John O’ Donohue

The Bluest Eye

Toni Morrison first novel The Bluest Eye published in 1970 deals with certain controversial themes such as racism, incest and child molestation. It rose out of Morrison’s remembering a conversation with a school friend who wanted to have blue eyes. Morrison thought of this when she was part of the Black is Beautiful Campaign during the 1960s. 

Set in Lorain in Ohio, against the backdrop of America's Midwest during the years following the Great Depression, the novel starts with a School Primer that describes a typical white family:

Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty. Here is the family. Mother, Father, Dick, and Jane live in the green-and-white house. They are very happy. See Jane. She has a red dress. She wants to play. Who will play with Jane? See the cat. It goes meow-meow. Come and play. Come play with Jane. The kitten will not play. See Mother. Mother is very nice. Mother, will you play with Jane? Mother laughs, Laugh, Mother, laugh. See father. He is big and strong. Father, will you play with Jane? Father is smiling.

Set in the 1940s, it has the protagonist Pecola who has assimilated the white standards of beauty so much that she wants blue eyes. 

Toni Morrison uses the black vernacular in order to create the experiences of the black community in the US and she manages to depict the damage done by internalised racism on a young vulnerable girl of twelve. The black girl Pecola is subject to the dominant American culture that says to her that she is not beautiful or relevant but that she is invisible. 

Pecola belongs to a dysfunctional family where her parents Cholly and Pauline constantly fight. She comes to stay with the MacTeers because Cholly has burnt the house down. The Breedloves’ initial years of knowing each other, courtship and marriage were happy. However, once the novelty of their relationship fades away, Cholly turns into an alcoholic and Pauline takes comfort in her job as a housekeeper and in movies. 

Pecola suffers much as her mother loves only the white children under her care and is abused by her father. She goes to Soaphead Church, a sham mystic, and asks him for blue eyes. Claudia prays for Pecola’s baby to survive but however just like the marigolds that they had planted in the garden, the baby also does not survive. Pecola turns mad but in her state believes that she has finally got the blue eyes that she had always wanted. 

Dark Angels :How Writing Releases Creativity at Work

Do you associate writing at work with creativity? Do you wish to improve your written business communication? If so, Dark Angels :How Writing Releases Creativity at Work is the right guide for you.We live in an age of information explosion. To survive and thrive in the business world we need to generate as well as communicate new ideas. Accurate use of language is vital for success in any profession.

Simmons points out that writing improves the clarity of communication and enables you to link better with those around you. The title celebrates the myth of human beings as flawed angels. Simmons reminds us that we, human beings are angels with a dark side of rebellious individuality. As dark angels we need to think, question and create rather than accept blindly as angels do. Creativity therefore is rebellion. The first step to unleash the creative genius within us is to learn to think for ourselves. Simmons points out through examples how to compose short and long pieces of writing.

Written in a simple and direct style this book teaches us to discover our own ‘voice’ as well as a sense of belonging to the common humanity. The author gives his own entries in his diary when he was in the process of creating a project on Dove. He also shares his experience as a creative writing instructor at a week-long residential workshop in business writing. He believes that all writers are dreamers and good at communicating their dreams to others.

The key idea in the book is the image of the dark angel who symbolizes personal freedom, creativity and rebellion against accepted norms of authority. Above all, in order to be a good writer, Simmons advises us to be a good reader. Thus this book skillfully combines creativity and business.  

Providence

In his essay The Over-Soul, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the nineteenth century American Transcendentalist philosopher writes of his belief in Providence:

The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. You are running to seek your friend. Let your feet run, but your mind need not. If you do not find him, will you not acquiesce that it is best you should not find him? for there is a power, which, as it is in you, is in him also, and could therefore very well bring you together, if it were for the best. You are preparing with eagerness to go and render a service to which your talent and your taste invite you, the love of men and the hope of fame. Has it not occurred to you, that you have no right to go, unless you are equally willing to be prevented from going? O, believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the round world, which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate on thine ear! Every proverb, every book, every byword that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will, but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this, because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one.

Many a time, I have seen the gifts of Providence in this life. Blessings were placed in my way so beautifully that all I had to do was just to open the door and see the miracle that was before me. When I see before me what I have always wanted, I recognize that a benevolent spirit provides you with the right answers throughout life.

