The Easter of Bibliocracy

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Canbooks save humanity?

Hell, no.

Then why do we celebrate the World Book Day?

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Apparently, some influential people want us to believe that books can change the world, the time, and the people, and save the asses of the disillusioned rich. At some point in time, someone with power, some megalo seemed to have discovered that there is a chunk of time for leisure, available for those who work in factories, offices, schools and also for those with no jobs and no prospect of getting any in the future. This leisure time became the subject of a great scrutiny in the bureaucratic level throughout the world, after the Cold War. The age-old dictum ‘an idle mind is the Devil’s workshop’ was an archetypal threat they all felt. What if the Devil himself decides to establish his base camp in those many idle minds? Clearly, it was a warning sign, because the bureaucrats were outnumbered had the multitudes with loads of leisure time lodged the Devil in their murky hearts.

Plans were plotted, meetings were held and coffees and snacks were distributed around the table, round and round. The bureaucrats, being who they are, nibbled their biscuits and gulped all their tea. But a solution to take care of the Devil’s abode, the leisurely mind, the implementation of the plan to tap the unhealthy supply of time, was never reached.

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Discussions were held again. Books and records were referred. Finally, some supremely agitated grey hair mentioned what could be the best way to tackle this situation. Give them weapons and get them into a war, without much thought you can tell how they all are going to end this world. Give them food to munch through their leisure time, free food. You will dig massive graves for people dying of excessive eating, blood pressure, heart diseases and all sorts of obesity. Give them sex to fill their free hours and you will create the next Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, then, there is one rather easy solution—books. Easy to distribute, battery free, cheap, engaging, enigmatic, and deeply intoxicating.

And so they planned and implemented the World Book Day. There was an event they all could look back to, a ghost stuck in the history of human civilization. Simple and largely deemed unimportant, or at least not as important as the Little Boy and the Fat Man, this event remained a life buoy for the supporters of Bibliocracy. On the 23 April 1923 some book sellers in Spain decided to celebrate a Book Day. They chose this day, because it was the death day of the legendary Miguel de Cervantes, the creator of the quixotic character.

Cervantes
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The later generation decided that they would acknowledge a number of other writers who happen to die on this day or born on 23 April. At the time when the bureaucrats realized they were not the only ones who never turned a page in a book, the thought of a globally celebrated day for books was generated. So they just threw some writer’s who happened to die on this day together, like William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Josep Pla. Then they threw in some writers who were born on this day, or at least in this month, along with the previous list. Curiously and controversially, the Swan of Avon came up on top in this list too along with other writers who were supposedly born on 23 April, like Maurice Druon, Manuel Mejía Vallejo and Halldór Laxness.        

Like all the other celebrations, different part of the world celebrates World Book Day in its own fashion. That does not matter, though. What matters is if you are a part of Bibliocracy? Then you must celebrate, because this is the festival of resurrection of books.

and other stories

But then, can books save humanity?

Hell, no!

If you don’t believe in books, what have you been doing these previous four years with Wall of Colours?

I was writing “Wall of Colours and other stories”. It took four years for me to complete it. Well, I didn’t say I don’t believe in books, precisely, did I?   

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Which is Batman’s Best Gadget?

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WhatServes Batman Best?!

Bat plane, Bat car, or The Bat, an all purpose flying machine that Lucius Fox presents to Bruce Wayne, which one is the most efficient tool of Batman?

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What attracted me as a kid towards Batman was his vulnerability. The thought that he could fail was enough for me to unshackle myself from the meta-fantasy of the Superman, the hero of perfections. (Not completely, though, which I later realized.)

However, among battles between good and evil, Batman relies on a number of surprise gadgets which were fun to watch and enthralling to imagine on your side; what impressed me the most was the rope. But then there was Spiderman, with a genetically generated spider-web-shooting gland on his wrist!

Batman has still got the grounds, because he always has the specially designed vehicles and daggers or darts. Some darts, are designed to look like bats. Only Batman has custom designed cars and bikes and planes. They have their names too—bat bike, bat plane, bat car and so on, like a whole “bat” franchise.

