New Books

I bought a few books this weekend. I was browsing the book store Borders at the Michigan Ave and was reading bits and pieces from some books that I wanted but couldn't buy, that I came across the bargain section. I got hold of Salman Rushdie's collection of essays Imaginary Homelands which contains some of his writings, including the famous ones like In Good Faith, Is Nothing Sacred? which he wrote after the fatwa episode, some book reviews of contemporary writers like Vargas Llosa (an essay on his masterpiece and one of my all time favourites The War of the End of the World), Marquez, Calvino and Ishiguro. The book also has an interesting conversation piece that Rushdie had with the late critic and scholar Edward Said.

I was getting tempted to buy Rushdie's The Satanic Verses too. Not that I am a great fan of Rushdie's fiction, but the idea of possessing something that was illegal by taking it back with me to India was very thrilling. I managed to steer aside these non-literary considerations aside and decided not to spend $16 on the book (it was not in the bargain section). Somehow I have never been won over by Rushdie's fiction. His linguistic inventions and verbal pyrotechnics always leave me cold, not to say anything about the countlessly meaningless references to pop-culture and historical trivia that I always find very distracting and incoherent. I understand that this is deliberately done by the author. It is supposed to indicate the deracinating and alienating effects of modern or rather post-modern culture and the elusiveness of a real, authentic self which is getting more and more artificially fabricated by the mass media and pop-culture. But somehow I don't find all these themes interesting enough. When it comes to non-fiction however, Rushdie's essays are a model of classical writing--full of restraint, elegance and coherence. I will write in detail about some of his essays later, specially the fatwa essays.

There were two other books, one on Hitler and Genocide and other an anthology of scientific and philosophical writings on the mystery and working of Cosmos. I wasn't specifically interested in the subjects but, in 4$ anything serious and heavy is okay!

And then there was Love, which contains philosophical and psychological insights into the titular disease (that's what the author calls it) by Stendhal. It looks very interesting and I will write about it a little later. I hope I will get enough fodder from the book and I will be able to complete the love story that I always wanted to write but could never finish!