Books, friends, help and a lot of other blessings have come at the right time so many times that rather than asking God for anything in particular I have always asked to give me the right thing at the right time. For who can say that you are praying for your needs?

It has happened to me that a lot of things that I pray for in life become superfluous once I get them. Such a situation is more like praying for a variable in this world of rapid changes.

This life has seen the world for a little less than three decades but I guess every little thing counts. So next time you before you start regretting the past, you need to sit still in the present and count your blessings!

A Spring without voices

On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh.

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring published in 1962 was about the impact of industrialisation and urbanisation on the environment . It is a fable on the environmental apocalypse of the modern age. The title denotes the silence that comes over nature as the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird species have become extinct.It was a spring without voices.

Carson, a marine biologist pointed out that the reason for this destruction of the environment in the United States was the uncontrolled use of organic pesticides such as DDT, aldrin and dieldrin used to control pest insects in agriculture. Though these compounds led to agricultural benefits, they posed serious threats to animal and human life as Carson proves by giving scientific evidence.

This book was a clarion call for greater awareness about the great destruction that human beings were causing to the Earth.

A True Gift in Green

To know the mind of woman, he has to know first, the mind of the land.

Sarah Joseph is one of the celebrated women novelists of Malayalam literature and she has he has received numerous awards and honours such as Kendra Sahitya Academy Award, Kerala Sahitya Academy Award, Vayalar Award, Cherukad Award and O.V. Vijayan Sahitya Puraskaram. Her Malayalam novel Aathi was published simultaneously with its English translation Gift in Green by Valson Thampu in 2011. In her interview with Valson Thampu, Joseph speaks about how she modelled the land of Aathi on a island Valanthakkadu in Ernakulam district of Kerala. She was amazed by the lives of the people who subsisted in fishing, picking mussels and farming Pokkali rice. They earned as much as Rs. 300 a day picking mussels but never fished for more than that as they count on the fish and mussels as their fixed deposits. The author praises the subsistence perspective of the people of Valanthakkadu by basing a novel on their simple life.

The land of Aathi is pristine covered with water on all sides. The people lived the water-life, drawing sustenance from the water and the fields. Their water-life meant that their daily immediate needs were met from earth and water as they could collect enough food to feed the whole family just by working till noon everyday. The mangroves that surrounded the land of Aathi contained plenty of fish, which the people used to catch with their bare hands. During high tide, these fish and prawns were carried across to the rice fields, from where the people caught them. They also knew the secret of growing rice in salty waters. In Aathi, people from the ancient times lived the water-life, harvesting only what they need from nature.

The destruction of the pristine, land, water and its people starts with the advent of Kumaran, a business tycoon who sees in Aathi, the means of making money. With his coming, the modes of living such as the water-life and farming are replaced by construction of buildings resulting in pollution, creation of toxic waste and destruction of natural habitat. The novel also shows the environmentalist concerns of the writer as she describes the present-day issues of Kerala such as water contamination, lack of proper waste disposal systems, dumping of biomedical waste in rivers and waterbodies, the use of endosulfan to ensure profit in farming, the problems of landfilling, destruction of marshes disposal of plastic and biomedical waste and so on. However, nature cannot be exploited and contaminated forever and the waters of Aathi rise in a flood and purify the whole land.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

What happens when Love Laws made by the society are broken? The laws which dictate who should be loved, how and how much. Arundhati Roy’s debut novel The God of Small Things shot the author into fame and bagged the 1997 Booker Prize. The scene is set in Ayemenem, a small town in Kottayam in Kerala of the 1960s, where caste system reigns high. Ammu Ipe, an aristocratic young divorcee falls in love with Velutha, an educated untouchable carpenter. The day they start their affair is also the day when Sophiemol, Ammu’s nice arrives from Britain only to drown herself to death in the River Meenachal while on an adventure with Ammu’s children. Their nocturnal trysts are discovered and the affair brought to a tragic end. They break all rules of conduct in a close-bound and rigid society. But the punishment does not stop with the death of the two lovers- the murder of Velutha or the slow death of Ammu. It has got serious reverberations on the lives of the people in the family as well as society. It takes various forms and in the family it takes the form of silence of Estha and the emptiness of Rahel- Ammu’s two-egg twins who get separated after the tragedy. Strangely their lives are joined once again in defiance against the Love Laws of society. The book has a complex structure because of its shifts in time. The language is unique and repetition adds to the pathos in the novel. Written in an engaging style the book offers a culture and a flavour that is definitely Indian. The novel describes a society which is hypocritical and patriarchal as well as politically corrupt.  

