BOOKWORM
THE PAST MIRRORS THE PRESENT
Victory City by Salman Rushdie, Knopf Canada, $30. Pampa Kampana’s mother commits sati along with other women whose husbands are killed in battle.
Sandalwood and cloves thrown in large quantities into the bonfire of mass suicide cannot mask the “cannibal pungency” of burning flesh, and the nine-year-old girl can never bring herself to eat meat for the rest of her life. And she lives to be 250.
The grief-stricken Pampa has a divine encounter and becomes a vessel for her namesake, the goddess Pampa, who begins to speak through her, granting her powers beyond comprehension.
The magic seeds Pampa throws on the ground sprout into mansions and fortresses, and Pampa “whispers” its citizens into existence. And so Vijayanagara, the “Victory City” is born, a land where there will be rights and freedoms, and equality for women. But Vijayanagara doesn’t remain Vijayanagara for long because a visiting Portuguese trader mispronounces the name.
“My tongue can’t make those sounds,” Domingo Nunes confessed. “Not because of any speech impediment. It just won’t come out of my mouth the way you say it.”
“What does your tongue want to call it?” Pampa Kampana said.
Bisnaga, says the visitor.
“Then Bisnaga it is,” she said, clapping her hands. “You have given us our name.”
Right there is the first inkling that this fairytale is more than just historical-fantasy fiction. Rushdie has walked us into a 14th century kingdom that gets its name from a foreigner – just as India is called India because foreigners named the land beyond the Indus so.
But those magic seeds of idealism also give birth to little saplings of ruination. Hubris of those in power. A preacher with plans to use religion to divide people. Years pass. Rulers come and go. Battles are won and lost. Allegiances shift. The very essence of Bisnaga changes, with Pampa at its centre. Sounds familiar?
Victory City lets you visit a fantasy land while constantly reminding that it’s an echo of the present.
Pampa could cheat death, but even a demigod cannot alter human destiny, the constant churning of good and evil. At every turn, it seems Bisnagans are about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Aren’t we all still living that life?
ONCE WAS BOMBAY
The Bombay Prince by Sujata Massey, Soho, $35.95. The third in the Perveen Mistry series is set against a turbulent period in Indian history.
The subcontinent is chafing under British rule and unrest over the Prince of Wales’ arrival spirals into riots. But when an 18-year-old female Parsi student falls to her death just as the prince’s procession is passing by her college, Mistry has to unravel threads to determine if this was a suicide or murder.
Historical figures including Mohammed Ali Jinnah make an appearance, there’s history of the city, with details about Benjamin Horniman, the British journalist still remembered for his espousal of the Indian cause.
And the nascent romance between Perveen and the British ICS officer Colin Sandringham she met in the previous book, The Satapur Moonstone, is going places!
There’s a reference to the mysterious deaths of two other students who fell to their deaths from a tower in Bombay university some decades prior. The same case that another Parsi novelist, Nev March, based Murder in Old Bombay on.
A layered, satisfying read.
LIFE’S BEAUTIFUL
Simple Pleasures by Clare Gogerty, National Trust, $16.95. Clare Gogerty is on a mission to show you that many, many of life’s little joys are free, and so easily accessible.
“They are not measured by money or governed by social status, often they are not especially significant, but frequently they are the most wonderful,” she writes in her introduction. Following this up with a quote from Oscar Wilde: “Simple pleasures are the last healthy refuge in a complex world.”
So settle down in a sunny spot with this little book and count the many ways simple pleasures lift the spirit.
Among them:
Clean windows.
Pegging out washing in the garden.
Planting spring bulbs.
A long chat with a friend.
Not moving because a cat is asleep on your lap.
Sprinkled with quotes from Beatrix Potter and Rudyard Kipling, this little treat of a book will also remind readers of The Book of Awesome! by Neil Pasricha, and that’s a pleasure, too!
GRISHAM’S DEEWAR!
The Boys from Biloxi by John Grisham, Doubleday, $39.95. Biloxi is the kind of town that I can imagine myself going to for a winter getaway.
A small town not far from New Orleans with great beaches, resorts and seafood. But wait, not so fast. The setting for this John Grisham thriller – I am sure someone’s already bought the movie rights – has had a darker side for the last hundred years. In the sixties, it was notorious for gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor and contract killings. The mob rules the town, and the sherrif is on the take.
The scene is set for a legendary public prosecutor’s son and the heir to the local “Boss” – both childhood friends, Little League stars – to step into their respective fathers’ shoes.
The Boys from Biloxi is a sweeping tale of two sons from immigrant families who grow up as friends, but ultimately find themselves on the opposite sides of the law.
Think Deewar. Shashi Kapoor versus Amitabh Bachchan.
Life hangs in balance.
And Grisham does what he does best. He keeps the narrative tight and takes you on an unputdownable race to the finish line.
NOT SO LONG AGO
A Time Outside This Time by Amitava Kumar, Hamish Hamilton, $29.95. Satya, a professor and author, finds the pressures of the outside world won’t let up even at a prestigious writer’s retreat.
The president rages online; a dangerous virus envelops the globe; and the twenty-four hour news cycle throws fuel on every fire.
For Satya, who sees these play out in both America and his native India, the Orwellian interruptions begin to crystallize into an idea for his new novel about the lies we tell ourselves and one another.
A scientist received a grant to study fleas.
He would shout “Jump!” and measure how fast the flea jumped.
After a while the exercise got boring for the scientist because the flea always jumped up the same distance.
So, the scientist started pulling off the flea’s legs, first one and then another.
The distance got shorter and shorter, until finally he had pulled off all six legs and the flea didn’t jump at all.
“If you remove all six legs,” the scientist concluded, “the flea cannot hear.”
BIG IDEAS
How You Can Save the Planet by Hendrikus Van Hensbergen, Puffin Books, $ 16.99. Climate breakdown, species extinction, environmental disasters...
Environmentalist and founder of Action for Conservation Hendrikus Van Hensbergen shows young people that they have the “power to make change” (with adult supervision).
With stories of young people and the change they initiated and ideas for fun projects for everything from recycling a bottle into a bird feeder to how to raise funds for a project.
PUPPY LOVE
Saving Hanno by Miriam Halahmy, Holiday House, $10.99. This book is about a little-known facet of World War II – what did people do with beloved pets when they had to flee for their lives?
News photographs of Ukrainian soldiers tending to abandoned and lost animals make this book heartbreakingly current.
But as young readers will gather from the title, Hanno is saved and that’s all that matters to a little boy named Rudi.
TEEN REVIEW
By PRADYUMAN UPPAL
Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Penguin Random House, $18. This is a classic dystopian novel.
Piggy and Ralph shed light on how their plane crashed, regaining consciousness on the beach.
Then other characters appear from the dense jungle, Jack and Simon, and all the little boys.
Jack is egotistical, wanting to be at the apex, while Ralph, Piggy, and Simon are compassionate towards everyone.
A strength of this book is the perfectly constructed story arc. The survival story is common, but the plot twists it provides make it stand out. For example, it provides a realistic order of operations towards their rescue, “Seems to me, we ought to have a chief to decide things”.
Each page raises new questions, so you can’t put the book down until all of them have been answered!
I like how Golding showed how if we get stranded, the savagery within everyone comes out. That boys left alone on an island can turn on one another. He shows how society is keeping us together.
Despite having flaws within the continuity of the story, this is an enjoyable read.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to reflect on society and likes a survival-of-the-fittest plot.
• Pradyuman Uppal is a youth volunteer at Brampton Library.