Read It: We The Living

"Kira Argounova entered Petrograd on the threshold of a box car. She stood straight, motionless, with the graceful indifference of a traveler on a luxurious ocean liner, with an old blue suit of faded cloth, with slender sunburned legs and no stockings. She had an old piece of plaid silk around her neck and short tousled hair, and a stockingcap with a bright yellow tassel. She had a calm mouth and slightly widened eyes with a defiant, enraptured, solemnly and fearfully expectant look of a warrior who is entering a strange city and is not quite sure whether he is entering it as a conqueror or a captive." 

Amidst the bleak surroundings that follow the Russian Revolution and faced with an unforeseeable future, Kira Argounova’s goal is to pursue excellence. Her aim is to storm the male bastion of engineering, to march into life like a Viking hero. And for this life "which is a reason unto itself", she is prepared to do anything, even to go with the communist way of life that she doesn’t believe in until she equips herself to fight it back. Kira is but one of the three protagonists. Through Leo, a free spirit like Kira and Andrei, an idealist, a communist party worker the novel brings to light the other tenets to the communist regime and dilemmas dogging the people.

According to Ayn Rand We The Living is the closest to her autobiography, and this is fairly apparent from the details it delves into. The writing transports you to Russia in the 1920s, the inequality, the treatment meted out to erstwhile bourgeois, the glaring poor state of affairs in general. And each of the three main characters strikes a chord. Kira is one of my favourite characters ever; her loyalty to life irrespective of what it throws at her and of how loved ones betray her. The way she sticks to her beliefs through to the end is simply awe-inspiring. “A moment or an eternity—did it matter? Life, undefeated, existed and could exist.” 

The book is different from Rand's other works in that the characters (the leads and the many other small yet vital ones) are alive and telling us a tale from post revolution Russia. That is, unlike Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead in which characterization is a sheer prop for philosophy and which are replete with lengthy sermons that can be unnerving if you don’t feel the same way (or as much) as Rand about individuality. I know this is precisely why many people stay away from her books. But I’d recommend reading We The Living for the story it narrates, just follow its wonderfully etched characters and take away what you wish to. This book doesn’t preach and it deserves a fair chance - no matter what you think of Rand’s philosophy.

Link to Amazon 
Wikipedia

Read It Series

Being an avid reader and loving to write, it seems obvious in hindsight that I should have put these two together and kept a journal of sorts for the books that I've read or at least those that I love. It's those new perspectives, thoughts that a book rouses in you right when you've put it down that matter the most. Later on, you already are a changed person for the reading and it won't add as much value. Nevertheless, that isn't going to stop me from venturing to write about some of the books that have made an impact, lingered long after the last page was turned.

Book lovers in general go into a frenzy while visiting book shops, wanting to gather them all. Strangely that isn't the case with me, I'd want to read it all, sure. But buying them all? The minimalist in me would press the panic buttons and I'd mostly surrender the stage to the obsessed self without even realizing it. But if I did let myself buy all the books [not relying only on gifts and the relatively rare self-treats] that I love, which ones would they be? That is the guideline for the books that will make it in this Read It series (aka Wishlist), sort of a list of Must Reads. Watch this space! 

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

Published by Phoenix. 216 pages

Books open up different possibilities, take one into lives that we'd otherwise not experience. And many like this one challenge our habitualised perceptions and cause one to pause and take notice. 

Fifteen year old Michael Berg's chance meeting with Hanna Schmitz, an older woman who had helped him when he was ill, soon leads to an affair. He spends a lot of time with her, blames himself for any fight that springs up between them. Hanna however is a closed book, irritable and loving in turns and very eager to have Micheal read to her. Then one day she just disappears. All this has a huge impact on young Michael who takes upon himself the guilt for the way things turned out. Years later when he's in law school, Michael sees Hanna at a trial for war crimes and learns that she had been a guard at the Auschwitz camp. The guilt and anger at his parent's generation for being mere spectators to the Holocaust and so passively aiding it, is only enhanced by this discovery. He learns things about Hanna during the trial, some that pain him more and some that could actually help clear her of certain false charges. And that's all I can mention without revealing more of the plot. 

