Book Review: With Borges by Alberto Manguel

Title: With Borges
Author: Alberto Manguel
Publisher: Telegram Books
ISBN: 978-1-84659-005-4
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 77
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

The world is full of strange coincidences. Stories that you hear. Some that are true and some that you want to believe happened. Then there are the coincidences that happen to you. That you find very hard to believe. One such coincidence took place in the life of Alberto Manguel – a celebrated writer and bibliophile, which changed his life in more than one way. He was all of sixteen, working at a bookstore, and one fine day in 1964, in Buenos Aires, walks a writer in to the shop, asking Alberto if he would be interested in a part-time job reading aloud to him as he is blind. The writer was none other than Jorge Luis Borges. That changed in lot of ways the way the sixteen-year old would view the world from thereon. He would also chronicle his experiences with Borges in a book called, “With Borges”, which I have just finished reading.

“With Borges” is a simply written book. It is almost a dedication to Borges and to his love of words and stories. Borges somehow knew that he would end up blind, just like his father and maybe this led him to memorizing everything, well almost everything. Words, stories, verses, the structure of his house and the books in the library, of which he was the director. Manguel traces the life of a writer and of the person in this short and brilliant work of seventy-seven pages. For me, reading this book was an experience of envy – I was envious at the encounter and how that culminated to a beautiful friendship. To me that was the most important quality of this memoir.

There are parts that I could not help but underline and reread them. The ones where they talk books and what Borges wants to read. I wished the parts on Borges’s craft were a little more elaborated on. There is only this much that seventy-seven pages can do, however Manguel does not waste a single word. No word also seems out of place or not needed – almost like a short story written by Borges. Manguel talks about the way he also transcribed some of Borges’s writing for him – it was as though the writer knew what he wanted to write, the power of imagination but after all was not gone. I started reading Borges when I was nineteen and since then I haven’t stopped. I go back to his stories time and again and they somehow infuse new life in me at the end of it. This memoir almost did that. Manguel’s writing is beautiful in the sense that it is honest. From speaking of Borges’s mood swings to the way he was about literature to also his bookshelves, Alberto covers every single ground. I guess it is experiences such as these that also sometimes led Manguel to heavily feature Borges in almost all his books.

One thing I am sure of – I will certainly go back and reread this gem of a book on Borges, on reading, on bibliophiles, on the need to continue to read even though you cannot, to see the world with your dreams and to the love of reading. This short masterpiece has it all. A must read for budding readers and writers.

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Book Review: Tangles – A Story about Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me by Sarah Leavitt

Title: Tangles – A Story about Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me
Author: Sarah Leavitt
Publisher: Jonathan Cape, Random House UK
ISBN: 978-0-224-09422-1
Genre: Graphic Novel, Memoir
Pages: 132
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

I have often wondered while reading memoirs or something very personal: How do the authors manage to put all this down to paper? All the hurt, the anguish, the memory of it all, on paper for others to read. I do not know how they must feel to put it down – to go through those memories all over again, so they can tell it to the world. I am sure though it must not be easy to do that. This thought crossed my mind as I finished reading, “Tangles – A Story about Alzheimer’s, my mother and me” by Sarah Leavitt, a story of her mother’s illness and her love for her, and that is in a graphic novel format.

I had wanted to read this book since a while now, however something else kept coming in the way, pushing this one on the back burner. And when I finally did, it reminded me of someone who I had known with the disease and all the memories came rushing by. Anyway, back to the book. “Tangles” is one woman’s story about losing a parent and at the same time strangely enough, also finding a parent through Alzheimer’s. The content and context is heavy and may be that is when the book being in a graphic novel format helps.

“Tangles” is the story of Sarah and her mother and Sarah seeing her through Alzheimer’s. It covers six years of her mother’s life with the onset of the disease through her death and the emotional turmoil Sarah and her family goes through. For me it was about the disease and what it does to you as a person – at the same time what it takes from you. Fragments of memory are snatched slowly and steadily till it reaches a stage when you struggle to remember your loved ones. Sarah writes about it with a touch that makes you want to reach out to the author. The novel covers everything – the dark humour, the spark, the burst of energy and frustration, the reaction of the family, the last moments and the very angry moments as well.

To reflect on a disease through a graphic novel format is not unusual. A lot of writers have done it before. So it is only common if you tend to compare it with Fun House by Alison Bechdel or with Charles Burns’ Black Hole. The quality of illustrations is on the spot, making it seem real enough, which for me was very important while reading the book. The connect of the reader will but obviously be very high, given the nature of the book and yet at times the reader will forget that it is a memoir and Sarah’s mother went through it all. “Tangles” at the same time celebrates life – for what it is, for what it was and how it will be. The story is honest. It is raw. It is also quite tender. A story of a mother, her disease and her daughter.

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Book Review: The Creation of Anne Boleyn by Susan Bordo

Title: The Creation of Anne Boleyn
Author: Susan Bordo
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 978-0-547-32818-8
Genre: Non-Fiction, History
Pages: 343
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

If there is any Queen that has been most speculated about, then according to me that would have to be Anne Boleyn. There has been so much written and spoken about her. What was she? Was she really that vicious? Or was she merely misunderstood? What was her nature? We all know (or well most of us do) how she came to be the Queen of England and Henry VIII’s second wife. She was a mistress, a plotter, a woman who was in charge and wanted it all and like I mentioned may be a lot of the parts she must have been highly misunderstood.

