- By J.K.Rowling
When I was introduced to Harry Potter series, I was twenty three. I have never heard of the name Harry Potter before that. And being an avid reader, I tell you, most of my friends were surprised that I have not read Harry Potter by then. So, I took their word and read a couple of chapters of Harry Potter and Philosopher's stone in Crossword and was hooked. I picked the entire series that day and completed the series in three days and nights. I tell you, I could not believe that I lived in a non-Harry Potter world until then. And since then, I have read Harry Potter enough number of times that it should be recorded as a crime, honestly! But when it is Harry Potter, written as J.K.Rowling has done, it is a crime to NOT have read it, oh, at least a million times!! So, now you know, I am crazy about this series.
J.K.Rowling created a magical world that can be enjoyed by kids and adults alike. She created adventures that are thrilling and characters that are easy to connect with. As thoroughly enjoyable as the stories are, the relationships and the values portrayed throughout the stories, kept me hooked to them. These books have made such phenomenal character study for me.
Harry Potter, for his experiences, should have been bitter with life, should have wanted to throw tantrums and scream at the unfairness of it all. Yet, he manages to be a grounded person with amazing strength of character and phenomenal amount of grit that should raise goosebumps for anyone. Parallel to him, his nemesis, Voldemort, with similar background grows to be cunning, solitary, dark, friendless wizard hell bent on destroying the world. Harry finds himself with friends who are loyal, courageous and generous, while Voldemort is surrounded by people who are afraid of him, whom he mistreats as servants rather than confidantes.
The books all lead to the grand showdown between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Voldemort is a supremely powerful wizard, who crossed the realms of dark magic and considers himself unbeatable. Harry Potter is still studying in the school of witchcraft and wizardry. He is a novice in magic. The fight between these two should have been completely one-sided, yet Harry's ability to still love despite everything life has shown him, gives him the one strength that Voldemort did not have. His determination to stand up for the greater good despite all the odds, his perseverance when the ride gets bumpy, his trust in his friends and his kindness to all magical creatures alike make him a cut above Voldemort. And hence, the showdown was a phenomenal ride for me.
Aside from such thrilling tale of two wizards, these stories also teach a lot of values:
- life can be difficult, but with loyal friends, it could turn out to be a fascinating adventure
- that sometimes, evil may have the upper hand, but in the end, good will always triumph
- that no matter how small you are and how naive you are, persistence and hard work will pay dividends in the end
- that no amount of love is enough and to keep loving despite all odds is a tribute one can give to one's life
Every time, I am compelled to read the series as a whole. I could never stop myself with just reading a single book of the series and every time I choke up by the ending. I am overwhelmed with the emotions that gush up by the time I am done with the series. Every time, they rage wildly inside me from the beginning, turning into a mini tornado as the series progresses. Love, hate, anger, despair, surprise, heart break, joy and triumph - all ride in one huge rainbow until the very end and burst out like sparkles at the very end.
There are a lot of characters in the novels and most of them are quite dear to me. Hermione Granger, the little miss-know-it-all and Ronald Weasley - with his surprising courage and loyalty, Harry's two best friends through his adventures, who stand with him until the very end, form an integral part of this series. The relation between these three is fabulously portrayed and is quite entertaining to the readers. Weasley twins are hilarious pranksters who liven up the sometimes dull moment. Albus Dumbledore is another favorite character of mine, who is a genius with prodigal skill and the master behind the triumph of good in the end. Dobby, the house elf! Ah, I was in tears when he died. Severus Snape - I share a love hate relationship with this character, but to borrow Harry's words- he is one of the bravest character of the series. Sirius Black -this is one character I absolutely want a bit more of!! It just wasn't enough. Harry should by all means have had more time with him. But that is just a testimony to J.K.Rowling's penmanship in creating characters that are so enjoyable and loving.
I urge everyone to read the phenomenon called Harry Potter and enjoy the ride into the realms of magic. It is beautiful and brilliant.
Showing posts with label Debut Novel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Debut Novel. Show all posts
Friday, May 15, 2015
Monday, March 9, 2015
You
- By Caroline Kepnes
I should say that this random pick was one of the best I read in recent times. Oh Gosh, it is deliriously creepy, unbelievably sensual, impossibly addictive. By the very subtext of the novel, I should not have liked the book, let alone loved it.
