Note: I wrote this I guess at the beginning of 2019 lol, and haven’t edited it.

A brave new world.

Aldous Huxley

1932

A brave new world is a dystopian fiction by English writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley. Dystopian fiction is a category in fiction which depicts a bleak future. A future where things go wrong and the world is worse off. In this book he imagines a world where civilization has taken a giant leap, where science has finally managed to remove all pain from human life including old age and a world where everyone is “happy”. But the book revolves around Huxley’s argument, if one would like to live in such a world at all?

In Huxley’s world, the most of the world is civilized, however some parts of the world have refrained from being civilized. In these parts, people are still living the “uncivilized” life, there is disease and old age. The uncivilized world represents our present world to a large extent. People in the civilized world refer those of the uncivilized world as ‘savages’ and find them amusing. These savages, as they are called, live in regions known as ‘reservations’ which are like zoos. Here I personally felt a sharp pang of inhumanity the author wanted to depict in these “civilized” people. Treating fellow human beings as objects of amusement like animals, it seemed in perusing progress, people lost an important thing, humanity.

Another interesting aspect of the civilized world is the way they cure unhappiness. In Huxley’s world, people take ‘soma’ a miracle drug that cures unhappiness and makes you instantly feel good. People take these a lot as there is almost no place for sadness in the civilized world. People don’t ever deal with their life problems; if anything goes wrong, they take soma, feel good and forget. In a way this reminds me of our own world, I believe we have become too timid for the realities of life. There is always so many distractions on the internet, we can always loose ourselves in this vast ocean of cat videos and forget our responsibilities. But going through the pages, I thought, does happiness make sense if there is no sadness? When it comes so cheap with a pill. Hence, I think in the book, people, while perusing everlasting happiness, lost what actual happiness is.

Moreover, it took me by surprise when I learnt that people in civilized world ‘hate’ having deep relations. There ‘everyone belongs to everyone’, as they put it. To love someone is a taboo. To care for someone is a sign of madness in this world. Hence, probably the deepest of relationships, the relationship between a mother and a child is absolutely unacceptable. Hence, crazy enough, babies are not born the normal way in the civilized world. Here, babies are born in test tubes artificially fertilized. Hence, there is no family. On a level I think since there is pain in every meaningful relationship, say the pain of a loved one passing away, by rejecting the very concept the author freed the civilized world of this pain. Everyone is on their own, “happy” as they put it taking soma pills. This again reminds me of our present world where individualism is on the rise. Doing things on one’s own and being self-sufficient have become matters of great pride and achievements. But are we going to be happy doing that? Are we going to be fulfilled in a world where one has everything one needs but no one to share it with? I believe it’s a question Huxley wants us to ask ourselves.

It amazes me how, so much of Huxely predicted matches with our present situation and possibly our future. When we consider the fact that it was written almost 90 years ago is all the more reason to respect this brilliant mind!

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Throughout the book, Huxley makes us question ourselves, portraying such a vivid world using his amazing imaginative prowess. It is interesting how detailed the world building is and how the author manages to point out deep philosophical questions all while telling such a captivating story! However, I do think the writing could have been better, however that might be my inability to understand the language style used as the book was written long ago in the 30s! Also, the story at times gets fuzzy and feels stagnant. All in all, the book is pretty good and would recommend it to anyone who is looking to read some science fiction as well as something philosophical.

= )

To Kill a Mockingbird.

Written by Harper Lee and the winner of Pulitzer Prize.

To kill a mocking bird is a story about a young girl’s experience of the world. The book portrays the world as seen by the innocent minds of Scout and her elder brother Jem. A world of hatred, hypocrisy and inequality.

The book is special in the sense that it manages to bring the essence of childlike innocence to very serious topics such racial inequality in the united states. The whole premise of the book is how children, born with pure hearts, find the acts of the adult world, queer and even downright insane. It highlights the fact that, as we grow older we tend to lose our innocence and get corrupt by the myriad of experiences of the adult world.

The strength of the book lies in the fact that it brings childlike curiosity to the things that people take for granted. For example, little scout asks her father about the things that trouble her, things she heard at school or the neighborhood. For example, she asks her father why is it okay to hate Hitler when he mistreated Jews but okay for Miss Gates (her third grade teacher) to say that blacks needed to be taught a lesson, to make ’em learn their place, effectively mistreating blacks because of the color of their skins. Such questions, while being asked by a child, carry immense depth. It challenges the notions of the adult world, it challenges the status quo, it challenges our beliefs of what is right, how should things work. It forces us to explain our seemingly common acts with reason, which we, as adults fail to do so quite often.

