We Never Make Mistakes

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is probably the most notable example of what it means to be a writer and a prophet in the 20th century. In fact, I'll be so bold as to say he was the greatest living Russian writer of his time. His entire works were done to accomplish one purpose - exposing the atrocities of the Soviet Regime. The Gulag Archipalego, a sprawling narrative written in the epic style akin to War and Peace, depicts the harshness of the Russian government and Russian life for much of the 20th century in highly nuanced and sophisticated prose.

We Never Make Mistakes combines two of Solzhenitsyn's best known novellas: An Incident at Krechetovka Station and Matryona's House. The first is the story of a Soviet lieutenant working at a railway junction during Hitler's offensive on Russia. The station happens to be just behind the front line of the battle and, much to Lieutenant Kotov's chagrin, he must remain where he is and attend to administrative responsibilities. What he really wants is to be out there in the trenches fighting the good fight. He is an educated man, and a moral one at that. Yet, one fateful night, he meets a stranger who puts his education and morality to the test. Kotov will come to realise that perhaps morality isn't as simple a thing as he had thought it was.

The second story is that of a man staying with the widowed Matryona in a small town where he works as a teacher. Written from the perspective of the teacher, the story simply presents snapshots of the life, struggles, pleasures, and hardships of Matryona.

The genius behind these stories is that they are not at all polemic in nature. The image I have is of Solzhenitsyn as a painter, where he's just painted a picture of touching beauty, even though it doesn't seem to say much at first sight. Then he turns around and walks away from the painting. Just like that, as if to say, 'This is sufficient.' We see normal people living normal lives, or at least trying to, and therein lies the indictment against Lenin, against Stalin, against Soviet Russia. The circumstances and the hardships speak loud enough. I don't think any passionately worded argument would hold as much power, truth, or conviction. The prose, even though translated, reads beautifully, particularly with the story of Matryona. I think truly beautiful writing always carries over no matter how many translations it undergoes.

Just earlier this year, in August to be precise, Alexander Solzhenitsyn passed away at the age of 91. Yet his prophet's voice carries on, because his work will always speak for justice, truth, and human dignity.

Ode To The Drum by Yusuf Komunyakaa

Gazelle, I killed you

for your skin's exquisite

touch, for how easy it is

to be nailed to a board

weathered raw as white

butcher paper. Last night

I heard my daughter praying

for the meat here at my feet.

You know it wasn't anger

that made me stop my heart

till the hammer fell. Weeks

ago, I broke you as a woman

once shattered me into a song

beneath her weight, before

you slouched into that

grassy hush. But now

I'm tightening lashes,

shaping hide as if around

a ribcage, stretched

like five bowstrings.

Ghosts cannot slip

back inside the body's drum.

You've been seasoned

by wind, dusk & sunlight.

Pressure can make everything

whole again, brass nails

tacked into the ebony wood

your face has been carved

five times. I have to drive

trouble from the valley.

Trouble in the hills.

Trouble on the river

too. There's no kola nut,

palm wine, fish, salt,

or calabash. Kadoom.

Kadoom. Kadoom. Ka-

doooom. Kadoom. Now

I have beaten a song back into you,

rise & walk away like a panther.

This is one of those poems I wish I and not the original poet had written. Sounds selfish, I know. And if I could steal it, I probably would, he-he.

The Kite Runner - A Beautiful, Wounded Smile

There are stories that remain with me weeks after I've read them, haunting me, as it were. The Kite Runner is one of such.

Amir grows up in an Afghanistan of the 70's alongside his childhood friend Hassan, who is the son to his father's servant. They fire slingshots at unsuspecting victims and sit in the shade of a pomegranate tree, where Amir reads stories to the illiterate Hassan from a book of old Persian tales. And in the winter, they fly and run kites on the streets of Kabul. Yet, one seemingly auspicious winter brings with it victory that ends up being completely overshadowed by a life-shattering event. It scars Amir for life and haunts him until, years later, a phone call from an old friend presents Amir with a chance to redeem himself.

'There is a way to be good again.'

This is a heartwrenching story, full of the kind of pain that 'hurts good.' Hosseini writes with the poise of an ancient Persian poet, and his prose and descriptions come in dainty morsels of a choice and stately meal. For instance, he chooses these words to describe our hero's encounter with a 'slim-hipped beauty': 'She had thick black eyebrows that touched in the middle like the arched wings of a flying bird...Her eyes, walnut brown and shaded by fanned eyelashes, met mine. Held for a moment. Flew away.'

