I finished reading one of the shittiest books I’ve read in a long time. It’s so vile I feel a public responsibility in warning people about it. It’s called the “Mistress of Spices* by Chitra Bannerjee. This is going to be the lastessssttttt time I ever judge a book by it’s name or attractively packaged cover. Had I been less of a book addict I may have taken the time to read the utterly insipid gruel of a blurb on the back but I just wanted enough books to make myself eligible for a Saeed Book Bank discount card (this being the shopping trip where I was chased from aisle to aisle by a good-looking Afro-American chap, an opinion I changed rapidly after his intense peering from the other side of the same aisle startled me into falling on my ittle wittle butt). It was the only rotten apple in my cart (the book, not the guy, I don’t shop for boys.Yet) and I am thoroughly disturbed at spending my meager gold coins on it. Retail therapy gone wonky. The book was AWFUL.AWFUL *closes her eyes and lets the spasms of horror pass* I knew it would have some claptrap about immigrant sadness (because that is every eastern author’s cash cow) but dear God, I’m not picky about plot lines, if you throw me a good one, fantastic, but if you don’t and if your writing style is good enough to synapse scenescapes in my head, I’ll still drink to you. The book was peppered with zabardasti kay (forced) metaphors, ailing language, inadequate vignettes but I finished it inspite of the writing and storyline because an unfinished book is a sad ass book and liable to upset the books it’s housed with. I’m going to try and pawn this book off at the second hand old book shops.
My library is burgeoning as ever Mashallah. I really want to get my hands on a hardback of the Chronicles of Narnia (I only have paper back here) and all of Joan Didion’s books. Adnan helpfully sent me on a whole spree of Lahore outlets of Ferozsons searching for “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Didion because he said he espied with his silly, obviously misguided and inebriated eye a Didion amidst the books somewhere there. Also want Sylvia Plath’s poems in ONE BOOK. Also want want want want froufrou of first editions in my library. They make for such dreamy, precious gifts. Want, wantier, wanting, wantingest = def. Unbearably constipated state of wanting.
Bookmarks I have used
1. Daewoo tickets
2. PIA boarding card flaps
3. Tapal chai cards (you know the ones that are used to firm the top of Tapal tea packs?)
4. Tissue paper, toilet roll (probably the worst, get compressed easily, can’t indicate the place of marking to save their lives)
5. Mickey Mouse bookmarks
6. Embroidered bookmarks (pink one with red clover leaves on it)
7. Steel-like rectangular bookmarks
8. Torn newspaper corners
9. Barrettes (most effective, because they open directly you pick the book)
10. Jafferjees leather jade coloured bookmark, with my name lettered in beautiful gold letters (a present from a very understanding ex, one which I have lost, and all of a sudden I’m VERY UPSET about misplacing it)
Bus, bahut ho gaya. I must look for it.
19 comments:
I had a similar experience with "Young turk". I have to kick this habit of picking up random books, it's hardly ever is worth it.
Vernon God little was decent though. Everything is illuminated was great, or at least i really like the author's writing style.
vernon god little was really good because it was so oppressive that i couldn't get past the first twenty-or-so pages. i was going to self-combust and asphyxiate, but happily because it was damned funny. but kudos for atmosphere, yo.
barettes are awful bookmarks, kitaab chirr jaati hai. nastyyyy. shudder.
I liked Vernon God Little but it became too remniscient of Catcher in the Rye somewhere in the middle and I found the latter to be quite quicksandy at times.
Bacon guy is just criminal. You should've stolen his books as a service to humanity. And shipped them to Pakistan.I'd have put your name on some chowk or cul-de-sac.(Even if KOTH does vaguely look like an insult)
yeah well i need a good book to get over this lame ass excuse for a novel. recommend something my bibliophile friend. Adnan keeps telling me to read white teeth but i really am not in the mood for that...perhaps something like the sea.
so for your birthday i should not give you the movie adaptation of mistress of spices, which stars ashwariya rai? :P
i own bookshops yet i dont read..quite sad na..one thing ive noticed is how books written by subcontinental sounding authors sell the most.
he who may reed white teeth, dont... spare yourself the agony if you can
moizzay,
i red mistress of spices at an all time low in my life and it struck me as musical..
garlic, tumeric, insert-some-exotic-spice-name here!
i want to do ulti now
if you're inclined towards an intellectually stimulating book, i'd suggest 'possession' by a.s byatt..and if you can get it, laura esquivel's 'like water for chocolate'.
