What's wrong with you, Karthik?

 


Name : What's wrong with you, Karthik? 
Author : Siddhartha Vaidyanathan
Year of Publication : 2020
Genre : Fiction, Novel
Rating : ** ( Two stars out of 5)

Siddhartha Vaidyanathan, the popular cricket writer, chooses to base his first book on memories of boyhood from his school in Bengaluru.The checkboxes of all cliches in such a novel are ticked - first masturbation, first smoke, bullies, lady teacher, copying in exams etc. The digs at reservation is an additional checkbox ticked as the boy is a Brahmin. It is possible to write good novels even when nothing happens for 250 odd pages and the writer is surely a gifted one, considering his oeuvre in sports writing. Unfortunately, Siddhartha squanders his chance to score a century and settles for a middling 25 runs off 34 deliveries.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Man's search for meaning

Image
Name : Man's Search for Meaning Author : Viktor E. Frankl     Year of Publication : 1946     Genre : Non - Fiction, History , Philosophy     Rating : *****  (5 stars out of 5) The author combines experience with erudition to churn out a classic which has impacted lives since its publication in 1946. Anyone who is coming to terms with trouble in life can take lessons from the author who faced death in a Nazi concentration camp and survived by choosing to be "worthy of his suffering". The second part of the book is a masterclass on Logotherapy, the therapeutic doctrine propounded by Frankl. To write and breathe positivity after going through hell is remarkable but as the author says " Man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however,he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer on his lips".
Read more

Goat Days

Image
Name : Goat Days Author : Benyamin     Year of Publication : 2008     Genre : Fiction, Novel     Rating : ***  (3 stars out of 5) The Gulf dream gives way to some harsh realities as Najeeb gets trapped in a desert and lives a goat's life for years. Based on real incidents, the author forsakes hyperbole and sticks to a simple first person narrative which recounts events faithfully. The author need not do anything more as the events themselves are heavily loaded and anything more would have been adding a torchlight's brightness to the harsh sun of the desert. The novel is good but one wishes that Najeeb had escaped on the first day itself. In such a case, the novel (and this short review) would not have been written but Najeeb would have been with Sainu and that is all that matters.  
Read more

The Little Prince

Image
  Name : The Little Prince Author : Antoine De Saint Exupery     Year of Publication : 1945     Genre : Fiction, Novel     Rating : *****  (5 stars out of 5) A pilot stranded in a desert meets a little prince from another planet who talks with foxes, snakes and flowers. The plot sounds like it is a children's tale but the author's dedication at the beginning underlines his deception : "All grown-ups were once children - although few of them remember it". The book has the power of transforming relationships (and lives) through its profound lines. A person from the world of grown-ups with less attention span may miss the beauty of this classic but such a person may have to read this line again : "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye."
Read more