My Review of 2024

Well, another year has passed and so again I can echo the opening passage of my review of 2023. And this time also I can say that despite everything it has turned out to be a fairly busy year in terms of my cultural highlights, and so as usual I will begin with books:

2024 Diary – Books

1) `Go West, Inspector Ghote` by H R F Keating – Hamlyn p/b 1982 – © HRFK 1981 - pp 213. Had so enjoyed his `The Perfect Murder`, and the film version of it, all those years ago – this one, more than 40 years old now, is subtitled  `The Bombay detective visits America` - good fun – basically, Ghote is ramrodded into going to the US by his superior, at the instigation of a Bombay business tycoon with political connections, to look for and persuade his daughter, a student in California who had joined a spiritual ashram run by a Rajnish type swami and fallen under his spell, to return to India – Ghote`s brief being to act as an associate of an LA private detective who had been engaged by the father of the girl at vast expense, and so the two of them go about their mission and in the process have to solve the mystery of the swami`s unexplained death with all manner of investigative loops, in describing which the narrative takes a bizarre turn and in the end we are left with nothing more than a light-hearted romp, though we learn a lot about the dubious inner workings of an ashram and its head, including of course sexual shenanigans!  This came out of our bulging bookshelves.

2) `Sour Sweet` by Timothy Mo – `Abacus` p/b published by Sphere Books Ltd (no isbn id) first published in GB by Andre Deutsch 1982 – © TM 1982 – 279 pp = (this also I took out of our bookshelves for want of something to read) set in Chinatown in London`s Soho in the 1960s about a Chinese immigrant family, the Chens, who go through the typical newly arrived migrant experience of eventually settling down, owning their own takeaway restaurant; their progress through all this is fraught with all manner of struggles, with ups and downs of family dynamics and lots more – a learning curve for the reader as well as the characters portrayed with an eye for detail – according to the blurb, it was made into a film though no details are given.     

3) `The Lost Letters of William Woolf` by Helen Cullen – Penguin p/b – © HC 2008 – 377 pp+ isbn 978-1-405-93495-4 – the eponymous William Woolf is a dead letters detective based at the East London Dead Letters Depot where he regularly reunites the intended recipients or in some cases the authors of these letters with their long lost owners – he becomes obsessed with one case involving a string of letters from a mysterious writer called simply Winter and gets emotionally involved with her and follows all sorts of leads to get to her – but while that is the main story, it is conflated with that of his own personal life – married to a friend from university and a lot of the book is devoted to their marital problems as their relationship sours – too much mundane and boring detail on both fronts – I had begun to read this book on our Canaries Cruise ship, had to stop at p 68-69 and return it to the ship`s library at the end of the cruise – so I borrowed it from the local library to finish it out of curiosity – I should not have bothered!    

4) `The Man Who Loved Attending Funerals and Other Stories` by Frank Collymore – a Heinemann p/b – © Estate of F C 1993 – isbn 0435 989316 – 178 pp – another one from our home collection that I picked out as a bed-time time filler and slowly got absorbed into reading a large selection of the collection – classified by the publishers as `Short Stories/ Fiction – Caribbean` - we learn from the Afterword that when Frank Collymore began writing and editing in the 1940s, there did not yet exist a substantial body of distinctly West Indian literature, which then emerged in the decades that followed, thanks in part to Collymore`s strenuous efforts.  This is a varied collection and I enjoyed in particular the title story and `Some People Are Meant to Live Alone`, `The Death of Angela Westmore` and `RSVP to Mrs Bush-Hall`.  This slim volume was easy to handle and keep by the bedside. 

5) `Burma Sahib` by Paul Theroux – Hamish Hamilton h/b – isbn 978-0-241-63334-2 – © PT 2024 – 390 pp – ordered 14/03/24, rec`d and started 16/03/24, finished 16/05/24 – absolutely riveting, looked forward to reading it at bedtime nightly – thoroughly absorbed into the narrative – a fictionalised construction of the five formative years that Eric Blair, who later became famous as George Orwell, spent in Burma as a raw recruit, straight out of Eton at the age of just 19, into the Indian Imperial Police during the 1920s - how he was able to override his innate shyness and lack of social confidence by assuming the mantle of the pukka white sahib, lording over the lesser mortals, the native subjects, even resorting to physical punishment and violence as a tool of repression and exacting obedience; how he played along with what was expected of him as a member of the ruling class while keeping quiet about his inner misgivings; and how his character was formed both as he grew into manhood as a silent writer who then chronicled the passage of this time in his Burmese Days, first published in 1937, that I read on my trip to Myanmar in 2017 - the book`s influence is also referenced by Theroux - now it made perfect sense -  all this is graphically captured by Theroux, a literary heavyweight. This was the first most satisfying read of the year so far, by a writer who still remains one of my favourite authors.

6) `Two Lives` by Vikram Seth – Little Brown – h/b – isbn 0 316 72774 1 – © VS 2005 – 503 pp – I had actually read this in 2005 (there is an entry relating to it under `Book Mentions` at page 165 of my book `Empire`s Child`) and yet re-reading it this time, all through 503 pages over two months (straight after finishing `Burma Sahib`, above) was a thoroughly absorbing experience too.  I had forgotten so much of the detail of the `two lives` and indeed of their respective families and trajectories, and that of the author himself, that I found all of it to be like a fresh learning curve. My 2005 take had summarised the essence of the story, but this time I was particularly struck by the minutiae of Shanti and Henny`s relationship as it developed over the years from 1933 in Germany, through Henny`s exile that began just before WWII began, he also having left Germany in good time, to re-connect on British soil upon her arrival there, eventually getting married in 1951. As Seth says at p 491: “Both were born in 1908; Henny died in 1989, Shanti in 1998”. After her death, Shanti lived on as a grieving widower. Henny was cool, detached and correct in her bearing and acceptance of the fate of her mother and sister who had ended up as holocaust victims. Did she `love` Shanti?   He certainly did love her.  The book also looks at their close German, mostly Jewish, friends` circle, those who survived and others who perished. Seth`s treatment of the end days of his great uncle Shanti is fraught with much agonising and ambivalence on his (the author`s) part, in relation to his character assessment of Shanti and the disposal of his estate – he was hurt that his mother, Shanti`s beloved niece, had been left out.  But even so, Seth was frank enough to spell all this out without rancour. 

