Book blabberings

I wrapped up the first volume of the Jeeves Omnibus while at home. This is one of those books that makes you laugh, and laugh out loud, even when you are under the scrutiny of public eyes (like when you are reading it on the railway-platform, waiting for your train or like when you reading it in the train itself). Since I read quite a bit while traveling, I did feel the crowd staring at me at times to wonder – what the ‘dickens’ is this dude reading that makes him giggle every three seconds and makes him go LOL every seven? The man was a genius – Wodehouse. The book had only three stories, each spreading across a little over 150 pages, but I am already a fan of Jeeves and his boss Wooster. More than them, I am already a fan of Wodehouse.

I was at home and I was done with the Omnibus and there was still enough time to read more. So I decided to read more even when I could clearly sense droplets of annoyance trickling out of dad’s expressions. He even told me that I had become a ‘voracious reader’. An expression of that sort is usually regarded as a compliment but in my case it was more like a message hinting at my reduction to a boring book-worm. To save my reputation, I did venture out in dad’s garden and clicked some good pictures of good colourful flowers. But then, there still was more time at hand to kill and I finally picked up an old cult novel called Catch-22 which dad had bought more than three decades ago (24 February 1977 to be precise). The pages had turned all light-brown and the paper smelled of damp monsoon. This was the second time I was trying to read this book. The reason I had given up on Catch-22 in my first attempt was that I couldn’t really understand much of what was happening as the story progressed.

Even in this second attempt, I won’t say that the book or I have changed significantly. I still don’t understand too much of where the story is headed but in spite of all that I have managed to finish about 1/5th of this 500 pages novel full of fictional character-sketches of American soldiers from the World War time. The style of writing is so distinct from anything else that I have read so far that it’s not at all easy to get the humor or the jokes or the punches or the satire or other such things that one usually expects to get clicked when one reads a book. One gets even more frustrated at not getting these aforementioned items when one is reading a book that is known to be full of humor and jokes and punches and satire. I have decided to take a break. In any case, fiction after fiction is not a very decent thing to do.

I picked up a non-fiction today called the Red Sun.

Red Sun is about the roots and the realities of naxalism in India. If I like it, I shall let you guys know. Till then, be satisfied with the picture above. 🙂

PS: I guess it is but obvious that the only reason I blabbered so much was so that I could justify posting a self-portrait. at the end of it. 😛 I am such an ass, am I not? 😀