The Witches by Roald Dahl

One page of The Witches and am bewitched. Oh, why didnt I come across this writer before and now, why so late! The way he writes, the simplicity of his language, the flights of fancy when he writes about the qualities of the witches. What happens when the witches of the world unite to eliminate all children from the face of earth? One child a week equals fifty-two a year, squash them and squiggle them and make them disappear." With this motto in mind, the witches hold a convention. A seven-year old boy turns rescuer of all children with the help of his grandmother. 

A tale with its own mixture of humour,fantasy and the incredible, The Witches sound so real that it made me wonder whether there is really an organisation like that! You read the chapter describing how witches hide their real nature, how they put wigs over their bald heads, how they hide their expression of hatred behind kind, benevolent eyes...it's so amazingly real! A good read for children and for those who love children's books or those who keep the child's heart.

The Zahir

It ends with a glimpse or a passing thought. It ends in obsession. I read the cover of The Zahir. Not impressed yet. It is not the first time that I have thought of buying it. I read the short summary at the end- it’s about a famous writer who discovers to his horror that his wife of many years has left without saying a word.

I start thinking. What can this story mean to me? The thought of a wife leaving a husband under mysterious circumstances is that  fascinating to me. Nothing. In fact, I think that it is in contrast to The Alchemist that was about following your dream, or to give a kiss to a woman waiting for you miles away just by blowing it to the desert wind.  I hesitate and read the epigraph. It is from the Gospel of St.Luke. Still not as interesting as to own a copy of it.

Then I turn two more pages and I read :

“According to the writer Jorge Louis Borges, the idea of the Zahir comes from the Islamic tradition and is thought to have arisen at some point in the eighteenth century. Zahir, in Arabic, means visible, present, incapable of going unnoticed. It is someone or something which, once we have come into contact with them or it, gradually occupies our every thought, until we can think of nothing else. This can be considered either a state of holiness or of madness”.

Immediately I understand that it holds an answer to something that I was searching for.  Obsessions-ideas, people, songs and books- that's something I really identify with.

There are only a few books that I have read burning the midnight oil. The gripping, un-put-downable handful like Anna Karenina, Memoirs of a Geisha and The French Lieutenant’s Woman. The Zahir was one such book.

It is not really a search for the absconding wife, just as The Alchemist is not about a shepherd boy’s journey for treasure. The Zahir is a tale of self-discovery after long years of wandering in search of love.

My Grandmother’s House by Kamala das

Do you carry the memory of a ‘home’ to which your heart retreats in times of anguish? Do you feel nostalgic at the thought of happy moments in the past?

Kamala Das, the Indian poetess recalls her ancestral home and her dead grandmother in the poem “My Grandmother’s House”. Kamala Das’ poems as well her imagery is extremely personal and drawn from life. This poem takes the form of a confession comparing her present broken state with that of being unconditionally loved by her grandmother.

Published in 1965 in Summer in Calcutta the poem is a reminiscence of the poetess’ grandmother and their ancestral home in Punnayurkulam in Kerala. Her memory of love she received from her grandmother is associated with the image of her ancestral home. With the death of her grandmother the house withdrew into silence. It became desolate and snakes crawled among books. Her blood became cold like the moon because there was none to love her the way she wanted.

Now, in another city, living another life, she longs to go back. She understands that she cannot reclaim the past but she wants to go back home and bring a handful of darkness to keep as a reminder of her past happiness. Now she is like a beggar going from one door to another asking for love in small change. Her need for love and approval is not satisfied in marriage and she goes after strangers for love at least in small quantity.

The poem springs from her own disillusionment with her expectation of unconditional love from the one she loves. In the poem, the image of the ancestral home stands for the strong support and unconditional love she received from her grandmother. The imagery is personal and beautifully articulates her plight in a loveless marriage.

Heart Thoughts: A Treasury of Inner Wisdom by Louise L Hay

Louise L Hay is a famous metaphysical lecturer and teacher known for her bestseller ‘You Can Heal Your Life’. She has inspired millions of people to discover the vast treasure that lies within our hearts. She advocates our need to connect to what she calls ‘Inner Self”. 

