Neeraj Chavan
“A person doesn't die when he should but when he can”
“It was a characteristic of men to deny hunger once their appetites were satisfied.”
“The world must be all fucked up”, he said then, “when men travel first class and literature goes as freight.”
“Watch out for your heart. You're rotting alive.”
“Incredible things are happening in the world. Right there across the river, there are all kinds of magical instruments while we keep on living like donkeys”
“There is always something left to love.”
Okay, this is one of the best fictional works I've ever read. It's on par with the greatest literary fiction works of all time! It's not a book, it's a journey into the beautiful and isolated town of Macondo and the lives of Buendia family. Every page, every word, every chapter, every character is enticing and mystical! Its vividly mesmerizing writing style combined with a magical story, makes it a genuine literary masterpiece. The way Gabriel Garcia Marquez creates his characters and blends them into his wonderful world, it's just exquisite! The book introduced me to a totally new genre of magical realism. Where the boundaries between what's real and what's magical are blurred. This is what makes this book fascinating. And what can I say about the characters of this novel! Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a genius of fiction! When I finished the book, the existential crisis and the void left by it felt like a hundred years of solitude!
To end this review here, I'd say that if you haven't read Gabriel Garcia Marquez, you haven't read real fiction yet! A must read masterpiece from the magical artist of literary fiction!
“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”
“The whole world that sky, that garden, that air, were different from those that I knew. We were walking along an avenue, and it seemed to me, whenever I looked ahead, that could go no farther in the same direction, that the world of the possible ended there, and that the whole scene must remain fixed for ever in its beauty.”
“Passion, said the other voice and then it was still for a moment. “It is a necessity to me. I cannot live without it. To make life a romance is the one thing worth doing. And with me romance never breaks off in the middle, and this affair I shall carry through to the end.”
This is by far the most beautiful Tolstoy book I've ever read. This book is a gem. A priceless gem in true sense! To start with, the story begins with the narrator, a lady who falls in love with a man who's much older than her in age. And about how her passion and youth yearns for it. The story explores many fascinating and profound themes like love, life, passion, youth, ambition, nostalgia, melancholia, happiness, marriage, society and the meaning and purpose of life. All this woven beautifully in a tale that manages to capture your imagination. And what can I say about Tolstoy, he's indeed the master of human emotions! The story has that existential undertones which make it a delight to read, as I'm a fan of existential works. The book ends with a conclusion about how time changes our lives and how we humans keep changing with it. Evolving and growing with it. And how this affects our relationships and the people around us.
Overall, this is one of the best works of Tolstoy, in my opinion a must read for everyone! One of the best books I've read in 2017!
“Age isn't how old you are, age is how old you feel!”
“The adolescents of my generation, greedy for life, forgot in body or soul about their hopes for the future until reality taught them that tomorrow was not what they had dreamed, and they discovered nostalgia.”
“and her respiration was so faint, I took her pulse so I could feel she was alive. Blood circulated through her veins with the fluidity of a song that branched off into the most hidden areas of her body and returned to her heart, purified by love.”
“Sex is the consolation when you can't have love”
“In the end, it is impossible not to become what others believe you are.”
Oh I enjoyed this book. I haven't explored much of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and then I happened to read this one! Marquez has this uniquely beautiful style of writing that's romantic with a tinge of brash vulgarity. The story revolves around a ninety year old journalist who's the narrator of the novel. He's turning 90 and has this desire to experience love on his birthday. The narrator's past has been lascivious and wild! And now, he has this yearning for a rather 14 year old young girl called Delgadina. He falls in love with her and this is where the entire novel goes on an altogether different level! Some of you might find the story disturbing. It reminded me of Nabakov's Lolita.
The book is emotionally intense and explores the various facets of human behavior and emotions when a person is in love. It also explores the perils of getting old and how age has an impact on life in general with love, salacious passion and desire as the underlying themes throughout the book. The book is as seductive as its title. Read it for Marquez's fascinating writing and a rather different and offbeat story!
“He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How”
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
“Yes, a man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how”
Forces beyond your control can take away everything you posses except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always controls what you feel and do about what happens to you.
I happened to read this book after a dear friend of mine, Aayushi suggested me to give it a try.
