Tuesday, April 26, 2016
Friday, April 15, 2016
[Book Review] The Old Man and the Sea
It took me ten days to complete this book although it's a short novel of about less than 100 pages only. To let you know that I read the last 40 ish pages on a single day (I read the book everyday) sums up the pace of the book :D For some of you who are unaware of the reason for me to pick this book - this book has won the Nobel Prize in the Literature work category. I must tell you I was really scared when I picked this book from my friend who borrowed it at the Cognizant Siruseri SEZ library!
Before you read the review, I'd like to confirm that I did enjoy reading this novel. But, I missed a lot because a lot of terms were unfamiliar to me - that is related to the fishing. If someone told me that I should have taken a Fishing 101 before reading this novel, I sure would have loved this! But, I just can't keep on googling for a lot of fishing terms were used in this novel. At one point, I stopped looking and with the flow, I could still enjoy the novel. So, if you'd like to really enjoy this, please lookup for the fishing terms like:
Harpoons
Skiff
Mast
Sardines etc. I don't remember most of the other technical terms.
As you have guess it correctly this book is about an old man and the sea. Protagonist is an old and experienced fisherman, Santiago his name. With age, his luck has also ran out as from the beginning of the novel, he'd been to the sea for 84 days and hadn't caught a single fish. Manolin, "the boy" is a good friend of him and used to go with the old man a few times for fishing until his parents decided to send him with different people considering the luck of Santiago. The novel takes us with him to his 85th day into the sea, alone, with him feeling luck on his side.
When my friend and I went to the Siruseri SEZ library, I picked "Carry on, Jeeves" and he "The Old man and the Sea" (He later told me that the reason from him to chose this was because the book was small and had less pages). He couldn't even read more than ten pages in the book as he felt unbelievably sleepy and was ready to return it then and there. I told him to give the book to me so that I could give it a try. I'm telling this to you because, this book is not for everyone. This is for those who have that patience.
Sure, I felt sleepy too on the first few pages, but once Santiago leaves for fishing on the 85th day, I felt as if I was travelling along with that old man. Before this "literature" book, the one other book that I read that fall under the same category is a Tamil book named "Thanneer". Now, I don't know the genre "Literature" nor I was interested in one before "Thanneer". I liked that book very much because, it was, as if, happening somewhere in Tamil Nadu for sure. I still haven't looked up at the Literature genre in google as to what it is, but from my understanding after reading these two books - to write something to be as classified as a literature, one should have a deep, deep knowledge of it. In the case of this book, it's the old man Santiago and the sea itself whereas in that Tamil book it's the water and humanity.
I'd like to think that the same thing that happens to this old man in this novel should be a thing with the fishermen. Because, when I read "Thanneer" (translates to "Water") I know the background - the scarcity of water in Chennai during the time of the novel. Just how I felt the "Water", and characters "Jamuna and Chaya" in the "Thanner" novel, I feel the "Sea", and characters "Santiago and Manolin" in this novel. The novel's ending left a definite impact on me and I sure hope it'll leave the same to you too. Highly recommended, if you are ofcourse, a patient reader :)
PS: There's even a movie with the same name released on 1958. I'm gonna watch it soon :)
Before you read the review, I'd like to confirm that I did enjoy reading this novel. But, I missed a lot because a lot of terms were unfamiliar to me - that is related to the fishing. If someone told me that I should have taken a Fishing 101 before reading this novel, I sure would have loved this! But, I just can't keep on googling for a lot of fishing terms were used in this novel. At one point, I stopped looking and with the flow, I could still enjoy the novel. So, if you'd like to really enjoy this, please lookup for the fishing terms like:
Harpoons
Skiff
Mast
Sardines etc. I don't remember most of the other technical terms.
As you have guess it correctly this book is about an old man and the sea. Protagonist is an old and experienced fisherman, Santiago his name. With age, his luck has also ran out as from the beginning of the novel, he'd been to the sea for 84 days and hadn't caught a single fish. Manolin, "the boy" is a good friend of him and used to go with the old man a few times for fishing until his parents decided to send him with different people considering the luck of Santiago. The novel takes us with him to his 85th day into the sea, alone, with him feeling luck on his side.
When my friend and I went to the Siruseri SEZ library, I picked "Carry on, Jeeves" and he "The Old man and the Sea" (He later told me that the reason from him to chose this was because the book was small and had less pages). He couldn't even read more than ten pages in the book as he felt unbelievably sleepy and was ready to return it then and there. I told him to give the book to me so that I could give it a try. I'm telling this to you because, this book is not for everyone. This is for those who have that patience.
