Elastic by Johanne Bille. Translated from the Danish by Sherilyn Hellberg

Title: Elastic
Author: Johanne Bille
Translated from the Danish by Sherilyn Hellberg
Publisher: Lolli Editions
ISBN: 978-1-9999928-0-4
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 161
Source: Publisher/Marketing Agency
Rating: 4 stars

Elastic by Johanne Bille is a book that just made its way to me at the right time. Women in Translation was coming up and a marketing agency offered me a chance to read it as a part of the Blog/Instagram tour and I jumped on it. I jumped on the opportunity because it seemed liked a read that I would most certainly enjoy, and I am so glad that it surpassed every single expectation.

Elastic is literally a book for the times we live in. Mathilde is the core of Alice’s existence. Mathilde’s force is so strong that everything changes. It is the kind of love and lust that is self-destructive and redemptive at the same time. A love that perhaps you encounter once in a lifetime. Mathilde on the other hand is also quite mercurial and happily married to Alexander. Alice is moving into a bigger flat with Simon who is back in her life. And thus, starts a relationship of four people – of love, sex, intimacy, jealousy, and the workings of the human heart.

Bille’s writing sets the tone from the very beginning. The open love affairs, the choices one makes in love, and also the satisfaction and loneliness arising from it are beautifully explored. The entire book is told through fragments and it works brilliantly for a novel of this theme and magnitude.

Elastic is the kind of book that must be read in one go and perhaps that’s the only way to read it. It defines the current emotional state of people so well that you might just identify yourself with one of the characters. It felt like I was reading the movie Closer – the same intensity but less brutal. Bille’s writing and Hellberg’s translation were a match waiting to happen. Read Elastic. Be taken in by what happens when love washes over you and doesn’t let go.

 

All That Could Have Been by Mahesh Bhatt with Suhrita Sengupta

Title: All that Could Have Been
Author: Mahesh Bhatt with Suhrita Sengupta
Publisher: Speaking Tiger
ISBN: 9788193071014
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 152
Source: Publisher
Rating: 3/5

I am all for movies based on books and sometimes it is also strange to see a movie turned to a book or that’s what I think about ‘All that Could Have Been’ which will soon release as “Hamari Adhuri Kahani”, directed by Mohit Suri and based on Mahesh Bhatt’s Dad and Mom’s story. So I really don’t know what came first – the script or the book. I would assume the script.

Having said that, “All that could have Been” is a crisp book which does not beat round the bush. It is not lengthy and that is in itself a big deal for a book to achieve in these times. The book is about unrequited love and at the same time it is about love that surpasses all of this and does not believe in what the world has to dictate.

Vasudha Prasad is a single mother, raising her child against all odds. She wants to keep the memory of his father alive for him by writing notes to him. The father in question, Hari Prasad could not care less and is missing for a while.

Enter Aarav Ruparel, a rich hotelier who has no fixed address. He has lived out of a suitcase and is amongst one of the richest men alive. As fate would have it, Vasudha and Aarav’s path cross and the rest that follows is something which is not beyond their control.

This is a story of love and longing. It is about letting go and patiently waiting in the wings for love to be realized. I will for sure not give away the ending but I have to tell you that this book is a breeze. The writing is fast-paced and reads like a movie (I was not surprised at all). The dialogues are profound in some places and those are worth marking and referring to again. It is a read that can get over in an hour and a half. “All that could have Been” is a love letter to romance and everything that is possible and yet not.

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