Greatbong is no Stephen King, but shines nevertheless

Its been some time since I read anything as disgusting as this book. Its however also been some time since I read something as spine chilling as this. This is pretty much a one line review of 'The Mine' by Arnab Ray, known to the Indian Blogosphere as 'greatbong.'

The book is shameless about its sexual imagination, immature in its ability to handle language, conversations and mood and yet somehow it manages to hold on the reader through a heart thumping page turner. The success of the book lies in its all out tenacity to bring out the worst of our inhibitions, hidden deep inside us right on to the surface - which also happens to be its plot in the first place.

The strength of the book is its setting, cliched as it may get, the mine in 'the mine' goes a far way in establishing its prime mood. In the shining, Stephen King's brilliantly written horror novel (later adopted by Stanley Kubrick with Jack Nicholson in the lead) a family of three is in a lonely Hotel far away from society and what kills them are not the monsters of the Hotel but the monsters that reside within them. The theme here is similar and brought out very well.

While most of the characters utter lines that are out of place and childish, the author compensates for these with thrills and revelations that just about make sure that the page is turned. Like the epilogue, which is unnecessary yet brutal - the book too is a series of events that make one question why they are reading the book in the first place, yet making them complete it almost as if going through the motions.

For the Indian Writer, Ray has opened new avenues that will hopefully be explored more and further.

The Mine - Tough to read, tougher to put down. 

Legally Thrilled - A tribute to John Grisham

In 1984 at the De Soto County courthouse in Hernando, Mississippi, a 29 year old Democrat legislator who had finished law school three years ago, witnessed the testimony of a twelve year old rape victim .The legislator then thought about what would have happened had the rape victim's father killed the accused. He began writing a crime fiction novel built on this idea. The rest is not just History. Its a lot more than that. What resulted was the beginning of a spell binding collection of law based crime thrillers from the man who was not long ago (before a bunch of mug faced magicians took over) the most read American author - John Ray Grisham. And this post is a tribute to the man who should by now be privileged to know that Krish King Nishanth has read every word of every thing ever written by him.

The first Grisham book i got my hands on was 'The Broker'. It was in 2005 - I remember looking at that Red covered book lying uncared for in Atul's room. And I also remember Anerudh telling me that this book was way below Grisham's best and that he did not like it. I picked it up and read the extract part and the 'build up from the magazines' part.I was as jobless as jobless can get and so did not mind reading a book not really recommended. To my surprise by the time I was midway through the book I was in love with his style of writing. He forced me through the last hundred pages, a practice he would follow for almost every other book I read of his. And by the end of it all the irony settled on me. If THIS - supposedly "way below Grisham's best work" is THIS good, then what about the rest of it?That is how I started off on a wonderful journey. A legally thrilling ride.

Grisham's strength is plainly his knowledge of law. When you read his books you feel as though you too have been using the technical terms and the lawyer jargon for years now. The reason being He explains these terms without actually explaining them. His protagonist is never super-special. He is just another loser student at law school almost done with it, a jailed judge almost relegated to 14 more years at prison, a bored professor of law almost retired into the monotony of his life, a young recruit almost lost in the rat race of big firm lawyers. There is nothing special about them expect that they are 'almost' done till they bump into a case or an incident that is potentially the most explosive thing any American would have ever heard of. And this transition is not unnatural. It happens beautifully - Like a fluid rushing into the smaller end of a nozzle. Its so Newtonian. In their ultimate dash for survival, they are both aided and stopped by consequence. They jump past the unexpected traitor and cautiously walk into the unexpected friend, finally ending in a rare combination of supremely magical yet thoroughly believable turn of events.

Just a mention of the basic plot of some of his stories sends a thrill up the spine. Take for example 'The Last Juror' - where some many years after a jury of 13 sends an accused killer to prison for life, the members of the jury start dying one by one. Or 'The Runaway Jury' where a ferocious battle is being fought for the survival of the biggest tobacco empire and suddenly One man from inside the jury and One lady from outside of it start controlling everything the jury does. 'The Street Lawyer' where a well-off rich firm lawyer is unexpectedly held hostage and later rescued from a poor man in need of legal assistance, leaves the firm to join a low-level street law firm only to recognise that the one file he has with him from his previous firm is potentially the biggest case in the country and that he has to fight the firm he just left. 'The Brethren' where three jailed judges run a gay scandal from inside the jail and their latest target is unintentionally the next presidential candidate. (wow). 'The Partner' where a fat partner of a law firm feels cheated, fakes his death, runs away with 90 million dollars of the firms money and is finally caught and tortured after 4 years only to run away with it one more time [:)]. 'The pelican brief' where a small brief prepared as project work by a bright law school student lands her in the greatest spot of bother and gets her enemies more powerful than any one else.

