Sunday, December 31, 2023

The Lost Steps - Alejo Carpentier

A nameless narrator has abandoned his creative dreams for a job in corporate New York. His wife, Ruth, is an actress with a drama troupe and is away most of the time, and the marriage is becoming predictable. He is rotting there, but a chance from his former employer in search of indigenous musical instruments deep in the jungles of South America changes his life forever. He sets out with his lover, Mouche, an astrologist, to a land which not many in the outside world know.


On his arrival, he realises that the people over there speak the language which he spoke during his childhood. He can easily converse with the people and mingle with them while he finds Mouche’s urban pretensions ridiculous. On their further journey into the deep jungles, he meets a native woman Rosario and is captivated by her simplicity and connection with nature.

In the journey, there are further characters that help and join the narrator’s quest to locate the instruments. There is a Capuchin friar whose mission is to spread the religion. Some Greek miners want to look for gold and diamonds. There is also the Pathfinder who is their guide and knows the hidden tributaries to the deep jungles. During this long trip, the narrator and Rosario fall in love and he finds that he has been lost in time. Mouche contracts malaria and is sent back while the rest of the party continues the journey. Finally, they arrive in the village that Pathfinder has established. The narrator settles down there after locating the musical instruments during the journey and has fallen in love with the place and the lack of time awareness. He wants to write music based on the Odyssey, but the lack of paper in the deep jungles poses a problem. He is also disturbed when Rosario rejects his marriage proposal, though they are still lovers and sexually involved.

There is an underlying theme of music in this novel. While the narrator finds his wife’s drama troupe’s popular music boring, he feels like he has watched the birth of music during a funeral prayer of the native Indians. He finds music in the torrential rains and the pre-historic plants and composes his masterpiece. But why write music, when it can be played - asks his lover Rosario. And while he leaves primitive classical music for the non-quality one, his life also changes from prosperity to poverty.


Alejo Carpentier’s masterpiece can be considered a work of magical realism. There is no surety of time once the story gets into deep jungles. He puts us, readers, in a dream-like state where we are also not sure of what happened because the story jumps so quickly sometimes. Some of the portrayals of the jungle and the action are poetic and magical. Maybe the whole story itself is a dream that happens between the two states of the narrator. Who knows! But hey, what is Latin American literature without a little bit of magic?

Adrian Nathan West’s translation is good and magical too. Hope he keeps up the tradition of the Rabassa and Grossman and translates many more from the Latin American world. Many thanks to Penguin Books ton commissioning a new translation of this one.

P.S. - I have been searching for this book for a long long time now. I came to know about this book at least 10 years ago. I wrote to many bookstores asking about this book.
The price in Amazon was exorbitant. I also wrote to The Bookshop, Jorbagh during the Covid days. They didn’t have it, but I bought another set of books from them. Then early this year, they said a new translation was coming and the publication is expected in May. Promptly, I set a reminder and emailed them in May. They said the publication date has been pushed to January 2024. Then out of nowhere Sonal from The Bookshop Inc. Lodhi Gardens (Jorbagh one shut down and the folks started a new one in Lodhi Gardens) emailed me and said this book and Carpentier’s Explosion In A Cathedral are available. I was in tears and jumping with joy. They remembered an email I sent in 2020 and reminded me the book was available. So good they are. This book introduction is possible because of them. Much much gratitude for them. Love you, folks! One day I am going to arrive in Delhi with empty suitcases and buy as much as I can :) You should follow them on Instagram. They make great recommendations. And yes, buy independent if you can, not from the Amazons of the world.


#alejocarpentier #theloststeps #LatinAmericanLiterature #latinamericanboom #lastbookoftheyear #books2023 #independentbookstore

Sunday, January 08, 2023

Books Read in 2022

Books read from left to right

Last year I bettered myself by a lot. Had personally kept a Goodreads target of 42 books. But ended up reading 10 more, even though the average length of the book dipped. The selection of thinner books was a calculated cheat code I took after June 2022 when I realised I might not hit the target. So here goes the reads in the order of completion.

1. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold - John le Carré.

