The Dragonfly Pool

By Eva Ibbotson (Country: Austria)

Published by Macmillan UK, 2009; pages 398

Spent a good part of yesterday in Devon and Bergania, was very disappointed to see it come to an end.

London is bracing itself for the war (WW II), James Hamilton decides to send his daughter to a boarding school in the country so that she’d be safe. Talitha (Tally) Hamilton is a very good natured eleven-year old and isn’t happy about parting from her dad, her two aunts and the familiar neighborhood but she comes to terms with it as she has to.

Delderton and its students turn out to be very different from the posh prep schools that Tally had read about to know what to expect. Students are free to do and learn as they want to. Tally is very empathetic girl, makes friends quickly and very soon to her own surprise starts loving the place. Delderton gets an invite to participate in a folk dance festival in fictitious Bergania. And Tally having only recently seen a travelogue on Bergania and being extremely taken by the country and its king –who refused to let Hitler’s troops to march through his country– convinces the Principal to let them participate. 

Tally and her friends come up with the Flurry Dance which gets them to Bergania, they meet children from different European countries, visit around the city. Tally incidentally meets the crown prince Karil and they become friends by the Dragonfly Pool. However things fall apart, the German children are sent back on orders from Gestapo. Tragedy befalls Bergania when Nazis assassinate their King, and the crown prince disappears. The Deldertonians with help from the other children manage to get Karil outside Bergania. But the adventure has only just started... 

Eva Ibbotson mentions that Delderton Hall is based on a school she was sent to when her family fled to England (from Vienna when Hitler took power). But to me Delderton is as much a fantasy as Hogwarts. It’s a progressive school where children get to be themselves and do as they please; where they learn drama, biology, art, life in radical ways with the countryside providing a perfect setting to their daily adventures. Children see adults for what they are – just older beings with their own weaknesses, talents and not as controlling know-alls.  

The author portrays characters by choosing just the right incidents to put forth. Like, you see how involved Tally’s aunts are with her life – when as a kid they take her to see lambs in the Park just so she’d know how to act like one in Baby Jesus’s manger. And, when they go all about London to trace works that Clemmy, Tally’s art teacher cum Delderton chef had modeled for. Ibbotson’s characters are simply delightful - all the children, the eccentric teachers, Pom Pom the last Outer Mongolian pedestal dog .. even the villains and the cruel Duke leave a mark. 
The Dragonfly Pool was an endearing tale filled with drama and adventure and though it is categorized as Historical Fiction for children (that way, it would be best suited for little girls, Tally would make the perfect role model), it would be a comforting read for all ages. Overall, this was one happy story set in the war time and a very welcome break from the war time tales I’ve read recently.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

By Milan Kundera

Harper Perennial Modern Classics, pages 314.

Country: Czech Republic

'The Unbearable..' doesn’t have a set plot; rather the novel focuses on each character’s perspective and thinking than on a storyline. The author starts by exploring the principle of eternal return - as per which life that does not repeat is like a shadow, it means nothing. If only something is to recur eternally does it gain weight. This leads to the question of lightness versus weight - is it better to stay free, independent, wild in one’s choices or let yourself be burdened by commitments, responsibilities? This is what the author sets to explore through his characters – one who is completely light, another burdened by the weight, one experiencing the best of both and so on. So this book has a lot to do with philosophy.

As for the exact premise of the novel, I’ll just put up the blurb here. (The story is set in Prague in around 1968 at the time of Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia)

A young woman (Tereza) in love with a man (Tomas) torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing one of his mistresses(Sabina) and her humbly faithful lover(Franz)--these are the two couples whose story is told in this masterful novel. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel "the unbearable lightness of being" not only as the consequence of our private actions, but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.

The book is divided into seven parts, each with chapters sometimes as short as half a page - so the ideas though many and varied are presented fairly well. Sometimes a part focuses on Tomas’s perspective and the next part recounts the same events seen by Tereza and so on for the other two main characters.

At the start of the novel, the German saying ‘Einmal ist keinmal’ which means that what happens once might as well not have happened at all (!) is brought up– and though you may not (or because you don’t) agree with this, curiosity takes you forward. The narrating style, interesting tidbits thrown in (I posted this excerpt earlier) makes it easy in the beginning. There is a part titled ‘Words misunderstood’ where the author brings out how we mean different things when we use the same words – this was the best part in the book.

