My Review of 2021

 

This is proving to be the bleakest year to date in terms of my customary annual review as I reflect on it. The second year of the Covid pandemic has taken its toll; there is much less than usual to sing about, as it were!  To repeat what I wrote in my review of 2020,”my formulaic recounting of what I did during the year has to be modified”- this time even more so!  Let me therefore begin as usual with the books that I managed to read, willy-nilly:

2021 Diary – Books

1) `The Confession` by Jessie Burton - Picador h/b 2019 – ISBN 9781509886142 ... lost interest after trying hard … abandoned!

2) `The haunting of Alma Fielding: a true ghost story` by Kate Summerscale  - Bloomsbury Circus h/b 2020 – ISBN 9781408895450 … had heard it serialised on Radio 4 and read it more than halfway through but then gave up as a lot of the stuff was familiar and far too graphic and detailed to sustain continued interest … even so it was interesting to know all the events described there were happening during the 1930s in a London neighbourhood that I had come to know some 40-50 years later.

3) `The Adventures of Maud West, Lady Detective, Secrets and Lies in the Golden Age of Crime` by Susannah Stapleton - Picador h/b – isbn 978-1-5098-6729-5 – © SS 2019 – 368 pp – a fact based reconstruction of the life and adventures of a true-life lady private detective who had gained much notoriety – well researched by a historian “with over twenty years` experience unravelling mysteries” as described in the blurb – a riveting romp through Maud West`s many cases and claims; the whole narrative gives a fascinating insight into the social mores of the post-Victorian/Edwardian era of English society.

4) `Such A Fun Age` by Kiley Reid - Bloomsbury Circus, h/b, 2020, ISBN 9781526612144 –  310 pp - dramatic opening sequence touching on the racial dynamics of US society that turned into an interesting chronicle of the daily lives and preoccupations of the motley collection of young black and white characters whose lives are closely intertwined – minutely observed social and cultural interactions … another light read in this time of the pandemic!  

5) `Agent Running in the Field` by John Le Carre – Viking h/b 2019, ISBN978-0-241-40123-1 – a delightful journey through the ageing spy hero narrator`s return to form on home ground in Brexit Britain; Le Carre`s last hurrah, as it were!  Needed some light reading in the midst of reviewing some heavy academic stuff.

6) `The Place of Cold Water: A Memoir` by Anand Panwalker – ISBN 13: 978-1548789084 – The Happy Self-Publisher – © AP 2017 – 405 pp – the blurb on the back cover best describes it as a “tale of an Indian immigrant family in British Kenya …[a] bittersweet story of resilience and courage amidst tumultuous local and global upheavals and deep divisions based on skin color, caste and religion [omitting to mention nationality and ethnicity]; of a dysfunctional and broken family seeking safety, acceptance and human dignity in a permanent home [the  USA] where they could live as valued citizens; of the triumph of the human spirit against overwhelming odds” and much more besides.  Familiar history indeed, but I could not agree with some of the claims and assertions. It is fair to mention that after the book and its author were introduced to the Namaskar-Africana forum, in the course of the exchanges that followed, we found one or two common friends and other shared experiences during the same timeline.  I had hoped to write a proper review of the book but that may not happen now.

(7) `What She Saw Last Night` by M J Cross – isbn 978 1 4091 7247 5 – Orion p/b -370 pp – picked up on a reading of the blurb at the local library when it opened up after lockdown – a thriller it promised to be – started well and carried on but then down two-thirds way it just deteriorated … lost interest in the minutiae of the narrator`s movements across Scotland leaving behind a two dead companions of hers with no moral compunction …  got to the end and wished hadn`t bothered with it … waste of time.

(8) `What You Are Stories` by M G Vassanji – isbn – 9780385692885 – penguinrandomhouse.ca – © MGV2021 – 246 pp – a delightful collection of short stories, just ideal for night bedtime reading, which is what I did, one every night – could relate to quite a few, and in particular An Epiphany, An American Family, A Shooting in Don Mills, The Sense of An Ending (reminiscent of the Julian Barnes novel) … good.  MGV and I had been having some conversations and he insisted on sending me a copy … the book arrived on 16 Aug with an inscription = finished reading night of 01/09/21.

(9) `Down Memory Lane` by Abdulrazak Shariff Fazal – no ISBN or other details; self-published (2021) by author who is a friend based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and who persuaded me to write a Foreword on the basis of selective chapters of the manuscript – a wonderful mix of stories about people and places, family and friends, encounters and experiences and a lot more – part biography, part travelogue, part history – not a work of fiction but rather rooted in fact, observation and analysis - `down memory lane` indeed of more than half a century of his life, lived initially in his birth place of Zanzibar, then moving to the mainland, spending many years as a student in Mumbai (then Bombay) and as an accountancy professional in Dubai, before settling back in Dar es Salaam, and over the years travelling across the Middle East, Europe and America – all of which features in the book. The finished package when it came surpassed my expectations: a beautifully produced book with an attractive front cover, print format, colour graphics and photographs - what a pity the book was not meant for a wider readership!

(10) `World`s End And Other Stories` - by Paul Theroux – Penguin Books p/b 1982 (no ISBN) – 211 pp – a varied collection, in the classic tradition of short-story tales that do not always have a predictable ending … the plot of the last one, `The Greenest Island`, seemed to be based on his own early life affair, resulting in the birth of a child who was adopted and with whom he was reunited much later in life (this deduced from his 2017 memoir `Mother Land` which I reviewed on my blog in 2018). 