Sure, I felt sleepy too on the first few pages, but once Santiago leaves for fishing on the 85th day, I felt as if I was travelling along with that old man. Before this "literature" book, the one other book that I read that fall under the same category is a Tamil book named "Thanneer". Now, I don't know the genre "Literature" nor I was interested in one before "Thanneer". I liked that book very much because, it was, as if, happening somewhere in Tamil Nadu for sure. I still haven't looked up at the Literature genre in google as to what it is, but from my understanding after reading these two books - to write something to be as classified as a literature, one should have a deep, deep knowledge of it. In the case of this book, it's the old man Santiago and the sea itself whereas in that Tamil book it's the water and humanity.
I'd like to think that the same thing that happens to this old man in this novel should be a thing with the fishermen. Because, when I read "Thanneer" (translates to "Water") I know the background - the scarcity of water in Chennai during the time of the novel. Just how I felt the "Water", and characters "Jamuna and Chaya" in the "Thanner" novel, I feel the "Sea", and characters "Santiago and Manolin" in this novel. The novel's ending left a definite impact on me and I sure hope it'll leave the same to you too. Highly recommended, if you are ofcourse, a patient reader :)
PS: There's even a movie with the same name released on 1958. I'm gonna watch it soon :)
Thursday, April 7, 2016
[Book Review] The Invisible Man
Thanks to Amazon for giving this book for free – that’s the main reason for me to pick this book up :D Second reason is the author – H. G. Wells. I was told that he’s the father of the Sci-Fi genre, and for me to read the likes of “Contact” in the future, I definitely needed a start. GBK, a friend of mine, said that this book would be childish since it was written in 1897 – that’s exactly what I wanted since I’m zero in Science and would love to read a fiction.
The books that I’m reading from Kindle almost always have a little over 100 pages only, the reason I can wrap ‘em up quickly :D The Invisible Man from H. G. Wells is also just a little over 100 pages only and doesn’t deal mostly with the “Science” stuff of the invisible-ness. Probably one of the reason why I like this book very much. To summarize this book, it’s the life of an Invisible man. You might think that it’ll be very cool and you may kinda think of all the naughtiness that you can expect, courtesy of that “Hollow Man” movie, but you’re in for a big surprise here!
The first question I asked when I was about to pick this book was “Is this the book that inspired Hollow Man movie?” as most of H. G. Wells’ books have been made into a movie. Thankfully, people said no. So if you are also the hater of Hollow Man, please go ahead and order this copy in Amazon for free. What made me like this book is the fact that, there are a lot of downsides to the invisibility. And, this book captures everyone of them.
The book starts with a “stranger” who’s actually invisible, but disguises himself so that he can blend with people, arrives into a town. Since this was written way before our time, I guess the author might have wanted the readers to give a proper “visual” so-to-speak, before we confirm our suspicion – so the initial chapters were a little drag. But once the Invisible Man and Dr. Kemp meet, it shifts into a higher gear!
The book captures the mindset of a normal man when he becomes invisible. How the invisibility changes his character, attitude, even his temper is very well portrayed. More importantly, what I learnt from this book is that when you tamper with what the nature has given you, you always tend to go in the destructive path. I guess the ending of such stories are always predictable, so I wasn’t disappointed to have expected it.
I would recommend this book to any Sci-Fi lovers who won’t expect too much of technicality. Also, for any Sci-Fi beginners like me :) :D
Image Courtesy: Wiki
The books that I’m reading from Kindle almost always have a little over 100 pages only, the reason I can wrap ‘em up quickly :D The Invisible Man from H. G. Wells is also just a little over 100 pages only and doesn’t deal mostly with the “Science” stuff of the invisible-ness. Probably one of the reason why I like this book very much. To summarize this book, it’s the life of an Invisible man. You might think that it’ll be very cool and you may kinda think of all the naughtiness that you can expect, courtesy of that “Hollow Man” movie, but you’re in for a big surprise here!
The first question I asked when I was about to pick this book was “Is this the book that inspired Hollow Man movie?” as most of H. G. Wells’ books have been made into a movie. Thankfully, people said no. So if you are also the hater of Hollow Man, please go ahead and order this copy in Amazon for free. What made me like this book is the fact that, there are a lot of downsides to the invisibility. And, this book captures everyone of them.
The book starts with a “stranger” who’s actually invisible, but disguises himself so that he can blend with people, arrives into a town. Since this was written way before our time, I guess the author might have wanted the readers to give a proper “visual” so-to-speak, before we confirm our suspicion – so the initial chapters were a little drag. But once the Invisible Man and Dr. Kemp meet, it shifts into a higher gear!
The book captures the mindset of a normal man when he becomes invisible. How the invisibility changes his character, attitude, even his temper is very well portrayed. More importantly, what I learnt from this book is that when you tamper with what the nature has given you, you always tend to go in the destructive path. I guess the ending of such stories are always predictable, so I wasn’t disappointed to have expected it.
I would recommend this book to any Sci-Fi lovers who won’t expect too much of technicality. Also, for any Sci-Fi beginners like me :) :D
Image Courtesy: Wiki
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