However, towards the second half of the book, ideas are only mentioned in passing and there are many such. I don’t really understand why the author dwells so much on kitsch or rather the way he dwells on it in part six, “A Grand March”. Does he mention anything that adds more value to the actually plot that follows in this part?

There is a jumble of ideas presented. For example, the author talks about selfless love and why it’s possible for us to love animals unconditionally. He then says, ‘happiness is the longing for repetition’ (?!) (like in a dog’s life), whereas human time runs ahead in a straight line and so we are doomed to be unhappy! I wrote this post (and the aforementioned excerpt) when I was a few chapters into the novel – the admiration didn’t last to the end, got diluted in the maze.

While I’m glad I read this (it’s a fresh perspective), having just read 1984 before this, I could’ve timed it differently - given the similarities with the history of Czechoslovakia at the time of the novel (around 1968).

Would I recommend this book? I’m not sure if most people would like it, I’d suggest heading over to the Amazon reviews which will be more helpful. And if you have read this book, I'd love to hear how you liked it!

Strength of etymology

An excerpt from Milan Kundera’s ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’.

The novel is set in Prague in around 1961, weaves history – the Russian invasion in 1968 -- and philosophy into the storyline - which has so far been well interspersed with such insights, thoughts.

All languages that derive from Latin form the word "compassion" by combining the prefix "with" (com-) and the root meaning "suffering" (Late Latin, passio). In other languages - Czech, Polish, German, and Swedish for instance - this word is translated by a noun formed of an equivalent prefix combined with the word that means "feeling" (Czech, sou-cit; Polish współ-czucie; German Mit-gefühl; Swedish med-känsla).

In languages that derive from Latin, "compassion" means: we cannot look on coolly as others suffer; or, we symphathize with those who suffer. Another word with approximately the same meaning, "pity" (French pitié; Italian piéta; etc.), connotes a certain condescension towards the sufferer. "To pity on a woman" means that we are better off than she, that we stoop to her level, lower than ourselves.

That is why the word "compassion" generally inspires suspicion; it designates what is considered inferior, second-rate sentiment that has little to do with love. To love someone out of compassion means not really to love.

In languages that form the word "compassion" not from the root "suffering" but from the root word "feeling," the word is used in approximately the same way, but to contend that it designates a bad or inferior sentiment is difficult.

The secret strength of its etymology floods the word with another light and gives it a broader meaning: to have compassion (co-feeling) means not only to be able to live with the other's misfortune but also to feel with him any emotion - joy, anxiety, happiness, pain. This kind of compassion (in the sense of soucit; współczucie; Mitgefühl; medkänsla) therefore signifies the maximal capacity of affective imagination, the art of emotional telepathy. In the hierarchy of sentiments, then, it is supreme.

1984

Author: George Orwell

Pages: 312

It is 1984 – maybe it is 1984, England is now Airstrip One and the world is divided into three super states - Oceania, Eurasia, Eastasia. London is ruled by the Party, headed by Big Brother. The Party slogan is “War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength” but will have to change once Newspeak (as opposed to Oldspeak or English as we know it) is made the official tongue. Newspeak was created mainly by eliminating words that the Party feels are redundant (bad is now ungood, better is plus good and so on), or words which lead people to think unorthodox thoughts.(why have a word if what it depicts is prohibited or rather what better way to avoid unorthodoxy than by removing the handle to it).

Inhabitants of Oceania are monitored all the time through telescreens (two way televisions), follow a set routine starting with the wake-up call for Exercise every morning. They indulge together in Two Minute Hate everyday to focus all their anger towards Emmanuel Goldstein (who is said to be the Party’s enemy) and his principles. Then there is the Thought Police whose duty is to weed out and ‘vaporize’ anyone entertaining unorthodox thought; they patrol around in helicopters peeking right into apartment windows.

London society is divided into the Inner Party, the Outer Party, the Proletariat. The Inner Party is a minority, form the core leadership, enjoy privileges (such as the power to turn off their telescreen). The Outer Party members follow in the hierarchy and work in one of the four ministries (of Truth, Peace, Love, Plenty). The only class left unaffected by the advent of the Party after the revolution is the Proletariat. The ‘proles’ are treated as animals, believed to be harmless to the party and the nature of things in 1984 because all through history they have been too busy dealing with day to day hurdles to look at the big picture.

The protagonist Martin Smith is an Outer Party member and works in the Ministry of Truth. His work involves rewriting old newspaper articles and documents based on the present, erasing records of those who are unpersons and suchlike. Martin is thirty nine and still has vague memories of his childhood in a whole different world. He still feels, has the ability to think for himself, see through the blatant lies that the Party conjures up. Through the course of the story, he learns (or rather confirms) the truth behind the world in 1984.

