Ashenden : Somerset Maugham (4.0/5.0)

 

Most people know James Bond, that invincible British super spy, or Jason Bourne - his American cousin. If you are not happy with your spies being so energetic and gadgety, or their world's so black and white, u have John Le Carre's spies and spymasters such as George Smiley  or The Spy who came in from the cold. John Le Carre's aesthetic was apparently influenced by  Graham Greene's books that touched upon the spying business such as The Confidential Agent or The Quiet American. But before all of these there was Ashenden - one of the original gentleman spies.

Ashenden was introduced by Somerset Maugham in a series of loosely connected stories. Ashenden was a writer in England who was tapped by the secret services to work for them at the break of the First World War. He was stationed in Geneva, in neutral Switzerland, and got his assignments from his brilliant and ruthless boss known by his monosyllabic code name R. In course of his assignments Ashenden meets a lot of interesting characters and is involved in a lot of intrigue. However, he does not run after any bad guys or is himself chased in any alley. He mostly travels across Europe handling agents and spending a leisurely time. 

Somerset Maugham is one of my favourite authors of the English language (along with Graham Greene). Unlike a lot of the greats he is super smooth and easy to read. I specially like his short stories, of which he has written many covering his life in England, Europe and his travels to the far east. Ashenden stories are very similar in the pace and style to a lot of his other short stories and just happen to be about a spy.  

Ashenden is also the alter-ego for Somerset Maugham who was himself tapped by the British secret services during the First World War. He has used that experience as a raw material for his stories. Though he was not so impressed with the life of spies as evidenced by the scene in his first book, which I have reproduced below. Ashenden the author is being recruited by R , who is trying to lure the author with what great material he can collect a member of the secret services

" I'll tell you an incident that occurred only the other day and I can vouch for its truth. I thought at the time its would make a damned good story. One of the French ministers went down to Nice to recover from a cold and he had some very important documents that he kept in a dispatch acse. They were very important indeed. Well, a day or two after he arrived, he picked up a yellow haired lady at some restaurant or other where there was dancing, and he got very friendly with her. To cut a long story short, he took her back to his hotel - of course it was a very imprudent thing to do - and when he came to himself in the morning the lady and the dispatch case had disappeared."

R finished and looked at Ashenden with a gleam in his close-set eyes." Dramatic, isn't it ? he asked.   

"Do you mean to say that happened the other day ?"

"The week before last."

"Impossible," cried Ashenden. "Why, we have been putting that incident on stage for sixty years, we've written it in a thousand novels. Do you mean to say that life has just caught up with us ?" 

☺

I thoroughly enjoyed the Ashenden stories and just like his other short stories these will make for great vacation reading.

The palace of Illusions : Chitra Banerjee Divakurni (4.0/5.0)

 

Life is too short to read mediocre books. I keep a high bar for books that I pick up. It's a fact of life that when one keeps a high bar one will reduce the Type 1 error but at the same time some Type 2 error will creep in. In English, that means that while one will hardly read any mediocre books there will always be some good books that will pass below the radar.

That is what happened with me when The Palace of Illusions first came out fifteen odd years back. I thought this one more new age mediocre pulp feminist takes on Mahabharat. When the book was selected as a reading for my book club I had no option but to pick it up. I stand corrected, the book is a unique and distinctly feminist take on the Mahabharat, but it's definitely not mediocre.

The book is largely a re-telling of Mahabharat from the point of view of Draupadi. The main attraction of the book is that it is another pretext to revisit the Mahabharat. I am convinced that Mahabharat is one of the top cultural heritages of this country. It is an amazingly complex and layered tale where nothing is what it seems - good people do evil deeds while the evil beguile gods with their penance. God himself encourages brother to kill brother for reducing the pressure of human beings on earth.With such brilliant source material its very difficult to go wrong - but not impossible. Chitra Divakaruni , who is a teacher of creative writing at a university in the United States, skirts this line by a good margin.

One of the main quirks of the book is that it is told from the point of view of Draupadi - but the Draupadi of this book seems like an alter ego of the 20th century Chitra Divakaruni. The author has also introduced a whole Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu thi vibe with the supposed tension between Kunti and Draupadi - again I don't know if this was  directly referenced in the original sources. Then there is Draupadi's obsession with Karn , which I think finds mention in several other sources as well. Despite , or maybe because of, these quirks the books remains true to Mahabharat and is a distinct well written book.

While speaking of Mahabharat I would also take the opportunity to mention 2 other takes on the book. Devadutt Patnaik's Jaya remains one of my favourite versions of the Mahabharat - its an erudite take on the book which combines various traditions and provides the authors own interpretation. Then there is Shashi Tharoor's Great Indian Novel  which makes a clever use of the Mahabharat to tell the story of Indian democracy.