In the book "Heart Thoughts", she celebrates the power of our own hearts to heal ourselves and adapt to the changes in life. The key idea in the book is the need for responsibility as the ability to respond to life in order to get the best out of it. The first steps in connecting with our inner selves are to get out of the victim mindsets and abandoning the illusion of someone rescuing us from the mess we are in. 

The knowledge of our power to respond creatively to life is liberation and it frees us from our old way of thinking and feeling. This enables us to shed our old beliefs and welcome the new in life. With the release of the past and acceptance of our own selves come the innumerable blessings of life. My favourite thought comes under the title of good health. Good health, according to Hay is “ having no fatigue, having a good appetite, going to sleep and awakening easily, having a good memory, having good humour, having precision in thought and action, and being honest, humble, grateful and loving”. 

Heart Thoughts celebrates change as the rule of life. Dedicated to our own hearts, this collection of meditations about day-to-day issues by Louise L Hay can change our lives or make us aware of the powers that lie within us and thus create richness in our lives. 

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Ammaykku

It's been years since I started writing. But even now, when I sit down to write, I feel like a schoolboy sitting in the examination hall before an empty page. In my younger days, writing was a hobby. Now, it's a struggle; a prayer to bring about words in the most satisfactory order; an exorcism of memories.(Free Translation) MT VASUDEVAN NAIR

 

In a previous blogpost,I'd written about a revival of my interest in Malayalam literature. This experience was like walking through old familiar paths once again. The best book I read as a result of this renaissance (if I can use it in a very personal sense) was a memoir Ammaykku written by great Malayalam writer M T Vasudevan Nair. In a simple, direct and intimate tone that takes the reader into confidence, he describes his transformation from a voracious reader into a literary phenomenon.

Most writers have evolved out of a life of strife and struggle. Like the pearl out of the oyster, literature is mostly about transformation of rather painful experiences and memories. Here, MT also describes a similar metamorphosis from a schoolboy into a writer overcoming several obstacles and limitations.

The book's title translated as 'To Mother' is meaningful in that it is his memories about his mother and the people who have influenced him considerably in his life. He lovingly recalls several people who influenced him and encouraged him in his literary pursuits. He recounts his intimate bond with the great literary genius, Vaikkom Mohammed Basheer and his brief encounter with madness.

Gentle, honest and memorable, this memoir from a literary genius is a worthy gem in any literature reader's collection. Read a story Oppol  by MT!

Say You're One of Them

One good writer that I have read recently is Uwem Akpan, a Nigerian priest who has an MFA in Creative Writing. His debut collection of short stories Say You’re One of Them won the regional prize for Best First Book from Commonwealth Nations, The five stories in this collection are narrated by children, aged between six and sixteen, in five countries in Africa. They are surrounded by genocide, wars, human trafficking, AIDS, corruption and communal and religious conflicts. The stories show a shocking glimpse of Africa- street life, politics, prostitution and bloodshed. 

The Valkyries

Reading Paulo Coelho is like talking to yourself. The flaws and imperfections of the protagonist are often the flaws that you see in yourself. The wild speed in reading it in 4 or 5 hours could be because of this curiosity that grapples the mind as to what will happen to the protagonist in the story.

His books like The Alchemist, Zahir, The Warrior of the Light, Brida, The Witch of Portbello, Like the Flowing River and the Maktub creates a sense of déjà vu. The Valkyries is no exception. His books refresh the mind and give insight into the flaws of human nature.

There are always several places in the book, where you stop and think, "Where have I read that before?" and then realise that it was not in a book but in your own mind that you created a thought similar to that. Coelho's magic has worked once more. Waiting to read the next book that I can get hold of.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain (1835-1910) was the pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, one of the greatest writers in American as well as world literature. Famous for his boyhood novels, he is considered a realist, humourist and satirist. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) has been hailed as a joy forever and one of the masterpieces of American and world literature.

The story depicts the life and struggles of Huckleberry Finn, a teenage boy who runs away from his adopted family in Petersburg fearing the attacks of his greedy and drunken father after faking his own death. His companion on the journey across the Mississippi river is Jim, the Negro slave of his adopted family. They travel over a thousand miles on their raft going through a series of adventures that reveal their good luck and practicality.This lovable hero wins hearts not by his nobility or valour but by sheer practicality and lack of hypocrisy.