And it turned out to be one of the best book suggestions of 2017! The book is an account of psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. The book is bound to shake you to your core. It's harrowing and grim, yet motivating and inspiring at the same time! As the title of the book goes, it explores the never-ending question that has troubled humanity over aeons, “What's the purpose of all this? What's the meaning of our existence?”, that too in a rather philosophical and profound way. Pick up this book when you're going through a tough phase in your life and then you'll understand the true magic of this wonderful memior by Frankl! Surely worth reading!
“The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage.”
“If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, doesn't it just lie there and rot?”
“There are only patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns. If you watch close, history does nothing but repeat itself. What we call chaos is just patterns we haven't recognized. What we call random is just patterns we can't decipher. what we can't understand we call nonsense. What we can't read we call gibberish.”
Oh, I could go on and end up quoting the entire book here. Every Chuck Palahniuk book that I pick up to read, somehow turns out to be a masterpiece. And Survivor is no exception either. I still can't understand how Chuck manages to do. To alter your entire mindset and perception with mere words. To start with, this book is about a guy called Tender Branson who happens to be a member of some Creedish Church. Right fom his childhood he's raised up in the cult's environment. The story moves ahead with Tender Branson rising to fame and then the great fall that comes with it. It's a profoundly cynical take on the world of glitz and glamour and how everything isn't as beautiful as they show it on the screens. About how everything is just a marketing gimmick to rake in the moolah. Survivor for me, is a rather satirical and unabashed take on the capitalistic and contemporary modern American culture. The characters are insanely interesting and weird, like every character Chuck creates.
Overall, Survivor is truly an underrated masterpiece among Chuck's best works!
A wonderfully written engaging tale!
First of all, I would like to thank the author for the signed copy of the book. Now, moving forward, the book is a delight! The story takes place in the backdrop of the enticing Dhauladhar mountains, which the author has managed to capture beautifully. What I loved the most about this book is the character development. Every character is portrayed brilliantly and they're bound to drag you inside the book! The writing style of the author has shades of the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Overall, Men and Dreams in the Dhauladhar is a fascinating compedium of small tales which lead up to a great story! Definitely worth reading!
“Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. Such is the first principle of existentialism.”
This is one heavily profound philosophical book. It starts off with Sartre dissecting the idea of what actually does existential philosophy is about. He wonderfully explains the nature of human behaviour from an existential point of view, exploring ideas like despair, anguish, freedom and God. Sartre's style of writing is simple but a bit tangential at times. Overall the book is a great read if you're interested into philosophy and existentialism.
“the very fact of the death of someone close to them aroused in all who heard about it, as always, a feeling of delight that he had died and they hadn't.”
“And he has to live like this on the edge of destruction, alone, with nobody at all to understand or pity him”
“False. Everything by which you have lived and live now is all a deception, a lie, concealing both life and death from you.”
This is one short and gloomy yet profoundly charming book. As the name suggests, it's about the protagonist Ivan Ilych who's enjoying a rather normal and happy bourgeois lifestyle. He's married to the woman he loves and starts a family with her and loves his children wholeheartedly. He's also admired and respected in the society. But then, sudden changes take place in his life after he falls sick and his health starts to deteriorate terribly. Tolstoy's style of writing is so beautiful that he makes you stand in shoes of Ivan Ilych and go through all the pain and anguish that he feels throughout his illness. Ever imagine how it would feel if you're terminally ill and you know deep down that you're going to die soon? How would the people around you react about this; your friends, colleagues and family? If not, this is exactly the book that'll make you envision the misery of lying on your deathbed! Tolstoy's ideas on death and human behavior is absolutely brilliant and thought provoking. A must read masterpiece of Russian literature!
“I have so much in me, and the feeling for her absorbs it all; I have so much, and without her it all comes to nothing.”
“I am proud of my heart alone, it is the sole source of everything, all our strength, happiness and misery. All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own”
“The suffering may be moral or physical; and in my opinion it is just as absurd to call a man a coward who destroys himself, as to call a man a coward who dies of a malignant fever.”
I bow down in tears, to the sheer literary genius of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe! This is one of the most emotionally powerful books I've ever read. It's melancholic, harrowing and passionately dangerous. It almost broke me down to tears. A tale of young Werther who experiences the tragedy of unrequited love and eventually succumbs to the darkness within his soul. It's beautifully written! Hermann Hesse has always been my favourite author and he has stated it many times in his books about how Goethe inspired him. And indeed it seems so. The arduous desire and passion of youth and young Werther's unparalleled feeling of love and affection towards Lotte! I could totally see myself in Werther's place, except for the miserable end. The fact that the book was published in 1774 and still resonates with us, is enough to justify the timeless brilliance and genius of Goethe. This is probably the best book I've read this year. It's tragically sad yet wonderful!