Joe Goldberg is obsessed. The story is about his object of obsession, told from his perspective. Guinevere Beck, or Beck as she likes to be called is an aspiring writer, who has no clue about life, who has some serious issues and is selfish enough to use people to get to her objective. While browsing in Mooney bookstore, she catches the eye of Joe Goldberg, who works there and he is instantly obsessed with her. While ringing her bill at the counter, they flirt a little and Joe decides that she is THE ONE. From that moment on, he stalks her every minute - quite literally!! Active on networking sites - Twitter and Facebook, and into emails and texting more than calls, Beck provides an easy access to her personal life to anyone on the internet. And he swallows up the whole of her social networking and gets hold of her mobile phone on a freak encounter and hacks into her email and inserts himself into her life, creating a fabricated life that eventually makes her fall for him. Will she find out about his secret? How does he play the act of an innocent bystander, while all the while knowing more about her than he confesses? In that narrow walk on the tripwire, who trips first?
For a debut novel, Caroline Kepnes was brilliant in her story telling and her play of words. She told a compelling dark tale of obsession, that left me astounded at her audacity for creating a character (Joe Goldberg) that snuck into my mind and played havoc with right and wrong, while I rooted for him. I should have cursed him for existing, yet, I could not help but be absorbed into his mind and live in it. The obsession was like a weed, growing in my mind too and that is the beauty of the novel. The characters just grow on you. While other characters have good roles to play and are introduced via Joe's reading of Beck's emails, they all play an important role in the novel. No character is undeserved, no word is misplaced and the novel is constructed intelligently, to drive you to obsession, page by page.
You, by Caroline Kepnes is definitely worth a read!
I should say that this random pick was one of the best I read in recent times. Oh Gosh, it is deliriously creepy, unbelievably sensual, impossibly addictive. By the very subtext of the novel, I should not have liked the book, let alone loved it.
Joe Goldberg is obsessed. The story is about his object of obsession, told from his perspective. Guinevere Beck, or Beck as she likes to be called is an aspiring writer, who has no clue about life, who has some serious issues and is selfish enough to use people to get to her objective. While browsing in Mooney bookstore, she catches the eye of Joe Goldberg, who works there and he is instantly obsessed with her. While ringing her bill at the counter, they flirt a little and Joe decides that she is THE ONE. From that moment on, he stalks her every minute - quite literally!! Active on networking sites - Twitter and Facebook, and into emails and texting more than calls, Beck provides an easy access to her personal life to anyone on the internet. And he swallows up the whole of her social networking and gets hold of her mobile phone on a freak encounter and hacks into her email and inserts himself into her life, creating a fabricated life that eventually makes her fall for him. Will she find out about his secret? How does he play the act of an innocent bystander, while all the while knowing more about her than he confesses? In that narrow walk on the tripwire, who trips first?
For a debut novel, Caroline Kepnes was brilliant in her story telling and her play of words. She told a compelling dark tale of obsession, that left me astounded at her audacity for creating a character (Joe Goldberg) that snuck into my mind and played havoc with right and wrong, while I rooted for him. I should have cursed him for existing, yet, I could not help but be absorbed into his mind and live in it. The obsession was like a weed, growing in my mind too and that is the beauty of the novel. The characters just grow on you. While other characters have good roles to play and are introduced via Joe's reading of Beck's emails, they all play an important role in the novel. No character is undeserved, no word is misplaced and the novel is constructed intelligently, to drive you to obsession, page by page.
You, by Caroline Kepnes is definitely worth a read!
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
A fraction of the whole
- By Steve Toltz
Hilarious, insightful, philosophical, perspective, the novel left me with a mixture of feelings. I could not keep the book down, but more importantly, I could not stop thinking. The background process ticked off the moment the lives of the Dean family unfolded and did not stop till I read the last word. This is a sort of book, one can pick and read any page and stop to think – and perhaps continue that line of thought for eternity. The characters of the dean family are vividly portrayed for their differences, but, what stood out mostly is the narration of the tale from different view points, giving more or less the shared animosity towards the collective living of the society. To think that this is the first novel by the author, it is unbelievable!!! It had about 700 pages and it is filled with wit, humor and a challenge to everyone who opens it – the challenge to put this down unfinished!
The initial narration starts with Jasper Dean, the son, who speaks about his father Martin Dean and about the others involved in shaping Martin to be the person he is. The story takes place in Australia for majority of the part, but, if one thinks we could get a taste of what is Australia like, hell no. The book is solely about the perceptions of Martin Dean and how his thoughts or ideas shaped his future and there by his notions and there by influencing his son’s future. The father who tried to teach his son about the values in life, giving contradictory advices most of the time, fails in his life and becomes the father his son loves to hate. Never once forming the bond, with his eccentricities (I have to call them eccentricity, if only because of my limited vocabulary), Martin Dean drives his son from mingling in the society to a person who is abrasive and filled with condescension against the very society.
