Books and Other things

I have realized that I liked Michael Crichton more than Salman Rushdie. I have not been able to summon the courage to read Naipaul. Yes, I liked Harry Potter a whole lot and I didn't and don't have a clue about what was happening in "The life of Pi".

Rushdie depressed me or I read Rushdie when I used to be depressed. Depressed not in the light two hour sense, but in the complete absolute sense. Perhaps even in the clinical sense. I still remember getting up at mid noon having missed all my morning classes with the scorching sun raging through the window and the sheets on me sweating with my sweat and the foul of the mouth ,uncleaned by a toothpaste, staying the whole day with me. I would curb my bladder's demand to urinate, because I wouldn't want to face people and the breeze and then I would turn into the bed, lay on my stomach and stare at the floor. There used to lie Rushdie, with all his 100 midnight's children and I would turn page after page. Something would pierce slowly and piecemeal into my head and the numbness of my head would add more elements into it to increase its intensity. Time would crawl and I would turn the alarm clock and shut the window to ignore time. The numbness would increase, forcing me to droop my eyes. I would rub my crotch, against the bed and its sweaty crumpled sheets, and the crotch would respond in a few moments and I would go to sleep and attain peace for sometime. The panic would return when I would wake up again in an hour or two. I would turn the clock towards me and turn it back again and I would return to Rushdie. So this was how I read Rushdie and Martel. I don't know how those novels ended or what they were saying. An unsatisfied feeling, the same as I had after putting some Bs and Cs.

Not to say that only simple thrillers can be enjoyable. I liked the lawyer book, narrated by the little girl and I don't remember its name. I didn't understand the catcher in the rye. I read Seth's long book for the sake of completing it. I loved Harry Potter, top to bottom. I liked " The hakawati" and the last mughal.

Question is: Can I ever like a literary masterpiece which has won some literary prize or is all the hoopla surrounding them just for the literary refined who get degrees in English literature or History.

Book suggestions are welcome.