An Interview with Priscila Uppal

So I had just finished posting my review of “To Whom it May Concern” a couple of days ago and voila! Here’s an interview with the writer Priscila Uppal. I also requested her to let us know her Top 10 favourite books and she did. So here goes…

When do poetry and prose truly merge in writing? Do they ever? “To Whom it May Concern” has a vast range of poetic imagery. Was it intentional?

I am a poet and a fiction writer (as well as an essayist and non-fiction writer), and since both genres utilize language, I think it’s only natural that my prose frequently displays conventionally poetic stylistics and my poetry displays conventionally prosaic stylistics. I think is metaphors, and to me that means that I am frequently trying to make viable and provocative connections between disparate elements, objects, ideas, worlds. Metaphors help ground the abstract, complex connections.

 What is your idea of family and its eccentricities?

Family is an essential construct, but it can be duplicated easily involving people who are not your blood relatives. When a family construct is beneficial, it offers support, resources, stability, and the freedom to experiment and to express. When it is destructive, it is suffocating, limiting, and cruel.

Your Heroes in fiction are…

Don Quixote, Pip from Great Expectations, King Lear, Aurora Leigh, Christa Wolf’s Medea.

Priscila the writer….likes to write on trains and airplanes, read poetry in translation, obsessively underline books.

Priscila the person…likes to nap with her cats, lounge on Barbados beaches, and drink champagne cocktails.

 Displacement is a common theme running through the book at a subtle level. Where did that come from?

I think that many people feel displaced in their communities when people are not recognized for who they are, in all their complexity. Empathy comes from understanding, and understanding comes from the imagination, which is why the novel also highlights the creative aspects of the imagination as a solution to displacement, alienation, and despair.

 The need of Hardev to keep the family together is intense. What role does family play in your life?

As stated, for me family is a construct meant to cultivate support and freedom and help people realize their dreams. I consider my friends, my colleagues, my students, as part of my family.

Your favourite prose authors…

Miguel de Cervantes. Charles Dickens. Laurence Sterne. Christa Wolf. Virginia Woolf.

Your favourite poets…

John Donne. Gwendolyn MacEwen. Leonard Cohen. Yehuda Amichai. Anna Swir. Christian Bök. Christopher Doda.

 If not a writer, then?

A social worker.  A nun. A veterinarian. A B & B owner. A lounge singer.

 The book has been compared to King Lear. Was that in mind while writing the book?

I was about half-way through the first draft of the book when it struck me that To Whom was my contemporary version of King Lear. I know that some reviewers are a bit baffled by this assertion, since the plot does not follow the tradition tale of greed and betrayal on the surface of the original; however, in terms of the actual language of Lear and its metaphysical concerns, for me each line of my book is in dialogue with that play. But then again I think all stories originate from earlier stories. We just shift and adapt them to speak to our own historical and cultural place.

 My ten favourite books:

 1. Don Quixote (the ultimate dreamer, the battered and failed dreamer, pulls at my heart)

2. King Lear (old broken men pull at my heart)

3. Seeing Voices (this is my favourite Oliver Sacks book, his study of deaf culture—it’s a fascinating exploration of language)

4. Almost anything by Freud (even though I don’t necessarily agree with all his theories, I think he’s a brilliant prose stylist and one of the most imaginative thinkers in history).

5. Aurora Leigh (I love this long poem portrait of the artist as a young woman)

6. Medea (I think this is one of the best novels of the last 25 years—it encapsulates the horrors of 20^th century political systems)

7. Yehuda Amichai poems (one of the great wisdom poets of the 20^th century)

8. Czeslaw Milosz (another one of the great wisdom poets of the 20^th century)

9. Great Expectations (this book, read for the first time in grade 8, made me want to be a writer; I wrote a play about Miss Havisham as my book report for the novel)

10. George F. Walker plays (he’s my favourite Canadian playwright and frequently pits characters who ascribe to different systems of thought against each other, each trying to establish their own rules of conduct and morality)

Top 10 Reads of 2010

So here is my personal favourite list of Top 10 Reads of 2010.  Here goes:

1. Castle by J.Robert Lennon: I loved this book. I mean, I loved it! The story was taut. It was not all over the place. It maintained the sense of mystery and thrill that a book like this deserves and at the same time did what few writers manage to – get a grip on the landscape and create it into a living and breathing character. I am all for this one and cannot recommend it highly.