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Then there is the Bat signal. In the relentless fight against evil, injustice, corruption and darkness, Bat signal is the only medium through which any ordinary citizen of Gotham city can communicate with their superhero. This is the answer to the question why are superheroes so aloof from the common population. The Bat Signal is a huge bat wing stuck over a spot light. Anyone can light the signal and project it towards the sky.

In most of the early comic books featuring Batman, his gadgets usually won the war for him. But if one looks at The DarkKnight Rises, and other latest comics or movie versions, one can see Batmanmiserably waiting for some miracle. Most of the technological advancements Batman possessed were used against him by the shrewd Bane. And Batman finds it miserable.

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Technology can be copied or stolen. However the might of the hero is undefeatable. What helps Batman succeed at the end?

After being thoroughly defeated by Bane, Bruce Wayne hits the bottom of the barrel. And he was thrown literally into one, by the villain. The emergence of the hero from that dark dungeon, from the fear of failure, loss and death is the only factor we are able to see Batman, at the end, standing against Bane and company. It is to this “emergence” that we owe the heroism of our hero.

The most powerful weapon, therefore, Batman owns is his mind, that at the same time suffers from a series of fears—loss of parents; fear of death; the fear for darkness—and possess the capability at the same time, to emerge from the claws of these fears.

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The Dark Knight Rises

Batman
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Forthe first time Batman bored me. Not the movie, but Batman. He was old and grumpy and sad and desperate and hopeless about life, about being Batman.

However, with a really good story line and terse screen writing, the movie is entertaining. There is one character that appears to be worth an enemy for the Bat guy—Bane, the muscle man and wizard of the ‘cone-revolution’, in The Dark Knight Rises. Bane comes to town, proclaims to be a ‘liberator’ and conquers Gotham city in no time, with the help of cones and inmates of the state prison. What attracts the most is his accent and voice that booms out through some sort of a mask that—we understand at the end—helps him breathe.

Tom Hardy as Bane
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Bane used to be a member of the League of Shadows, the same bunch of supremely wrought fighters who taught Bruce Wayne, Batman’s alter ego (clarification for those who are too much into the Marvel Universe and ignore the DC entirely) how to kick some asses.

Batman’s tricks and skills are inefficient in front of Bane. According to Bane’s own convictions he is fighting against the corrupt and amoral wealthy guys, who stampede towards the poor and crush them. Bane is the revolutionary who is not reluctant to kill and one critic, Slavoj Zizek even called this character a contemporary Che Guevara. Tom Hardy merges himself into the role and we have a wonderful character.

Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle
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Other than Bane and a couple of characters from the law enforcement, one more character might hold your attention. Selina Kyle, played by Anne Hathaway. She is crucial to the story. You may think she could be Batman’s girlfriend, if you haven’t watched the movie yet. But you have to wait for that part, at least until the next installment.

She enters the story as a jewel thief and her character undergoes a positive transformation through the story. It is clear that there is more to her that what she appears to be.

Three characters in The Dark Knight Risesare round characters—characters that undergo transformation. One of course, is Bruce Wayne. Second is Selina Kyle. The third character, who not quite insignificantly worries about a lot of questions of moral and ethical nature and finally realizes that the less trodden path sometimes offers better answers is Robin John Blake played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He is a police officer who works with James Gordon, the Gotham City Police Commissioner, against the evil that grows at high rate after Batman’s recluse. But the system is corrupt and inefficient. So John Blake must find a way to fight evil and corruption in his own grounds, without an official body to control his actions. At the end of the movie, John Blake finds a mysterious cave, equipped with a lot of state of the art Bat-technology. Note his first name once again—Robin. Does it light a bulb? Yes, this could be the first part of the ‘post-Large Hadron Collider’ Batman series to feature Robin, his beginnings.

Gordon and Oldman
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James Gordon is played by Gary Oldman. He is as good as ever. Alfred Pennyworth struggles with the deterioration of the moral strength of Bruce Wayne. The obedient servant is forced to take some strong decisions to shake the Bat out of his sleeping cave. And Michael Caine is just the best in playing this role.

Miranda Tate, performed by Marion Cotillard, is beautiful and Bruce has all the right reasons to fall for her, until the end when things have a different turn to take. Morgan Freeman too is there among the brilliant line of performers, with his character Lucius Fox.