I have always been drawn to Anne Boleyn, wanting to know what led to her execution. Did she even deserve it all? There are so many questions surrounding her that it would probably take a lot of books for me to read and movies to watch to get a sense of the person. However, for now I have just finished reading a book by Susan Bordo called, “The Creation of Anne Boleyn”, where she uncovers the persona, the myths in a logical manner about this Queen and her life.

“The Creation of Anne Boleyn” charts the entire life of Anne Boleyn and with it Bordo also talks about the influence of every single form of media that has led to people perceiving Anne the way they do. To make her point, Bordo breaks all myths and conventions with more than enough proof and that had me going page after page. The structure of the book is also simple and quite understandable: the first part speaks of Anne and how she came to be Queen, the second part takes readers through what happened after Anne’s death and the third part is all about the media and how it has come to view Anne Boleyn.

The writing is insightful and shows the research gone into this book. I loved the instances and reasoning provided by Bordo. She takes readers on a fascinating journey of trying to uncover the mystery behind Anne Boleyn and her ambitions. It is a cultural examination which is highly readable and also witty in most places, which is very difficult for a non-fiction or a book of a historical context to achieve. She speaks of Anne as a person – physically and mentally and that clarity is par excellence. At the same time, Bordo takes into account what happened and why. She talks of roles of other members of the King’s court and their role in it. Katherine of Aragon is heavily featured, considering it was she that Henry wanted a divorce from to marry Anne and he waited the longest for it, only to end up executing Anne. This irony and complexity is simply told in this book. For anyone who wants to know more about Anne and the myths surrounding her life, I definitely recommend this one.

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Book Review: On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz

Title: On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes
Author: Alexandra Horowitz
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 978-1439191255
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 320
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

We think we see all the time. We think we observe. We also think we possibly know the world around us the way we are meant to. We see what we expect to most of the time. Maybe our mind conditions itself to show us only those things which we want to and the ones that we do not want to, well, they just get hidden. It could happen anywhere. In a familiar neighbourhood or maybe in a place you have never been to before. Maybe it is all about perspective or maybe about security, however it exists in all of us. The way we see and perceive of our surroundings or rather what we do not see.

“On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes” by Alexandra Horowitz is a book that maybe does not teach you how to look, but definitely provides some refreshing perspectives on the subject. The premise of the book is simple: Walking around the same path in a city with different people, almost eleven people or as she says twelve, and getting their point of view. The people ranged from her son to well-known illustrator Maira Kalman to a sound designer, bringing not only different perspectives but also making her and the readers think about our own perceptions.

I have loved almost everything about the book. From the way it is written to its premise. Sometimes it did become a little stretch; however I ignored it very easily with the turn of the page. “On Looking” brings together several elements at one time – it speaks of a simple everyday act, of different people performing it, through the same track and yet provides so much in the form of perceptions and how different people discover different things.

The book is definitely interesting and well written. Very rarely do I come across something in the non-fiction genre that catches my attention, but when it does, I savour it and mostly end up enjoying it as well. We hardly pay any attention to our senses and this book is a reminder of that fact. What it also does with its simplistic writing and views, is makes you want to see things differently. To me that is the highlight of this wondrous book that ultimately speaks of seeing things closer to you than to go in search of them far and beyond. A great read for sure.

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Book Review: Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India’s Geography by Sanjeev Sanyal

Title: Land of the Seven Rivers: A Brief History of India’s Geography
Author: Sanjeev Sanyal
Publisher: Viking India, Penguin India
ISBN: 9780670086399
Genre: Non-Fiction, History
Pages: 352
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5/5

It is not easy to write a book which is solely based on geography or for that matter history. What is most difficult is when the two get combined in a book. More so when the country in question is India, with its diversity and centuries of culture and history, which can still be seen in most places, if only you would look at it closely enough. I have always been intrigued by our country’s cultural subtext and how we came to be as a nation. The thought would be there and I wanted to read more on it, till something else caught my attention and this thought would then be on the back burner. Till I heard of “Land of the Seven Rivers” by Sanjeev Sanyal and decided to give it a shot.

There is a danger when you want to read a non-fiction title. The danger of boredom that is. It is very easy to lose interest in a book based on facts and numbers. However, this did not happen while I was reading this book, maybe also because I took my time with this one. I had to let the history and geography of our land sink in and that helped me savour the book – page by page. “Land of the Seven Rivers” by Sanjeev Sanyal is a fantastic attempt to talk to us simply about our heritage (well so to say) and of the times gone by.

The book uncovers thousands of years of history and also manages to link it to the dramatic and quite sudden changes taking place in the country. He speaks of the architectural design of the country and how with the many rulers, the landscape changed and with some of that, our culture and history as well. I love the parts when Sanyal tries to uncover questions we may not even think of, for instance, why is India named Bharat? What happened to the Saraswati River? He speaks of the Great Flood and ties it back in with the structure of the country. What I liked is that he doesn’t trace kingdoms, instead he traces civilization during those kingdoms – he speaks of lives and then connects it all to the geographical nature of the country.

My favourite parts in the book have to be how he explains the archaeological sites and how they came to be. The maps only add to the beauty of language and wit as displayed and they are needed to guide the reader at every turn of the page. I can only say that as a student I loathed history and as an adult I am loving it even more and I am only thankful to books like these that have opened my mind and world to what once was. I would recommend it very strongly if you want to know the roots of our nation.

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