|
| Ninad Pradhan- Literature |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Literature: Related links Project Gutenberg: Download e-books British Council Library, India An interpretation of 'Ulysses' (James Joyce) |
Currently reading... (October 18, 2004)Also see Currently reading- Archives I am currently reading three books:
An introduction to Genetic Analysis, as the name suggests, is not light reading. It is a book on science without easy-to-grasp analogies, more on the lines of a reference book on genetics. Genetic analysis deals with the interpretation of experimental data, with the statistics of chromosomal recombination and linkage. If you have the time, then the book has the patience to first introduce you to cell multiplication and the path-breaking work on inheritance done by Mendel in the 19th century. Though the narration and explanations are concise and demand your attention all the time, it is possible even for someone with little knowledge of genetics (like me) to understand much of the text. There are a lot of diagrams and pictures to demonstrate the experiment and its findings. If you want to know what the fuss about mapping the human genome was about, or what techniques used in such mapping are, this is a good place to get educated. The chapter on DNA structure and following chapter on the chemical nature of the gene works in putting all the inferential treatment on the topic in previous chapters on a sound foundation. This is where you begin to understand the whys of gene theory, and you are led into them quite gracefully since the hows have already been covered in earlier chapters. It gives you a chance to marvel at the human (or animal, for that matter) as a physiological system. The amount of tweaking that must have gone into getting the system to work upwards from the cellular level is truly mind boggling. You realise how little it takes, chemically, to create a malfunction in the biological being, and then you realise that in spite of this, a vast majority of us are free from genetic problems. From this point of view as well, I feel like continuing with this book, even though I sometimes feel I would have learnt more from it if I were a biology student. TopHigh Adventure is not a book I expected to be reading anytime soon. It was one of those happy accidents which happen when we shop for anything. This book is written by the great mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary and is about his Everest expedition. The first time I heard of the book was during a documentary about Sherpa Tenzing Norgay on National Geographic channel. After Darwin's Origin of Species, this is my next reading of a historical landmark in the words of the person responsible for it. Reading this book has completely rubbished my notions of mountaineering. I had earlier conceived it to be a pure test of stamina and endurance, or the ascending of a monolith, but the scale of an Everest or a Kanchenjunga did not fit into my imagination of this skill. Hillary writes in brief about his exploits prior to the historic expedition to the Everest summit. This serves as more of a technical introduction to climbing. Since I knew nothing about it, things like cutting steps in the snow, negotiating crevasses by finding ice bridges across them, and the keen sense of direction that a good mountaineer probably requires, were discoveries I made while reading. Gaining altitudes of a few hundred feet with accompanying expressions like 'ease' or 'simple' for the mountain faces were out of place and not something I could easily associate with the tasks they described. However, if the few technicalities I ran into were a discovery, the element of planning involved was a revelation. This aspect of an expedition is a constant feature all through the description of the Everest effort, which occupies more than half the space in the book. There are reconnaissance missions, division of the team into work groups which deal with different problems at different stages, the logistics of the whole operation. I also learnt that mountaineers don't necessarily keep going upwards all the time during the high altitude ascents; but have to deal with many smaller altitude excursions which finally zero in to the final ascent path. The human element is, of course, the very reason why anyone would want to read a book like this. I often wonder why adventurers and sportspersons get the adulation they do, even though they may not be making a very visible social contribution. I feel this is because in them, we see the most public face of qualities we would ourselves want to emulate: dedication to a task, putting team goals ahead of personal goals, desire to constantly improve on their performance in a task, dogged determination to resist the most severe challenge thrown to them by the elements, and the ability to think logically in adversity. Hillary's team faces them all and comes out trumps in the fluid landscape of the Himalayas. After reading this book, you may agree with me that, while Hillary and Tenzing were the two to get their footprints on the highest walk of fame on earth, the rest of their team down to the hardworking load carrying Sherpas, deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. Sir Edmund Hillary mentions this team spirit all through his account, and while this may be attributed to his humility, reading the text makes one nod in agreement with the importance of team work in this mammoth effort. The language is simple and lucid, the narration is engaging and realistic. Do read this book. TopCrime and Punishment is about a crime committed by a student, and different stages following it, from denial to fear to repentance. Despite its theme of personal motive and reason in crime, still makes subtle political statements on the rise of communism and the seedlings of discontent prevalent in the Russian Empire of the late 19th century. However, it sticks to its core theme with absolute brilliance. The narration of the events following the crime at the hands of Rodion Raskolnikov, a law student who has dropped out of law school, is