Bale
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Acting wise, there is one person who falls in the middle of a great expectation and delivers the best as well—the actor who plays the title role. If he could not make it work, the whole stuff would turn into garbage. Playing an older and much exhausted Batman, Christian Bale, does his job with perfection, to the point that you can’t blame anyone if you are made to think that Batman appears boring or hopeless at the start of the movie. Christian Bale exerts the desired impact through his performance.   

The Dark Knight Rises is directed by Christopher Nolan. He worked with his brother Jonathan Nolan on the screen play and with David S. Goyer on the story. Apart from all the action and special effects, there is a crucial idea that remains mostly hidden in The Dark Knight Rises. It is the wish to start anew. Selina Kyle eagerly attempts to start her life afresh with all her criminal records expunged. However, at the same time, she is not very hopeful either about this restart. She doubts that in this era of the Internet when everything regarding your past, present and even future will be written and saved in some database.

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The answer is the movie.

I would not give stars to any of my reviews. So please do not look for them here. After reading the review, you will know whether to watch the movie or just to dump it. Smile.

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The Racketeer Book Review; Published Soon

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“I’veseen this a hundred times in movies, TV shows, and in real-life court reporting—the last, frantic farewell look of the condemned. What do you think about as you’re leaving the courtroom and you’re mot going home? The truth is that nothing is clear.” Malcolm Bannister was sent away for a crime he did not commit. He is a lawyer but he is in prison. However, the mainstream society, the world of the power jugglers finds him an interesting hook to solve a murder. In fact, it is Mr. Bannister himself who comes out saying he can help.

After reading the thoroughly enjoyable John Grisham book The Confession, I decided to get my hands on Grisham’s latest bestseller The Racketeer, published in 2012. You can expect my review of The Racketeersoon.

John Grisham
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Rule 35 is a part of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The rule says that if a defendant helps the system in prosecuting another person, he or she can get a reduction in their sentence. The Racketeer has another legal significance too. RICO—Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. This is the federal law that helped send Malcolm away. Is Malcolm the Racketeer or the bad guy, who is the actual criminal, whose dirty shadow had pushed innocent people like Malcolm into the depths of disgrace and dishonour?

This is my second confrontation with a legal thriller. Like my friend, Arun said in one of his comments made here, I too heard the term legal thrillers only through Grisham.

The book review is sponsored by MySmarPrice.com/books 

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The Confession

Statue of Justice
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The Confession follows the story of Donte Drumm, a young black who was convicted for the murder of his school mate called Nicole Yarber. The story begins with the showing up of the real killer, Travis Boyette. The killer meets a Lutheran minister in his church office, Keith Schroeder. This was in Kansas and the execution of Donte Drumm was planned in Huntsville, Texas. Keith’s adventure to take the real killer to Texas, in order to stop the execution is a nerve jangling episode in the novel.

During this trip the two sides of the society confronts each other—one; the ethical and moral side represented by Keith Schroeder and two; the chaotic immoral side in Travis Boyette. During their sparse, but meaningful conversation, Keith investigates into the depths of the stinking and murky self of Boyette. He was in jail as a kid and was addicted to the world of porn, all thanks to his uncle. In Boyette’s own words, “[t]he juvenile justice system does nothing but cultivate career criminals. Society wants to lock us up and throw away the key, but society is too stupid to realize that we’ll eventually get out. And when we get out, it ain’t pretty. Take me.” (184)

The book scrutinizes closely the rituals and norms involved in the death penalty and the life of the inmates through Donte’s life in the death row, with powerful doses of irony. The Confessionis a poignant book, emotional and disturbing. John Grisham has not flinched in narrating racial tension and hypocrisy of an American state in its dealing with the death penalty of a black man. A racial riot follows Donte’s case and execution, along with a rattling anti-death-penalty movement.      

Freytag's Arc (triangle)
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I also observed the Freytag’s modal dramatic arc in the book. This makes the book all the more enjoyable. There is exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement. The final pages of the book wait patiently and observe the lives of all the major characters, with no rush to put the full stop at the end. This quality is remarkable in Grisham. Frankly, I would have put The Confession on “the book of the year” in my blog, if I were to give away such an award. I have to say there are places where I wept and everything around me just went blank.

