Shalimar the Clown - Salman Rushdie

Every read a 649 page poem? No? Read Shalimar the Clown then. It really does feel as if you are reading poetry. And before you jump to any positive conclusions, a novel feeling like a poem is not a complement. But apparently magical realism is a part of Salman Rushdie’s brand of writing. Maybe it works for his fans. It didn’t for me.

The story, if I had to encapsulate it in one sentence, is about an American Ambassador in India, Maximilian Ophulus, who comes to Kashmir and has sex with a married Kashmiri girl, whose husband is obviously pissed about being screwed over and therefore goes and kills both the girl and the American Ambassador. And there’s a whole universe that is spun around this story. And you feel as if you are drifting in space in no particular direction.

While the writing through the book is quite fantastic, no doubts about that, the story telling is extremely, should I say, devoid of energy. It is so boring that you can’t even fall off to sleep. Remember those really crappy lectures you attended in college, in which you just stared at the professor like a zombie. Reading Shalimar the Clown is somewhat akin to that. Non-linear writing is one thing, but when Rushdie kept zapping through between past, present and future like a bumble-bee from flower to flower, I couldn’t help but massage my temples to ease the pain in my head. Mixing fantasy with reality is also not something that I could digest. So metallic prophets and telepathic conversations and flying tightrope walkers are something that did not belong to this book. If I wanted to read about the atrocities in Kashmir, I would read a non-fiction book about it. And what is with all the sex? The guy is obsessed with it. And even his sex doesn’t have any eroticism in it. The words through the book while beautiful, simply don’t engross a reader.

All in all, there’s only so much of good writing that you can enjoy. I read a book for it’s story. Take that out and a book becomes an unending drag; which is what happened with this book. Yes, character development is important, conveying their thoughts and emotions is important, and giving some historical background to people is important, but all that is a part of the story. And while the Kashmir story is actually depicted quite well, it loses its sense in the larger context of the book. And the book is so depressing, intentionally I suppose, that you feel too sad, and a tad frustrated, to be enthralled by the writing itself.

Or maybe I am just too lay a man to appreciate Salman Rushdie’s works… Well, I am happy with my Wodehouse’s though. And I will need to read 2 or 3 of them to get over this book.

Maverick - Ricardo Semler

This is a business book with a difference! For one, it is not about a multi billion dollar corporation like, say an Exon, or Microsoft. It is about a Brazilian company, called Semco. And the second key difference is, the author, also the owner of the company, does not boast about the good things in his organization. He is proud of them.

Well the theme of the book is pretty straightforward. A successful company in a sinusoidal economy, and an owner with a strain of megalomania in him and therefore he decides to write a book. Well, I excuse the writer for the megalomania bit. Because this is one company that did merit a book. Not as much because it was successful, but because the company believes in the philosophy of, as we say, ‘having a life’.

Semco has done a lot of things differently. Corporate democracy where the employees decide everything from the color of the office walls to the time they come to work to even their salaries is a unique concept implemented by Semco. That, broadly, forms the theme of the book. It also explains, why, despite the obvious on-the-face, impossibility of giving such a freedom to employees, the scheme does work. I will not detail the stories of the company. There are just too many and all of them are just too good to choose amongst them.

The owner, Ricardo Semler, is a man I have tremendous respect for! In the modern era of cut throat competition it is fashionable to be a workaholic. Ricardo, or Dickie, disagrees. It’s not that he shuns work. Or doesn’t have a business vision. But it’s just that he realizes that having fun in life is more important. And honestly, workaholics are only living a delusion that work is actually fun for them. I ramble. Back to Dickie. He takes a two month of every year for vacations, believes that watching a movie on a Monday afternoon is a lot more commendable than working on a Saturday, and he actually is proud of the fact that most of the decisions in the company are taken by others and he is not even invited to most meetings, actually documents that he doesn’t take a whole lot of calls he gets… man… I could go on, and you would get the picture of that good for nothing work-weasel guy out of Dilbert comics. But then, Ricardo Semler does run a company. A successful one at that. And though he is not invited to meetings, knows about his business. So he is not a Jack Welch. But he sure as hell is a lot more interesting.