2. A Season in Congo - Aimé Césaire

3. The Windows In Our House Are Little Doors - Vinod Kumar Shukla

4. ദാമിയന്റെ അതിഥികൾ - അരുൺ ആർഷ 

5. Minor Detail - Adania Shibli

6. Undertow - Jahnavi Barua

7. Chinaman - Shehan Karunatilaka

8. മുക്തകണ്ഠം വികെഎൻ - കെ. രഘുനാഥൻ

9. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

10. War Minus The Shooting - Mike Marqusee

11. അത് ഞാനായിരുന്നു - അഷിത/ശിഹാബുദ്ദീൻ പൊയ്ത്തുംകടവ്

12. Death Going Down - María Angélica Bosco

13. Roissy - Tiffany Tavernier

14. The Curse: Stories - Salma

15. Why don't you write something I might read? - Suresh Menon

16. In Evil Hour - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

17. ആഗസ്റ്റ് 17 - എസ് ഹരീഷ്

18. തീൻമേശക്കുറിമാനം - ലിപിൻ രാജ് എം.പി

19. സ്‌കാവഞ്ചർ - ജി ആർ ഇന്ദുഗോപൻ

20. എരി - പ്രദീപൻ പാമ്പിരിക്കുന്ന്

21. എന്റെ ജീവിതം - പ്രേംനസീർ

22. പ്രേമനഗരം - ബിനീഷ് പുതുപ്പണം

23. The History of the Siege of Lisbon - José Saramago

24. വാടിവാസൽ - ചി സു ചെല്ലപ്പ

25. ആൽഫ - ടി. ഡി. രാമകൃഷ്ണൻ

26. അടിയോർ മിശിഹാ എന്ന നോവൽ - വിനോയ് തോമസ്

27. രേഖകൾ - നമ്പൂതിരി

28. മഞ്ചൽ - വി. കെ. എൻ

29. The Time Of The Hero - Mario Vargas Llosa

30. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro Seriously Funny since 1983 - Jai Arjun Singh

31. ദൽഹി - എം. മുകുന്ദൻ

32. പുനത്തിൽ കുഞ്ഞബ്ദുള്ള ഒരു സ്വച്ഛന്ദ സ്വപ്നസഞ്ചാരി - ടി. രാജൻ

33. Boat Number Five - Monika Kompaníková

34. അബീശഗിൻ - ബെന്യാമിൻ

35. Embers - Sándor Márai

36. എതിര് - എം. കുഞ്ഞാമൻ

37. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque

38. സഹറാവീയം - ജുനൈദ് അബൂബക്കർ

39. The Color Purple - Alice Walker

40. കിളിമഞ്ജാരോ ബുക്ക്സ്റ്റാൾ - രാജേന്ദ്രൻ എടത്തുംകര 

41. ആയുസ്സിന്റെ പുസ്തകം - സി. വി. ബാലകൃഷ്ണൻ

42. നിറക്കൂട്ടുകളില്ലാതെ - ഡെന്നിസ് ജോസഫ് 

43. Our Man In Havana - Graham Greene

44. The Long March - Namita Waikar

45. അനുസ്മരണ - വി. കെ. എൻ

46. അങ്കമാലിയിലെ മാങ്ങാക്കറിയും വില്ലുവണ്ടിയും മറ്റു കഥകളും - K. രേഖ

47. Tears of the Giraffe - Alexander McCall Smith

48. പുലയത്തറ - പോൾ ചിറക്കരോട് 

49. The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes - Jamyang Norbu

50. സൂചിയും നൂലും - ഇന്ദ്രൻസ് / ഷംസുദ്ദീൻ കുട്ടോത്ത്

51. ഖബർ - കെ ആർ മീര

52. മരക്കാപ്പിലെ തെയ്യങ്ങൾ - അംബികാസുതൻ മാങ്ങാട്


My Top 5 Malayalam recommendations

1. ആഗസ്റ്റ് 17

2. എരി

3. ദൽഹി

4. ദാമിയന്റെ അതിഥികൾ

5. മരക്കാപ്പിലെ തെയ്യങ്ങൾ


My Top 5 English recommendations

1. Embers

2. Chinaman

3. Minor Detail

4. Boat Number Five

5. The Color Purple


Special Mentions

1. War Minus The Shooting

2. The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes

3. Our Man In Havana

4. The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

5. Undertow

6. സഹറാവീയം

7. ആയുസ്സിന്റെ പുസ്തകം

8. പുലയത്തറ

9. വാടിവാസൽ

10. മുക്തകണ്ഠം വികെഎൻ

11. The Curse: Stories
12. All Quiet on the Western Front
13. അനുസ്മരണ
14. In Evil Hour
15. The Time Of The Hero

As usual, many thanks to Shimmy Thomas for the constant encouragement to read more, and for asking about the number of books read at periodic intervals. Thanks a lot.

To all who ask how I do it, there is no shortcut here. I try to read at least 10 pages every day and regularly try to read from 10.30 pm to 12 midnight once everyone has slept. The only thing that hinders this is when I am stuck with office work. And keeping a Goodreads target helps. I still follow some of these things I wrote way back in 2013.

I buy a lot of books every year, and I maintain a list of the To Be Read (TBR) book pile. That number is always on my mind and I am forced to reduce it. 😀 So keep buying and reading the books seems to be working for me.

Happy reading you all in 2023!

P.S - VKN, Marquez and Llosa books will always be on the special mentions 😁