2. The Original of Laura by Vladimir Nabokov: Though I found the book to be a little boring in the middle, I have to admit I loved it. There is no way I could not. Here we have Nabokov’s last book (can we call it that?) with his original writing on cards which were well etched into the book. Brilliant design and even better story.

3. Quarantine by Rahul Mehta: Hands down for this collection of queer short stories written by an Indian living abroad. Not because I am gay, but because he did a terrific job of writing such crisp and well-defined stories, though they had absurd ends and yet this one remains to be re-read.

4. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver: Highly accoladed and well-deserved for all the awards it won, Kingsolver did it again. It takes a lot to write a fictional tale and spin with historical characters – to breathe life into them – about what they will say or do given the situation. I bow to The Lacuna. The writing was lucid and emotional in too many parts to be described here.

5. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell: A masterpiece of titanic proportions. A saga (of sorts) set in 18th century Japan. A nation closed to the idea of international trade and confined to its customs and traditions, and who better to write it for us than Mr. Mitchell himself. I was enthralled by it and it held me captive for 3 days and nights at a stretch.

6. The Pleasure Seekers by Tishani Doshi: And from the moment I started reading this book, I could not put it down. The tale of the Patels had me eating out of Ms. Doshi’s hands and I wanted more of it. I just cannot wait for another of her books to come out. An under-rated writer for sure. Please read this one.

7. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen: This has to feature on my list for sure. Dysfunctional family. Midwestern American State and all the action that takes place. How could I have not enjoyed this one? I loved it to the core. A Must must read for everyone.

8. The Difficulty of Being Good by Gurcharan Das: A brilliant meditation on how the Mahabharata still affects us in this modern world. How truth, karma and dharma play their roles in the corporate and personal life. Gurcharan Das has done a brilliant job with this one. And I for sure am a sucker for mythology anyday.

9. Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C. Heller: If there is one biography I would urge anyone to read, it would be this one. Most people only assume about Ayn Rand and that is because no one knew her. Anne C Heller does a marvellous job with this iconic biography. Read more to find out more about Ayn Rand.

10. Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman: Last but not the least it had to be this book. With the way it is written to what is being written about, I fell in love with this book from the word “Go”. A book to ponder over for sure.

So this is my Top 10 reads for the year and I know it will only get better in 2011. Bring it on!!

Top 10 Fussed-Over Books

I have never understood why some people (critics and the common people) fuss over some books. I have tried reading them and failed miserably. May be I just haven’t been made to read them. Sigh. I feel bad that I have not read these great ones, but they just could not get my attention. Hopefully they will in the future. Here are my top 10 of those:

1. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie: Yes I tried and tried and tried again. I reached page 110 and gave it up. His writing was slow and did not captivate me at all. The book is the booker of the bookers and yet I failed to go through it. Was there something really wrong with the book or was it just me?

2. Ulysses by James Joyce: Now I have severe issues with this one. Confusing sentences, droning pace, existentialism (hardly) and an author whose only work that I have loved is his short story, “The Dead”. Sorry Mr. Joyce you just don’t do it for me. May your soul rest in peace.

3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien: The movie was better. The movie was fantastic. The plot is too intertwined. The book is boring. Elves and Hobbits and Hobbits and Elves. Description of a tree moving from one side to the other takes a page. Just not my thing.

4. The Alchemy Of Desire by Tarun J. Tejpal: My sister loved it. Again, it was a torturous read for me. Just could not get into the book and it was supposed to be all about love and all that. Mr. Tejpal knows how to edit a magazine. A book, I am not sure.