What remains with me till now, and perhaps for a long time to come, is the description of the relationship between Amir and Hassan, as well as the angelic character of Hassan. It is something so beautiful, almost holy, meant to be preserved and cherished. But it is abused,ravaged. And such blatant injustice, for me, is what gives heart and soul to The Kite Runner. Perhaps the same is true of all the real-life injustices that enrage our hearts. In a sense, they help us rediscover our humanity and help us to feel the pain and sorrow of others, give us a voice to speak out on behalf of those who have no voice - because they are injustices characterised by one essential thing, which is the desecration of humanity.

Hosseini clearly has a deep love for his homeland. It shows in his writing, which truly is an expression of who he is. From his style, to his subject matter, to his content. There may be Afghans out there that consider him a non-Afghan, 'a tourist in his own country', as someone describes Amir in the book. But it is only too evident that a man who can write about his homeland with such passion and honesty after being away from it for so long is one that carries a great piece of that homeland with him wherever he goes. Khaled Hosseini, in my opinion, is an Afghan in the truest sense, fighting the good fight in the best way he knows how.

The generosity of this story more than makes up for its two or three unlikely coincidences, which may or may not bother you as a reader. Personally, I have chosen to overlook them.

The Kite Runner is a new addition to my list of favourites. The story of a deeply wounded heart. A heart that smiles nonetheless.

A Wrinkle in Time

It still surprises me that, as a child growing up, I never came across certain classics that have been the staple young children's imaginations for decades. For instance, I only discovered the Chronicles of Narnia in my late teens, the Lord of the Rings somewhere around the time the movies came out, and Madeleine L'engle and her stories...well, even later than both. I can't say why this has been the case, and I would really hate to blame it on my family.

Anyway, the last words I read with my head on my pillow last night before I closed my eyes were from A Wrinkle in Time. It is the story of the Murry family (comprising of Meg, Charles Wallace, the twins, and Mrs Murry) whose father has been missing for nearly two years. It is left to Meg, little Charles Wallace, and their new friend Calvin to rescue Mr Murry from the clutches of an evil entity in a distant (very distant) planet and bring him back home. They receive plenty of help from the mysterious triad delightfully known as Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which.

They travel by 'wrinkling' or 'tessering' through dimensions, and I won't bother to explain because I would do a very bad job of it. The book describes it quite sufficiently. What's important here is that they do travel, and in the course of their adventure, Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin are tested beyond their strengths, which means they win in the most unexpected way. In the end, it is left to Meg to pull things through and overcome the evil that seeks to destroy them all.

I had heard of this book and how good it was before I had read it, of course, which is why I was surprised by the writing style - simple, crisp, and straight to the point. But the fact that it is a story written for children makes perfect sense that it is written in this way (this made me realise that much of the literature out there today that we call Children's Literature is really literature written for adults). Furthermore, the writing does not get in the way of the story but rather propels it forward.

For a children's story, the characters are complex and come on strongly, particularly little Charles Wallace, whom I absolutely love but still don't understand, which is to be expected, since even his own mother does not fully understand him! The story is rich with metaphors and allusions to God and references to biblical scriptures.

What this book celebrates are the values that make us human - words, literature, music, art, wisdom, freedom, science - and the ways of a loving, sovereign, and powerful God. Whether there is a connection between the two, I'll leave that for you to decide. But I believe there is a connection, and that there would be nothing without this connection.

A simple, instant, and unpretentious classic that is truly deserving of the status it holds in the hearts of not only young book-lovers, but even older ones. After all, Madeleine L'engle believed that if something was too difficult for adults to understand, then you were to write it for children.

Quantum of Solace - What's So Not Solacing About It?

I watched Quantum of Solace two nights ago, after which I had to go back and rewatch Casino Royale to refresh my mind. Having done that, I can only end with the conclusion I had started out with in the very beginning, one that was still at that early stage, to me, a hypothesis, now confirmed.

Quantum of Solace has disappointed most of the movie-goers I've spoken to or have had the privilege of overhearing, and something tells me they're not the only ones. It could be for any number of reasons. I shared similar sentiments fresh out of the theatre, but I won't go so far as to say I was disappointed. At the very least, I was actually quite entertained; if Quantum of Solace is anything at all, it is an action movie in its own right. That aside, I have a few things to pick at, which I'm sure most fellow movie-goers would identify with.

