For once, alas, I am late in posting this and the reason: we were away at the turn of the year, more about which later. The rationale for doing this every year was explained in my last review (for 2012). It has remained the same and needs no elaboration or repeating here. So as usual, I will begin with the books that I read during the year:
Books
1) The Taliban Cricket Club by Timeri N Murari – ISBN 978 1 74237 884 8 (p/b) Allan&Unwin – ©TNM 2012 – 325 pp – set in Kabul in 2000 at the height of the Taliban`s grip on the country – a fantastical tale of daring adventure involving an escape caper by a feisty female cricket lover. Years ago I had read the accomplished Indian author`s `Taj`, an even more accomplished historical novel about the building of the great monument and so it was gratifying to see him in person at a literary event at the British Library in November of 2012 (see my listing of Talks & Lectures for that year). I would however rate this book at 6 out of 10; enjoyable and informative but not a literary masterpiece!
2) The Accident by Linwood Barclay – ISBN 978-1-4091-3838-9 – an Orion p/b © LB 2011 – 386 pp – pulp fiction: started off well but at 2/3rd point became silly, tortuous, vacuous - (3/10).
3) Capital by John Lanchester – ISBN 978-0-571-23460-8 – faber & faber h/b © JL 2012 - 577 pp – motley collection of contemporary Londoners coping with the post-Lehman Bros financial crash … good characterization and plot but lacking real bite, though ending on a positive, if not exactly promising, ending - (7/10).
4) The Magic of Saida by M G Vassanji – ISBN 978-0-307-96150-1 – A Borzoi Book h/b © MGV 2012 – 304 pp – echoes of Paul Theroux`s `The Lower River`; a plausible tale of obsessive search for a lost past across time and space; a conscious attempt to synthesize the history of Muslim Indian migration, settlement and uprootment in East Africa into a personal narrative of both imagination and simplicity, with varying degrees of familiarity and exoticism (note: later in the year I was to attend the Vassanji Conference - see Talks & Lectures listing below - at which this particular book was the subject of learned papers and much follow-up discussion which enhanced my understanding and appreciation of the book) – (7/10).
5) The Honey Guide by Richard Crompton – ISBN 978 0 297 86795 1 – Nicolson/Weidenf h/b – © RC – abandoned as waste of time – police crime novel set in Nairobi in Dec/Jan 2007/08 – locational/cultural/political attraction did not justify reading this rubbish –(3/10).
6) Undone by Michael Kimball – ISBN 0 7472 5535 0 – Headline Book p/b – © M K 1996 – started well, with a promising crime thriller plot though with too much unnecessary detail – halfway through turned trashy – so another wasted and frustrating holiday leisure reading experience – am I losing it? Not very happy about it – (3/10)
7) The Immortals by Amit Chaudhuri – ISBN 978-0-330-45581-7– Picador p/b – © AC 2009 - set in Bombay of the 1980s/90s about a cultured Bengali upper middle-class family (by Indian standards) where the wife is keen to practise her musical talent and so performance music plays a pivotal role in the narrative – in structure the novel wanders and veers elliptically but the portrait of the main characters – the music teacher Shyamlal, the wife Mallika Sengupta and her son Nirmalya - is done with sensitivity and depth – and throughout of course Mumbai remains a compelling presence in all its familiar detail – of places, streets, hotels, suburbs and lifestyle of the better off - but there is just too much detail – the language is paradoxically both direct and nuanced - on the whole good – (7/10).
8) The King of Torts by John Grisham – ISBN 0 7126 7054 8 – Century p/b – © Belfry 2003- 372 pp - holiday read – usual annoying macho/cheeky/superficial style that turned the central legal eagle into an anti-hero whom one wished to see lose – here the guy, Clay Carter, is picked by a mysterious benefactor to elevate himself into a hotshot mass tort litigator – hence the title – and to screw the big corporations for product failures only to be faced on a potentially ruinous turnaround by his own clients fouling up class action settlements to their individual disadvantage but the author while tantalizingly whetting the reader`s appetite to see Carter go down with a bitter taste of his own medicine in the end lets him off on an inconclusive note – all rather disappointing – have gone off J Grisham and do not propose to read any more of his trashy airport/travel fillers – (2/10).
