Gabriel Marquez was an unknown writer for me in the year 1991. One of my friends casually mentioned that I should read this book and gave me One Hundred years of Solitude. I remember having read it in less than 72 hours and when my friend asked me about it, I had no words to…
There is a familiar idea that is emphasised while discussing reading comprehension about local versus global comprehension. If you are reading for detail probably for a competitive examination like the UPSC civil services, you have to read thoroughly , underlining and taking notes to copy in a book. Facts and figures will dominate this sort of reading. On the other hand if you are reading for forming a general idea or improving your understanding of a concept by taking in new facts or developments on the issue, you can read globally not once but more times ,based on your need.
Somewhere deep inside all the Russian writers must have been philosophers and thinkers. There is no other Literature which looks so much at the society with such concern, angst and emotion. Let there be no doubt that it was not only intensely engaging with the questions of the outward reality, but also very inward looking….
“O God! that madest this beautiful earth, when will it be ready to receive thy saints? How long O Lord how long?” Saint Joan by GB Shaw “If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart absent thee from felicity awhile and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story”…
Imagine a place called Malgudi and whatever feature you want to give to this happy town, has already been done by the renowned writer RK Narayan. It is said that people search the map of India to find this imaginary place which is so fondly and quaintly visualized by the novelist in most of his…
Is there a distinction that one can make with certainty? Literature is generally what has stood the test of time and can appeal to a number of people because of its inherent greatness, that transcends region, language, culture or genre. The great epic poems of the world, the great tragedies of Shakespeare, the novels of…
The other day I went to kovvur. It was an opportunity to see the river Godavari again. I contemplated about the river on the same lines that Huck Finn does in the novel “The adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Huck sees the Mississippi as awesome, grand and still. Perhaps there is a language that unites the rivers.
The Rainbow is a wonderful novel. The novel portrays the life of three generations of Brangwens. Tom Brangwen, the farmer of Cossethay, who marries Lydia Lensky; the Polish widow, Anna Brangwen, the daughter of Lydia Lensky, who marries Will Brangwen and Ursula Brangwen, the first child of Anna and Will Brangwen. The novel is wondrous…
Hamlet by Shakespeare When I read Hamlet or when it was taught to us, I was not moved by any overwhelming feeling. But when I watched the celluloid version (Hamlet played by Lawrence Olivier) I was overwhelmed by the ringing resonance of Shakespeare’s diction and by the powerful presence of a noble human being fitted…
An enthralling and riveting work. It is a biography which does justice not just to Charlotte but also to the sisters, Haworth in Keighley, Bradford, and the rest of the West Yorkshire countryside. So much of the personal character; their behaviour, the world view of the Bronte sisters was shaped by the natural scene around…