Coda: This was a major piece of literature that I have now re-read, just as in 2005 I had also re-read his `An Equal Music`(mentioned at p 167 in my said book).  When `A Suitable Boy` came out all those years ago, I had of course begun to read it with much anticipation and excitement but abandoned it after something like 1100 pages, I think.  It was a book which made a very suitable wedding present for the son of a friend back then!  I also read his `From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sunkiang and Tibet` with an equal curiosity and enthusiasm (mentioned at p 166 in my book, ibid).  It is still lying in our bookshelves and I will probably pick it up again later this year.  `The Golden Gate: A Novel in Verse` - I attempted it but not being a connoisseur of poetry I gave it up after a few pages.

7) `Stars and Bars` by William Boyd – Penguin p/b – isbn 978-0-141-04692-1 –© WB 1984-348 pp – what a wasted effort?  I had only chosen the book because of the author`s fame and past works that I had read, but this one strung me along for quite long until I came to detest the narrative, the characters and the plot and the whole works – the only bit that was a saving grace, as it were, was the description of the main character Henderson Dores running stark naked to escape from his murderous stalkers through the streets of Manhattan in the early hours (in Part Three of the book, titled `Twenty-four hours in New York`): “At half past two in the morning, Henderson set out. … At Canal and Forsyth he passed and took shelter in a doorway … He saw a yellow cab drive by, its `for hire` light on … hailed it … The taxi driver looked disgustedly at him, swore and drove on … He realised now that he was effectively invisible in this city … With its madmen … joggers and … twenty-four hour existence … he was simply another mad jogger… He wondered what anyone – casually watching the rain fall from their apartment window – would think: a pale ghostly figure slipping from shrub to shrub, darting across streets, incongruous in his heavy black walking shoes … After his naked run through Manhattan he could hardly complain about other travails ….” and so on and on!  These end pages did not endear me to the book, which again I had taken out of our bookshelves.

8) `Yellowface` by Rebecca F Kuang – Borough Press h/b – isbn 978-0-00-853277-2 - ©RFK 2023 – 323 pp – a current literary sensation by a Chinese American who writes this from  the perspective a privileged white young writer about a college friend who, like herself (the author) a rising Chinese-American literary celebrity, whose latest manuscript she, the narrator, steals when the subject dies in a freak accident, and all manner of consequences ensue.  The title itself is significant of course in that context.  One could see where the story was going but it ended with a damp squid.   

9) `Western Lane` by Chetna Maroo – Picador p/b – isbn 978-1-52909464-0 – © CM 2023 – 161 pp – a much acclaimed debut novel, shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2023 – by an ex-East African Asian – of Indian parents – a slim volume – the plaudits are pasted on the front and back covers - I began reading it in earnest but got soon exasperated with the amount of mundane detail of the narrator`s domestic life in the wake of her mother`s early death leaving behind her, her two older teenage sisters and their father who got them to play and excel at squash while the family come to terms with the loss of the mother, with an insight into extended family dynamics – see the attached file:///C:/Users/User/Documents/Western%20Lane%20-%20cover%20and%20extracts_20241126_0001.pdf

((List of some out of several half-read, abandoned, and put aside books through the year:

1.     `Traitors Gate` by Jeffrey Archer – isbn 978-0-00-847437-9 (HB) – Harper Collins – © JA2023 – 367 pp – picked it up on impulse from the local library for short of something new to read – plodded on for 76 pages then gave up in utter boredom and self-criticism for even bothering to read such tripe  -

2.     `American Pastoral` by Phillip Roth – Vintage s/b 1998 – © PR 1997 – 423 pp – took it out of our bookcase = did I really want to re-read it?  Tried and gave up after a first dozen or so pages = had thoroughly enjoyed it on my first reading in the late 90`s but thought it best to leave it in my memory bank.

3.     `Shelter` by Jung Yun – ISBN978-15098-1050-5 – Picador NY - s/b – © JY 2016 – p 328 – Korean Canadian – a neighbourhood mystery involving the narrators` family history   – I had actually read this in 2023 but not included in my 2023 list, and the same for the next one

4.     `The Lodger` by Valerie Keogh – my library account shows I borrowed and checked it out in June 2023 – again I had failed to include this in my 2023 list – the title gives a clue to the mystery – a female lodger who inveigles herself into the life of her host/landlady with unforeseen consequences.   

5.     `Those People Next Door` by Kia Abdullah – again my library record shows I borrowed It in Oct 2023, but after a few pages abandoned it.

6.     `The Paper Palace` - again according to my library account, I had borrowed it in June 2023 – a family mystery set in Cape Cod – gave up after a few pages – not to my taste.

7.     `The Fraud` by Zadie Smith – Hamish Hamilton, h/b - isbn 978-0-241-33700-4 – © ZS 2023 – 451 pp -  much hyped historical novel – I just couldn`t get into it despite trying hard – gave up after 20-25 pages.))

aTThis year`s extra input: posted below are photos of (our home) book collection as I have alluded to it in my diary entries at several points, just to show how bulging the bookshelves are even as it remains an open question as to what we are going to do with them? The fourth photo is an extended one of the second and third as a corner piece -

in the images below:

                                                                                

                                                                         

                                                           

2024 Diary - Films, Plays, Concerts etc

1) Thu 01 Feb – Epsom Odeon - `The Color Purple` - (dir: Blitz Bazawule, based ultimately on the book by Alice Walker; produced jointly by Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Scott Sanders and Quincy Jones; starring among others Halle Bailey - USA 2023 – did not like it – the plot was too complicated to follow, as was most of the dialogue – did not take to any of the characters – the original Color Purple seemed too far back in memory and recall and it did not reverberate in this musical version – the music itself, especially the opening number and dance sequence was captivating but later did not seem to go along with the narrative – it has received much critical acclaim and received many awards – Daniele Brooks who plays one of the leading roles has been nominated for the Oscars as Best Supporting Actress – let`s see what happens – (note: she did not get the award).