9) A Delicate Truth by John Le Carre` - ISBN 978-0-680-92279-6 – Viking p/b – © David Cornwell 2013 – 310 pp – brilliant, if at times trying because of long dialogues with too much detail and other asymmetrical bits of information and retrospective twists and turns of the story line – however the basic thrust of the narrative is clear: a select collection of spooks go on a top level sensitive mission to take out a bunch of suspected al-Q types in Gibraltar (reminiscent of that real-life IRA related incident of 1980s) … it turns out to be flawed – a fiasco – with sickening casualties – and they or one or two of them are so morally outraged to want to `out` the secret to the outside world and so Le Carre` keeps us on tenterhooks as he navigates the plot with an insider`s perspective into the working of the spy networks, the bureaucracy of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the intelligence agencies – all very contemporary and topical – a good read indeed – (8/10).
10) Shakespeare by Bill Bryson – ISBN 13 978-0-00-719790-3 – Atlas p/b - © B Brys 2007 - 195 pp – a delightfully readable account of the old Bard`s life and literature against the background of his time and journey through life –(8/10),
11) The Invisible Ones by Stef Penney - ISBN 978 0 85738 294 8 – Quercus p/b © SP 2011 – 526 pp – an intriguing tale on a subject scarcely touched on or explored: `the invisibles` of the title are the travelling people of the British Isles. As she herself says in an Afterword, it is about the `in-between` world of such people, steeped in Romany Gypsy culture, as they interact with the indigenous gorjios through the generations, fictionalised in this instance with a detective`s investigation into the mystery surrounding a disappearance or suspected death of a young woman that uncovers a miasmic mix of incest, genetic disorders, close-knit communal dynamics and other complexities of relationships and characters. This is a work of extraordinary imagination and depth. Although not directly relevant, some of the `outsider/insider` parallels of the story would resonate with diasporic or minority ethnic folk in present day Britain – .(8/10),
12) Long Lost by Harlan Coben – ISBN 978-1-4091-0219-9 – onionbooks.co.uk p/b – © HC2009 – a very poor Berlin holiday read – his style has deteriorated into a John Grisham-like macho brashness – too much trivial detail and unnecessarily complex plot – in the latter half we get a glimpse of the obsessive post 9/11 security apparatus that is driving western governments into an ever more oppressive regime of surveillance and counter-terrorist activity – (3/10)
13) The Last Train to Zona Verde: Overland from Cape Town to Angola by Paul Theroux - ISBN 978-0-241-14367-4 – © PT 2013 – Hamish Hamilton h/b – 353 pp – his latest and probably last travel book about Africa, a damning indictment – an African lament – full of despair and disenchantment – “What Am I Doing Here” the constant refrain – deserves a full review – (NOTE: as it happens, I have done a separate review of it on this blog – scroll down) - (9/10).
14) Macaulay: Britain`s Liberal Imperialist` by Zareer Masani - ISBN 9781847922717 – 272 pp © ZM 2013 - The Bodley Head h/b – a fascinating critical biography of the 19th century British imperialist by an eminent Indian (or Indo-British) historian nurtured in his legacy to the Raj – we are treated to the full measure of Macaulay`s character, personality, accomplishments and above all his lasting influence on India`s emergence as a unified nation enriched by British rule – (9/10).
15) Out by Natsuo Kirino (translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder) - Vintage Books p/b - ISBN 9780099472285 – © NK 1997 + Eng trans © Kodansha Int Ltd 2003 – 520 pp – a disturbing tale of violence and sex of the most gory kind that one sees in some of those explicit Japanese films; also we get a huge insight into the modern urban blight of lower middle-class life involving debt, vigilante justice and moral ambiguity; the mundane minutiae of modern Japanese urban life is graphically described – (5/10).
16) Cave in the Snow: A Western Woman`s Quest for Enlightenment by Vicki Mackenzie – ISBN 0 7475 4389 5 – © V M 1998 - Bloomsbury p/b – 210 pp – inspiring true story of (Jetsumna) Tenzin Palmo – gives an understanding of the devotion to the Buddhist faith whether one agrees with its doctrine or philosophy - (7/10).