While I agree with the social theory presented in the novel, a part of me wants to disbelieve that a sham of this order is ever possible and another part brings forth thoughts of Stalin’s Russia, Hitler’s Germany. (In fact I was reminded of We The Living when I was about a page into this book).

1984 constructs an imaginary negative utopia, is a cautionary tale against totalitarianism. It presents a depressing view of humanity, goes on to show that transformation of societies for the worse needn’t come only through ideologies like communism. Industrialization, the mechanized world as we know it now can very well lead to the same end.

Off you go if you want to know more about this book.

A Christmas Carol

Author: Charles Dickens

Pages: 114

How does one write a review for classics, the old ones especially - and one by Dickens, a tale this simple and familiar at that? Well, here goes -

A Christmas Carol is about how one Christmas Eve miserly Ebenezer Scrooge changes his ways thanks to a visit from the ghost of his late business partner Jacob Marley. Through three Spirits that visit him in a last attempt to help him change for the better, Scrooge peeks into Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Be.

First he is taken down the memory lane to see himself as a boy, a young man, an adult and sees how the loss of his values and hope had changed his life forever. He regrets the way he has turned to right from the first visit he pays to his past. And sees how his grumpiness and miserliness affects people around him, all this when he could very well do much to help.

In Christmas Present he sees people all around – his poor clerk Bob Cratchit, his nephew and many others across different strata of the society- creating for selves and loved ones a special day out of nothing materialistic- with just the simplicity of mind and each other’s company. As he treads this path with the second spirit he gets taken to the brink of what life could have been with his childhood love if only he had been different; without dwelling much on this, he vows to change himself.

Before he contemplates further a dark, unspeaking ghost -very different from the earlier two- of the future comes along and takes him through the horror of what future holds.

The tale covers Dickens' favored themes of poverty (Dickens wrote the book in six weeks to pay off a debt!), inequality; to me it is also about having the courage to change -even if it requires you to start out on your beliefs from scratch- however long into the play one might be. Regret over the lost years, possibilities that could’ve arisen from a different self, the parallel universes that might have been real are often the results of introspection when it really should be daring.

We had an extract from this book for one of the middle school non-detailed lessons. The portion covered was from Christmas Present with the Cratchits. Having read the book just now, I still find this part with the Cratchits the most delightful of the story. Of course, Scrooge’s enthusiasm does get to one towards the end when he just can’t stop chuckling!

"Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail."

“It is required of every man ... that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.”

Lord of the Flies

Author: William Golding

Pages: 230

Lord of the Flies is an allegorical novel about a group of schoolboys on an island. The boys aged from six to around twelve are the only survivors of a plane-crash; they eventually group up, elect a Chief, set rules and begin exploring the island. And so starts their new life with the glamour of adventure, freedom from the grownups and from civilization. The boys are hopeful of being rescued and decide to start a fire so that a ship passing by can pick out the smoke.  

However, soon the fragile system that the boys attempted to set in place falls apart. There are instances initially where some of the boys take advantage of being away from the watchful eyes of adults and get into real mischief. This blows up later aided by absolute power in the wrong hands. Fear and ego take over; in the game of survival the boys find themselves against each other.  

The author gives us four main characters – Ralph, Piggy, Jack and Simon. Each different in his way - Jack, ever possessive about his group (the choir) and focused on having fun through hunting. Piggy is the thinker who never manages to convert his thoughts to action, sometimes a grown-up almost when compared with the rest. Ralph treads the middle path in wanting to work hard to a system in place while having fun and he tries to get the rest to do the same – in vain. And Simon who is insightful, an introvert, childlike and who the other boys find ‘batty’.  

The book is extremely descriptive – of the island, the surroundings, etc. the pace is irregular, mostly slow. The story telling, character portrayals, symbolisms take you forward. I can’t say I particularly enjoyed reading this book; it focuses on a disturbing side of human nature - not an incorrect picture, just a disturbing one.  

I’ve wanted to read this book for awhile now mainly due to the innumerable references to it – in other novels (the most recent one being Fraction of the Whole), Iron Maiden’s song, and so I’m glad I finally read it. I liked Golding’s style and will lookout for his other works. 

This is my first (and unplanned) read for the Classics Challenge! Have you read this book, how did you like it?