2) Tue 20 Feb – ICA - `The Settlers` (Los colonos) (dir. Felipe Gálvez, Chile, Argentina 2023, Spanish, English with English subtitles, 101 min. 15) a South American version of the western, with a distinctly chilly ambience,  set mostly in the Chilean/Argentinian landscape – three horsemen are commissioned by a wealthy landowner to root out native Indians from his property at the turn of the 20^th century, dense with menace and violent action sequences involving shooting down of peaceful and sleeping Indians in their village - The Selk`nam Genocide lies at the core of the film and one of the horsemen, a mixed race young man recruited for his knowledge of the layout of the land and familiarity with the inhabitants is appalled by the senseless violence and escapes to tell the tale – all in all a painful viewing.  

3) Fri 09 Mar – ICA - `Perfect Days` (dir. Wim Wenders, Japan / Germany 2023, Japanese with English subtitles, 125 min. PG) – from the acclaimed filmmaker Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas; Wings of Desire) comes this enchanting tale of Hirayama, a contemplative, educated middle-aged man who lives a life of modesty and  serenity, spending his days balancing his job as a public loo cleaner in Tokyo with his passion for music, literature and photography,  giving the viewer a fascinating insight into his work, meticulously cleaning toilets with the tools of his trade in his work overalls (The Tokyo Toilet, emblazoned on the back) and much more – we see a lot of Tokyo as he goes about the city in his van, on his bike and generally; then we have a family sequence involving his young niece who has come out of the blue to stay with him for a few days until her mother turns up in a chauffeur driven limousine to pick her up from which it is clear he has a familial background and cultural hinterland but we never discover the reason why he was living the life described – all in all a great movie experience.

4) Tue 02 Apr – ICA - `Monster` (dir: Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan 2023, English subtitles, 127 min) – mysterious but a deeply disturbing tale of family and false impressions and according to the promotional write-up hope (but see my take on it, below) – a complicated plot involving a single mother who, when her young son begins to behave strangely suspects that one of his teachers may be responsible, so as the story unfolds some shocking truths emerge; powerful performances from the main characters, with a musical score from an Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. 

Despite all the hype, however, I was absolutely not impressed and wanted to walk out but still persisted to see the end, which did not redeem the basic flaws in the narrative and actions. There were too many gruesome action sequences, both outdoors in the wild and within the school setting.  This was such a contrast to the previous Japanese film Perfect Days that I had enjoyed so much.   ((Note: according to my diary for 2004, I saw another movie with the same title, Monster, at the Epsom Odeon on Bank Holiday Mon 03/05/04 - checking out found this Wikipedia entry from which I could faintly recall the plot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_(2003_film)).

5) Wed 17 Jul – NFT3 - `Sleep` (Dir: Jason Lu, with Jung Yu-mi, Lee Sun-kyun – S Korean 2023 – 95 min) – a claustrophobic psychological thriller set mostly in the apartment of a recently married young couple, with the wife pregnant, and an actor husband who is going through an intense psychosis of a sleeping disorder which creates havoc in their lives – there was not a moment of light relief in the whole narrative interspersed with unexplained violent occurrences – were all these imaginary sequences or the product of something innately superstitious?  The end was ambiguous but could not have come any sooner.  The director has received much acclaim for his debut production, but like the previous entry, Monster, I did not enjoy it much.

6) Sat 27 Jul – RFH - `Maestros in Fusion`, a musical feast with Zakir Hussain (tabla), Shankar Mahadevan (vocals), Rakesh Chaurasia (flautist), Louiz Banks (keyboard), Gino Banks (drummer) and Sheldon D`Silva (bass) – a stunning fusion of classical and jazz music with an Indian spin from an all-Indian cast of world class musical maestros indeed who produced a  superlative and thrilling performance that captivated the audience – one of the best and most memorable concerts of my life time; witness my diary entries of the past twenty years!

Coda: I was shocked to learn of Zakir Hussain`s untimely death just a fortnight ago, on 16 December; the tributes and the obituaries that came from all over the world were truly heartwarming: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/music/indian-tabla-maestro-and-grammy-winning-musician-zakir-hussain-dies/ar-AA1vWv1a?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=123b0699b5bf47159fc114544788ab70&ei=40

7) Tue 15 Oct – NFT1 – (LFF offering) `Shambhala` https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala_(2024_film)  - this Wiki entry summarises the plot and the theme superbly – it was an enchanting story, set in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal, which provided a beautiful landscape, while the acting of all the principal characters, especially Pema (played by Thinley Lhamo) was impressive.  Came away feeling enriched.

Extracted from the LFF/BFI site: Tashi and Pema live in the Nepalese Himalayas. When Tashi goes missing around the time that Pema discovers she is pregnant, and with gossipy neighbours questioning her fidelity, Pema decides to embark on a search for her husband. She is joined by Tashi’s brother, a Buddhist monk. But as Pema begins to reflect on her own spirituality, the journey soon becomes one of self-discovery.

8) Fri 18 Oct – RFH (LFF Special Presentation) - `All We Imagine is Light` - the lives of three women intersect and overlap in a story of social realism where the city of Mumbai plays a central role - Director-screenwriter: Payal Kapadia; actors: Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam   France-India-Netherlands-Luxembourg 2024. 115min -   Languages, Malayalam, Hindi With English subtitles -

Extracted from the LFF site: Prabha, Anu and Parvaty are employees at a hospital in Mumbai. They grapple daily with the opportunities and hardships of existence in the city. Balancing an immersive verité style with a touch of the surreal, Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix-winning drama captures the many shades of working-class life in Mumbai. The result is a profound and deeply humanist meditation on urban migration and dislocation.