Ahmad: Posession is definitely good, will take you time to wade through the beginning though. I really like Homage to Firing Squad and I love all Terry Pratchetts. Don’t buy any, I’ll lend you one, see if you like it before spending money on it. Pratchett has a particular kind of humor not everyone likes. And listen to Cheesoo, don’t read White Teeth. Adnan can be quite off kilter sometime. Keep in mind that awful Murakami he made us wade through.
Humay: Tell me you’re lying. Though it’s entirely possible. Ash will just do about anything to star next to white people (for those of you who have not read Mistress of Spices, the latter has a kissy-puppy thing for an American guy)
Jarrar: Your bookshop is eccentric. It won’t have some of the most commonly available books yet I found a couple of things I didn’t see anywhere else. I’m sick of sub-continental run-of-the-mill writing. As remote as Kamila Shamsie’s books are sometimes, I loved City by the Sea (specially the bit where the boy’s aunt/mum/something tries to impress future husband by passing him a note in class starting with “voolay voo…”) and some bits of Kartography because she doesn’t go for the let’s-romaticize-the-ordinary-by-making-it-reek-of-mangoes.
Cheesoo: It may have made for good reading on a commode or plane (very little difference no?:P) but I don’t know, I was incredibly impatient with it.
But yes, I loved the array of spices and colours. It reminded me of the time I went to the Saddar in Cantt with Munchie and Raj Malhotra and my mouth fell open at this little thread shop tucked in a corner, stacked till the ceiling with leprechaun colours. Spice markets, kite markets and thread stores deserve entire photography portfolios dedicated to them.
Minchka: I like the sound of “Like Water for Chocolate” for entirely the wrong reasons:P I think a very good birthday present for me would also be a BBC Food cookbook with huge illustrations plus jar of new fangled thingum Mitchell’s has come out with:P
I told you that murakami book (damn i don't even remember the name thats how bad it was) sucked but you didn't believe me. It was quite possibly one of the worst books ever but i'm glad i wasn't the only one who suffered through it:P What pisses me off though is how adnan hasn't read it himself and he keeps lending it to people. One of these days i will make him read some stephen king or sumthin to make up for this.
Lol. True that. I read the first chapter and though "jackass".I think I'm going to give him the Mistress of Spices and tell him that it presents a very intriguing picture of Muslim consumerism in Turkey.
lol I'm using a boarding pass as a bookmark in the book i'm currently reading. I've used hairpins, pens, spoons, biscuits (:-/), candy wrappers, a sock (:-/) and another book as a bookmark.
Vernon God Little and The Color Purple were the only randomly picked books that I liked. I actually loved the latter, and I don't know why I hadn't heard of it in the first place. Ok, maybe it wasn't a completely random pick..I'd read Alice Walker's poems before.
And SAEED BOOK BANK IS EVIL. The last time I was in isloo I just went in for a peak but ended up leaving with eight books. :-/
lol! Really funny post as usual, Moizza. Thoroughly enjoyable. I am quite in accordance with your take on Sub-Continental writers depending upon the same old mango/id crisis formula to get published/sell.
Got possession but couldn't begin reading it yet since i had flown back to lahore for the weekend. I just wish the cover wasn't so suggestive; kept me from taking it on the plane.
Bluecheese: Biscuitts!!*fans herself itatedly* but they leave IS-Stains no.
Sabizak: Finally someone who agrees. Most people think it that because it depicts reality, its the only reality there.
Ahmad:You should be sold books in straitjacket white covers:P the possession I read had an abstract cover.
King: I was trying to post for ages, it just wouldn't happen.
I love bookmarks: have one shaped like a carpet, and a leather one that says "Wisdom begins in wonder". Oh, and the borders of shadi kaay cards can be cut into bookmarks too!
Ali: I knew I was forgetting something!! Mehndi cards, nice slim ones and party invites/passes can also be made into bookmarks.I like the carpet idea.
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