ZIKORA BY CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE
 
I have read Americanah, We should all be feminists and Zikora by Chimamanda. She brings out the true nature of the problems faced by women.
Zikora is a short story, but it is weighty. Labour pain, restlessness, anger, conflicting emotions roiling inside her. The lucid writing and narrative are such that one feels Zikora’s pain.
She tells the story of not only Zikora but also of her mother, both having had a bad relationship with their boyfriend/husband. It also shows the bond between the mother and the child.
Male chauvinism, resulting in helplessness among women is clearly depicted.
What does one owe the misogynistic nature of men to?
Upbringing?
Environment?
Genotype?

I had read a long time ago somewhere that Elizabeth Taylor, the actor married seven or eight times. I suppose Taylor Jenkins based this book on the life of one of these actors. The protagonist, Evelyn Hugo is a pragmatic, strong, determined and goal-oriented lady. She is portrayed as a well-endowed, mesmerising beauty, who uses her killer looks to scale up the career ladder. So, the whole story revolves around her, who becomes a world-renowned actor and to get to that position she marries, divorces, marries, divorces… some due to marital strife and others for other reasons.
 
The book has seven parts, one for each husband and I liked the way each of these husbands had an adjective to describe them in brief.

POOR Ernie
GODDAMN Don Adler
GULLIBLE Mick Riva
CLEVER Rex North
BRILLIANT, KINDHEARTED, TORTURED Harry Cameron
DISAPPOINTING Max Girard
AGREEABLE Robert Jamison

 
Though it is a fast paced, easy read, coming of age novel, I am not fond of reading this genre which feels like reading a gossip column of a film magazine or like watching some soap. I am sorry if I offend those who enjoyed this book. Because every other person was talking about this book, I thought of reading it too. But surely, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys this genre!!

CHINA ROOM BY SUNJEEV SAHOTA
Two parallel narratives; one story is of a sixteen-year-old girl named Mehar, occurring in 1929 and another one, in 1990s, is about an unnamed boy who is a drug addict and the great grandson of Mehar. Of the two stories, I think Mehar’s story is more captivating and poignant. It talks about the misogyny prevalent in that era. The word misogyny applies to men but in this tale, it applies to the mother-in-law who has hatred towards her daughters-in-law. It reminds me of the book ‘Second sex by Simone De Beauvoir’ where she says that women were goalless, child producing machines. “What can a woman do, for whom the man is both a means and the only reason for living!” The woman takes his name, integrates into his class, his world, she belongs to his family and must prove her marital status. Because the ‘male dominance’ is etched into a woman’s brain, she continues with the tradition without thinking of changing it (to think one must be educated, but women were not allowed to attend schools). That is what results in the ‘mom-in-law’ mentality.
In Mehar’s story, the antagonist is the evil mother-in-law. She is vengeful towards her daughters-in-law because of her oppressive past. I think she tortures them because she suffered similarly when she was young.
Three girls, one of whom is Mehar, are married to three brothers. The saddest part is that they don’t know which one of them is their husband. They wear long veils and see only the floor and in the night one of them is sent to a dark room to sleep with her husband, only when the mother-in-law ‘Mai’ tells them to go, but unfortunately in the pitch darkness they are unable to see their husbands face. The sole objective of sending them to the dark room is for them to produce a son. Otherwise, most of the nights, all the three wives are cooped up in a small room called the China room, named after the Chinaware, the mother-in-law brings as her dowry.
As Mehar’s story unravels, it gets more complicated and chaotic or in other words engulfed in a quagmire.
Its distressing to read such a story. I am glad to have been born in this era. First, they have no say in whom they can/want to marry, then once they are married, they don’t know who their husbands are and then they have no freedom of speech, nor do they have the right to be with their husbands at their own will. Such tales tells us about the hardships the women of those era went through which the current generation is oblivious of!
It’s a beautifully written, engaging, and intriguing tale. I hope everybody reads this book!!

The book is divided into two parts. The whole book is written as snippets of events. It is dystopian based on the internet and grief.

The first part is like reading fragments of chats or messages, clips of events or part of a story. Its like she has transcribed the chaos theory from mathematics into snippets of tales supporting it with incomplete lemmas.