At the special presentation showing, Payal Kapadia gave a charming account of the making of the movie and was given a prolonged applause by an appreciative audience.  She described the input of each of three major stars.  It was definitely worth making the effort to see the movie late at night.

9) Tue 22 Oct – NT (Dorfman) – “A Tupperware of Ashes” (Dirs: Tanita Gupta & Puja Ghai – with Meera Syal in the leading role of Queenie)

Extracted from the NT site:  An ambitious Michelin-Star chef, Queenie is used to having the last word. But when her children notice gaps in her memory and her grip on reality loosening, they are faced with an impossible choice. As Raj, Gopal and Kamala battle to reconcile their life-long duty to their mother, the ramifications of their decision take on a heart-breaking permanence.

Good, but some aspects of it were not to our liking.  The first half set the scene and the narrative very well; the second half delved into Queenie`s past with her late husband and their migration from Calcutta to Britain around 1948 but did not give much of an insight into their marital life or progression to where Queenie was at the start of the performance. 

10) Mon 04 Nov – RFH – Concert – Daniel Barenboim & West-Eastern Divan Orchestra - Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47) Symphony No.4 in A (Italian) (1833) & Johannes Brahms (1833–97) Symphony No.4 in E minor (1885) – these were the only two works in the programme - a  much anticipated appearance by the maestro and the orchestra –  special security scrutiny for all the ticketholders - largely Jewish audience – I thought the performance was nothing exceptional; in fact it felt flat – my view was blocked by tall heads in front (I had paid £65 for my seat) and from what I could see Barenboim did his conducting while seated and it was not particularly brilliant either; his age and state of health had a lot to do with it but his faithful followers showed their enthusiastic appreciation at the end; at any rate I fulfilled a desire to see him and the orchestra once again. 

2024 Miscellany

While the basic pattern of my life has not changed much, there are significant changes that have impacted our daily routines because of advancing age, of course, and my wife`s health condition.  This year we did not go on holiday abroad, nor are we planning to in the coming year, so belatedly let me post a picture of me dining at the captain`s table on our cruise ship last year, plus one of myself with my wife, to keep our spirits alive:

                                                           

                                                                    

Though I did say in my last review that I liked the sound of 2024, it was with reservations – these have proved right at least on the global front.  So while radical changes to the world order are afoot at the turn of the year, let us keep our fingers crossed for a better 2025 - a Happy New Year to all.

    

RAMNIK SHAH

© 31.12.2024 

My Review of 2023

Well, this is the end of another year and again I can almost repeat word for word what I wrote at the beginning of my review of 2022 and it applies here also. Yes, the Covid scenario has more or less gone and to that extent normal life has returned, though there are warnings of a recurrence of the pandemic in small numbers here and there. We are also, post-Christmas, at the beginning of real winter now and so how it pans out remains to be seen.  That said, despite everything I have had a busy year, with all sorts of outings and happenings and to that extent it has been productive. I will begin as usual with books: 

 2023 Diary – Books

1) `The Romantic: The Real Life of Cashel Greville Ross, A Novel` by William Boyd – Viking h/b ISBN 978-0-241-542-2-6 – © WB 2022 – 451 pp – how best to describe this mammoth work of fiction in the characteristic W`m Boyd style of constructing an elaborate plotline built around historical figures and events to fit in with, as in this case, the real life story of the titular Cashel Ross?  In his author`s note, which we have to take at its face value, Boyd describes the background to the saga, according to which Ross was born somewhere in Scotland on 14 December 1799 and, as we learn through a reading of the text, died aged 82, apparently in a train station waiting room somewhere in Germany, having lived a very full and adventurous life in four continents – as a Waterloo veteran; as an officer in the Madras Presidency Army of the East India Company; as a farmer in Massachusetts; on an expedition to search for the source of the Nile before Speke and Burton did so and a lot more besides in that vein, with true life past characters woven into the narrative enriching the reader`s imagination – there is simply too much packed into this exciting tale to describe more but I was pleased to reach the end after nearly four weeks of bedtime reading at roughly 20-25 pages a night!

2) `Let`s Talk - How to Have Better Conversations` by Nihal Arthanayake – Orion Publishing – isbn 978 1 3987 02226 – © NA 2022 – 277 pp – didn`t need to go through the whole book to understand its message, basically that one has to listen first and well before entering into any meaningful discourse; the author is a successful radio presenter and his interviews and discussions on varied topics reflecting this theme make pleasant listening.

3) `World`s End` by Paul Theroux – Penguin p/b 1982 (first published by Hamish Hamilton 1980) –© Cape Cod S C 1980 – 211 pp – short story collection,  picked this up from my own home library shelves – bookmark shows I acquired it on 12.6.94, had read it before and so this was to be a filler before I got to grips with something more substantial – even so re-reading some of the stories (the eponymous World`s End, Zombies, White Lies, Clapham Junction et al) rekindled earlier memories.

4) `The Twist of a Knife` by Anthony Horowitz – Century h/b – ISBN 9781529124343 – © AH2022 – 373 pp – picked up on impulse at the local library – a time-filler – not so much a thriller as a passable detective mystery - more suitable for an uncritical, early adult readership, certainly not intellectually or artistically challenging.

5) `The Fortune Men` by Nadifa Mohamed – Viking h/b – isbn 978-0-241-46694-0 – 372 pp – © NM 2021 – based on the real life story of Mahmood Mattan, a Somali seaman who had settled in Cardiff after WWII, married a Welsh woman (against the wishes of her parents), had children by her and who was accused of the murder of a Jewish shopkeeper, tried, convicted, and hanged in 1953.  The conviction was set aside posthumously many years later.  The author has skilfully woven the narrative of his chequered background and life, with that of the victim of the crime and her family and other characters. She spoke eloquently about her book on the BBC Radio 4 Book Club programme in March.  She was simply brilliant.  I had known about the Mattan case long before and, fascinated by the discussion, ordered the book straightaway.  Her frank portrayal of Mattan however did not endear the reader to him and one felt that he had contributed to his own downfall by his many shortcomings, lies and reticence.  One knew the denouement but even then was absorbed by the narrative.

