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[Earwax]

3. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling

This is *NOT* a Disney story. I'm anti-Disney, I'll have you know.

The book is a collection of short stories, each of which is followed by a poem. Included in the stories, is the story of Mowgli who was raised by a pack of wolves in the jungles of India. Now if I was 12, I'd have enjoyed it more. It was a good adventure book. The only problem is that I read it as a (pseudo) grown up and couldn't help feeling sorry for the bad guys. It's what happens when you grow up and watch National geographic documentaries and root for the carnivore.

Also, I had an epiphany of sorts recently. I came across a random snippet about the life of Krishna and suddenly realized that one could say that Mowgli was based on Krishna.

Let me illustrate: Krishna -- raised by foster parents. In his youth, Krishna subdues Kaliya (a vile snake). Guess what? Mowgli gets a tough old snake, semi king almost of the forest to basically be subservient to him.
Krishna defeats his evil uncle (while he's still young) --- Mowgli defeats Shere Khan (not his uncle, the tiger, but still Krishna rescues his parents -- so does Mowgli!

Hee hee hee... ok... so a wild and highly improbably conjecture. But it suddenly hit me and since Kipling was born/lived in India, I thought, "Why not?"

Anyway.... this review's long enough, so let's move on to the next.

4. Sons by Pearl S. Buck

Well, this was the second in the Trilogy after "The Good Earth". This one follows the lives of the three sons of the farmer from the previous book. The first lives the life of a decadent rich man (eventually, he's not all that rich, but he is generous), the second follows the lifestyle of his father, more or less. He is stingy and practical and lives like a poor man but is really very very rich. And the third follows the path of a warlord. That part of the book is particularily interesting because it delves into the mindset of a warlord. I've always believed that they're not totally evil. Btw, there are no totally evil/totally good guys. Also, Ms. Buck likes to write stories that ..... Bah.. I can't describe it without sounding cheesy... stories that go in a full circle. In her first book, the poor farmer became rich and his sons started to behave like rich people and began to reject the land (Which btw, is the true wealth). This book started with that idea and eventually had one of his grandsons return to the land. (Ok, I'm trying not to provide any spoilers). I never really read two chapters just before the end, because I couldn't take the suspense and just *had* to skip to the end and find out what happened. Ok... now for the next...

5. A passage to India by E. M. Forster

The book was written in 1924 and it's amazing how ... enlightened(?) the author was. Just going off my emotions from the last few pages of the book, he seemed to almost be psychic. Anyway... onto the book. It explores the question of whether or not an Englishman and an Indian could ever be friends. It shows the flaws in the character of both sides. Unfortunately, I'm Indian and my husband's white(Well, at least he's paler than me and he reads books like this and points out how certain situations mirror how my family behaves. *sigh* But it's quite true For example, Dr. Aziz gives his collar stud (and it happens to be a very special collar stud) to Mr. Fielding (The British Principal), while claiming he was carrying a spare one in his pocket. Nice and selfless, yes. But still a "lie". And then, of course, Dr. Aziz has to go without. (Which earns him some criticism later in the book).

This is one of those... how shall I describe it?... Emotion filled books. I enjoyed reading it but I really read it because I'd watched the movie first. You can get away with watching the movie if you don't want to read the book. The movie covers the main events and sticks pretty faithfully to the book (so I found it slightly difficult to read the book, because I already knew the story). The book however goes into more detail over Dr. Aziz's friends and the mindset of both sides (The British and the Indians). And the movie, of course, doesn't get across all the emotion (ok... how many times can I use that word? However it does have beautiful scenery. The Chandrapore of the book was really rather dull

Right. Now I've got to read those last two chapters of "Sons by Pearl. S. Buck", and then I've got to find something mindless to read

Oh as always, here's the wikipedia link for a much better review. Of course, it contains tons of spoilers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Passage_to_India


Hmm... I just glanced at it, and I suggest you read the "Themes" bit at the end. I wish I'd read it before writing this review. On the other hand, I might have just posted a link to wikipedia if I had