There, it has finally hapenned. I am losing touch, and very soon, the only kind of writings that I will ever be able to dish out would will be "company news" in some form of the other. Results, takeovers, mergers and bankruptcies.
And it doesn't really help that the only work of literature that I have read of late ( discounting yet another Jeeves) is a mind-numbingly boring saga of a female model (you really have to qualify these things nowadays), who wants to "trade up". I've covered almost 2/3rd s of the book, painstakingly giving the protagonist, (who is as lost as the plot itself) a chance to find herself, and in the process steer the book into a direction, any direction. But sorry Ms Candace Bushnell: you, your book AND your heroine make absolutely no sense to me, and hence, you have the rare distiction of being one of the 2-3 authors who have succeed in boring me so much so as to make me chuck a book before I finished it. This in over 16 years of my stint an enthusiastic reader, with hopefully many more years to come (there's no reason why not, unless I die or something as drastic happens. On second thoughts, if they keep on writing more stuff like this, I might do a 180 degree turn and transform into a book-hater).
Trading Up is a literary atrocity. To all those who have not read it, here's a word of advice-it just might make more sense to go out into the heart of a desert and try to find your way back blindfolded, than to find direction, any semblance of direction, in this book. And it did come as a bit of a shock, coming from the author who gave birth to Sex and the City.
The blurb makes a parallel between Bushnell and Jane Austen, as both of them "skewer" the societies that they know so well, and belong to. Sorry again. If you are an author, and do not know any other society than the mind-numbingly dull one that you belong to, then you are either lazy, or dumb, or just trying to make easy money by safely using, or trying to use, the tried, tested, and done-to-death formula of a young girl, a rich man and love, or lack of it.
And while I am at it, might I also say that the blurb's parallel to Austen does not, for me, bring Bushnell up to the former's level? It however, certainly trades Austen to Bushnell's class, and in a way, makes me happy that some people do acknowledge, albeit unwittingly, what I have been saying for some 5 years now. That reading Austen is just like watching one of those soap operas-set in some shire in old England. I mean, cummon: ALL her stories have just one theme: how the pure, naive, virginal (and not only physically, but metaly as wel), unscheming, young, pretty woman manages to marry the best man. And by "best", I mean a man who's rich,tall, silent, honest, unvirginal (again, also in thoughts) and not-so-young, in that order.
Phew! Having one's own blog does help.There, I have said it! Ever since high school, when I was first introduced to Ms Austen, I have dislike her works, but have tolerated her, for fear of making some literary sacrilege by voicing my discontent. No more. Austen, Bushnell and ALL others who have ever written on the same lines and are planning to do so, here's a word of advice: Write for one of the inumerable women's magazines that sell so well (and I read so often). And at least those mags are honest in what they do, unlike you, who try to pass on your inanities under the title of "a novel". So, readers know what to expect, and can be spared the shock of sifting through pages and pages of boredom in the hope of finding something that would make it all worthwhile and yet finding none.
No, I'm not turning into a cynical feminist. Trust me. You have be as much a book lover as I am, and then go through the ordeal of Trading Up to appreciate my reaction.
And speaking of reactions, I found out, the hard way, that making those available to the public in the raw form as and when it occurs to you has a LOT of disadvantages. Specially when you are young/ junior/ new to the city. Controlling one's temper and distilling those feelings before sending them to the public domain is the one great necessity of civic life.
If only it were not as necessary-- if only we could spit out "Your banter is killing me" every time your long-lost relative grills you about your single and carefree life, if only we could say "No" everytime you were asked "do I look good?", and if only you could say "It's so flat I would rather do it by myself" everytime your current girl/boy friend wanted to sack it out with you...if only!!
The sheer number of people I know, who are, right at this moment, dying to say exactly those same things in reply to exactly those queries would easily exceed the number of fingers on my hands.
But let me not put ideas into your civic little heads. No. I am NOT propagating uncivility, and DEFINITELY not asking people to suddenly wake up to be Epitomes of Rudeness. All I ask for is a little degree of honesty, coupled with a little less obsessiveness to be "prim and propah".
Trust me, that works wonder. Like the hand-made softboard in my flat, which has its own charm that comes from the torn, used, newspapery look. Which a velvet-covered structured board would never have. Which would be prim, but not "lived-in", and which would give my wall an impersonal, office-like look.
Let us not be velvety softboards. Let us be the hand-made variety- with some having news-paper covers, some having a brown paper cover, while others drape themselves in coloured marble paper! (mind you, I didn't say "no cover at all" :) ) And in being so, let us be a part of the whole, and yet retain our individualities.
Let us, for once, learn to say NO-in the right places.
Huh! There, I have rambled again. Well, see you then. You run along, while I rejoice- I can still write, after all!