Whatever heart Quantum of Solace may have aspired to have, I feel it was misplaced nevertheless. The story supposedly picks up from where Casino Royale left off, Bond hot on the tale of his lover's killer. We see a severely more ruthless Bond here, and probably the toughest Bond to ever streak across the screens of our imagination. His armour is fully back on, with avengeance, and he kills as easily as he breathes the air around him. Yet underneath that toughened, brazen armour is a centre still tender from his last brush with love - at least that's what the film tries to show. In my opinion, it doesn't come off too well. Bond seems to be more of an assassin than a spy, what with his careless and detached demeanour. The story as a whole (and one might add, the character even) seems so far removed from that of Casino Royale, and one finds herself asking from time to time, what is Bond after again in this film? Is it revenge, or is it the bad guys, or is it both? But it can't be both. What the filmmakers succeeded in doing is stuffing two plot lines, each with the full capacity of being a story on its own, into one film. Therefore, it feels overloaded, rushed, and even sometimes, contrived.

Overall, however, I believe the main weakness of Quantum of Solace (and that most probably perceived by audiences, hence their reactions) is simply that it follows after its predecessor and older brother, Casino Royale. The latter redefined the Bond series in a rather heart-wrenching way, leaving viewers with the bittersweet taste of something deep, meaningful, fresh, and unheard of. In all probability, this is what viewers were expecting a second time, but alas, they didn't get it. The James Bond of Quantum of Solace is completely different and unorthodox (by classic Bondian standards, of course), but Quantum of Solace itself seems to me a return to orthodoxy in terms of plot and character development. With so much to live up to, Quantum of Solace probably could have come at a better time (which of course would have been an impossibility).

Once again, an entertaining action film in its own right; but one that lives in the shadow of a bigger and more daring success.

Am I Not a Child?

Something I penned a few weeks ago in response to this picture, whose image has remained with me ever since I saw it about a couple years ago:

Am I not a child
Whose limbs are sticks,
Whose face is a mask
Of bones?
Why are my eyes like dice
That roll in my head,
Opening and closing,
A physical plea,
A pitiful cry for mercy,
And I pray they fall on any number
That will be the vision of my salvation,
And I close them, and when they open,
Still I remain as dead?
Am I not a child?
Then why must I worry about death
And food and vultures?
Do children not have fat cheeks
And laughing eyes
Or greasy lips and chins
That form mischievous grins?
Are children not restless
And naughty and bright
And sprightly?
Why does my open mouth
Do nothing but plead
For simple nourishment
If I am a child?
If I am a child,
Why am I alone?
Am I not a child?

Watership Down - The Quintissential Feast of Story

Who would have thought that a handful of rabbits would rise up in the vast field of literature and become heroes in the true sense of the word to me? Rabbits, not humans that look like rabbits, but rabbits that are truly rabbits. And what would make a man sit down and write a 500-page saga about rabbits roaming about in the English countryside? Well, something did stir Richard Adams, and the result is Watership Down, a novel that tells a story.

The story picks up without much ado and moves along, and for the first few pages, I tried to snuggle with the fact that the next 400+ pages I would read were about rabbits and nothing more. Seriously, what could be more boring than that? And how could you sustain a story like that for so long?

How wrong I was.

Richard Adams has taken the legend of the animal kindgom (I'm reminded of cunning Tortoise racing proud Hare to the finish line - yes, I grew up around such stories), crafted it around rabbits, and magnified it a hundred times. Thus, the story isn't simplistic. It is about a motley and unlikely group of rabbits trying to survive against all odds. But at its thematically simplest, the story is about leadership, and many a leader (man, not rabbit) would do well to pay attention and learn from these rabbits.

We meet Hazel-rah, the Chief Rabbit - brave, unsure, inexperienced, but wise and tactful. We meet Fiver - gentle, pensive, thoughtful, and clairvoyant. We meet Bigwig - strong, oppressive, fearless, and reckless. We meet Blackberry - intelligent, perceptive, and innovative. We meet Dandelion - fast, witty, and shy. I could go on and on; the point is that we meet a whole bunch of rabbits, each a distinctly drawn character, and we fall absolutely in love with them. We route for them, we hope for them, we laugh with them, we cry (for the record, I never cried while reading this book) with them, and we (believe it or not) enjoy the comforts of the burrow and the flavours of the grass and vegetables with them. Such is the life that is sparked into being in Watership Down.

This is an adventure that is sure to suck you in and never let you go - and in ways that even stories about humans never did. I promise you that. Adams takes his time in painting a summery portrait of the English countryside - what with all its plant-life (think figwort, loosestrife, fleabane) and birds and sounds (having been in England myself this past summer, I miss it all with nostalgic passion). And after having read of the exploits of Hazel and Bigwig, of the insights of Fiver, and of the speed of Blackberry and Dandelion, you will close the book with a big smile and think to yourself you are a better person for having read the book.

I know I did.