17) Gandhi before India by Ramachandra Guha – ISBN 978-1-846-14266-6 (h/b) @ R G 2013 – Allen Lane (Penguin Group) – 672 pp – a simply superb portrayal of the Mahatma`s life and making in South Africa before he returned to India in 1914 – a brilliant biography, by any standards, in terms of research, comprehension and writing – this was the best book that I read in 2013 and by an extraordinary coincidence I actually finished it on the last day of the year, while on a cruise somewhere off the coast of Cambodia! Hoping to do a proper review of it in the coming year - (10/10).
As usual an eclectic collection, but varied enough for me. Of these, I would rank Gandhi before India as the best and most satisfying, closely followed by The Train to Zona Verde, with Macaulay and The Magic of Saida in the third and fourth places.
Films, Plays, Concerts etc
Sun 06 Jan – Life of Pi – a hugely enjoyable experience; it brought vividly alive on screen, an incredible achievement in itself, the thrill and excitement I had felt while reading the book by Yaan Martel some years ago; when the movie was made I had wondered how it was going to be translated on to the screen but it worked; the computer animated action sequences added an extraordinary sense of verisimilitude = 8/10
Sun 13 Jan - Les Miserables – also an enjoyable musical – the period setting and the songs worked = 8/10
Sun 03 Feb – Lincoln – and yet another great movie – a hat-trick in an equal number of weeks! It was evident that both the movie and the principal actor who played the lead role, Daniel Day-Lewis, were going to win some major awards; well Day-Lewis did win the Oscar for best actor = 9/10
Tue 19 Feb – Great Expectations – and a fourth great movie in succession! Echoes of school days = 8/10
Sun 03 Mar – Arbitrage - Rich`d Geer/Susan Sarandon – corrupt rich white billionaire involved in financial fraud on a massive scale, kills his mistress in a road crash of his own making and basically gets away with it; moral ambiguity prevails over a weak plotline = 4/10
Wed 20 Mar – Gielgud Theatre, West End – The Audience – Helen Mirren as the Queen in one-to-one with a succession of her prime ministers; majestic in every way; theatre at its best = 10/10
Sun 19 May – Mud – (dir: Jeff Nicholls) a large dose of Mississipi mud-pie – a touch of `Great Expectations` in the early scenes when the two boys come upon the fugitive whom they are more or less forced to help to evade the law = 07/10
Thu 30 May – RFH – Philharmonia Orchestra – (cond: E-P Salonen) – Stravinsky`s Rite of Spring Centenary – one of my favourite pieces of music – superb performance = 8/10
Thu 04 July – ICA - Night of Silence = Lal Gece (Turkish, Eng subtitles: Dir Reis Celik) a really most magnificent movie! It was absolutely riveting – intense, measured, beautifully acted. Apart from the opening sequences that set the scene – of wedding rituals and social customs (not unlike traditional Indian), the rural setting and the wintry landscape – the rest of the `action` takes place in the bridal chamber where the couple (the man,considerably older than the girl) get to know and interact with each other - the marriage having been arranged to settle an old family feud in a `Zorba the Greek` mode – with an open ending, as it were (note: this was one of the 18th London Turkish Film Festival offerings) = 9/10
Fri 19 July – ICA – Pune 52 - (Marathi, English sub-titles) part of this year`s London Indian Film Festival - rubbish, rambling, unconvincing cheap thriller – a time-waster - should have walked out earlier than I did = 2/10
Thu 22 Aug – ICA - Kuma (Turkish, Eng subtitles – Dir: Umut Dag) - Ayse, a 19-year-old girl from the Turkish countryside, is chosen to be married to the handsome Hasan, son of formidable and house-proud mother Fatma, who resides in Vienna with her husband and six children. However, what soon becomes apparent is that Ayse is to be second wife to Fatma 's husband. Intensely gripping social reality drama: close-knit family and first and second generation migrant cultural dynamics predominate, Ayse is warmly embraced by Fatima but at first resented by some of Hasan`s sisters. Hasan the nominal legal husband turns out to be gay. The paterfamilias dies and all sorts of complications arise – one felt claustrophobic at times – there is too much detail and introspection – the end comes as a release (note: it is only after seeing the film that a google search revealed that `Kuma` in Turkish means a fellow wife (in a polygamous household or a concubine – if only I had researched this before, something that I failed to do because of other pressures – it would have made getting into the plot that much easier!) = 8/10