Hence, the childlike innocence is the element of the book that makes it so special and impactful. The way Attrius (Scout’s father), struggles to answer her seemingly childlike questions speaks volumes about the way we, as people do irrational things. Her father, tells her and Jem; “had there been children in the jury, instead of men whose eyes are blinded by their prejudice, a black man could have a chance of justice, else he is guilty the moment he is convicted.” This line form the book personally touched me the most, for we adults lose the ability to step in one’s shoes, we slowly become void of empathy, the same empathy that is the unique to humans. In essence, we cease to become human, we become dead in our hearts as we grow old. In the context of the book, the jury, while knowing the man’s innocence, decides to label a black man guilty of the crimes he did not commit. This outrages Jem and Scout, who as children are not yet corrupted by willful ignorance, but is casually accepted the adults in the courthouse, who are corrupt beyond repair by the society and it’s irrational norms which poison one’s mind to see differences in that, which is the same.

So in conclusion, this is a special book. The way the author manages tell the story through the perspective of a child makes the story funny, insightful and deeply impactful. I can only imagine how she managed to bring the innocence of children so gracefully to the story she wrote, it is quite an remarkable feat. With that being said, this is an awfully good book that one must not miss out on.  

Kafka on the shore. 

I killed my own father and slept with my mother and sister. 

Kafka on the shore is a book, that I could probably never describe… because I don’t understand it myself. It’s a novel by the Japanese novelist, Hakuri Murakami. 

This book is strange, it’s weird yet utterly fascinating. Someone on the internet wrote, “It’s a book that takes you on a LSD trip” and I can’t argue with that (not that I have done LSD myself, mind you lol), it’s so strange that nothing makes sense, yet so beautiful that you keep coming back to it. This book embodies a genre of fiction called, “surreal fiction”, and as you can guess my brief description of it, it lives up to its name.Fiction in itself is imaginary (not real), now put a fictional book on drugs: that is Kafka on the shore. 

I have, a bit of a personal history with this book. I wasn’t looking for this book, I came across it on a whim while looking for something to read at my cousin’s home (he was an avid reader back in the day, and has a huge collection of books). There it was, on that dusty bookshelf, squeezed between books just like it; waiting to be picked up by someone… anyone in years, since they had be touched by the warm hands of a reader on their old, fading bodies (damn that was almost poetic lol). And well, I could have picked any book to read, there were hundreds of them, but I chose this one. 

“Bad choice”. 

My cousin had said. I was like, “well, um it’s just a book… why?”. Then he told me, actually warned me, that I was not old enough to read this book. I, being a dumb-ass teenager that I was back then, thought he was just trying to scare me and make me look like a pussy. So, as you could imagine, his words had the opposite effect, and I became adamant that I borrow this book for the summer. He, being the older cousin he is, reluctantly let me borrow it (mind you, he had never told me “not to read” anything before… only this time…), and I finally got the “forbidden” book, you might say lol. But all the while I was taking my prized possession home that day, I kept thinking, “why did he tell me, not to read this book?“

Then sure enough, I found out why. 

I killed my own father and slept with my mother and sister. 

I started reading this book in the holidays after my grade 10 exams. I was maybe, 17 back then? Well, 17 is too young an age, an age when I was accustomed to reading action novels, where the hero always wins (with the help of the usual suspects of course, some magic and cool gadgets lol). You know… simple stuff, but not this. This book was way out of my league. In the first chapter of the book, the author talks about a curse, which bounds the fifteen year old Kafka Tamura to a horrendous destiny; He is destined to murder this own father and have sex with his own mother and sister. Whoa, whoa, whoa! hold on a second. That’s everything a young man should not be reading about lol. The introduction, had everything a “good” book should not have; it had taboo, explicit sex and violence. But you know, as they say, the forbidden fruit looks the most delicious (I mean, didn’t Adam and Eve eat the ‘apple’?), that made the book all the more exciting for me ;  )

So there I was, with the weirdest, book I had ever held in my life up until that time; ready to read, read to explore what this book with strange covers had inside. So, I took a deep breath, and dove right into it. 

Then everything started getting fuzzy and my head started spinning….