6) `The Garden of Evening Mists` by Tan Twan Eng – Canongate p/b – © TTE 2012 – 351 pp – isbn 978 1 78211018 7 – winner of the The Man Asian Literary Prize 2012 – an intricate tale set in Malaysia that spanned some five or six decades of the extraordinary life of the narrator, a woman (Yun Ling), who had been taken prisoner by the Japanese during WWII together with her sister who, that is the sister, had become one of the `comfort` women of the Japanese, while Yun Ling herself had suffered other forms of abuse and torture during her incarceration in PoW camps. They had belonged to an upper middle-class Anglicised Chinese family in British ruled Malaya (well described at pp 258-259: “We spoke English at home …”); she comes across as a masculine voice, always in command, with little by way of femininity, even when she describes her affairs: “I had slept with a number of men” (p 108) – the other aspects and multiple characters of the story and its convoluted plotline defy easy summary; suffice it to say that the titular garden that features as the centrepiece of the novel was the creation of Aritomo, a former gardener of the Japanese Emperor who had settled in pre-war Malaya and whose masterpiece Yun Ling was determined to replicate after the war, in memory of her sister who had been killed as the war was coming to an end, and in the process she had formed a romantic relationship with Aritomo.  There is a great deal of minutiae in terms of events, detail and occurrences that are not linear and meander in times past and current as the narrative progresses, so much so that I began to despair and waited for it all to end, which for me was a great relief. This book too had featured in the BBC Radio 4 Book Club programme, in the week after that of The Fortune Men, and it was the eloquence of author that had impressed me so much that I ordered this book also from  my local library straightaway.

7) `I will find you` by Harlan Coben – ISBN: 9781529135503 – 407 pp – the narrator finds himself covered in blood as he comes out of his drunken slumber; not his own but that of his 3 year old son who, as we discover later, was biologically not his - but we only come to that much later, after a convoluted tale of his being convicted and put away in prison for life from which he escapes to go on the trail of the real killer and the truh; that is the bare gist of the plot but it was the cocky style of his telling it, with lots of twists and turns, that put me off and half-way through I began to hate him and only carried on to see how it ended up, only to want to shake off the whole experience like one brushes away the metaphorical cobwebs of the mind. I had only got the book for light relief and because it was authored by Harlan Coben, one or two of whose early books I had read with delight many years ago – now probably no more! 

8) `The Executioner` by Jesse Kellerman – ISBN 978-0-7515-4029-1 – Sphere p/b – ©JK 2010 – 482 pp – endorsed on the back cover by Harlan Coben, not surprising really because this  mystery thriller is in the same genre as most of Coben`s output – a first-hand narrative of a philosophy graduate who enters into a professional relationship with a much older woman of means for intellectual conversation which then develops into something more with deadly sequels and a surrealist ending, à la Harlan Coben! By then I had had enough. (NOTE: all along I had the feeling that I had read this book before and now, a couple of weeks or so later, on a chance look back at my list for 2011, there it was – it is listed there but my view of it then was quite favourable, calling it a literary thriller, which of course it is, except that this time I found it unpalatable!) 

9) `The Divide` by Nicholas Evans - -ISBN-13: 978-0-7515-3935-6 – The Warner Books p/b – © NE 2005 – 438 pp – this “From the author of The Horse Whisperer” on the cover was what attracted me to take it out of our bookshelves during a dull period – steeped in a basically WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) culture, with privileged characters constantly on the move on holiday, business, social engagements, simple leisure and so on – the author`s skill at writing in minute detail about all these characters, their activities and situations is beyond question: the basic plotline is about how a grown up child of a prosperous split family ends up in an eco-terrorism tangle with its tragic consequences – in the end I plodded on to get to the denouement at the end of the tiresome narrative, hoping to select a better title for my next read!

10) `Kowloon Tong` by Paul Theroux – (No ISBN reference given) – Penguin p/b 1998 – © Cape Cod Scriveners Co, 1997 – 213 pp – set in the dying days of British Hong Kong, before the `takeover`, about a British man and his mother, their family business `Imperial Stitching`  which became entirely their own when their Chinese partner died leaving his share to them in his will, but mostly it is the personal life of the son and the takeover shenanigans that dominate the narrative, culminating in the mother and son being forced out of not just the business but also out of the colony in its dying days – Theroux`s characterisation of all the individuals is superb – this was yet another book I took out of our large collection during a relatively quiet period.  

11) `The Human Factor` by Graham Greene (h/b “published 1978 by Book Club Associates  By arrangement with The Bodley Head Ltd” – 339 pp -I had read it when it first came out and took it out of our book collection to re-read as a gap filler.  As his authorial note says: “A novel based on life in any Secret Service must necessarily contain a large element of fantasy   … purely a product of the author`s imagination … as are all characters …” [and quotes] “out of reality are our tales of imagination fashioned”.  When he came to write this, Greene was already well past his prime. And so while most of it was by then dated, even the internal dynamics and machinations of the spy networks (MI5, MI6) it still made sense, except for the ending, which he simply had not thought through and which fell flat.  I was reminded of what I had felt on first reading way back in 1978/79 when a major black character both in fiction and in real life was a rarity. Here the South African Sarah and her son by an African man in the heyday of apartheid (who was possibly based on Steve Biko`s tragic life), her involvement with the white British spooks and all that emanated from there was incongruous and unrealistic.  I  re-read it anyway because I could not remember the finer details.  Also, I needed to keep my bedtime reading routine going.

12) `On Beauty` by Zadie Smith – ISBN 978-0-141-01945-1 - Penguin p/b – © ZS 2005- 446p – another book I drew out of our bookshelves for want of anything else - much acclaimed but quite frankly I found it disappointing and tiresome – too pretentious – the principal characters and their extended family networks of two British Caribbean academics dividing their time and professional careers between Britain and the USA - yet I never got to the bottom of what precisely the cause of the rift between Howard Belsey and Monty Kippse was despite some vague references to their radically opposite political perspectives – this was no `beauty` for me! 