The story begins with Jasper writing this from a jail, albeit for not having anything better to do. That is a strange, but, then, as the novel progresses, it does not seem to be a surprise any more. I laid my hands on this one – wondering what is this intriguing title – “A fraction of the whole” and wondered, what exactly is in it? I opened it and this is how it starts:
“You never hear of a sportsman losing his sense of smell in a tragic accident and for good reason; in order for the universe to teach excruciating lessons that are unable to apply in later life, the sportsman must lose his legs, the philosopher his mind, the painter his eyes, the musician his ears, the chef his tongue.” And that did it. I picked it up. Most of the time, though, I was laughing out loud because of the way it is written, but then, there is nothing to laugh about, when you feel sympathetic most of the time to the characters. The sublime style captivated me, and it took me sometime to get out of the characters mind.
The novel drifts to the life of Martin Dean, Jasper’s father, from Martin’s perspective and that too in vivid detail. It left me feeling sorry for Martin most of the time, as he was driven mostly from one hopeless branch to another. From the condescending eyes of his father, to awaiting death due to childhood sickness, to being in coma, to being ridiculed, to being idolized by his little brother, to being the cause of shattering the dreams of his little brother because of the unforeseen turn of events, to being poisoned by a crazed mother, to finding a semblance of love in his father’s eyes when everything is lost and finally, seeing his entire family dead, again – due to his lack of foresight, to an undying love with Caroline Potts and finally to his journey to Paris where he eventually becomes the father of Jasper Dean. It might sound too simple, but it is not. It is much more complex, because Martin questions every notion along the way. His thoughts sounded so far fetched, it left me rolling most of the time. C’mon, he actually suggests that, the little criminal gang that his brother is part of, requires a mentor who could train them and guide them in the right direction and that is how they need to learn the tricks of the trade they chose to live in – from the person IN the trade. And that just left me flummoxed for a few minutes, before I took a deep breath and pursued him more! And more it was, when he actually runs around the Sydney to get the handbook for criminals (titled: Handbook for Crime) published!!! And the titles in that book are something like this: Manslaughter:Oops!, (loved this), Crimes Of passion: hot headed murder.
Terry, his little brother, was like a kid possessed, with his passion about sports and more importantly, he was a kid for whom nothing was impossible. He was loved by the Australia, until the coerced fight left him in no shape to play further, which led him into the world of crime, though as a pay off to the bullies of the school, for leaving his brother alone. It takes us into the mind of Terry as well, though it is said from Martin’s perspective. On an impulse, Martin gets too creative for his own good when he decides to put up a suggestion box in the town. Little did he foresee the repercussions that would be unleashed, to self and towards his family!
Then the novel comes back to the perspective of Jasper, who was taught by his father, about life, in general. These are quite interesting to me, particularly because, the little anecdotes felt like they were written exclusively for this book!!! From the confusing advices to little gestures of warmth to almost ridiculous idea of paying a visit to an empty box in a cemetery, just because the kid has a right to mourn his mother in an appropriate setting, (LOL) this book is a joy ride with a subtle sympathy aligned to ALL the characters. Despising his father becomes very easy in the end, but, what can one say, blood is thicker than water and hence the bonds of the family last stronger through the tough times and hence Jasper could not desert his father for long, when his “make every one in Australia a millionaire” scheme turns out to be a fraud, making the almost overnight most-loving man in Australia to “the hated” man in Australia? And that too, because the outrageous almost successful scheme was backstabbed by his most-trusted friend Eddie, who turns out to be a farce that would be revealed later?
Each character in the novel turns out to be so different from what they initially came out as! Amouk, another significant character in the novel, who perceives the ideas of Martin Dean quite seriously, if only to save him from his depressed haste to meet his end! Man, that was one superb set of events, the persuasion of the richest man in Australia to heed his ear to Martin to help realize one of his crazed ideas! I thought that the author was fond of love triangles, if there is a semblance of love portrayed in the novel, if not for just hormones and opportunities, to put it palpably!
It is hilariously philosophic, outlandishly assertive – having everything – crime, love, hate, passion, friendship, kinship, affection, plots, twists, ironic tales. This is a sort of novel that one cannot put down, but that which does not leave the conscience for sometime to come!
Hilarious, insightful, philosophical, perspective, the novel left me with a mixture of feelings. I could not keep the book down, but more importantly, I could not stop thinking. The background process ticked off the moment the lives of the Dean family unfolded and did not stop till I read the last word. This is a sort of book, one can pick and read any page and stop to think – and perhaps continue that line of thought for eternity. The characters of the dean family are vividly portrayed for their differences, but, what stood out mostly is the narration of the tale from different view points, giving more or less the shared animosity towards the collective living of the society. To think that this is the first novel by the author, it is unbelievable!!! It had about 700 pages and it is filled with wit, humor and a challenge to everyone who opens it – the challenge to put this down unfinished!
