Holocaust Literature

                                                             

          

“The story of ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ is difficult to describe. Usually we give you some clues about the book on the cover, but in this case we think that would spoil the reading of the book. We think it is important to read without knowing what it is about.”

                       So goes the description on the back of cover of ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.’ My choice for the title of the post doesn't leave much to your imagination about the story of the book.

 It is, by far the most subtle book on the Holocaust I have ever read. Everything is suggestive and you have to draw your own conclusions. The story is told from the eyes of a 9 year old Bruno, whose father is a high ranking Nazi Officer. Their life changes with a visit from The Fury (Obviously mispronounced, I think we all know who he is.) Bruno is suddenly moved from his home in Berlin to the countryside. 'Out-With' (Mispronounced again!)is his new home and Bruno dislikes it a lot. It is smaller, full of soldiers and no one to play with.

            From the window of his new house, he could see a large number of people in ‘Striped Pyjamas’. Upon asking his 12 year old sister about them, She replies that they are Jews.

Bruno asks, “If they are Jews, then what are we?”

Unsure, the Sister replies, “Err.. the opposite.”

                                  The innocence of Bruno kills you as much as the horror of the Holocaust disgusts you. Slowly, Bruno realises the cruelty and the horror of ‘Out-With’ and a twist of fate brings him face to face with the ogre of the Holocaust.

                The story breaks your heart. Makes you despise our capability for cruelty. While the book is primarily for children, I think that children might not relate to the book given it’s timeframe and the fact that the events mentioned are older than even the kid’s parents. I am going to get a 15 year old to read it for me and I will ask his reaction. For  adults, I recommend this book very strongly. A must read for experience of a long lost innocence..!

Shantaram - The BIG book of Quotes!

It's high time I listed some favorite quotes from Shantaram. It was simply awesome. And an injustice to the book if I would not quote some really awesome ones.

When I started reading the book, I was not aware that it was not an ordinary book with an extraordinary story. The plot was mesmerising enough for me to choose my pick, but I was not simply not prepared to read something that would influence so much that I would think about it even after six months. The book was very hyped and unlike so many, this book not only lived upto it's expectations, but surpassed it by a long way.

The thoughts espoused are so profound, the ideas, the discussions are so thought provoking that you would actually stop reading the book mid way and ponder over what you just read and then marvel at them. To add to it, these thoughts find expression in the form of beautiful quotes. So eloquent and poetic that you would end up marking them on the book or jotting them down on a notebook. I tried marking the pages, halfway through the book I realised that it was a futile exercise. The whole book was littered with ugly marks and I understood that I wasn't reading something that was an everyday read and that I was reading something that would influence me profoundly.

The author is an Australian fugitive, who had to resort to armed robberies to satisfy his cravings for heroin. The book is an account of the eight years that he spent in Bombay when on run from the Australian police. From the Mumbai underworld to Bollywood across to fighting with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan, Shantaram is an epic of a story..with some profound quotes.. I cant resist not listing some. Again, the author is at his best when sad.

The thing is, I can drone all night long when it comes to Shantaram and people who know me can vouch for that. So, I'd rather do what I intended to do with this post. Quote Gregory Roberts.

 

It was very difficult to pick up just sixteen from the book. But here's my collection:-

 

1. The biggest problem with corruption as a form of government, is that it works so well.

2. Once Karla asked me, "What characterizes the human race, cruelty or the capacity to feel ashamed for it?" I thought the question to be acutely clever when I first heard it, but I'm lonelier and wiser now, and I know it isn't cruelty or shame that characterizes the human race.It's forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would've annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive.

3. Happiness is a myth. It was invented to make us buy new things.

4. Every virtuous act has some dark secret in its heart; every risk we take contains a mystery that can’t be solved.

5.Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be.

6. Men reveal what they think when they look away, and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, it’s the other way around.

7. I don't know what I fear more, the power that crushes us, or our never ending capacity to endure it.

8. A dream is a place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare.

9. Nothing fits the hand so perfectly , or feels so right , or inspires so much protective instinct , as the hand of a child.

10. Love cannot be tested....honesty can, and loyalty....but not love...love goes on forever, once it starts, even if we come to hate the person, we love....love goes on forever because love is born in the part of us which does not die..."

