Survival of The Sickest - Dr. Sharon Moalem with Jonathan Prince

The first impression of “Survival of the Sickest” is that it’s a book that elucidates the positives of the diseases that ail the mankind. But the book really is about how our body works at a macro level of cells and enzymes (really, that is macro in the context of the book) and a micro level of the very basic genes that make us who we are.

The book traces the origins of certain diseases like diabetes, and why should such conditions be genetic in nature when evolution tells us that the genetic weaknesses of an organism should get eradicated over generations. Some of the theories are proven and accepted by the medical community. Some are not. Regardless, it still teaches a lay reader a lot about how the body works.

Subsequently, the book transcends to genetics with only a remote relevance to the premise proposed in the opening chapters. However this does not make the book a least bit boring, or uninformative. The language is lucid, and medical jargons are used as sparingly as possible. And when it is used, sufficient explanation is provided to ensure the reader does not feel lost.

In the end, the purpose of the book is to educate. It does not mean that having that knowledge will enable us to take steps to correct some flaws or avoid passing them on to our children. But it at least helps us be aware of how our body works, which is really the essence of the book, and helps us be prepared in the wake of a sickness. You still will have to go to a doctor if you fall ill. But if you are one of those people who are paranoid about the multitude of things that can go wrong with the body, reading this book will help you realize the incredible mechanism by which your body ensures that you are fighting fit as far as possible.

Had this been a larger volume, it would have been difficult to digest all the information. As it is, retention levels of details for such books are low. Therefore, the 200 odd pages of the book just about strike the balance between leaving the reader with a strong message by retaining his focus and concentration, and leaving the details which while would have been good to read, would not have added too much value for the casual readers.

As it is, this book ranks high in my list of recommendations.

SLAM - Nick Hornby

Sam is a regular teenager, with a talent for Skateboarding. And SLAM is his story, told by him. And if you think about it, the story is perhaps not that monumental in itself. He gets a girlfriend. Gets her pregnant, ‘accidentally’. And his girlfriend, Alicia, decides to keep the baby. Disturbing? A little, perhaps. Disrupting for Sam? Definitely. But is it really that extraordinary? Maybe not. Maybe not even if you consider Sam’s weird time travel. I say weird time-travel, because this is not comic-book stuff save-the-world-time-travel. It’s just Sam going into the future through some unexplained force, seeing what it’s going to be like, and then returning back to present. And all this is completely out of his control, and happens pretty much on a whim. Yes, this angle does introduce a bit of scope for drama, but Nick Hornby uses it more as a story telling mechanism than for dramatic effect.

Yet, SLAM is one of the most outstanding fictional stories I have read. It is easy to stereotype teenagers and write about them. But Nick Hornby manages to go much deeper… deep into the skin and soul of Sam as he narrates his story in the book in first person. There’s no single thing which is very moving or life-changing. But the narrative takes you with the flow and you truly enjoy the ride. Sam’s interactions with his mother, his girlfriend, his girlfriend’s parents and his friends are well described. It’s hard for a writer to keep the atmosphere real. Inadvertently he will slip into poetic imagery or needless suspense or irritating cockiness. Keeping it real adds a lot of charm to a story. That’s perhaps why I love Dick Francis books so much. And that is why I am increasingly liking Nick Hornby’s books as well.

But then, while Dick Francis’ books will have a proper conclusion of whatever mystery or adventure the protagonist is involved in, Nick Hornby’s books since they are mostly about normal people like you and me (no horse racing world shattering scams here) the ending, in the vein of being real, could be a little boring. But then, SLAM was never about the ending or a edge-of-the-seat climax. It was about a young boy’s journey. And it makes for a very engaging read. It’s just hard to explain the quality of the narrative, or the dryness of the humour which makes you latch on to the book. Highly recommended, is all I can say.

Millenium Series - Stieg Larsson

This very popular fiction series, are the translated works of Stieg Larsson, published posthumously. The orginial books were in Swedish. It comprises of three hefty books – The girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. Honestly, I would have switched the names of the 2^nd and 3^rd book. All the playing with the hornet’s nest actually happens in the second book if you ask me.

The books tell about a complicated journey of Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. Blokvist is an investigative journalist at Millenium, a monthly known for its ruthless scrutiny of the sundry things in the Swedish economy. Lisbeth Salander on the other hand is social retard, and a certified punk. At the outset, interesting characters to tie up as lead protagonists. It builds up into a rather fantastic series of novels, where the greatness is not really in the epic story arc, or brilliant characters, but in the narration itself which really respects a readers intellect and does not feed her unnecessary poetic flourishes, or silly twists and suspense, or u-turns of character traits, and the other sundry tools that writers resort to for “interesting” writing.