5. Books by Paulo Coelho: Yes it is kind of bullcrap riding on people’s sentimentality and actually minting money out of  it. All the stories (so-called), all the unintelligent lines that people fawn over, this writer knows his job. Sadly for him, I know my job too. Do not read his books.

6. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth: Heralded a classic, a work of great genius and all of that and it was too long for its own good. I use it as a paper-weight now. Mr. Seth is cute and I agree, his book is another story. An Equal Music though is 10 notches above.

7. 2666 by Roberto Bolano: Kill me for not liking this book. Burn me at the stake. This book – the less said the better.

8. Middlemarch by George Eliot: I prefer The Mill On the Floss anyday. Maggie Tulliver rules the roost, unlike this one. Bring in the yawns and the sleep right back in my eyes.

9. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyers: I will get shot for this or something or a vampire hidden in the night will kill me, however I could not make it after 100 pages. Sorry Bella and Edward. I like you. I do. Not that much though.

10. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Show: Apparently he did and from the sales of this self-help thingy, bought another one  for himself. Kidding! Just could not read it.

So that does it. My Dis List!! And no apologies.

Top 5 Gay Novels

This post had to come sooner or later. I mean come on! I am gay and I had to let you guys know my all-time top 10 favourite gay novels, and yes I just spelt favourite with a u, which wordpress is just about now rejecting and I do not care. Anyway, enough of the rambling and down to my favourites:

1. Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami: This one will always be at the top of my list, no matter what. This is not even your traditional gay novel, if you know what I mean. It just is. Like a poem, like a song, like a tribute to unrequited love of two women and a man caught in between. I can read this anytime.

2. A Boy’s Own Story by Edmund White: A coming-of-age tale of a boy who realises he is gay and how his life changes for the better or for worse. A heart-aching book. Brilliant!

3.Quarantine by Rahul Mehta: This poignant and yet beautiful collection of short stories is brilliantly written. I have posted a review on it.

4. Collected Stories of Tennessee Williams: Stalwarth of some great gay short stories. No one can touch what he writes. You sure do remember A Streetcar Named Desire and the sexual undertones in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof?

5. Queer by William Burroughs: A scandalous tale of love, immigration and loads of sex. I have always wondered how gay writers tend to throw in so much sex in one book and now I know why. Read it to believe it.

Well I wanted to post 10 books, however could only think of 5 that I really love. Till next time then. Toodles.

My Top 10 Fictional Heroines

Yes! Yes! and Yesses some more…I have been waiting to write this post for a very long time now and finally I will, about my Top 10 Heroines in Fiction. They are brash and sassy and know no boundaries. They are independent and live on their terms and conditions. They know no rejection or fear, and yet they love with a passion unknown to men. These are women I have admired growing up and love them to tiny bits. Here goes:

1. Catherine Earnshaw: No where can I find such a heroine who is mad with love for Heathcliff and yet hates him with a vengeance. She hopes he dies at one point in the book and regrets it so much. Catherine is a woman of contradictions and vulnerability – the irony kills me everytime I read “Wuthering Heights”. She is free spirited and beautiful, but can also be spiteful and arrogant. She is a wild animal and sees herself only with her one true love – Heathcliff.

“It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and [Edgar’s] is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.” -Catherine Earnshaw, Chapter IX

2. Dominique Francon: She is a smoldering siren. The one who Roark rapes and she loves it. She is the woman behind the sole standing man, Howard Roark. I believe she is the fountainhead of the book, who wants to keep everything sacred in her man, who rather destroy him herself than let him be taken advantage of by the world. Such is Dominique Francon.

I wish I had never seen your building. Its the things that we   admire or want that enslave us, Im not easy to   bring into submission.

3. Miss Havisham: There is nothing more beautiful in a character than unspeakable obsession. The bridal dress is never removed. She is waiting for her groom to the verge of madness. The random nature of her revenge is not so random after all. She drives Estella to hate men. I love this character. She is a lady with a heart and its broken.