The second part talks about the protagonist’s sister’s baby, who is born with some disorder.

None of the events move in a linear fashion.

I got the feeling that I was reading about an unrelated dream sequence. Quote ‘Can a dog be twins?’ keeps popping up.

It talks about many issues of the society like pollution, climate change, abortion laws, etc.

Though many have appreciated the book, it’s not my cup of tea.

 

MY REVIEW OF THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY BY MATT HAIG (contains spoilers)
Midnight Library is a fiction that covers science, fantasy, and philosophy. I suppose everybody would know the premise of the story as it is a novel that is very popular. Protagonist Nora Seed finds herself in a situation where she is faced with rejections from every possible direction. Having the feeling of not being wanted by anybody, an utter failure and full of regrets, she ends her life. She winds up at this Midnight library which is a portal that gives her the option of leading her life from a different perspective or choice.
There is no doubt that everybody has many regrets in their lives. I feel one must live life the way it comes with all its ups and downs, it’s a complete package. Life per se loses its charm if given alternatives.

At first, the story felt psychological, then it felt like horror.
The Yellow Wallpaper is a short story, about an unnamed lady with postpartum depression or mental illness.
 Her husband is a doctor and rents a mansion for summer and makes her stay in a room on the upper story. He forbids her from writing and doing any other work and she remains in this room with yellow wallpaper which is torn from places peeling. She feels that the wall papers’ smell lingers, she can smell it everywhere in the house, even when she goes out with her husband, she feels that her hair smells of the wallpaper.
I felt sorry for this lady as she keeps staring at this wallpaper, trying to interpret the pattern. She is portrayed as a wife who is not able to share her true feelings with her husband. Even if she was unwell, she should have been allowed to meet her relatives.
The ending was a bit ambiguous. I found the conclusion a bit hard to interpret. Freedom?
It is depressing to read about ladies of that era, life was difficult and to add to their woes if they ever wished to educate themselves or write, it was not allowed. Moreover, mental illnesses in women were not treated properly.
It is a short story, and it helps if you down want to be bogged down with a tome!

This fiction is predominantly an epistolary novel.
Alice, Eileen, Simon & Felix are the four main characters around whom the whole story revolves. Alice is a famous author and Eileen is an editor of a literary magazine. They are best friends from college. Through their long emails, they discuss history, socialism, climate change, consumerism, religion, morality, and many other topics. Though the discussions happen through emails, one doesn’t feel the connection, instead I got the impression that these topics were just sprinkled here and there just for intellectual chit chat.

1Q84 is dystopian fiction, a love story.
Murakami's stories, be it, Kafka, on the shore, or Wind up bird chronicle or 1Q84, all had mystery, all had cats, and all had a parallel universe.
I am fascinated by the number of composers, musicians, and authors/books listed in the novel, which his other books also had.

I vaguely remember reading about Queen Jindan Kaur and Maharaja Ranjit Singh in school History. Chitra Banerjee is a great storyteller. I wish had her as my history teacher in school. I would have been better at history. The narrative is simple yet captivating.

THE OVERCOAT BY NIKOLAI GOGOL

A story about this titular councillor Akakiy Akakievitch Bashmatchkin, a government clerk whose primary work was to copy. (They did not have photocopying machines then!), mainly letters and other important documents. A simple man who was an introvert, with no special needs or requirements, he enjoyed his job thoroughly and even refuses his promotion. He was the butt of everybody’s joke in the office. He sported this frayed overcoat which had become so threadbare that even the tailor refuses to mend it and he is forced to buy another overcoat. He earns a meagre sum with which he cannot afford one. Here is where the story builds up.

The overcoat is symbolic of capitalism? Wants? Desires? Greed? The overcoat affects him psychologically too. From nobody he becomes somebody

It mocks the system prevailing at that time.

I felt awfully bad for Akakiy and sometimes even we are faced by such people who wouldn’t cooperate or help.

Vladimir Nabokov called it “The greatest Russian short story ever written” (Source: Wikipedia)

It is a very relatable story with twist in the tale.

An easy read must read!