11. At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us...what we should fear and dread, is that we wont stop loving them, even after they're dead and gone...

12.

Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope.
Sometimes we cry with everything except tears.
In the end that's all there really is : Love and it's duty,Sorrow and its truth..
In the end that's all we really have - to hold on tight until the dawn...

13. We know who we are and we define what we are by references to the people we love and our reasons for loving them.

14.

"Sooner or later,fate puts us together with all the people,one by one,who show us what we could and should not let ourselves become. Sooner or later we meet the drunkard,the waster,the betrayer,the ruthless mind and the hate-filled heart. But fate loads the dice,of course,because we usually find ourselves loving or pitying almost all of those people.And its impossible to despise someone you honestly pity and to shun someone you truly love..."

15. There is nothing as depressing as good advice.  :D :D

16.  It's such a huge arrogance, to love someone, and there's too much of it around. There's to much love in the world. Sometimes I think that's what heaven is - a place where everybody's happy because nobody loves anybody else, ever.

Fantasy, Eh?

Not many books live upto the hype and Shantaram is a welcome exception.. I call it as the "Big Book of Quotes".
But this is not about Shantaram what I really itch to speak about is another book, or a series rather. The Harry Potter series has stood upto to all the hype and hoopla around it. I loved the books so much that I actually read each of the 7 books more than twice or thrice. People love to pan the book based upon their opinions formed from the movies. The movies were a poor reflection of one of the best works I ever read.
I recommended Harry Potter to more than one people whose intellect I respected but the reply was the same. Fantasy didn't make good reading. I am appalled at the number of people branding the books as fantasy and not reading it for that reason.
JK Rowling has conjured a whole new world. Awesome imagination on her part, but the one thing that sets her books apart is that she wrote a book about a race of magical people but concentrated more the human values that they possessed. It was yet another story of Good triumphing over Evil. The books were not about spells and potions(I've learnt to dread this subject too :P ), but it was about how love helps us to overcome the worst of situations. Seven suspense stories with each one outdoing the previous and the last left each reader asking for more. The characters were so wonderfully etched that I can actually prepare dinner for each one of them according to their likes and dislikes. She made millions cry when she bumped off characters. I too,felt a sense of bereavement and cried when they died.
If only she wanted she could have created more thrilling sequences and concentrated more upon fantastic spectacles but she chose wisely to stick with what she had planned.The seventh and the final part, where good was supposed to triumph over evil , was more based on Human bonding , and the simple values of love and friendship. It saw Rowling unravelling two of the most fascinating characters in the book in a way that left readers open mouthed. It showed that even the best of magicians, was a human after all. With his one human failing, I started to respect Dumbledore more. He is the teacher who did perfect justice to the noblest of professions. And he is the teacher I'd try to be if I ever become one.
If you are one of those intellectuals, who still believe that Harry Potter is only a Wizard, you're wrong. He has his human ineffectiveness too.

Distorted thoughts...

Sometimes I think of writing a new blog about the books I read. Every book I finish I feel like I have something to say. A voice stifled inside me. A thought begging to be heard.

This is the best place to pen my thoughts and bore my readers. But the problem is the disorderliness of my thoughts. It would require more than a management student to organise, bear or even decipher them. I come across as an introvert who ends up as a person who just cannot keep his mouth shut.
I have the received compliments like " Gosh! I didn't know you had a tongue in you!"
and "Ayyo!! For God's sake, can you keep quiet just for a minute??"
The best part is, these compliments are from the same man, my Manager.

My corner at office is the noisiest you'll come across. My absence casts an eerie silence over the bay. I discuss everything with everyone and everyone discusses everything with me. But I also have this feeling of having never been able to express what I feel or I think. Very few people, less than the fingers on my right hand, know me. Perhaps even less. Partly because I harbour this feeling that every other thing that defines me is a dirty little secret. A part that refuses to divulge.


The other day someone told me "I feel so sad when I am alone."

I was so amazed at the simplicity of the thought. I too, am a depressed person when I am not with people I know but I was never able to put the feeling into words. It was too complex for me to express. I was confused with myself until that person said these words. It struck a chord immediately. The simplicity of the statement and the deep meaning attached to it. I might claim to be intelligent but this simple explanation was something I could never come up with...

Distorted thoughts, really!!! I was thinking about writing on books! :P