THL

The History of Love
If escher's paintings left the easel and went through a typewriter, this is what would come out..
An author's last lap of life belting out a novel,who has already written his 'the novel' on his love in his life as 'The History of Love', A young girl named Alma's (after a character in this book)attempts to find out about the character she is named after, excerpts from the 'THL' novel itself, the story of the believed author of 'THL' and many more such yarns with coinciding story lines.
All this might sound like a jumble, if you are not used to the concepts of novel in a novel and more.
A cautious author would want to have a centralised control over the characters and just have one narrative. But Nicole seems to be very good at churning out as many narrators as the characters.Its one thing to have anarrator speak for each character and another to do what Krauss has done.

Jan 14, 2006

Wide Awake

Watching this movie, you calmly wait to see in what form, Night's creativity is going to unfurl in front of you. Its a nice experiment.
The kid in search of God, trying to look at all other religions in the world is so trying to expand his consciousness at such a small age, which great artists are known to do at the age of 20 and more.
For all those in search of something, here is your 'The signs', that you should go on...

Aug 21, 2005

Margaret Atwood's

the Blind Assasin

It is an amalgam of nested story lines. Unfortunately 'synergy' did not work to Atwood's favour.
The story of two sisters is very uninteresting. I still read on, to find out why the book is called so. The fictionary tale about the blind assassin's is worth the perseverance.
There is more suspense in the assassin's life than in the death of Laura Chase, the novelist.
I would have given a 5 star to this book, if it was TRULY JUST the story of 'The Blind Assassin'.

Aug 19, 2005

Diving

In Ponape chapter, in Zinsley's book,The rapture of the Deep, he comfortably dons the role of a marine biologist introducing you to Tunicates that are a link between vertebrates and invertebrates and the move on to the customs of the Pohnpeiian. The anthropologist then winds up marvelling at the ruins of Nan Madol

I happen to be in the posession of Grays Anatomy, so here's the beginning of me waxing about the bones.

Bones - Long
short, flat
and mixed

Spiced

Bourdain has already written on how a year just goes by in a kitchen in his confidential. Of burns too which will not elicit any balmy response from any of the coworkers. How different can a pastry chef's life be? The hours of kitchen call on you to be an automaton. That is how your success as a chef is measured, with the orders that you stack. It must be a welcome break to try perfect a new recipe to be on the menu for a while. Other breaks, when a national disaster brings in chefs and critics under one roof to send relief to the rescue teams. Then changes, when your workplace changes. You break into a place, everyone loves your work. After a while, the well of customers dries up. Time for new place, new recipe.

chocolate maki, Kalamansi Colada sure fire those dessert juices.

The book is well written and dispels the romantic chef image of ratatouille.

Silk Parachute

'Silk Parachute' essay brought out a sense of disbilief as I was reading it.
'Spin right and Shoot left'- This essay's beginning didnt get me hooked into it, but I could connect more to it from the part where he mentions 'lax rats'(muggles of non lacrosse world) - another club member then.
'Checkpoints' - on fact checking at NYorker.

'My life list' was felt ronic compared to the birders list. Its kind of funny, the hundred kinds of tea he has in the wild. The point wouldnt have been driven home, if I hadnt read earlier in a survival-in-the-wild book about having pine tea. In this and the 'checkpoints' essay I noticed a similarity in the small sections being non -sequential - seeming like different takes on the whole run. A ploy to keep in mind for future writing.

June 6, 2010

Writing down the bones

When you come across the writing techniques, at first most of them seem like they might not be of much help. Like for example, writing down the verbs and nouns and looking at new combinations. This activity can be appreciated only if something leads you to see the connection between writing in words and thinking from memories.
I like the way the author has put forward some concepts- Metaphors fit well when they occur to the writer in thinking process. One of her masters metaphor seemed ridiculous.
As a want-to-be-a-writer, if you had to deal with seperating and merging life and writing, she says writers live twice.
Read back your daily journals. You will know what she means by an idea bearing the stamp of the moment it was inspired and how each time you read it, your interpretation differs giving you more thoughts to write..

Nov 22, 2006