13) `Everything There Is` by M G Vassanji (MGV)– isbn 9780385683807 (hardcover), Doubleday Canada (Penguin Random House) – © MGV 2023 – pp 326 – so good and glad to be ending 2023 with this book, an extraordinary story of a truly remarkable scientific genius.  I read it through as a fantastic tale, marvelling at the rich imagination of the writer, right until the end, when I came upon his Author`s Note. It opened disarmingly thus: `This novel was inspired by the life of the mathematical physicist Abdus Salam`, which radically changed my perception and overview. It was only then that I read the blurb on the left inside cover, which out of habit I had not looked at before. This is how it began:

`Nurul Islam is a world-renowned physicist, professor at Imperial College, London, and one half of the Islam-Rosenfeld theory, the first step in a grand unification of forces and a Theory of Everything.  A family man profoundly influenced by his pious father [and, it might have added, his Muslim faith] Nurul is happily married to Sakina Begum by an arranged marriage.  They have three children.  But when Nurul travels to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to give a public lecture at Harvard, he [meets and] falls in love with a graduate student, Hilary Chase`.

I cross-referenced this with the Wikipedia entry of Abdus Salam, and my god, it was a revelation – one of the longest that I have come across, spanning literally many, many pages with loads of information; just have a look at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdus_Salam

At the start of the novel, in the early 1970s, Nurul and his wife had already settled in England. While the narrative of the book mirrors the real life story of the principal characters, it is the actuality (actualité) that is so fascinating.  In reality, then, the Nurul of the novel is Abdus Salaam, born in 1926 in the pre-partition Punjab Province of British India (now Punjab, Pakistan), and Sakina Begum is Amtul Hafeez Begum, the American Hilary Chase is in fact Louise Johnson, an Englishwoman born and bred in England.  Whereas in the novel these and many other factual variations and details are the author`s creation, it is true that Abdus Salaam did fall in love with Louise Johnson, and vice versa, when they first met at Harvard where she was engaged in some academic research or studies in her own field.  By that time, Salaam had already become a highly accomplished theoretical physicist, widely acclaimed internationally and greatly admired by his colleagues and students.

Although a devout Muslim, and a loyal citizen of Pakistan that he remained to his dying day,  he had left the country in 1974 to take up residence in Britain because his particular Ahmadi brand of the faith had been declared to be non-Muslim by a constitutional amendment passed by the Pakistani parliament. Even so he continued to play an active part in the country`s many teaching institutions, think-tanks and  as a consultant to the government on its various science programmes. However, as MGV states in his Author`s Note, `Whether Salaam was part of Pakistan`s nuclear bomb project depends on whom you talk to. My character Nurul Islam, however, is against it.`  

Salaam`s romantic relationship with Louise Johnson had become so entrenched that in 1968 he contracted a second Islamic marriage with her, which did not have the force of law in England as he was still married to Amtul Begum, and they set up a second home in Cambridge.  Her Wikipedia entry at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Johnson gives an impressive account of her background and academic achievements, which earned her a Damehood (DBE) in 2003.  Both Salaam`s marriages subsisted until his death in 1996; Johnson died in 2012 aged 71; we don`t know when Amtul Begum died, though in the novel we are told in the Coda that she had already passed away when Nurul collected his Nobel Prize accompanied by Hilary; in reality it was awarded to Salaam in 1979 jointly with two other recipients. He was the father of three children by his first wife Amtul Begum, and a son and a daughter by Louise Johnson.  These true life facts, in minute detail, are fictionally woven into the fabric of the tale; and the world of academia, with frequent multiple conferences, presentations, and interactions with students and colleagues – all that is graphically captured. But the above is only a partial account of the whole complex story on both levels of fact and fiction; the depth of research that must have gone into it can easily be measured by the amount of material comprised in the aforesaid two Wikipedia entries, and so once again MGV, with whom I have friendly relations, has come up with a brilliant addition to his impressive oeuvre. But all this is not, ironically, Everything There Is – for that you have to read the book, which I recommend highly.

(Note: There were  other books that I had taken out from our bookshelves also and put back part read, never getting enthused or stimulated enough to carry on. One of the books I briefly browsed through was Hanif Kureishi`s The Black Album.  `The Lost Letters of William Woolf` by Helen Curren also remains to be finished.  More importantly, I have been sitting on a remarkable work of history, `The Shadow of the Great Game – The Untold Story of India`s Partition` by Narendra Singh Sarila, who had served as an ADC to Lord Mountbatten, the last imperial Viceroy; and who served in the Indian Foreign Service from 1948 to 1985 with distinction, including as a mbassador to Spain, Brazil, LIbya, Switzerland and France. The main thrust of the book is that the partition of India was engineered by the British, in particular Churchill, to serve their own wider geopolitical interests in the region, and they gave the green light to Jinnah to press for Pakistan in the hasty push towards independence as he was seen as pro-western.  I have however lost interest in the whole subject and may never finish the book.)

To sum up, my selection of books for this year, as ever, has been eclectic and I can`t say I am wholly satisfied with the quality of some of them. But even so, my bedside reading habit continues, albeit at a slower pace.  I may post pictures of our bulging bookshelves in the coming weeks.  What to do with them in our declining years is the question that remains hanging, for hard print copies are now getting out of fashion and nobody wants them. In the end they will have to be disposed of by my executors as they consider fit.  Well that is a cheerful thought!