So The Reader is about .. adolescence, relationships, the German guilt about the Final Solution. An analysis of post war Germany, of society during Nazi rule and its impact on future generations. It does this in a straightforward manner. So while it isn't a Holocaust novel, this book attempts to address the aftermath. The narrative is from Michael's perspective, so we never learn why Hanna made certain choices, or get access to her consciousness except through the few direct conversations. We 'know' the Holocaust visually through movies like Schindler's List and through Anne Frank's journal, fiction like The Book Thief. A POV from the other side, like that of SS guards like Hanna or of ordinary stoic German citizens who lived through it all is what I'd like to read about.

It's a well written book anyway, simple style yet complex for the issues it talks about. One to be read and discussed rather than be reviewed.

Excerpts

I didn't like the way I looked, the way I dressed and moved, what I achieved and what I felt I was worth. But there was so much energy in me, such belief that one day I'd be handsome and clever and superior and admired, such antipication when I met new people and new situations. Is that what makes me sad? The eagerness and belief that filled me then and exacted a pledge from life that life could never fulfill?
~

Regaining my confidence had nothing to do with success; every goal I set for myself, every recognition I craved made anything I actually did seem paltry by comparison, and whether I experienced it as a failure or triumph was utterly dependent on my mood.
~

Never to let myself be humiliated or humiliate myself after Hanna, never to take guilt upon myself or feel guilty, never again to love anyone whom it would hurt to lose [...] I adopted a posture of arrogant superiority. I behaved as if nothing could touch, shake or confuse me.
~

'Did you not know that you were sending the prisoners to their death?'
'Yes, but the new ones came, and the old ones had to make room for the new ones.'
'So because you wanted to make room, you said you and you and you have to be sent back to be killed?'
Hanna didn't understand what the presiding judge was getting at. 
'I..I mean..so what would you have done?' Hanna meant it as a serious question.

Mahashweta by Sudha Murthy

Published by East West Books (Madras) Pvt. Ltd. Pages: 171

One of the stories in Sudha Murthy's book 'Wise and Otherwise', a collection of the author's articles based on real life incidents, is that of a young man who retracts his engagement to the girl he loves because she had developed leukoderma. He later realizes his folly and marries her, the eye-opener being this book 'Mahashweta'. (The article 'A Wedding to Remember' is also published as Postscript in the edition I read)

That this book inspired a change for good in real lives speaks volumes about the  message it carries. We still live in a society that sets a lot of stock in external beauty, that in this age of information still ostracizes people with certain diseases. Anupama's life turns a full circle from acting in a play titled 'Mahashweta' (based on a work by Bana Bhata) to becoming Mahashweta (meaning White One in sanskrit) in real life. Anupama is an educated, bold, confident girl yet she is aware that the tiny white patch that first appears on her feet could just change her life. But nothing could've prepared her for the reaction of her orthodox in-laws, her vexed father and more than everything else her husband's diffidence and indifference. How she goes on to regain her strength, her vivacious old self despite the despair that surrounds her, which almost pushed her to consider death, is what this story is about.

The character sketches are drawn out well and the circumstances realistic. Yet there are certain dramatic lines that just don't fit with the characters or are plain senseless. Like when Anand says,
'Anu, the other day you gave me tickets and today I am giving you my heart. Please keep it safe.'
What sort of an absurd comparison is this??
Or when he says, ..'Anu, in my blood there is no haemoglobin. There is only a substance called Anupama.'
It's just so film-like and out of place.
And when Anupama worries about her husband's faithfulness it just is not her, it isn't becoming of the sensible girl we've read her to be. 
Her husband was going to an unknown country, and people had been making malicious comments that she could not ignore. 'One can have a wife here and another there as well. It seems white girls are very aggressive', they said. Anupama was afraid that something untoward could happen.

These instances are few, just that one would expect a writer like Sudha Murthy to translate or convey better. The book is written in very simple English, some lines appear like almost a literal translation from Kannada or very Indian-English-ish. But in a book with a strong social message like this I guess the simpler the language the better, for more is the reach and understanding across the society.

Definitely enjoyed reading this book, following the strong female protagonist's journey through misfortunes. Atleast she was equipped with education, what about women from poor, ignorant families who don't even have this lifeline? Hope this book (and many others) will sensitise people regarding their outlook on appearances and this "cosmetic" disease.