Sun 25 Aug – NFT1 – The Big City (Mahanagar) (Indian: Eng subtitles) Dir: Satyajit Ray - absolutely brilliant, set in the Calcutta of the early 1950s, a middle-class family`s struggles to come to terms with changed circumstances; above all a magnificent portrayal of the wife`s flowering as a working woman to supplement her husband and the sole breadwinner`s inadequate income as a bank executive in their traditional society where (and when, in period terms) that was almost unthinkable = 9/10
Wed 18 Sep – ICA – The Stuart Hall Project – a docu-biopic of the veteran iconoclast / philosopher by John Akomfrah of the Little White Lies fame – the ICA blurb describes the 82 year-old Jamaican born British academic as “Venerated … for his knowledge of subjects as diverse as Miles Davis, Marxist methodology, the European Union, and American hippies … [and] regarded as one of the most inspiring voices of the post-war Left”. The focus of the film is his immense intellect as we are treated to his views on identity, culture, history and Britishness as he has seen it develop during his life-time (he is the same age as his Caribbean counterpart VS Naipaul, though with vastly different political and cultural leanings). Unfortunately, I found Akromfrah`s much hyped production rather asymmetrical and lacking in direction and narrative cohesion = 5/10
Sun 22 Sep – Purcell Room – Darbar Festival Rudra Veena to Magnificent Khayal concert – magnificent 2nd part, Pandit Raghunandan Panshikar`s playing the Jaipur Atruli Gharana Khayal = 7/10
Sun 29 Sep – Blue Jasmine (Dir: Woody Allen: Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin) – great movie, a vintage Allenesque portrayal of Blanchett as a rich, upper crust New Yorker married to Baldwin as the Madoff like fraudster who loses everything when he is found out and kills himself in prison leaving her penniless and who then flies over to San Francisco to scrounge with her low-life adopted sister where she behaves like Blanche Dubois in `A Streetcar Named Desire` - superb characterisation, gripping narrative with flashbacks and familiar location shots = 8/10
Wed 09 Oct – Purcell Room – Dayanita Singh & Talvin Singh – a conversation – 4/10
Thu 10 Oct – NFT1 - As I Lay Dying – part of the London Film Festival (LFF) – Dir: James Franco`s taut, moving, focused adaptation of William Faulkner`s 1930 novel of a close-knit Southern family`s journey across the US to bury the mother of the household, with a superb atmospheric touch – there is a Steinbeck`s Grapes of Wrath quality about the place and period; once the viewer`s initial claustrophobic reluctance to get involved is overcome, the narrative becomes a rite of passage for the audience as well as for the characters = 8/10
Thu 17 Oct – Curzon Chelsea - The Past – also an LFF offering – Dir: Asghar Farhadi (who had also made the award-winning A Separation some 2 years ago – see my Review of 2011 - an intense social psycho-drama from the perspective of Ahmad, an Iranian husband of Marie, the central female lead, who comes to Paris after a four year separation to finalise their divorce but is immediately drawn into her dysfunctional and emotionally draining relationships with her teenage daughter and her new lover and his rebellious young son with many strands to their interactions and daily lives – the acting is superb throughout, in particular that of Marie`s lover`s 10/12 year old son - the script moves the narrative along relentlessly; the whole experience is gripping = 8/10 (see also my separate full review on this blog, the preceding item)
Sun 17 Nov – Philomena (Judy Dench; Steve Coogan) a moving story of the search by an Irish-Catholic mother, now in late middle-age, of her son born out of wedlock in an era when that was completely verboten and so had to be given away for adoption = 8/10
Sun 24 Nov – The Butler (Forest Whitaker; Oprah Winfrey) a disappointing performance by Oprah, while Whitaker is absolutely professional in his rendering of the eponymous title, with fleeting cameo roles by big name actors playing some of the Presidents, generally over-rated (I was attracted to the movie because as a teenager I had come across the character of the President`s butler in Upton Sinclair`s Lanny Budd novels) = 5/10
Looking back, on the whole, a lovely collection. I thought the two Turkish films and the Satyajit Ray move, but above all the Iranian `The Past` were the best, while of the Hollywood or American movies, Woody Allen`s `Blue Jasmine` ranking equal or nearly so.