Another one of those horrifying short tales by Lovecraft. It's about how a hideously primordial and ancient mummy is discovered from deep depths of the earth and along with it is a cylindrical cased hieroglyph is also discovered. The story revolves around the strange and terrifying events that occur after the mummy is put on display in the museum. Occultists and supernatural enthusiasts from around the globe think that it's the mummy of mythical T'yog, who faced the Ghatanothoa, who was one of the gods of Yuggoth. What follows is one plot of vague events and deaths, which are accounted by the narrator in a rather spooky manner. Its writing style is typical Lovecraft. Hauntingly weird and esoteric. Quite a quick read though. Enjoyed it!
“All that is gold does not glitter,Not all those who wander are lost;The old that is strong does not wither,Deep roots are not reached by the frost.From the ashes a fire shall be woken,A light from the shadows shall spring;Renewed shall be blade that was broken,The crownless again shall be king.”
Oh what can I say about this book! I finished it after like 6 months, having shelved it midway and then picking it up again after a hiatus. But after finishing it now, I'm facing an existential crisis at this moment. Never have I read a tale of adventure so rich and gripping. Tolkien is the master of prose, poetry and storytelling. How can someone write so beautifully! Such vivid imagery and a wonderful backdrop. Also, I'm absolutely in awe of the characters throughout the novel. Aragorn, Gandalf, Frodo, Sam, Legolas and all of the many more amazing folks that have been introduced in the book! Each of them has a unique and appealing quality about them which eventually makes you fall in love with the book. Since I haven't seen the LOTR movies, I decided to go for the books and glad that it didn't disappoint at all. And yes, being an avid Harry Potter fan, I want to say this that Tolkien has managed to blow off my mind with this one. And I'm definitely looking forward to reading the entire LOTR series by this year. Harry Potter is my favourite series in terms of fantasy fiction but maybe this opinion might change once I finish reading the entire LOTR series, who knows! Anyway, there's absolutely no reason whatsoever why you should not read the book. A timeless masterpiece indeed!
“If this isn't nice, what is?”
I wanted to read Kurt Vonnegut since a long time and somehow I happened to stumble across this book in my vast e-library. It's a short interesting book. This book is written for people who're standing on the helm of graduation and wondering “Okay, now what?”
It's a compendium of Kurt's hilariously profound take on various ideas like life, love, education, war, humanity, art, media and of course graduation! Well, I'm about to graduate in next few days and Kurt's message and this book, both stuck a chord. Read it for Vonnegut's amazing sense of humor and thought provoking wit. He's indeed the master of black comedy and satire!
This is the first Vonnegut book that I read and I sure am looking forward to explore more of his works!
“Because nothing is as good as you can imagine it. No one is as beautiful as she is in your head. Nothing is as exciting as your fantasy.”
“We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it's our job to invent something better.”
“It's creepy, but here we are, the Pilgrims, the crackpots of our time, trying to establish our own alternate reality. To build a world out of rocks and chaos.”
Oh Chuck, how the f**k do you do this? Reviewing a Chuck Palahniuk book is like trying to explain how a rainbow looks like to a blind guy! To begin with it's a story about how a guy fakes choking to death in posh restaurants, just so that he could earn some quick cash and support his mother, who's dying in a hospital. The characters are quite interesting, especially Dr. Paige Marshall and Denny, who collects rocks from the street and treats them as new born babies. The plot is weirdly vague, just like his every other novel. But Chuck still manages to blow off your mind with his masterpiece of a plot twist. Literally, the climax of the novel was just like Chuck putting a shotgun to my head and painting the walls with my brain! The book is so thought-provoking and profoundly charged that it's almost impossible to put it down! It's a plethora of fascinating aphorisms and epigrams.
It's very difficult to explain or review the book. The best you can do it, read and experience it yourself.
As Chuck says in the book, “It's pathetic how we can't live with the things we can't understand. How we need everything labeled and explained and deconstructed.”
It's the best book I've read after Fight Club, in this genre!
“The Don was back on the throne.”
