing into an animal. This book follows the reverse sequence, Ax turns from the Alien to a human. Its interesting to see human sounds, especially the inflections for sarcasm from Ax's perspective.

The book soon takes a serious tone, as the first human infested with Yeerks is killed. The humans dont force Ax to tell them the truth..they lead him to a library to suggest that humans share their knowledge. Ax reveals how in the past the knowledge/ technology was revealed to Yeerks, which made them an universal parasite.

The book was penned in post-World War decades, I found striking resemblance to the plot and factual human history. Some innocent technology leading to doom..(in this case, the power of space flight, which enabled Yeerks to conquer any planet), mind control by Yeerks..all point time and again to WW-II. The book targets teenage audience, who may be naive enough to believe that humans really put technology to constructive use..hardly the case.

Recently saw the movie, the Rise of the planet of Apes. Seriously makes we wonder if technology is bringing us closer to the doomsday.

The book ends with Ax and humans realizing that freedom is what both the species care for, and must work together to save the earth from Yeerks.

The Wiccan Witch

My crosslink hopping took me Dil to Bachcha hai jee (2011 hindi movie)--> Shruti Hassan (an actress in the movie) --> Sarika (her actress mom who played Ipsita in a movie) --> Ipsita Ray Chakraverti, the lady who declared herself to be a Wiccan witch.

Yes, I have read Brida- purely as a work of fiction. While I do believe in deja vu; claiming to have knowledge of your previous birth is too much. And so is her so-called awakening of women branded as "dayan" in rural India. Its those superstitious villagers who need to be made to see light. Going the other way round will only add fuel to fire.

Its okay to make fat claims having the security of a royal birth and a sorta-royal marriage. But for those poor women for whose cause she claims to be fighting! May god help them. Afterall, lets face it, witch or no witch, even the world's fastest, strongest and smartest woman is no match against a crowd of angry ignorant stone-pelting fools.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipsita_Ray_Chakraverti

Manthan

I am a great fan of Indian mythology. Its fun surfing cross-linked wiki pages. Mind is a gigantic web of cross-linked memories too. A school memory took me to the churning of the great ocean.

We had a free period called zero period. Our class teacher was the school's co-ordinator for ESPN school quiz, and she used to pop quizes in the free period. Once the topic was mythology, which was (and still is) my forte. The question asked was, which God's abode is at Vaikunth. Bang comes my reply- Vithoba. Now this teacher used to ask questions out of a book and treated the answer printed at the back of the book as the sole authority. In this case the answer printed was Balaji, and my answer dint fetch us any points even though I claimed that Vithoba and Balaji both are in fact manifestations of Vishnu.

So this memory which popped out of nowhere took me to "vaikunth" search, which led to the great serpent "shesh naag" and then to another serpent "vaasuki" who had a role to play in the mythological churning of the great ocean.

Being a fan of Dan Brown and Christian allegories, I wonder if this story is to be taken literally.

For one, moon was created at the same time as the earth. Indian lunar calender predates these stories and Indian civilization was very advanced in astronomy.  So when the story says that moon was born out of the ocean, I really take it with a pinch of salt. This leads me to very strongly believe that the hidden meaning behind this story is something that runs far deeper than the celestial objects that emerged out of the ocean.

So, the churning of the ocean yielded several precious things..petroleum? minerals? possible..
There was a potent poison that came out of the ocean too..In Ramayana, ravan's brother is performing nuclear experiments under the ocean. Is something on similar lines the potent lifekiller hinted in the story?
The churning was primarily done to obtain the elixir of life. Practically, I cannot think of anything else that restores life, other than pure potable water. So wait a minute, is the story suggesting a way we can get potable water out of saline water? Yeah yeah, I know about Reverse Osmosis, but no one denies the role of centrifugation in separating things.

Food for thought..and motivation for further surfing.. 

The Portrait - Nikolai Gogol

Ever since I read and loved the "Namesake", I wondered about Nikolai Gogol. Recently i read his short stories collection and was intrigued by "the Portrait".

A fan of  The Picture of Dorian Gray, I dont want to compare the two works. Each is unique of its own accord. Both deal with supernatural, and the concept of evil being stored in a picture, evil that sought to destroy all goodness around it. While Dorian loses his virtuousness and untarnished soul, the artist in Portrait loses his inspiration. He paints to gain money and worldly pleasures, and finally when he realizes he lost his art, he grows jealous and destroys other's masterpieces.

Society and its expectations influence not only art, but it tries to muffle science too. Dan Brown mentions that Leonardo da Vinci painted another version of his "Madonna of the rocks" after his work was termed un-christian, almost heretic. Copernicus's heliocentric theory was rebuffed too.

On a psychological note, the "Portrait's" painter realizes that his painting has captured evil. He tries and succeeds to amend his life and art. The painter, thus is the lone "survivor" of the painting's evil. The Portrait ends with a cliffhanger- when the portrait disappears and the readers wonder whose life will the portrait destroy next. (Had this been a Bollywood flick, we would have had a sequel to it :P)

Fleur's parchment

I was 11 when Harry Potter started school as a 11 yr old wizard. I solved potions puzzle with Harry in the Sorcerer's stone, screamed when my friend threw a rubber spider at me in the Chamber of Secrets, kept wondering about Harry-of-future saving Harry-in-present, (thanks to that scene, HP3 is my most favourite movie of the lot), was jolted when Voldemort was back, cried when Sirius died, blamed Snape for Dumbledore's death, had always predicted that Harry was a horcrux...

Just after school, we formed a group of HP-fans, with Radha as Hermione n me Fleur. A conversation, after junior college, I remember making with a girl in my college was about the harry's guiding patronus being a silver doe. Coincidently, the girl is now my roommate, and we have several animated HP talks at home now.

Literally we grew up with Harry Potter..