Lectures, Talks, Events etc
Wed 30 Jan – RSA – “The Runnymede Debate: Do racists have a right to be heard”? (Ch: Rob Berkeley – Panel: Catherine Fieschi, Kirsty Hughes, Sunder Katwala & Nigel Warburton) = 6/10
Thu 28 Feb - RSA – “Liberty and Security – for all or the (privileged) few?” Prof Conor Gearty (Ch: David Aaronovitch) = 6/10
Sun 10 Mar – QEH – “Alice Walker + Pratibha Parmar” (ch: Mariella Fostrop) great = 7/10
Thu 14 Mar – RSA – David Cannadine: “Common Humanity: Making `us vs. them` history” = 8/10
Wed 24 Apr – Drapers Hall – Chartered Institute of Taxation Awards Presentation Ceremony (self presented with a veteran`s certificate) = 7/10
Thu 25 Apr – QM London University - GLOCUL Talk by Maritsa Poros: Networks, Narratives etc (ch: P Shah) = 9/10
Mon 20 May – QEH: 2013 Man Booker International Prize Readings = 8/10
Tue 4 June – Kings Place: Guardian Lectures - Paul Theroux = 8/10
Tue 09 July – RIBA – The Spectator Panel on Immigration: David Goodhart, Ken Livingstone, Mehdi Hasan, Trevor Phillips, Peter Hitchens (ch: Andrew Neil) = 6/10
Thu 12 Sep – RSA -`Syria`s Crisis and the Global Response` (Prof Michael Clarke, RUSI; Alison Bailey, Oxford Analytica; Dr Patricia Lewis, Chatham House; Ch: M Taylor) = 7/10
Thu 26 Sep – Purcell Room – Jhumpa Lahiri (ch: Bidisha) could have been better = 7/10
Sun 13 Oct – QEH - `The Man Booker Prize Readings` (ch: Mark Lawson – panel: Jim Crace,Jhump Lahiri, Elenor Catton, Coln Toibin, NoViolet Bulawayo, Ruth Ozeki) = 8/10
Thu 24 Oct – RSA 1-2 pm - `Does the British Establishment still exist?` - Peter Hennessy (ch: Andrew Rawnsley of The Observer) = 8/10
Fri 08 Nov – SOAS – M G Vassanji`s keynote address:`Assimilation – The Dream and Reality: The Case of the Asian African` (ch: Itesh Sachdev) = 7/10
Sat 09 Nov – SOAS: The International Imaginaries of M G Vassnji – Conference + Conference Dinner = 7/10
Mon 11 Nov – LSE – Ramachandra Guha on `Gandhi before India` (ch: Dr M Cox) (absolutely riveting …a brilliant exponent of his art) = 10/10
Needless to say that the one that stands out prominently is Ramachandra Guha, with Theroux, Vassanji, Jhumpa Lahiri and Maritsa Poros following closely behind. This year though there were relatively fewer such events, and this trend will probably continue from now on for practical and other reasons.
We did three trips this year: to Turkey in June, to Berlin in August and the most recent, a three week + long out in the Far East over the Xmas and New Year period that included a 16 night cruise from Hong Kong to Singapore on the Holland-America MS Volendam. All of them turned out to be enjoyable and hugely satisfying. In Turkey we travelled across from Istanbul round the western Mediterranean coast through historical and tourist attractions such as Canakkale, Kusadasi, Pamukkale, Konya, Cappadocia and Ankara. Berlin of course has a lot to offer and lived up to our expectations and much more. Hong Kong is one of the most exciting and thriving cities in the world, while Singapore is unique: a paradise of an absolutely charming, elegant and beautiful city-state the like of which is hard to find anywhere else. And our cruise liner touched at many ports along the coast of Vietnam (Halong Bay etc), Cambodia and Thailand – a lot of which was familiar to us as we had visited those places in 2001/02; but here too the progress that has been made since then is remarkable and was quite noticeable.
General
All in all, not a bad year, considering everything. Going through the list in retrospect, it is always a matter of wonder that some of the early events happened barely a year ago and yet they seem so far back in memory. I am rushing to complete this because it is overdue already, but what awaits? Who knows? For the time being, I will continue to fill my time as before! Best wishes to everyone for the New Year.
RAMNIK SHAH
© 2014Surrey, England
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