What Are You Reading Today?

Here’s an island where things start disappearing one after the other. After every disappearance, it’s inhabitants sharply feel sense the loss but it lasts for all of a day and then they don’t even remember what they have lost. All that is left is a hole in their soul. Pretty much like what we feel now. Never has the feeling of a blowing breeze felt so pleasant, never has the sound of your loved ones far away felt so reassuring, never has having food on your table felt so gratifying or the fact that you still remember what it feels like to drive or take a long walk or for that matter have roof over your head. What happens if you begin to forget how those things feel, what happens when you can’t remember any of those things ever existed. Here’s a story of the ultimate loss – forgetting that it ever existed. But what happens to those who remember? Read The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa to know.

A collection of short stories, The Dinner Party and Other Stories, keeps you thinking long after you have finished reading them and closed the book. You wonder what could have been, you wonder why relationships are so fragile, so delicate, why egos so big. You wonder how far you are willing to go to not upset the apple cart – What does it take to hold on to a relationship even if you know it doesn’t exist anymore. The stories are cathartic, incomplete and addresses that one moment of vulnerability in the characters when they break down and expose their true self to the reader.  If you are unsure about you want, this collection surely pivots you in many directions.

I started this book with zero expectations, got intrigued by the brilliant introduction by Francis Wyndham and was hooked till the last page. The blurb says the story is about the ‘mad’ woman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, however, I felt its a narrative on the post-liberalisation White life in the West Indies. It’s about broken promises, zero compassion and heartache and love for the sake of money and love for the sake of liberation from one own’s lot.

The contrast between the beautiful, serene place and the conflicted, spiteful people just leaves you thinking how can somebody be so hateful and hurtful. Jean Rhys somewhere makes us understand that it’s not a single event that drives someone mad, it’s circumstances which continuously push her to lose her mind and finally all it takes is one trigger.

I now want to read Jane Eyre and see how Mr Rochester defends his actions. There are always two sides to a story, and I’m glad Jean Rhys wrote this side out.

A paying guest becomes a part of the Joshi family and overturns the life of two siblings after he vanishes. The book takes you on the journey of how one copes with grief. What are the defence mechanisms one uses? How does one recuperate or not? What pain is? What shock is? What does it feel to be deserted? If you are going through a rough patch. Do pick up the book and give it a read. If nothing else, it helps you reason with yourself and gives you the support that you are not alone.