As I kept reading, the deeper I went into the story, the weirder it got. Everything was fine until… a mentally impaired old man who had been traumatized by the Hiroshima atomic blast in his childhood days started talking to cats in his neighborhood, fish started raining from the sky, someone had sex with an imaginary ghost prostitute, the spirit of Colonel Sanders (you know the guy who’s face is on KFC chicken) started roaming around Japan as a pimp, dead soldiers from second world war started guarding some strange door in a forest…. and more. I couldn’t take it. This book was way too strange for me to comprehend what was happening. Things moving left to right, metaphors after metaphors, parallel story lines, hidden meaning behind seemingly trivial events that I could not decipher. This book made my head spin. It was like that red pill in the Matrix movie, I took it, but perhaps I was not ready for it. 

My cousin was right after all (well as he should be, he is smarter and way more mature than me lol).

And so, tho I didn’t want to quit, I decided to give up halfway through. I learnt my lesson and with deep bitterness, returned the book like any good cousin should. 

A year passed by. Grade 11 rolled into my life lol. 

But I still couldn’t get that book out of my head. 

Remember I said that that this book is so strange and confusing, yet so beautiful that you keep coming back to it? So it was it’s beauty that didn’t let me move on, that kept pulling my heartstrings all the while I was trying to forget it… and guided me back to it again; in the winter break of my first year of high school, after one year, to my cousin’s home asking for that same book that gave me so much trouble the last time I laid my hands on it. I was hooked on Murakami’s words, I had to complete the story. I had to see where fate leads Kafka. I had to do it… for my own sake.

So after a full year’s break, with a fresh mindset and hopefully a bit more maturity (tho I am pretty sure I was equally stupid back then too lol), I held Kafka on the shore, once again. This time, I was determined to get through it, not get distracted by the intricate illusions and surreal happenings, that had lured me the last time I read the book, just as one lures a child with candy. Lured into oblivion. This time, I was determined to stick with the story. This time, I was determined to not let go of Kafka’s hand, as he runs… runs from his home, runs from his life, runs from this world, runs till his legs can’t, runs to escape that horrible curse, to escape his destiny. 

The curse. 

I killed my own father and slept with my mother and sister. 

I imagine how destiny dooms Kafka. He runs. He runs as far as can, as fast as he possibly can but, is destiny something you can outrun? This is the whole premise of the book I believe. Murakami plays on our fears that destiny is all encompassing, that fate is unavoidable, and the no matter what you do in your life, you have no control over that, which is inevitable; the destiny which is written on the pages of your fate, the moment you were born. But Kafka knows his destiny, and so he runs, desperately hoping to avoid doing the unspeakable, to avoid doing what his destiny demands him to do. To kill his own father and fuck his own mother and sister. (Talk about being called a motherfucker and sisterfucker for the rest of your life lol, literally). And on his lonely journey, he meets people; people whom he had never met, people who have stories of joy and sorrow of their own. He does things, things he had never done and goes to places which he had never seen. He changes as a person, and you as a reader become a part of his journey, a part of his change. It’s an experience like no other. 

So, what does Kafka do? Does he manage to outrun his destiny, which slowly creeps on him no matter how fast he runs? Or does he succumb to his fate, accepts the inevitable and does the despicable?

That… you need to read and find out ;  )

So that’s the story: Kafka’s story. And well… that’s my story as well; my strange relationship with this strange book. 

Kafka isn’t real, nor is his story. But, this book has been a real influence in my life.

Kafka was just 15 when he ran from his home. He was alone in that vast world, with no clue of what to do next (after all he is just a teenager). But he ran away from home regardless of what lay ahead in that crazy world of his. He met new people, he made new friends, some of whom even helped him. He did queer jobs to buy food. He moved from one place to another on his own. He stayed humble, and thankful to those who helped him. There is one quote in the book, where the voice in Kafka’s head which he calls, the boy named crow, reminds Kafka, “My point is: in this whole wide world the only person you can depend on is you”.  The boy named crow, tells Kafka to be stronger, because if he is on his own. And Kafka becomes stronger as he pushes past difficult times. Even tho he is a teenager, he forces himself to become a man. He has no family to depend on. No one to stay and console him with his emotional troubles. He takes his journey himself, and tries to fix his broken soul, with none to do it for him. He literally stays in a forest wood cabin all by himself, in the middle of nowhere (and I get scared when I hear a sound in the middle of the night lol). He is independent.