4. Becky Sharp: She lives up to her name. Her wit and sharp edge of sarcasm makes Vanity Fair a delicious read. She is witty, sexy and sandy-haired. Becky is from an impoverished background and makes no qualms about it. She is hungry – for rich men and power.

Revenge may be wicked, but it’s natural

5. Anna Karenina: From the time we are first introduced to her on a railway coach to the time she has an affair with Vronsky to her ultimate death at the very station where she first lands in the book, Tolstoy knew she would be his greatest heroine and she was. No one can touch the honesty of Anna.

6. Madame Bovary: Alright, bring out your little black books and please do not let them be provincial as Madame is in the house. It must have been difficult to please three men in one book, but not for this one. She epitomised beauty, slander, sexual desire and above all the act of being human. You go girl!

7. Emma: Jane Austen’s Emma is so very human. She is always plunging into such embarrassing mistakes – and yet they’re the mistakes one longs to make oneself, like telling the tediously garrulous Miss Bates to shut up. And, bless her, she is truly ashamed when she does, because she is actually very nice. Nicer than I am by a long way.

8. Sumire: She is not known to many (just like the way she would have liked it). She wants to be a writer and gets lost for the love of a woman. She is passionate and does not know how to dress well. She is the object of affection of K who can never have her. Loosely put, she is the best. You have to read Sputnik Sweetheart to believe what I am saying. Trust me.

9. Scarlett O’Hara: Try as I might I cannot ignore this cat. She had it all – the style, the attitude and the ambition. She wanted what she got, well most of the time. She could make clothes out of curtains and look stunning. According to me, Scarlett could have done anything. Anything at all.

10. Holly: Who can forget her at all? I for one cannot. From being Lulu Mae to Holly – the life of a party, to a call girl who has to but make her money. Holly Golightly was everything that Capote ever wanted to be and he made her come alive in more than one way.

You know those days when you’ve got the mean reds…. the blues are because you’re getting fat or maybe it’s been raining too long.  You’re sad, that’s all.  But the mean reds are horrible.  You’re afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don’t know what you’re afraid of.  Except something bad is going to happen, only you don’t know what it is. 

And these are my women…No not jezebels. They are only human, in their defense…You’re always a woman to me…

My Top 10 Love Stories

And yes we are back with the Top 10′s. The first one was on My Top 10 Villains in Fiction and now I present to you My Top 10 Love Stories – oh yes the ones that make you laugh and cry at the same time – the ones that leave that warm longing feeling in your heart and the ones that make you wish that the characters hadn’t fallen in love at all. So shall we let the love stories in motion?

1. Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami – At the top of my list, only after 2001 when I first read it and gave it my all. Since then I have read this book 17 times and no I am not kidding. I almost know all the quotes and scenes. Sumire and her story with K and Miu took my breath away. Read it and know for yourself.

2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte – Yes Yes Yes we are all aware of Katharine and Heathcliff already – give us a break, you might say, but how can you forget their love amidst the moors of England, the dark brooding weather and love gained and lost and regained in death. Bronte was right in writing only this one. She couldn’t have survived the popularity.

3. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy – Viewed by many as an illicit love affair between Anna and Vronsky and yet remains to be one of the most beautiful unrequited love stories of all time. If only Tolstoy hadn’t killed Anna under the wheels of a train.

4. Love Story by Erich Segal – “Love means never having to say you are sorry”. Sigh. How many of us have cried while reading this one? I have. Over and over again. Erich Segal knew what he was doing, the magic that was being created.

5. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje – Haunting and beautiful, Ondaatje’s award-winning novel tells the story of four war-damaged souls living in an Italian monastery at the end of WWII, and the love story between two of them, the exhausted nurse Hana, and the severely burned unnamed English patient. Unforgettably unique.

6. Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt – Possession restores sex to the Victorians and romance to the 20th century — and shows that while the language of love might change, love remains the same.

7. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote – Though some may not agree to this being a romantic book, I would say to them that you do not know any better. I mean how can we forget the sheer and unfailing chemistry between Fred and Holly – the visit to Tiffany’s, the stealing of masks, the cat who has no name and “an attack of the mean reds” which can only be assuaged by jumping in a cab and going to Tiffany’s. Mr. Capote, why don’t they write like you anymore?

8. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene – War Struck Europe and two people meet. Their fates are sealed. Cut to 1946 and Maurice is all set to find out why Sarah ended their relationship so abruptly – what could have been the reason? One of Graham Greene’s best works.

9. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell – Who can forget Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara pelting their love out in a horse carriage? Or for that matter the hopeful end of the book, when Scarlett knows that tomorrow is another day to win back her love? A classic read.

10. By Grand Central Station, I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart – The world might have been at war, but no less cataclysmic is the individual anguish of the broken-hearted, so claims Elizabeth Smart’s prose poem. The barest traces of a story of everyday adultery swells to heroic grandeur with lashings of biblical and literary allusions. While the unnamed lovers’ romance is painfully brief, the book was based on Canadian writer Smart’s affair with the English poet George Barker, which lasted 18 years and produced four children. A howl of tortured love and the agony of betrayal, it should be avoided by emotional cynics and literary ascetics at all costs.

My Top 10 Villains in Fiction

Hmmmm…So I thought and I thought, I pondered by my bedside, I thought of it in my sleep and I reached something – at last! My top 10 Villains in Fictions. The ones that I would love to hate and love their writers for sketching them so brilliantly that they still manage to rouse goosebumps on my flesh when I re-read them..Brilliant I say…Here are my favourites:

1. Uriah Heep(David Copperfield): Well well well, he is the top of the tops. The wicked Uriah Heep of David Copperfield. The insincerity of this character is spread throughout the book. He is the epitome of sheer evil. Read this one!

2. Tom Ripley(The Talented Mr. Ripley): It is strange however I would love to go to bed with Tom Ripley. After all one doesn’t really know whether this villain is gay or straight. His crimes. His mind. The plots he schemes is beyond everyone. And yet somewhere down the line he is aware that he will get caught someday for what he has done.

3. Heathcliff(Wuthering Heights): I would not call this one a villain, but then again, what would you call a person who drives his loved one to madness? What would you call someone who loves with such a vengeance that he wants to destroy everything in his wake? You would but call him a villain, wouldn’t you?

4. Lord Voldermort (Harry Potter Series): Lord Voldermort is real. He is insecure. He wants to be liked by all. He wants to overpower. He is the trueblue villain of the times gone by and Rowling has managed just fine with him.

5. Count Dracula (Dracula): An entire book dedicated to the blood-sucking, enticing vampire. Before Twilight emerged, way before there was this Scandinavian imaginary being that was many a cause of people’s sleepless nights. Including mine – though mine came later as well with Keanu Reeve’s Dracula.

6. Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs): The hissing. The good taste for flesh. The maneater Mr. Lecter is quite a monster created by Mr. Harris. Dark and brooding. He knows what to plan and what to do with his time. Chills the spine everytime!

7. The Devil (The Master and Margarita): The devil decides to take a walk in Russia and there is but after all, hell breaking loose. Literally. Moscow is the devil’s new abode.

8. Humbert (Lolita): No matter what anyone says, to me Humbert is a villain. Probably the greatest of them all. Yes he was a pedophile. May be he loved the child, however doing what he did!! Attrocious!

9. Sauron (The Lord of the Rings): White haired, withering, full of strength, Sauron will not stop at anything to get the ring to rule them all.

10. Sher Khan (The Jungle Books): And my personal favourite, the tiger himself..Sher Khan. The one who still manages to instill fear in kids! Brilliant I say!

Last but not the least. For every anti-hero or villain ever created, you made it possible for the concept of heroes to come alive.