realistic and chilling. It takes the concept of a murderer out of the stereotyped bad guy mould, and tells you that, once there is conviction for an action, even that as serious as murder, an ordinary man is capable of executing it. The reason for crime, at such a time, is not about crime being good or bad, but it being justifiable in the eyes of the perpetrator. Raskolnikov reasons that his crime would be of no dire consequence to society, and reasons with himself to justify what he is about to do. The characters around him and the story built around all these characters is engrossing by itself, but tension is always heightened by the presence and actions of the lead character. What makes him so intriguing is that he is a cold blooded murderer, yet at times he behaves as a genuinely good hearted individual would, and that these actions are involuntary and selfless, such as the donation of his savings to the widow of a drunkard he has met in a tavern only a couple of nights earlier. He is blunt and cold, yet goes into a shell and experiences fear and tension when confronted with the consequences of his brutal actions. He is intelligent, yet uses it to justify a cardinal sin. Raskolnikov is the most complex character I have come across in a book, and it will need another reading (I don't know when!) to really appreciate the superlative characterisation. The build up to the revelation of his crime is not obvious till we get close to the event. Nearing the end of the book, you begin to realise how each of its characters, other than Raskolnikov, are actually used to highlight one particular aspect of his moral situation. One symbolises his hope for resurrection and faith; another, the state of self righteousness after a deviant act; another, trust and friendship; and intellectual compatibility. It is exciting to discover this writing style hidden between the lines, and I suppose that gives this story a firm grip over the reader. This is the difference between a truly great writer and one who tries to force thrills out of the reader. I would not like to reveal storylines and specifics, but hope you have the time to read it sooner than later and share your opinions about it. Till then... TopOne day in the life... is written by Nobel Laureate Solzhenhitsyn, a much acclaimed, and if I have read correctly elsewhere, a much controversial figure. The setting of this novel is a labour camp in Siberia, and the period is around 1951-52. There are some situations which by themselves make you shudder, and evoke strong emotions even without lyrical prose and dramatisation. The setting of this book is of this kind. I cannot imagine temperatures 41 degrees below zero. I cannot think of stepping out in that kind of freezing cold with wind chill. I cannot put myself in the position of a labourer working in the Siberian winter, not even voluntarily, but as a prisoner, bound to the cold for indefinite periods. I cannot imagine survival on a meagre 500 gram bread and thin soup ration. Yet, the characters in the book live through this, and events are inspired by conditions that existed in actual labour camps in Siberia. There is a particularly touching passage where the prisoner, Ivan Denisovich, sews a piece of bread into his prison mattress to store it, taking great care to not let crumbs fall, and puts the food situation in perspective. The author has to be given a lot of credit for not trying to squeeze emotions out of you. The sequence of events on the day described in the book are in a very matter-of-fact fashion. The characters don't cry and weep about their wives and children and talk loftily of freedom and justice, as many prison or war dramas tend to do. They are shown to be prisoners at the camp for a sizeable number of years, and the author points out, correctly according to me, that this period imprisons not only the person, but also his thoughts. His concerns are more about his next ration than the health of his family, a thought which may be insensitive, yet true. The narration has made me think whether treatment of prisoners has changed dramatically in the 50 years since. This book during its time may have exposed the low levels of respect for human rights in Soviet prisons. But are we really sure that this is just a Soviet expose? Are Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons just illustrations of life on the other side of the justice system prevalent elsewhere? The unexpected topicality of this book has made it even more interesting. What I really liked about it was the right length for its subject (155 pages), that it maintains its tempo right to the end, and is true to its character. There are no superheroes in it, no outright villains, just prisoners and guards and the circumstances they live in. A nice book. Reading InterestsI only read novels when I have heard of them before or when they have been recommended by friends with whom I regularly share books. My preference for fiction is that written up to the mid-20 century. I like character sketches the most, since they focus on one person throughout the book instead of creating a plethora of stereotyped soap-opera style characters. The first unabridged novel I read was Kidnapped by RL Stevenson. Works of fiction which I especially liked were: 1984 and Animal Farm (George Orwell), Of Human Bondage and The Moon and Sixpence (W. Somerset Maugham), One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), Ulysses and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce), Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit and Silmarillion (J.R.R. Tolkein), Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens), The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck), The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Old Man and the Sea (Hemmingway), To Kill a Mocking-bird (Harper Lee), Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)... I first read Shakespeare out of sheer curiosity, and who wouldn't be curious, he must be the most popular of all writers in English. I first read 'Othello' and was struck by the power of his verses. They