 2023 Diary - Films, Plays, Concerts etc

1) Fri 20 Jan – ICA - `Holy Spider` - dir: Ali Abbasi, Denmark/Iran 2022, 117 min, Farsi with  English subtitles – a truly magnificent and stunning production – has already made huge waves and has become Denmark`s official submission to the Oscars for an appropriate award – set in the holy city of Mashhad, the action follows Rahimi (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) as she investigates  a serial killer targeting sex workers – labelled the `Spider Killer`, the man responsible for these murders is Saeed Hanaei (Mehdi Bajestani), who believes he is on a divine mission to cleanse the city of sinners – as Rahimi desperately tries to bring Saeed to justice, support for his actions begins to grow throughout Mashhad as many hail him as a hero on a religious quest, and we see bizarre scenes of them expressing their support and encouragement even as the focus shifts to the court room where he is on trial – all in all the movie is a stark critique of contemporary Iranian society where small numbers of reformers are up against its fundamentalist hang-ups. Ebrahimi won the Best Actress Award at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

2) Mon 06 Mar – NFT Studio - `Broker` - dir: Hirokazu Kore-eda – South Korea, 2022, 129 min, Korean with Englilsh sub-titles.

On a rainy night in Busan, a young woman leaves her baby outside a `baby box`, a safe place set up in Korean churches for new mothers to leave their unwanted infants.  Instead he is picked up by Sang-hyun (Parasite`s Song Kang-ho, see below) who runs an unofficial adoption brokerage and plans to find him a new home.  His pursuit takes an unexpected turn when the mother tracks him and his business partner down and decides to join their journey.

"Baby boxes exist in quite a few countries, and have been much used in Korea since 2009. They are holes in a wall, safe deposits for children who are unwanted, or more precisely perhaps for children whose mothers cannot afford to have them, and the boxes are often maintained by Christian churches. There is no theft or sale here, just a questionable form of charity. But Kore-eda’s movie takes things in another direction. Sang-hyun, the owner of a laundry and repairs service, in debt to a Korean version of the mob but also a man who does good work at a local church, steals a child now and then from the church’s box, and erases all signs that the child was ever there. At the beginning of the film we see what seems to be a deposit by a young woman, accompanied by a note promising she’ll be back, with the baby placed on the ground beneath the box rather than in the box itself, but. Sang-hyun and Dong-soo scoff at the note. That, they agree, is what all these disappearing mothers say. Except this one does come back and catches them at their thievery, and the narrative takes off."

I didn`t like the mother`s character – too hard and harsh, with little emotional depth, while the eponymous Broker and his team and hangers-on on a relentless search for a buyer at least showed a warmth of humanity towards the infant boy, with real time sequences of bathing, cleaning up and feeding him quite effortlessly. The film`s Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, is the one who had directed Shoplifters (which I saw in 2018, listed in my blogpost for review of that year) and that was what drew me to this film, as also with its unusual plotline.  This film too is set in Seoul, like Parasite that I saw in 2020 before the Covid lockdown, as listed in my Review for that year.  I think maybe a moral sense was lacking and that was the point, two-thirds way down the narrative, at which I felt I could not stomach it any more.  That a team of detectives was trailing them was clear but somehow it all got a bit confusing and the ending did not lighten the melancholia.

3) Sun 30 Apr – Epsom Playhouse – Rang Dhvani – Subrang Arts – The Indian Choir of England (BVG) Dir: Rakesh Joshi; Choreographer: Harsha Amin; Raaheel Husain (Sitar); Robin Christian (Flute); Heman Bhatt (Tabla/Octopad); Saleel Tambe (Tabla) - an absolutely delightful and riveting programme of a veritable mix of classical dance and music, beautifully rendered.

4) Wed 03 May – National Theatre (Lyttleton) – The Motive and the Cue – Dir: Sam Mendes about the making of John Gilgeud (as director, played by Mark Gatss) and Richard Burton`s Hamlet – (Burton played by Johnny Flynn) and how during rehearsals their relationship undergoes fraught dynamics of their own, with off-stage (in rehearsal) interventions and interactions by other characters, not least of them Burton`s newly married wife Elizabeth Taylor (played superbly by Tuppence Middleton.  On the whole an enjoyable treat.

5) Thu 29 June – Odeon, Epsom – Asteroid City (dir: Wes Anderson, US 2023, 105 min) – in a fictional American desert town circa 1955, the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention is spectacularly disrupted by world changing events – a comic take on the 1950s Americana - with graphic footage of freight trains, singing cowboys and the sound of atomic tests (note: the more realistic portrayal of that in Oppenheimer was yet to come). The cast of top rate Hollywood stars included Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Matt Dillon, Willem Dafoe, and a whole lot others – but it was difficult to make them out in the robotic representation of the 1950s America; one discovered these names only looking at the film`s Wikipedia entry; the whole experience was surreal.

5) Sat 22 July – Odeon, Epsom  - `Oppenheimer`  (Dir: Christopher Nolan; Cillian Murphy in the lead role with others such as Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr, Rami Malek; 2023 US/UK production; 180 mins) – wow!  What an experience; will write about it later – that was how I recorded it but never got round to critically reviewing it, though there is much of that available elsewhere on the web.  My lasting impression was of the deafening sound of explosions that reverberated all through the film, and of the interactions of the scientists as they sought to bring the Manhattan Project to fruition right through to the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki  – throughout the whole 3 hour+ long movie one sat fully engaged in awe and trepidation – the moral judgment came later, as indeed it did to J Robert Oppenheimer himself, faithfully depicted in the movie itself.  

6) Mon 07 Aug – NFT1 -`Heat and Dust` (Dir: James Ivory; Prod: Ismail Merchant; Script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala – cast including  Shashi Kapoor, Greta Scacchi, Madhur Jaffrey, Jennifer Kendal, Julie Christie, Nickolas Grace, Zakir Hussain (not the musician| and many more) – UK 1982; 130 mins) – this was a special showing at the BFT – seeing it again on the big screen after so many years was a really great experience, in the company of a knowledgeable and empathetic audience; one was able to appreciate the nuanced performance of the characters and re-interpret the plotline of an underlying parallel between the fate of Olivia (Scacchi) and Anne (Christie) in the light of history; interacting with the woman on my left made it a good outing altogether.