There are many factors that help a book gain a considerable weight in someone’s perspectives. What hooked me to The Confession at this stage in my life is perhaps its deeply poignant dwelling on the prison life of Donte Drumm and the mad rush and honest fight put up by Robbie Flak, Drumm’s lawyer and Keith Schroeder. There was little difference in the emotional and physical experiences that Donte undergoes in prison with my life in a society as deeply corrupt as ours. To tell you the truth, I even thought at occasions when I went through Donte’s life in prison, his daily routines, hopes and the shattering of them—aren’t I living the same lot too, though with no visible iron bars to guard?

John Grisham
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“…[B]ut as he (Keith) watched the preliminaries unfold, he was struck by the coldness, the ruthless efficiency, the sanitized neatness of it. It was similar to killing an old dog, a lame horse, or a laboratory rat. Who, exactly, gives us the right to kill? If killing is wrong, then why are we allowed to kill? As Keith stared at Donte, he knew the image would never go away. And he knew that he would never be the same.” (296) 

Courtesy: John Grisham 

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Reality of Injustice

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Inthe summer vacation of 2013, I reopened The Confession. I had just finished J. Krishnamurthy’s philosophical treatise Freedom from the Known. The hardcore philosophy left me to wonder if I shouldn't need a light weight book as a dessert, after a heavy and tiring feast.

So I decided to get my hands on The Confession.

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I still remembered the story where I left it off, two years back. Once I reentered to the story universe, it caught me. I stayed there, bowed my head in obeisance, mostly because of the lack of many other options, at the start. I wanted to experiment with including different writers into my reading list. There was little else I could do during daytime at the moment. I worked on Wall of Colours during nighttime. And my day life was occupied with killing time. I had other two tomes in perusal during this period; Charles Dickens was one of them and Salman Rushdie the other. Due to the fact that a young man sitting at home all through the daytime could create caustic friction in the family, I chose to go out each day, find a spot in the public library in the city and read a book. The book I chose for this purpose was The Confession, for it was lighter in weight compared with David Copperfieldor Joseph Anton.

 

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After two days, I still read The Confession, because I felt if I didn’t I would not be able to include the deluge of this poignant experience in my life. The story had become so crucial that it started demanding my heart and emotions. The book was about an innocent man being convicted wrongfully by a system that boasted of its efficiency. [If I had said, wrongfully executed that would reveal the story an ounce] Injustice, much like in any other part of the world, was the reality and justice was a myth sustained by the sanctimonious media, the religion, and people like you and me.

[Thiscontinues]

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How New Age Spirituality Kept Grisham at Bay

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Twoyears back, one of my students’ mentioned that John Grisham is his favourite writer. Due to the disgraceful fact that I had never before talked to someone who can give me some serious information or advice about Grisham, I enjoyed talking with this boy. Later, on another occasion, in a seminar, in which the student and I were present, the presenter of a paper commented that all popular writers like Grisham, pack their books with some formula. They have someone murdered in the beginning, then some sex in the second chapter, then some fight, then a chase and then finally, the death of the villain. My student got agitated by this comment. He murmured into my ear that John Grisham never pushed sex on your face and in his stories, the good guys died too. I was mighty impressed. The professor was dumb.  

John Grisham
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Much like the situation I suggested in the previous post here, I found a John Grisham title in one of the local book stores in the city. The year was 2010 and the book was The Confession. It was making to the bestseller lists and I had read mixed reviews on the book in NY Times. I bought The Confession right away; had to spend Rs: 250. But I was happy. That was the first ever book I bought by Grisham. First one to attempt to read, as well.

The opening of the book had the flow. But it did not have what I wanted then—new age spirituality. I was dying for more and reading Richard Bach and Castaneda, also I was fascinated by Sidney Sheldon’s autobiographic novel, The Other Side of Me. It was not a new age book on spirituality, but it had the pull, so I munched on it anyway.

Meanwhile, Grisham was forgotten. At the end of chapter six, I had stopped reading. There was a really nice book mark that was packed with the book when I bought it. I planted it in the space between two pages. It stayed there for a long time, almost two years.

[Thiscontinues]

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