A lot of business books get very pedantic. Suggesting that what they do is the best in the world and everyone should adopt their ways. The only thing it does is feed the egos of the management of that company. And Maverick holds its reins tightly enough to not fall into that cliff. Eventually, granting that there would be a whole lot of things that people in Semco crib about, it still seems like a fun place to work for! So for the people who might not get a chance, the book is the next best way of learning how a company ought to function. This really is a business book with a difference.

The Old Reliable - P.G. Wodehouse

The characters Wodehouse creates have a wide range of professions. While there are some standard professionals, like butlers, and rich, young men who don’t have to wag a whisker for their pennies, and lawyers, etc. some harbour, and live some very unique careers.

In this book, The Old Reliable, Wilhelmina Shannon, the protagonist and the wonder woman to the rescue (therefore the title, ‘the old reliable’) is a writer who finds herself out of job. And therefore she accepts the lowly task of writing the biography of her sister, Mrs. Adela Cork, an actress from the era of the silent movies. Mrs. Adela Cork happens to have purchased a property belonging to the late Mexican actress, Carmen Flores, who while alive, led a scandalous life and documented it all in her secret diary for the benefit of the future generations. And the diary would sell for good bucks in the Hollywood market. And who doesn’t want good bucks? Well, it’s not just Ms. Bill Shannon. There is a brother in law of Mrs. Cork, Semdley, who Ms. Bill has the hots for who originally plans on hunting the diary. The butler at the house (who else) reaches the same conclusion. And thankfully Semdley has the entire family, which also includes a cousin of Ms. Bill, a certain Kay, and her lover on his side. But it is upto Ms. Bill to outwit the butler in the chase for the legendary diary.

The plot as usual, is pretty thick with a lot of very lovable characters thrown in. And for the more intellectual reader, Semdley and the butler, really have multiple dimensions if you’d really want to look for them. The butler, though clearly the villain, is extremely likable. And Semdley, with the good guys behind his back, is the kind of a guy who you’d see with a girl and wonder what the hell she saw in him.

It’s a hilarious read, with a longish climax, which is fun all the way. And this is one Wodehouse novel which the ending is not predictable in your usual way. So, well, have fun!

The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum

Spy Novels have never really appealed to me. It’s not that I am too much of a realist to find stories about international intelligence agencies, and government spies and terrorists over the top. Not at all! I love all these things in your regular spy movies. In fact, I say, they should throw in more terrorists and spies in there. But whatever books I had read on the topic, never really brought out the intensity of a situation as well as it came out for me in a movie. Now since my experience with spy fiction is pretty limited, it could be a case of me reading all the wrong books. But when the first two or three books in a genre don’t work for you, you do tend to lock the entire lineage out. That’s what happened with me.

But Bourne identity, it is one of the favourite books of a voracious reader friend I have got. And since I loved the movie trilogy so much, I decided to give Bourne Identity a read.

And I was blown away!

As it turned out, the only thing common between the movie and the book is Jason Bourne and the fact that he is an amnesic. Everything else is unrelated! I fail to understand why the movie makers would change the story of Bourne Identity! It is fast paced, extremely clever, intense, suspenseful and with the right amount of action for a novel. To be fair, with a different story, the movies were pretty good as well, with the right amount of (and more than the books) action for a movie.

The Bourne Identity is about a man who is found on a French island, loaded with bullets, not in a holster but in his body, minus his memory. But as he is treated by a drunk doctor, a clue is discovered which sends the patient, or Pierre off to a Swiss Bank, under the name of the doctor who treated him, Washburn. On the way, he figures out that he is extremely resourceful and has a knack of getting out of tight situations. He realizes he has more than a working knowledge of some form of martial arts, is adept with weapons, and is masterful with disguises. At the bank, he discovers his name is Jason Bourne. And he also discovers that a whole bunch of unknown enemies are out to kill him. But thanks to the skills he possesses, he manages to kill some and evade some of his other killers.

Now all he wants is to figure out is who he really is.