All this is just a small part of it. There are more absolutely un-put-down-able classics like the Rainmaker, The Testament, The firm and a lot more. John is always at his descriptive best and he does it without boring us. One gets a super fine picture of the thrill in the waiting and then one is rushed into the climax. And the epilogue is the perfect down gearing expected.Its not just hit-hit bang-bang from the beginning. There is a very emotional build up to the events. Its as personal as writing can get. He explores relations as much and as properly as he explores law. And that is the difference between some one like Perry Mason and John Grisham's Heroes.

John, in a shocker of a decision ventured into sports fiction after he was presumably bored with crime. Out of the two books he wrote in this genre, 'Playing for Pizza' remains a delight. 'The bleachers' did not interest me as much though. Grisham has also got min- auto-biographical at times with books like 'Skipping Christmas' and 'A Painted House'. His non-fiction book 'An Innocent Man' is a great read if read in the correct spirit of mind. NINE his books have been made into successful and appreciated movies. He has also written original screenplay for a couple of films like 'Mickey' and 'The Gingerbread Man'.

Overall, John Grisham is, among many other similarly entertaining people, one of the best things to have happened in my life. To people like me who are strict practitioners of the art of time-pass, John Grisham is God and provides the very necessary moments of thrills that we yearn for. He doesn't stop with just that. He also creates a major effect on how we look at English - the language and how we use it. Here is Nishanth thanking John Grisham for all the wonderful works of his and waiting for more from him. Yours absolutely faithfully.

THE GOD OF - 'The God Of Small Things'

The first thing i learnt from Arundhati Roy's only novel - 'The God Of Small Things' is that one should never name the title of a creative writing before creating it. I realized later, that there is great fun in doing such an act as it throws up a thousand and one more ideas into the write up. And that is not the only thing that I liked about the novel. The God Of Small Things is semi-autobiography at its best. Arundhati converts all that she has seen of her home town of aymenem and all that her childhood has been through into a seemingly simple but unarguably spellbinding collection of words in what remains her only published novel till date. ( Which sometimes is surprising because I don't believe that Man ever went to moon for he never went there twice. But the question of authenticity is quenched by the autobiographical nature of this splendid book).

The God Of Small Things is essentially the story of a pair of fraternal boy-girl twins and their lives which are altered permanently thanks to a dreadful combination of love,extra-marital love,marriage, divorce, caste,religion (the usual villains), and infinitely many more factors. But as a quote in the opening page of the book goes "No story shall hereafter be written or read as one single story" , the book doesn't really deal with just the story of the twins. Interacting with their lives is the beautiful yet disturbed state of Kerala,the bitter truth behind communist politics,the history and religion of the syrian Christians, the life of a young kid blessed by the blessed one, the heart-break of a young girl in love with a church bishop, the story of a self made man who is tied down by retirement, the agony of a divorced mother who loses her only child when she makes a trip to her ex husband's place, the purposeless life of a woman and her servant maid who watch TV 24x7, the death of a dalit who made a mistake of loving a once-married woman belonging to an upper caste,the disgusting episode of a canteen owner making a young boy hold his penis to help him masturbate and a lot more.A lot lot more

In this narrative which goes back and forth and then flashes forward only to race further back, every mini-tale which ends up constituting this mega-tale is a heart wrenching experience. Every line is tragic and the language is fresh, even ten years after the book was written. She uses repeated phrases, which individually have no big effect but on repeated reading set in the nostalgia ball rolling. A lot of importance is paid to poems which the protagonists sang as kids, objects that they loved, tales that they heard and repeated, handwriting lessons, and every other cute thing that childhood is all about - the major irony being, this almost picture perfect childhood is later ripped off into an irreparable mode.

There are some major highlights where Arundhati hits the peak of brilliant writing. She travels the fine line between over-indulgence and magnificent descriptive writing. For instance the chapter towards the fag end of the novel where she describes the doped kathakalli dancers who want to apologise to god for having sold their art to the foreign tourists and so, come up with a breathtaking show at the temple.

Overall a stunning novel which unlike other uni-sense-drivers, makes every sense of yours get up and imagine-Not only do you imagine the picture she paints, but you also end up tasting her food, smelling her scent,hearing her cries, feeling her touch and more than all that losing your heart to her tale.

I know I am ten years late reading this novel, now in 2008, but the fact that i loved it suggests that this novel has not only withstood the cruel test of time but has ended up triumphing over it.