I managed to finish off this book in mere two days. Such engrossing is this account of the Bombay mafia, by Hussain Zaidi. The book takes you on a exhilarating journey inside the dark and gruesome underworld of Mumbai, right from it's initial days to the end of its existence. It's also an intriguing tale of how a local boy from Dongri Dawood Ibrahim goes on to become a global Don and ultimately a terrorist! Almost the entire era of the Bombay mafia is covered in this book, right from Haji Mastan and Vardarajan to Dawood, Rajan and Shakeel and Salem, covering their lives and their backstory in its entirety. The book literally transports you in the 80s and 90s, when the Mumbai underworld gangsters were terrorizing the streets of Mumbai. After all, who could tell you about the Mumbai underworld much better than a crime reporter of that time! Totally worth reading indeed!
People like best what's hard for them to obtain.
If I could take all the stars in this universe and shower it on Hesse's books, it still won't be enough to rate them! This is one of the best love stories I've read read. It's about a man who falls in love with a woman and then introduces her to his best friend, and eventually she ends up falling in love with his best-friend. It's harrowing, dark and yet wonderful. Hesse has beautifully captured the emotions of the protagonist who is madly and passionately in love with Gertrude. The way the characters are developed is just sheer genius. I was totally in love with each one of them. In the end, the books teaches you a lot about friendship and love. It also shows how tragedy and pain always play a vital role in an artist's life. Glad that I read at a point in my life where I was going through similar plight as that of the protagonist of this novel. And this book has acted as my guide to pave my way out of it. A masterpiece of a novel! Must read.
“...her eyes followed his figure until it become a dot and mingled with other dots in the summer crowd.”
Absolute classic. It has changed my entire perspective about human relationships, love and loneliness, in general. This being my first Fitzgerald book, I found it a bit tedious to read in the beginning. So much that I was about to quit reading it altogether (Now I am glad that I didn't). But as the book progresses, it turns out into a beautifully woven tragic and wistful love story. Usually, I'm not a fan of love stories but this book is just way out of league. I'm in awe and admiration with Fitzgerald's grandiose and royally elegant style of writing. He sure is a master of his words. The character development in this book is just top notch. The way Fitzgerald portrays the protagonist's fall from grace, throughout the novel, is just breath-taking. You end the book with a myriad of mixed emotions. I sort of felt bad for Dick Diver though. Looking at his indignity and his pitiable state at the end, it just strengthened my cynicism about the concept of love. The book is also full of amusing epigrams and aphorisms, which makes it profound at times. Overall, it's a thought provoking masterpiece by Fitzgerald. Will explore more of the genius of F. Scott Fitzgerald!
“Daru looked at the sky, the plateau, and, beyond, the invisible lands stretching all the way to the sea. In this vast landscape he had loved so much, he was alone.”
Only Albert Camus has that ability to blow off your mind with every word that he writes. Despite being a short tale it manages to have a deep impact on your mindset. The story is so profound yet so simple. It teaches us that sometimes it's not about having a judgement. It's about observing, without any judgement!
“The mystery of the universe is not time but size.”
Stephen King novels aren't known to be short but this one was, compared to his other works that I've read. I love it how he uses the start and stop technique of amusing the readers, with spells of intriguing narration throughout the novel, at regular intervals. I've always wanted to start with The Dark Tower series and this beginning didn't disappoint. Stephen King never compromises with the quality and this book is as picturesque as it can get!
The novel is mysterious yet gripping, with flashbacks into the protagonist's past and the wild desert backdrop adding to the richness of the plot line! I'd definitely love to read the next one after this. A story of a vivid chase between the good and the evil, set up in a quaint world. The ending of the book is profound in a very fascinating manner. Classic King!
I had never read any of William Faulkner's works before this, so I thought why not start with a short tale. And Faulkner didn't disappoint at all. Macabre at it's finest! Enjoyed the narration style and the way the story moves on. It's a tale of an eccentric lady called Emily, woven beautifully with grim elements. The ending puts the final nail in the coffin! Would surely love to explore more of William Faulkner.
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
This is one those masterpieces from Oscar that you just can't afford to miss. It's full of wit and aphorisms. Oscar has always been a genius with his epigrams and he's also got that flair for drama and beautiful conversations, which makes him one of the best writers of all time!
It's a gem of a play with Wilde subtly expressing his fascinating views on morality, women, men, society, marriage and life in general. A must read indeed!