And so I compared myself to Kafka. I am no where as strong as he is. I am dependent of everyone and everything. I have all the things that Kafka didn’t have, yet I am weaker than him. Kafka became an inspiration for me. I wanted to be strong, strong like Kafka. 

And off I went to a foreign country, where people speak a language I do not understand. Where I am literally on my own (tho not as much as Kafka), where I have to think about things I had never thought about, like monthly food budget, buying clothes, taking care of myself, going to the doctor, not offending people, respecting another culture and more. I wanted be alone, just so that I could become more like Kafka. 

This book has literally shaped some of my most important life decisions, and I am thankful that I got to meet Kafka (tho it was in my imagination lol). 

Who says fiction isn’t important in life? ;  )

Cheers.

= )

#btw I did finish the book if you were wondering, tho I still don’t understand ‘most’ of it lol. ;  )

Some books, you read for fun.

Others, you read because you have to.

And then there are some that change you as a person.

This is one of those books.

I don’t usually write book reviews. Mainly because they turn out to be long and take a lot of thinking. It’s serious effort. But something about this book, which I read almost 4 years ago, made me do it. I felt in debt to the author of this book for writing it, and I felt like I have to do my part to repay him by letting people know about this book. Also thank you to my cousin for letting me borrow this book in the summer of 2016. It was the one of the best things I’ve ever read.

The white tiger is a book written by someone called Aravind Adiga. He is an Indian writer. This is his first novel. 

The book tells a story; a story like no other.

It’s a story about struggle, poverty and morality. It’s a story that puts a mirror in front of you makes you reflect on yourself. It’s a story that puts a bitter pill of truth in your mouth and forces you to swallow it. It’s a story that reflects the lives of millions of people, with no filter or sugarcoating, and depicts a true portrayal of our society. It’s a story that speaks the facts, yet it’s fictional. It’s a story that makes you feel, uncomfortable. 

 It’s a story about a man’s life, his hopes and aspirations, his despicable circumstances, his rise to a better life, and what he had to do get there. It’s the story of a man, born in one of those dirt poor villages of Bihar; where kids run naked among buffaloes, where the walls are full of urine stains and paan spits, where you go to the fields to shit in the morning and a place where women exist for two things; to cook and to fuck. A place where the notion of a great life is to have a wife and enough food to survive for your family. It’s a place where kids don’t go to school. A place where exploitation and bribery are the norm. It’s a place where if your father had buffalo, then you have a buffalo and your son will have a buffalo, and the buffalo will be barely enough for your family to survive for generations to come, because there is nothing else to do. A place so hopeless that there is no sight of an opportunity as far as the eye can see. A place so full of darkness that people don’t dream, because the audacity to dream is engulfed by the bitter realities of your surrounding. It’s a place where people are happy just to be alive. A place where people are not sure if they will get their next meal or not. A place where people live like cockroaches, eating the leftovers and too scared to look at the bright ray of HOPE for a better life. A place, where people don’t even realize that, somewhere out there, there is something better than the shit that they were born into. 

It’s a story of a man, who, against all odds possible, choose to DREAM of a better life.

A man who did whatever it took to get to his dream. A man who always looked at himself as a man despite living like a dog. A man who chose to go out there and get himself the life he truly believed he deserved, because the good life is not handed to you by the mercy of gods but is snatched from the hands of those who have it. A man who was truly selfish, shamelessly immoral and downright filthy. But a dreamer nonetheless. A man who did the unspeakable to get what he wanted. 

It’s a story about million others, who are born in a similar place of poverty and hopelessness. 

It’s a story worth reading. 

After reading the book, it made me question my life. My circumstances. My middle class family and the opportunities that I have in my life, which to so many people is a thing of their dreams. It made me realize how fortunate I am to have a family that looks after me and the school I go to everyday. It made me acknowledge my blessings in life, and made me realize that there are so many people out there who have way less than what I have. It taught me about the lives of millions of people who live in despicable conditions, whose only fault was to be born poor. It made me question my moral compass. What’s right and what’s wrong? And if the lines get blurred if your circumstances force you to do things you would have never wanted to do. It taught me why poverty forces good people to do bad things. And lastly, it taught me the value of a dream, and why so many people don’t dream.

A dream of something better than what they were born with. 

It’s a story of a man, who despite being born into nothing but poverty and despair, had the audacity to hope. 

=  ) 

Note: While writing this, about the time it was almost completed, something happened with my computer and half of my writing suddenly disappeared. So I had to rewrite it again. So yeah, life sucks at times.