(11) `The Year of the End: A Memoir of Marriage, Truth and Fiction` by Anne Theroux – Icon Books – ISBN 978-178578-739-3 – © 2021 Anne Theroux – 242 – How appropriate that I should be ending the year with this book, even more so since the preceding one was by Paul Theroux, who of course as my readers will know features prominently in my writings as one of my favourite authors.  This however was one that I was eager to get into and relished every moment of my bedtime reading of it, in record time.  In the book, the author bares her soul and the secrets of her marriage to Paul T in keeping with the subtitle: it is frank and painful.  This is how she describes it in her Postscript: “Paul and I have spent even more years with our present partners than the 22 we were together.  Perhaps we learned from our mistakes.  Perhaps we became less demanding as we grew older.  Perhaps we chose more wisely.  We live thousands of miles apart but have met up on friendly terms for family celebrations”, and adds, referring to her career as a counsellor during which she had “listened to other people talk about the confusion and distress of troubled relationships … which have the seal of confidentiality, but now that I have retired, I can tell my own”!  The book contains so many points of reference that resonated with me in terms of familiar geographical locations and literary and cultural allusions in PT`s own writings that it calls for a proper review, which I may attempt in the new year.

2021 Diary - Films, Plays, Concerts etc

1) Mon 11 Oct – NFT2 – LFF - `Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy` - dir: Ryusuke Hamaguchi – Japan 2021 – 121 mins – with Kotone Furukwa, Ayumu Nakajima and Hyunri – a fascinating and stimulating cinematic experience – a tale of three women in seemingly disparate scenarios going through the angst of broken, betrayed or imagined relationships in contemporary Japanese society – this was my first outing into Central London after the pandemic hit us, and my first film after `Parasite` that I saw in February 2020.  I was determined to sample a flavour of this year`s LFF and am glad that I did so, with the second film at the same venue the very next day!   

2) Tue 12 Oct – NFT2 – LFF - `The Box` (La Caja) - dir: Lorenzo Vigas – Mexico-USA 2021 – 90 mins – with Hatzin Navarrete, Herman Mendoza and Elan Gonzalez (Spanish + Eng subtitles) – an extraordinarily complex tale of a youthful Hatzin who sets out to claim his father`s remains only to discover that he was alive and from then on the story develops into a series of bizarre twists and turns  through the working of the father-son relationship against the backdrop of the father`s entrepreneurial activities involving violence and an unexpected denouement – but again going to the cinema during the London Film Festival brought me face to face with a cultural experience that I had been missing for the last 20 months or so. 

3) Fr 05 Nov – Odeon Epsom - `No Time To Die` - Dir: Cary Joji Fukunaga – UK USA 2021 – 163 mins – Daniel Craig; Ram  Malek, Lea Seydoux et al – much hyped, with a lot of celeb types and others rushing to see it, in light of relaxation of Covid restrictions – rubbish – I did not enjoy it – was reminded of the older, classic Bond movies (Dr No, From Russia With Love and others such as On Her Majesty`s Service) – there was not much of a plot and too much juvenile stuff – pointless killings and destruction all round – wanted to see Bond dead, not knowing that that was in fact going to be the ending … good … it was clear who the replacement 007 is going to be … not enamoured by her --- all that said, I wanted to see a movie in our local cinema as a dare under Covid conditions … well that will probably be the last for 2021.

2021 Diary - Lectures, Talks, Events etc

None, but I have done a few zoom webinar and other sessions with professional colleagues.

2021 Diary – Miscellany

Again, I can more or less repeat what I wrote in my 2020 review.  While the above speaks for itself, I should confess that this year`s selection of books has been disappointing, except for the ones specially mentioned, though not for want of trying to find some better choices. A large part of the explanation for this is that I was much engrossed in reading up and analysing a number of `study` books for academic reviews: `Naoroji` and `Empireland` for the LSE Review of Books, and a fortnight ago was pleased to receive an email from the Managing Editor of the LSE Review saying that my review of Empireland was the second most read review for 2021. I also posted an extended version of the Naoroji review on my blogsite. Then there was a truly difficult one to write about: AMERICAN PRESIDENTS, DEPORTATIONS, AND HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, for the Journal of Immigration Asylum and Nationality Law – that review is coming out in the next issue in February 2022; and the fourth one was J M Nazareth`s `Brown Man Black Country`, which was the focus of my regular AwaaZ column in Issue 3 of 2021.  All that took up a lot of time and attention.

It has been a trying year certainly but the good thing is that we are still alive and kicking. We have had our three doses (including the booster) of the Corona vaccinations and are keeping well free of the virus. That said, right now what is uppermost in our unconscious thoughts is survival – to carry on living in a self-protective mode – unconscious because it has become sort of second nature to daily existence and routine, to have a mask handy when stepping outside the home and make sure to take other precautions while out shopping or doing whatever else that involves contact or being near with other people. But of course the limitations on our social and cultural activities are an irritant; they seem to have taken hold. One has forgotten what normal life used to be like!  Will we ever get it back?

As shown above, I managed only three outings to the cinema; none to a concert hall or theatre or other place of live entertainment.  Foreign travel has become a distant possibility. Two years, 2020 and 2021 have already gone by and while I am longing to go on a cruise that may not happen in 2022 also, who knows! 

To end on a personal note, let me mention a proverbial good story about our NHS.  A little over three weeks ago, my wife was taken ill, had to be taken to our local hospital in an ambulance at about noon and twelve hours later underwent an emergency operation through the midnight hour at another, sister, hospital, and then following a spell in ITU and a further few days in a general ward she came home after a total of 12 days in hospital.  Her recovery is slow and painful, but the point of all this is that she received excellent care while in hospital, her operation was successful, and she did not contract Covid or any other hospital acquired infection, and I was able to see her every day for up to an hour, under strict conditions.  

 So, so far so good; compliments of the season and best wishes to you all for a better 2022.

RAMNIK SHAH

© 2021

Surrey, England