And in the search for his past he realizes, much to his horror, that Carlos, the international assassin (he is actually in the book) and an American Government organization, Treadstone, are out to kill him. When he digs out the reason, it is all the more horrifying. But in a perfect case of “ Syndrome” an economist from Canada, who he had taken as a hostage, falls in love with him and has unwavering faith that all would be well as long as she was with Jason Bourne.

And propelled by this love, though fearful of losing it because of the truth, Jason Bourne keeps unearthing the past.

The twists in the book are quite gripping. You don’t even know whether you should hate Jason Bourne because he probably is a baddie, or sympathize with him because he is an amnesic. The balance keeps tilting towards the later option because of all the panic attacks that he has whenever he has blinding visions of the past. And of course there is a poor girl in question for who you want the best. And of course Jason Bourne is the hero! And the hero has to, has to be victorious! It’s the how that will keep you hooked on to the book!

Read on...!

Do Butlers Burgle Banks - P.G. Wodehouse

This has to be one of the catchiest Wodehouse titles around. A question which not a lot of Indians would relate to for sure since the domestic help here sure has made a veritable business model out of taking off with their master’s belongings and riches. British butlers, apparently, are not quite like that. Their nobility is so unquestioned, that when one of them does go down the crime lane and busting banks, it is an event big enough to publish a book on.

And hell, I am not complaining that they have a book on it. Especially since it is authored by Plum.

The book is about a syndicate of thieves, headed by the wily, though not so fit, Horace Appleby who decides to take a detour from his usual modus operandi of stealing jewels and decides to plunge into a new line of business of burgling banks. And once Appleby gets his cronies on the line for the plan of action, he sets off to the Bond residence to establish a base to study and formulate and execute his plans and takes over as a temporary butler. Of course that’s where the plot just starts.

Michael Bond, the inheritor of the Bond Bank, who ends up employing Appleby as his butler, is not quite in the pink of health. With his love life flagging away into nothingness, he has business worries that any owner of a bank would. And maybe his worries go a shade deeper than the usual amount.

Appleby realizes that this one operation is not going to be as smooth as his previous achievements. He has his arch rival, the Chicago Gunman, hounding him to clear past dues. And then he has a love life of his own that he has to sort out.

In this little gem of a book, both the victim and the villain are actually the heroes of the story. And between the aims of Appleby to burgle the bank and Michael Bond to run it smoothly are thrown in several characters who make the plot as mixed up as a heap of spaghetti. There are trustees trying to sort out the bank owner’s and by extension their own problems. The secretary and the love interest of Mr. Bond help in every way they can. And then where you have burglary and gunmen, there are cops as well. And from Scotland Yard, no less!

You will have a roller coaster sort of a ride when you get through this book. And unlike the usual Wodehouse books where though the ending is happy, there is an eventual loser, it doesn’t happen so in this book, as the ending is happy for everyone. Well, almost. That said, the ending is a bit too forced in this book, and it does take away some of the shine off the book when you flip over the last page, though the story in itself is quite hilarious and will have you laughing from pretty much the starting. And I am all ok with that. As long as I get my two cupfuls of laughter, I can live with the contrived ending.

And yeah, don’t you try to imitate the bank burgling business at home. It isn’t quite as simple as Wodehouse house writes it to be. And be wary of your domestic help. If butlers can rob banks, your maid will definitely not have any qualms about flinching some money from your wallet.

Clash of the Titans - Richard Hack

I have always enjoyed business books. Maybe it’s because I have done an MBA. (I know that sounds snobbish, but when you study business management, learning how, say, a Microsoft or a Google become the mammoth that it is, is actually quite thrilling. My love for business books is a different topic altogether) But all business books that I had read so far were about businesses that I more or less understood. Or if not understood, at least I could grasp. Say technology, or Consumer Goods, or Retail. It’s about making something, and selling it.