Providence

The Classics of the Macabre by Daphne du Maurier

Though not at all psychic- I have never seen a ghost or dabbled in spiritualism or the occult- I have always been fascinated by the unexplained, the darker side of life. I have a strong sense of the things that lie beyond our day-by-day perception and experience. It is, perhaps, an extension of this feeling that makes me live through the characters that I create.

The Classics of the Macabre(1987) is a collection of scary stories written by the queen of macabre writing, Daphne du Maurier. This book published at her 80th birthday showcases six stories noted for their drama as well as emotional intensity.

In "Don't Look Now" (1970), a couple on holiday meets a pair of twin sisters, who claim that they are psychic. They claim that they can see the couple's recently dead daughter and advises them to go back home. The couple is shocked by the sudden turn of events in which they pay a heavy price for their cynicism.

"The Apple Tree"(1952) is about a man recollecting his dead wife at the sight of an apple tree in his yard. This tree sprang up in the garden after her death and he doesn't like remembering his barren and rather cheerless wife. So he decides to cut down the tree only to put his own life in danger.

"The Blue Lenses" (1952) narrates the story of Marda West who undergoes an eye surgery and has blue lenses temporarily fitted in her eye. To her horror, she can see only animals in the place of her near and dear ones. Her husband and her nurse have changed shape.

"The Birds" (1952) is like a nightmare. Birds come in large numbers and start attacking people. This is the reverse situation of nature attacking human beings.

"The Alibi"(1959) is about a man who is about to kill a family. The woman of the family believes him to be a painter and so he tries his hand at painting. But the evil inside him needs release more than ever.

"Not After Midnight" (1971) is equally scary in that a schoolmaster meets a couple who tell him what happened to the last inhabitant of the place where he lives.

Though most of the stories are scary and unputdownable, the best in this collection are defintely "The Apple Tree" and "The Blue Lenses".

Re-reading "Tintern Abbey" by Wordsworth

Recently, I re-read William Wordsworth's "Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, On revisiting the Banks of Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798" officially known as "Tintern Abbey" to all literature students. While, I was reading the poem (later teaching it as well), it suddenly occurred to me that the consciousness that Wordsworth talks about in the poem is something that modern people are trying hard to achieve: harmony with nature.

For the poet, nature was a form of escape in his early years. Later she became "all in all" to him- "the anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,/The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul/ Of all my moral being". When weighed by the troubles of the world, he could easily think about the beautiful scenes of nature and forget his sorrows.

This habit of storing the sights and sounds of nature in his mind's eye helped him to recollect such sights when he wanted them. Such memories flooded his mind, filled it with tranquility and gave rise to a pleasant frame of mind devoid of all angst. Such a tranquil mood increased in its intensity until the poet was no longer aware of the functions of his body and instead became a living soul that partakes in the mystery of the universe.

Wordsworth describes his hour of ecstasy as:

...that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,--
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

For the poet, this poem tracks his growth as a mature person from the immature boy he was. It shows the poet as meditating on nature, which is commonly used to calm the monkey mind in meditation.

Note- Read an interesting article about the need for being close to nature from Charity Focus.

The Name of the Rose

The good of a book lies in its being read. A book made up of signs that speak of other signs, which in their turn speak of things. Without an eye to read them, a book contains signs that produce no concepts; therefore it is dumb. This library was perhaps born to save the books it houses, but now it lives to bury them (Eco, 396).

Umberto Eco’s novel The Name of the Rose is a historical murder mystery set in a medieval monastery in fourteenth century Italy. What moves the story forward is the attempt of a medieval Benedictine monastery to preserve the aura of knowledge within its boundaries. Such an attempt to keep a work of art hidden, in this case, the second book of Aristotle’s Poetics, is not just for preserving the aura of arcane knowledge but not to destroy the order of the Benedictines. The book, which is believed never to have written or lost is in the library of the monastery but its existence is a secret as the library is not open to outsiders and functions by strange customs of secrecy. There are many secrets related to the library, which nobody know mainly because only the librarian knows about the contents of the library. The monks can only ask for titles but are not allowed in the place where books are kept. The library makes copies of the rare books with the help of illuminators and scribes but then the books are given only for that purpose. Murders happen because of this secret book of the ancients on laughter is lusted after by the scholarly monks. To investigate the murders, a Franciscan monk William of Baskerville arrives at the monastery along with his novice Adso of Melk. This monk, in a very Sherlock Holmes- like fashion deduces the truth of the matter from accidental incidents.