7) Fri 08 Sep – NFT2 - `Past Lives` (Dir Celine Song, with Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro -USA-South Korea 2023. 106min)

This outstanding first film by Celine Song is about a beautiful, deeply romantic modern love story that embraces destiny, nostalgia and the immigrant experience. Na Young’s family emigrated from Seoul to Canada when she was 12. She left behind and lost contact with her childhood best friend Hae Sung. A decade later, Na Young is now ‘Nora’, an aspiring New York playwright, who starts wondering about the whereabouts of her childhood sweetheart and starts searching for him online, only to find that he in turn was looking for her! 

 

He comes to New York and their friendship rekindles, and while her husband watches their interactions, there is no interference or rancour on his part, for their relationship remains solid while Hae Sung`s visit only provides a `what if` kind of imagining on all their parts. The whole film is shot against the spectacular backdrop of New York city`s streets and skyline and tourist sites.  This was a profound romantic cinematic experience and one came away feeling good.       

 

8) Thu 21 Sep – National Theatre (Olivier) – The Mahatma and the Assassin – Dir Indhu Rubasingham – The Mahatma of course is Gandhi: lawyer, champion of non-violence, beloved leader of the nation. The Assassin is Nathuram Godse: a young journalist seduced by the nationalist fervour of the time – and the man who murdered Gandhi. This gripping play traces Godse’s life over 30 years during India’s fight for independence: from a devout follower of Gandhi, through to his radicalisation and their tragic final encounter in Delhi in 1948 – good performances by all, though there was a great deal of shouting and some of the speeches got lost in that, besides being indistinct because of unfamiliar accents – on the whole an impressive production, rated highly by professional critics. I appreciated it much more on reflection.

9) Fri 06 Oct – RFH (London Film Festival venue for this film) – The Killer – Dir David Fincher (of the `Se7en` fame) with Michael Fassbender as the titular killer – USA 2023, 113 mins – the content warning that it contains graphic violence and distressing scenes turned out to be a gross understatement – this was a relentless assault on one`s sensibilities – the action sequences were full of unremittingly horrific scenes of killings, torture and lots more – the RFH was full for an afternoon`s performance on the opening day of the LFF – one was sickened to see a thousand people sitting mesmerised by this the worst film that I can truthfully say I have seen in years, and certainly in 2023 – I sat through it because I wanted to see the killer killed himself but no, he ended up triumphant - so disgusting – later I heard a gushing review of the film on Radio 4 `Front Row`, which I did not agree with.  

10) Thu 06 Dec – IMAX (BFI, Waterloo) – Maestro – USA 2023, 129 min - Dir: Bradley Cooper with himself as Leonard Bernstein and Carey Mulligan as his wife Felicia Montealegre, a dramatized biopic about him as a rising musical star (composer, conductor, innovator and much more) all through his crowning career highlights, while their at first loving marriage later becomes strained with his persistent gay affairs and relationships; the whole film was interspersed with lots of party scenes and family dynamics – it was a rollercoaster 2 hour ride. Did I enjoy it? `Enjoy` does not quite describe how one felt; it was a gripping experience, and the vast IMAX screen did yield close ups to a degree where one could spot the freckles and perspirations and emotions – Carey Mulligan`s acting was superb; Cooper`s was at times overdone.  Powerful scene of him conducting Mahler`s Resurrection Symphony (No. 2) for six minutes at the Ely Cathedral in England brought the whole thing so live; there was no mistaking his genius and charisma – that came through.

(Note: Not a bad selection considering everything.  I covered most of the movie highlights of the year, despite the logistical problems involved in travelling into central London because of uncharted train strikes. Locally there are car parking and road closure issues to contend with. Somehow, I now see, I never made it to a classical concert, but I am hopeful that during the coming year I will go on much as before.  Let`s see.)

2023  Events

1) Sat 1 Apr – BBC World Service Book Club – Paul Theroux – I was able to put a question to him; he recognised me from our past interactions, and we had a short discussion.

2) Wed 11 Oct –Exhibition of Surjeet Husain`s Paintings and Textiles – at the Penny School Gallery, at Kingston College, 55 Richmond Road, KT2 5BP – www.surjeethusain.com –  it was a pleasure to view these in the company of friends and to chat with Surjeet Husain, in her late 80s - a truly accomplished artist of great stature and accomplishment. 

2023 Miscellany

To conclude, my faithful readers will of course be familiar with the pattern I have established over the years. And again, I can almost repeat what I wrote under this heading last year – that has remained true this year also. What about leisure and holidays?  Well, I can say that at last after a four year gap, we were able to travel abroad on a Saga cruise this November, titled Sunshine in the Canaries.  Because of extremely stormy weather conditions we never made it to the Canaries.  Right at the start, on departure from Portsmouth, the captain took the decision to divert our ship (The Spirit of Adventure) to Falmouth in Cornwall and that is where we stayed for the next 4-5 days, out of a total of 14. That meant that our scheduled itinerary had to be drastically revised and we then left UK waters and proceeded down the Bay of Biscay, hugging the coast of Spain and Portugal, with stops along at places like Bilbao, Rigo, Caruna, Porto and Lisbon. We still had rough seas to contend with but nothing like what hit our sister ship The Spirit of Discovery during the same night and in the same area that we were in at the time.  Anyway, we had been to the Canaries before a couple of times and while we missed the promised warmth and sunshine, we made the most of the stops and food and entertainment and other activities on board the ship.  I will post some photos of the cruise later.  

For now, let us look forward to 2024. I like the sound of 2024 – it has a certain magic and symmetry, and yet it looks like a fateful year for all sorts of reasons, not least because there are going to be elections in the USA, Britain, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Russia and many other countries, which will bring about radical changes to the world order. In my column for the next issue of the AwaaZ magazine (yet to be published) I have written about the grim situation in Gaza and may return to it in the context of world politics another time.  Anyway, I wish you all the best for the coming year.

RAMNIK SHAH

© 31.12.2023