The initial narration starts with Jasper Dean, the son, who speaks about his father Martin Dean and about the others involved in shaping Martin to be the person he is. The story takes place in Australia for majority of the part, but, if one thinks we could get a taste of what is Australia like, hell no. The book is solely about the perceptions of Martin Dean and how his thoughts or ideas shaped his future and there by his notions and there by influencing his son’s future. The father who tried to teach his son about the values in life, giving contradictory advices most of the time, fails in his life and becomes the father his son loves to hate. Never once forming the bond, with his eccentricities (I have to call them eccentricity, if only because of my limited vocabulary), Martin Dean drives his son from mingling in the society to a person who is abrasive and filled with condescension against the very society.
The story begins with Jasper writing this from a jail, albeit for not having anything better to do. That is a strange, but, then, as the novel progresses, it does not seem to be a surprise any more. I laid my hands on this one – wondering what is this intriguing title – “A fraction of the whole” and wondered, what exactly is in it? I opened it and this is how it starts:
“You never hear of a sportsman losing his sense of smell in a tragic accident and for good reason; in order for the universe to teach excruciating lessons that are unable to apply in later life, the sportsman must lose his legs, the philosopher his mind, the painter his eyes, the musician his ears, the chef his tongue.” And that did it. I picked it up. Most of the time, though, I was laughing out loud because of the way it is written, but then, there is nothing to laugh about, when you feel sympathetic most of the time to the characters. The sublime style captivated me, and it took me sometime to get out of the characters mind.
The novel drifts to the life of Martin Dean, Jasper’s father, from Martin’s perspective and that too in vivid detail. It left me feeling sorry for Martin most of the time, as he was driven mostly from one hopeless branch to another. From the condescending eyes of his father, to awaiting death due to childhood sickness, to being in coma, to being ridiculed, to being idolized by his little brother, to being the cause of shattering the dreams of his little brother because of the unforeseen turn of events, to being poisoned by a crazed mother, to finding a semblance of love in his father’s eyes when everything is lost and finally, seeing his entire family dead, again – due to his lack of foresight, to an undying love with Caroline Potts and finally to his journey to Paris where he eventually becomes the father of Jasper Dean. It might sound too simple, but it is not. It is much more complex, because Martin questions every notion along the way. His thoughts sounded so far fetched, it left me rolling most of the time. C’mon, he actually suggests that, the little criminal gang that his brother is part of, requires a mentor who could train them and guide them in the right direction and that is how they need to learn the tricks of the trade they chose to live in – from the person IN the trade. And that just left me flummoxed for a few minutes, before I took a deep breath and pursued him more! And more it was, when he actually runs around the Sydney to get the handbook for criminals (titled: Handbook for Crime) published!!! And the titles in that book are something like this: Manslaughter:Oops!, (loved this), Crimes Of passion: hot headed murder.
Terry, his little brother, was like a kid possessed, with his passion about sports and more importantly, he was a kid for whom nothing was impossible. He was loved by the Australia, until the coerced fight left him in no shape to play further, which led him into the world of crime, though as a pay off to the bullies of the school, for leaving his brother alone. It takes us into the mind of Terry as well, though it is said from Martin’s perspective. On an impulse, Martin gets too creative for his own good when he decides to put up a suggestion box in the town. Little did he foresee the repercussions that would be unleashed, to self and towards his family!
Then the novel comes back to the perspective of Jasper, who was taught by his father, about life, in general. These are quite interesting to me, particularly because, the little anecdotes felt like they were written exclusively for this book!!! From the confusing advices to little gestures of warmth to almost ridiculous idea of paying a visit to an empty box in a cemetery, just because the kid has a right to mourn his mother in an appropriate setting, (LOL) this book is a joy ride with a subtle sympathy aligned to ALL the characters. Despising his father becomes very easy in the end, but, what can one say, blood is thicker than water and hence the bonds of the family last stronger through the tough times and hence Jasper could not desert his father for long, when his “make every one in Australia a millionaire” scheme turns out to be a fraud, making the almost overnight most-loving man in Australia to “the hated” man in Australia? And that too, because the outrageous almost successful scheme was backstabbed by his most-trusted friend Eddie, who turns out to be a farce that would be revealed later?
Each character in the novel turns out to be so different from what they initially came out as! Amouk, another significant character in the novel, who perceives the ideas of Martin Dean quite seriously, if only to save him from his depressed haste to meet his end! Man, that was one superb set of events, the persuasion of the richest man in Australia to heed his ear to Martin to help realize one of his crazed ideas! I thought that the author was fond of love triangles, if there is a semblance of love portrayed in the novel, if not for just hormones and opportunities, to put it palpably!
It is hilariously philosophic, outlandishly assertive – having everything – crime, love, hate, passion, friendship, kinship, affection, plots, twists, ironic tales. This is a sort of novel that one cannot put down, but that which does not leave the conscience for sometime to come!
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