Rose of Sharon loosened one side of the blanket and bared her breast. “You got to,” she said. she squirmed closer and pulled his head close. “There!” she said. “There.” her hand moved behind his head and supported it. Her fingers moved gently to his hair. She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.
Damn Steinbeck, why do you do this!
This is the second Steinbeck book for me, after ‘Of Mice And Men' and I'm absolutely welled up with emotions. Steinbeck always makes me struggle with fighting off my tears, after I finish reading his books. This one's a tragic yet beautiful tale of the Joad family who're living through the great economic depression. The writing style is classic Steinbeck, rich, raw and emotionally powerful! You don't read a John Steinbeck book. You live it!
This book taught me that no matter how worse the this world goes. How miserable the conditions are, humanity never dies. And probably it never will. The last paragraph literally blew off my mind! Steinbeck just took it to a whole new level. This book restored my lost faith in humanity and left me with a lump in my throat.
A must read indeed! Do not miss out on this classic.
“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”“Yes”, I said. “Isn't it pretty to think so?”
A classic tale of unrequited love beautifully set amidst the backdrop of Spain and Paris! Hemingway's way of narration and his elegant style while describing the imagery is unparalleled in the literary sphere. It's literally your ticket to Spain and Paris, right from the comfort of your couch. The whole book revolves around a bunch of folks who've just came out of war and are trying to forget all the misery. There's extravagant wine and liquor flowing throughout the entire book and at times you may find it a bit tedious to read. A fiesta indeed. The characters are well developed. I admire Hemingway's portrayal of Jake Barnes. The protagonist who's wallowing in the angst of his unrequited love for Brett. And yes, what can I say about the lady of this book; Brett Ashley! She is the perfect definition of a ‘femme fatale' You're bound to fall in love with her.
The plot is brilliantly woven with the all the characters. But the pace of the book seems a bit slow, despite it being a short novel. That's the thing about Hemingway. He never compromises with quality just for the sake of wrapping it up. Ernest is always known for providing a rich reading experience to his readers!
The conclude it, it's a great book about a lost generation. It taught me that despite all the boisterous partying and champagne, if you're not in harmony with your inner self, you'll eventually suffer and always be in a pathetic state. And that no matter how terrible the affliction seems, there's always light at the end of the tunnel. There's always hope. For the sun also rises, even after the darkest of nights!
“What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?”
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky, you fuckin' genius! I'm rendered totally speechless by this masterpiece of yours. This is one of those books that you must not miss out on. It is an universal compendium of various ideas and aphorisms which are brilliantly knitted into a great tale about a man who commits a murder, blinded by his vanity while thinking he's intellectually superior others. Dostoyevsky is the master when it comes to understanding human nature and knows how to penetrate through your soul with his words. This book is an unforgettable classic. It is bound to make you introspect after you've finished reading it. Having said that, every time I read any of Dostoyevsky's works, at the end of the book, I come out as a completely different person. His books always leave an imprint on your mindset. Such is the literary flair of Dostoyevsky! Will now end my year wallowing in the reverie of this beautiful book.
Do not miss out on this timeless classic. I repeat. Do not miss out on this timeless classic!
I had watched the movie before reading the book. And I got to say, this existential classic by Chuck was equally entertaining. It's witty and profound. It also manages to have that tinge of dark humor in it, which makes it even more fascinating. It has that unique yet gripping narration style which keeps you glued till you finish reading the book. Overall, a great classic!
Colorful auras, balloon life strings, long-timers, short-timers and the deliriums of insomnia. It's one of those usual Stephen King horror flicks and by far the longest one that I've read (nearly took me a month). It's too long and at times you feel like the plot isn't going anywhere. But that's the thing about King. He takes it really slow and then surprises the readers when it matters the most. The story line seems a bit dull but King manages to pull it off in style with his rich imagery and brilliant narration style. The characters are developed pretty well. King here, breaks the stereotype of young and dashing protagonists by portraying Ralph Roberts as an old guy in his 60's and yet manages to charm the readers. I especially enjoyed the chemistry between Ralph and Louis. What I didn't like about this book is that it's too long and sometimes you feel like giving up on it. Also, I was disappointed by the antagonist ‘King Crimson'. He didn't live up to his hype and could have been better. Overall it's a good tale if you've some time to spend. It's not an easy read and patience is the only key here. I'm looking forward to reading the Dark Tower series after this!