The first book – The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo – is a straightforward who-dun-it. While it’s a complete book in itself, I strongly suggest that you do not read only this book and stop. There is a reason I am reviewing the series and not individual books. In the first book, we just about start knowing Mikael, Lisbeth, and other lead characters in the novel. Whether it’s the translation or the style of Larsson himself, we will never know, but the writing is extremely crisp, purposeful and all about the story. As a reader, that’s what I like. The story itself is logical with no plot-holes that I could identify, and no meaningless twist ending. The book, in short, gets the job done. We are introduced to the case where a young girl, Harriet Vagner, has gone missing some 40 years ago. Her grandfather has been trying to locate her, trying to find out if she is dead or alive for all this while. As a last ditch effort, he hires Mikael to do some extra investigation. Get an outsider’s opinion, so to speak. Of course the case gets solved. One would imagine that the author would have a tough time stringing together a reasonably realistic story where a 40 year old case which wasn’t solved by the police force and a very rich man with numerous resources happens to be solved by, of all people, a journalist. Let me allay those concerns. The story is extremely sensible. The threads which lead to Mikael solving the case, and which were earlier missed by everyone else are believable and rational. There’s the matter of Lisbeth Salander as well. She, while classified as socially inept, is good at “researching”. She is good with computers, and lands up alongside Blomkvist on the Harriet Wagner case. For how central she is in the series, she plays, at best, a peripheral role in the first book. In fact the first “story” is not really related much to the second and third books apart from the fact that we get to understand the Blomkvist-Salander association. Consider the first book as a huge backstory to the second and third books, while being a story in itself. Apart from that, Lisbeth’s own backstory is dwelt in significant detail in the first book. It doesn’t have much to do with what’s happening in the first book. As a reader, you will be a little flummoxed with all the details. All that turns out to be central in the 2^nd and 3^rd books. Lisbeth Salander is shown to be declared as “socially incompetent” and is therefore mandatorily supposed to have a state appointed “Guardian” who is responsible for her life decisions. Salander had a “good” Guardian, one who understood the underlying reasons for her rebellious streak and knew how to manage it. But he has a stroke and is replaced with a guardian who prefers raping his charges instead of guarding them. He discovers, as do we the readers, Salander is not the one to be messed with. On to the next book.

The Girl Who Played With Fire – Here the proverbial plot thickens. A whole lot of unrelated things – Girl trafficking, biker clubs, national security police, journalists, international boxers, and ofcourse Blomkvist and Slander are thrown in the ring and everything is tied together with a coherent thread. Not an easy task that. We discover how the whole “Guardian” business of the first book is important. It’s difficult to not give away spoilers, but Millenium, the monthly Blomkvist works for, has latched onto a story of Girl Trafficking. They are about to run an expose, when the journalist who was working on the story gets shot. Salander turns out to be the lead suspect. Again, it’s not some ridiculous twist which exculpates Salander of her charges. It’s made amply clear from the beginning that she is not the guilty one. So really, it’s not a spoiler. Salander, now a fugitive, goes underground. In fact, Blomkvist and Salander meet only twice in the whole book. Details about Salander’s past coming hurtling out. What begins as an attempt to thwart a journalist, rapidly becomes an unlikely story of revenge. Salander, for the jerk she is, gets a lot of help without ever asking for it. The loyalty she commands from very bizarre corners is strange, but at the same time, absolutely believable. That is a sign of good writing. Turns out Lisbeth’s jack-ass guardian was her guardian not by coincidence. The national security police, or CBI or NSA equivalent of Sweden administered the move. Not that the guardian knew it. Neither did Salander. But it becomes a royal mess by the time the book ends… with a bullet lodged in Salander’s head.

The third book is all Blomkvist. Salander is mostly in a hospital bed. She plays her part from there. But it’s Blomkvist who carefully orchestrates a guerilla war on the security police. It doesn’t take a Jason Bourne to go rogue and live to tell the tale. Mikael shows how it’s done in a very (I cannot stress enough on this word) believable manner. This book is pure brilliance in storytelling. The main villain of the first book, Zala, is in cahoots with the security police, or rather, a small section within security police. The only way this Section can get away with violating Salander in countless ways since she was 13, is by violating her some more and ensuring she is incriminated in a whole list of murder charges, and qualified as a danger to society. Lisbeth’s only hope is to rely on Blomkvist. The case strapped on Salander is mightily complex. The only way to get Salander acquitted is to prove the wrong-doings of the Section. Filtering away all the accoutrements, that’s the simplicity of the plot.

So what do I think of the overall series. In four words, it’s one helluva ride. Salander, or Blomkvist might not be Dorothy and Potter who will stand the test of time. But they are very well written, and intelligently casted. They are very real. Their thoughts are their thoughts, and their individuality is striking. It’s rare for a book to have 2 protagnists who hardly meet. In that situation, it’s even more difficult to make a reader care for both the protagonists. But Blomkvist achieves that. The stories themselves, especially the 2^nd and 3^rd books are immensely complex in a single, unbroken chain. Unlike most suspense-thrillers where bits and pieces of thrill is added to make a sum-total of a plot. Once you have read through the series… you realize that it’s perfect and you wouldn’t change a thing. It takes a lot of reading to get there for sure. But believe me, it is interesting as hell. Heaven forbid, if you ever pick up reading the book at 11 in the night… doesn’t matter which part., you are going to be awake for a long time.