And when I started on with Clash of the Titans, I was quite enthused about expanding my horizons and reading about a new business, namely media. The book is about the clash of the two titans in the media world, Rupert Murdoch, and Ted Turner. Both incredible business men who have touched my lives quite personally in their own ways. Murdoch through his Times of India, and Ted Turner through Cartoon Network. This is not to say that Star Sports or Star Movies or HBO or their other ventures haven’t been a part of my life, but their influence was certainly considerably lesser.

Richard Hack tries to give the book as fictional a feel as possible. Through his non-sequential narration of starting with an episode midway in the chronology, then going back to the beginning to come back to the start of the book again. That’s a ploy done to death, but it still holds its charm. And then there is (over-)dramatization of several scenes, the details which can not possibly be confirmed with regards to their accuracy. And while the purpose of it to not render the book boring is accomplished, the author does go overboard by ending every chapter with “… and the tides had turned for the two giants to collide in a feisty storm” or lines to that effect.

As such Clash of The Titans is as much a business book as it is a compressed biography of Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner, juxtaposed brilliantly. There the book is something unique, and reads almost like a movie screen play. Both Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch have led incredible lives and have built incredible companies. The book traces the life of both these protagonists in the right amount of detail required in the context of the book.

The business side of it is actually not that easy to follow. Or maybe it was because I don’t really understand the business of media. And how exactly Murdoch and Turner become business men of their stature is not very clear. As given in the book: Murdoch buys newspapers after newspapers (as in the publishing companies and not stacks of newspapers) and ensures they become profitable and Turner has TBS and then starts CNN which is a hit. I am oversimplifying what’s there in the book of course, but the book itself oversimplifies their rise to stardom as well. There’s this whole thing of network versus cable versus dish antenna TV which I absolutely did not get. (Time for some Googling) But then the book, at 400 pages, probably did not have enough space to dwell into more details.

The two things that absolutely do stand out for me though are that one, Both Murdoch and Turner have an unending zest for life and want to keep setting goals and achieving them. The book portrays the passion that the two men have, extremely well. Secondly, as constant a character as Murdoch has been through his life, Turner has taken a somersault and turned himself inside out. Murdoch’s priorities have been fairly uniform through his life. Turner’s have changed drastically. Murdoch was always a business man through out his life. Turner was a sailor, a Casanova, an orator, a philanthropist, and a businessman, each in varying amounts in different phases of his life.

The book does an exceptional job of providing glimpses into the lives and businesses of Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch, a commendable job when writing about either would have constituted quite a tome itself. That itself makes this book a highly recommended read.

Bachelors Anonymous - P.G. Wodehouse

Bachelor’s Anonymous is one more of Wodehouse’s cross country comedies. A tie up of American culture with British humor. And again, Wodehouse “scores” on his readers.

The name of the book might just be vaguely familiar to the drunks out there, especially the transformed and improved drunks who call up on their groupies from Alcoholic’s Anonymous to help them get over their pangs of consuming liquor. Bachelor’s Anonymous is a group of like minded individuals who are marriage phobic, who are out there to protect the young, gullible minds from getting trapped into the vicious pit of marriage. And they are proactive too. For they don’t just help people who seek out their help, like the marriage addict Mr. Llewellyn, the movie producer who married starlets at will and then shelled out oodles of money in alimony, but the good Samaritans also try and prevent young men who voluntarily want to get married, like the not-so-budding Joe Pickering.
So when Trout, a veteran Bachelor’s Anonymous member, goes to London to ensure that his client and friend, Llewellyn didn’t marry yet again, he finds that Joe Pickering is hopelessly in love. And while Llewellyn appoints Pickering to keep him away from women he (Llewellyn) might accidentally propose marriage to, Trout, instead of counseling Llewellyn, finds his hands full and time taken in trying to convince Pickering the advantages of bachelorhood. And when sweet talk doesn’t work, it was time to use brute force. And amidst all the helping and loving and panicking the lives of these three men, with a bunch of women thrown in became inexplicably tangled. There’s money, greed, lust, glamour, even private detectives, in this romantic comedy. Eventually it takes a healthy dose of pure, unadulterated love to unravel it all. And the reader can simply lie back, and relax as everyone, without exception makes you laugh. What more do you want?