Friday 1 March 2013

Writers I like..

I do not have a favourite genre of writing but there is a certain kind of writing that I simply adore. It is a style where the writer cites other people or things, for example a band of music or the name of a particular shampoo. I stow away these details somewhere in the recesses of my mind and as soon as I get access to the Internet, I look them up. It is an interesting exercise, with one thing leading to another and at the end of it all, you would have woven a wonderful web of thoughts, ideas, things. It is like a collection, only something more abstract. I have a list of writers who do this and I thoroughly cherish their work. 

One who would top this list is Haruki Murakami. Every book  of his is like the index to a huge encyclopedia. You discover books, music, thoughts, systems : anything and everything basically.
In close pursuit would be Pico Iyer. You have to read him to know the way he spins all those tiny details together. Tiny nuggets of information, little capsules of names and events. 
                                         

I also like C.S.Lakshmi (Ambai) for this very reason. Traditions, names of singers, the moods of  raga, the recipe to a 'thuvayal' (a chutney) - she cites them all. Reading then becomes an activity of connection, of identification , of being caught in a flurry of names. It is bliss. Pradeep Sebastien also writes this way, try his book "The Groaning Shelf" for a sample. Somehow, with writing like this, the book does not end with the story, but rather, it lingers on, someplace else, with someone else.  
                                       

And to me, that is the hallmark of a good book. 
How far away it can take me, far away from the story in hand. 
For one lifetime is never enough to know it all, nay, to know even a bit.

"I was like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me."
Isaac Newton
P.S : As an aside, I had dinner with a handsome guy at Mainland China this evening. And you know what, he talks the way the writers above write.. with one piece of information leading to another...Like Bugs Bunny leading into Karl Marx. 
And you bet I love it! 
Go ahead, indulge your gossipy nature and look at the pics!


So long, until the next post! Good night, doc! 




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