were not, as I had presupposed, difficult to read or understand. Once you get the rhythm of his verse, you know exactly how to read it, at what meter. Then the words seem to fall into place easily, and the nature of the language, Old English, is a technicality waiting for you to sidestep it. The thrill in reading Shakespeare is not so much his stories, but his characters. It seems that Shakespeare might have tried to answer 'what state of mind is the character in?' rather than 'is it possible for such a situation to arise in real life?' when he wrote stories about them. I have only read 9 of his plays, and Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece amongst his poems, but I will read more as time permits, and those of you who have read and liked Shakespeare should suggest some of his works which I should get my hands on. Plays: Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, A Comedy of Errors, Julius Caesar In non fiction, I cannot classify my choice of the genre. I keep away from management and self help books, mainly because they seem to try and formalise something which is variable according to each person or organisation. At the same time, I found Lee Iacocca's Autobiography and Eliyahu Goldratt's The Goal different from these run-of-the-mill books because of the case study of a brilliant manager offered by the first, and the novel strategy on process chain management of the second. Micheal Palin's Pole to Pole is filled with vivid pictures and descriptions of his journey from the North to South Pole on the 34 degree longitude. Books which explain concepts of science (especially astronomy, economics, fundamental particles, genetics and history of a scientific milestone) in more fundamental terms are a favourite category. John Gribbin writes on a range of subjects, from DNA (In Search of the Double Helix) to Quantum Mechanics (Schr�dinger's Kittens), and does so with good research. He is one of my favourite non-fiction writers. Richard Feynman's Lectures on Physics is famous enough, but his Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! is a revelation of a man with many talents and a love for life. Nehru's Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History cleared the fog a little on the many opinions India's first Prime Minister and freedom fighter generates. What Manner of Man is a biography about the formative years of Martin Luther King, Jr. and reveals the qualities of a man who was not only a great figure for the cause of racial equality and harmony, but also a masterful leader, which made it possible for him to reach out to the masses and convey his message of peaceful resistance. Project Gutenberg and PGDPProject Gutenberg (PG) is a massive resource of e-books. The way they go about things is to pick books which are out of copyright and convert them to text files (.txt). I suppose there must be something like a public copyright, since I have come across files of the Human Genome Project on PG. I have been able to download books like Dante's Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha, Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, and the Complete Works of Shakespeare, which are valuable things to have as soft copy. The essence of the text is retained by the formatting style, it is just like the book without illustrations and without the fancy print. It's a must-have resource for books (of course, past copyright) if you are in the habit of reading from the computer screen. Distributed Proofreaders (PGDP) goes one step further in the process of making books accessible as electronic text. It enables us to contribute to the creation of these books. One can select a book to proofread, and the proofreading is done by comparing a scanned image of the current page with its OCR (optical character recognition) converted text equivalent. It is sometimes painstaking, but more often than not, you do get to read the book and enjoy it for its literary value, while making a few stray corrections to the text. PGDP is a complex and very well maintained site, with all the proofing guidelines available to the proofer, user forums, book specific forums, and someone reading his first page can do so with the comfort level of a more experienced guy. Having read a few books and respecting the intent behind PG, I felt it was natural to contribute to proofreading while I had the time to do so. I was also hoping to browse a variety of books on PGDP, since it is quite difficult to accidentally find a good book on PG unless you have some idea about what you are looking for. Actually, it is fun to see a book you might have proofed at some stage being posted on PG, and gives you a sense of connecting with the people who download it and find pleasure in its company. What a range of books I have been fortunate to come across while proofing! Here's a sampling: Those of you who can read Spanish, Latin, Finnish, French will find books to read here too. There are people who have read more than 20,000 pages, and the amazing Prishan, who tallies close to 136,000! Its quite addictive once you start proofreading. A small statutory warning: don't start proofreading expecting to come across only good works of writing. I have come across and given up, after a couple of pages, on writing which was: racist, absurd, claiming religious superiority, colonial-minded, scientifically absurd, and just plain bad. As the scouts say: Be Prepared and as some proofer might say: Happy Proofing! My WishlistThis is an incomplete wish-list of books which I would like to read, put down in the vain hope that one of you will play Good Samaritan and lend them to me, either physically or as a e-text, physically provided we don't live a thousand km apart... Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, Hemmingway's A Farewell to Arms, Tolstoy's War and Peace, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera, HG Wells' History of the World, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire... |
| Ninad Pradhan's homepage. Last updated October 18, 2004. |
| This page was made using HTML-Kit (Build 292) |