Picture!

This is me showing off my skills (nonexistent) at editing photos. This is supposed to be a cortoony variant of me! :-)

Reviews...Book and Movie

Crusader—Edward Bloor

Well, here is another book review for the week. I was actually heading towards financial distress after spending Rs 220 on a Robin Hobb that I had previously read online, but like someone said, “Mans reach should extend his grasp”, so I had to pick up another book. I used my old picking philosophy that if its fantasy, it ought to be cheap and big. So I ended up picking this big book called Crusader for 80 bucks. At 600 odd pages, it sure was value for money all right. And it featured a girl holding a big sword on the cover. Surely that had to be good!

Only after starting the book did I realise that it was not a fantasy novel at all. Instead it is this rather strange coming of age novel, set in Florida. Young Adult Fiction, meant for teenagers who have just emerged from illiteracy! You follow this teenage girl with a mysterious past through her daily life as a helper at an arcade game store in a failing mall. There was a videogame in the book, called Crusader, from where the title came from, I expect. But do not expect much from that. It’s fairly peripheral to the plot! Agreed, the book did have some very large print, but did it really require over a 150 pages of atmosphere, before the plot line actually began? However, after that the story does move more rapidly, and is actually fairly engaging.

This was a completely unexpected read. I kept waiting for the fantasy bit to begin…and only after about 300 pages did I finally figure out that this is not a fantasy novel after all! But having reconciled myself to that sad fact, I found the story itself fairly good. I have not read very many books written by guys who have written with a girl protagonist (in the first person, no less). And initially the heroine was fairly androgynous. However, she does emerge as a distinct individual at the end of it. There is a murder mystery as well, which is a background to this story, holding the plot down after the first 150 pages of atmosphere! It’s also about ethnic minorities, and attempts to preach about the values of tolerance…and other such things that the average American is supposed to imbibe. To me, who am not American, or Christian, it was fairly wasted. However, you have got to admire the author’s political correctness with ethnic minorities!

So what is my final opinion? I rather liked the book. It’s a good read, and has some decent characterisation. The major characters are fairly well fleshed out, with some fairly neat shades of grey for a few of them. However, you do have the stereotypical bad politician, and the red-faced school principal (which seems to be standard for every novel with a school setting). Having said that, I have to admit that if I had not read it continuously, I would probably not have liked it as much. The big print size actually makes the book seem bigger than it is. I finished all 550 pages odd in about 3 ½ hours, 1 of which was spent on a bus…which is quite a bit faster than my usual. Good thing too, else I would never have finished it. And of course, I did not have high expectations when I bought it!

Poseidon

As for movies, I went out and watched Poseidon this weekend. I have never been a fan of disaster movies, and this one did not change my opinion. Plot: Big cruise ship, hit by a rogue wave, which turns it over. Brave band of survivors must reach the top (bottom) of the ship in order to be rescued. And they actually bothered to make a remake of a 70’s movie with this plot!

Anyway, you have the usual suspects. Mother with kid, the lone ranger, the father with a suitably good looking daughter, and her boyfriend. To make it unique, they added the gay minority with an old gay man. And lets not forget the panicky lady…you have to have one in any disaster movie! The movie is so bad that I was reduced to predicting who was going to die next! And the worst part was that I usually ended up being right! It was that predictable! Worth a miss. Unless you go with a big group and want to throw rockets!

General Gripes

Its fairly strange. Just when I told my boss that I am quitting, and finalised the dates and everything, work is actually getting really interesting and hectic. Not that it wasn't before, but now it looks as if my project might finally see its much delayed launch into production. And the levels of work are now getting fairly serious. Its a wierd combination, where one minute, just the sheer pressure (and pleasure) of the work just forces me to stay there, and the next (when I have a boring bit to handle), I have lost all motivation!
However, I still am optimistic about completing it before I leave. I have already postponed my quidditch date by about 20 days and am trying desperately to launch it before I run. If only the pay wasn't so not great! I would genuinely have considered staying in this job a few more years, just for the awesome learning experience. But feeding my reading habit alone off a 6k or 7k sal in B'lore with my expensive tastes is not exactly feasible. Actually, make that impossible. Ah well, life is full of compromises.

Well, back to a book review This time, I thought I should go to someone who is not that well known as an auther.

Glimpses of World History--Jawaharlal Nehru.

This is a series of letters written by Nehru while he was in prison, to his daughter Indira Gandhi. What a writer we lost when he became a politician! Yes, his political views are made fairly clear throughout the book. But his understanding of political situations, as well as the quality of his writing, makes this a unique view of history.
I was given this book when I was about 13...I think. I did not read it in sequence, instead picking and choosing the stuff that looked interesting. And while I dont recommend it for most books, this one, it works, because of its own slightly episodic nature. (It is a bunch of letters after all!). I don't remember the details of the book now, but I do remember raving about it till I was 15-16. By which time I started reading fantasy!
But this is one book that should be bought, kept at home, and read. Unfortunately, I have lost my own personal copy of this book, and am now too broke to buy it (refer gripe above!). But I plan to get it as soon as I save up enough cash. Worth reading and keeping.