Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Of raw life, math and show-off

BOOK WORM

Sunil K Poolani

Raw writing

Rereading Charles Bukowski’s Post Office after several years, one was remorseful to see the effort and pain our celebrity authors take to safeguard their feel-good reputation, to conveniently bury a ‘dubious’ past, if any.

If Bukowski, that ever-so-iconoclastic writer, chose to meticulously demolish his own reputation in almost all his autobiographical books and fiction, our own trapeze artists hog the Page 3 circuit, putting on their best-ever smiles to conceal their bad divorces or past plagiarisms.

Born in Germany in 1920 to an American father and German mother, Bukowski grew up in Los Angeles, enduring a childhood and youth marked by bullying from other boys and regular beatings from his abusive father. If Bukowski smelled of cheap liquor, our ilk reeked of expensive French perfumes; if Bukowski chose to wear his jeans and T-shirt for more than a week, our tribe entered into designer suits five times a day; if…

But Bukowski wrote much better than all our con artists put together. He won millions of admirers for his supremely visceral style; a style that is meant to be experienced more than read. Good writing is not about champagne and caviar, but local brew and boiled potatoes.

Math and fiction

I have just finished an interesting book. A Certain Ambiguity (Penguin Viking), by Gaurav Suri and Hartosh Singh Bal. Mathematics is like any other stream of arts, be it literature, performing arts or plastic arts. There is an infinity that is mind-boggling and there lies the beauty; a realisation that more you analyse and solve the mysteries of the game, the more the awareness that it is vastly and hugely endless. Galileo, Plato and our own Ramanujam realised it, so do most of the contemporary mathematical brains.

One reflective conclusion that can be drawn out of mathematics is how much ever ambiguous it might seem, the more you delve deep into it, with a pinch of modesty and decorum, and more are the chances of solving them and, in the process, enjoying them. It is true that mathematics, like any other art form, is losing its relevance; precisely for that reason this attempt to revive and regenerate interest in this stream of science should be welcomed.

Question of existence

There are people who publish books. There are people who sell books. And there are people who really read books. Finally, there are people who pretend to read books. You can see the last ilk all over around you: in malls, in snazzy coffee shops, in airports… Nothing worrisome, as long as the books are sold (see, I am a publisher).

What amuses me is the kind of books they carry with them these days. No, not Archer, Huntington, Sachs or even our desi Chetan Bhagat or Robin Sharma, but great classicists. I read a report sometime back which said George W Bush has been advised by his spin doctors to carry Albert Camus’ The Outsider while on vacation so that he will look an intellectual.

A White House spokesman said Bush “found it an interesting book and a quick read,” and talked about it with aides. “I don’t want to go too deep into it, but we discussed the origins of existentialism.”

I haven’t started laughing since then. The French existentialist should be turning in his grave, crying why he wasted his life writing all those classics.

Tailpiece

An editor in a publishing house was fed up of a mercurial assistant editor. He summoned her into his cabin and told her, “Hello, the way things are going I don’t think you we will be working together from now on.” The assistant’s response: “Congratulations, Sir, so where are you joining?”

Sunil K Poolani is Executive Director and Publisher, Leadstart Publishing Pvt Ltd, Mumbai. Write to him at poolani@gmail.com

-- Deccan Chronicle / The Asian Age

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Poolani:
I greatly admired your column "Write Stuff, Right Stuff" (Deccan Chronicle, Secunderabad, 17th August). Admire Orwell intensely as I do, I was wondering at the same time what you think of the absolute mastery of language displayed by P. G. Wodehouse throughout his long writing career!
Incidentally it was Orwell who came to the defence of Wodehouse when the humourist was facing a difficult time in the wake of the much misunderstood Berlin Broadcasts...
-- Rajendra Prasad (rajendraprasad.harkara@gmail.com)

Anonymous said...

Dear Sir,

Most of the students dread mathematics because of unfriendly &
unimaginative textbooks, as well as, equally uninspiring teachers in
schools (Of raw life, math and show-off, Book Worm, The Asian Age,
August 24). Many times, mathematics teachers, due to their strictness,
are the most unpopular among students. It is high time that, right
from primary levels, mathematics syllabus is designed & taught in a
way (a la, Shakuntala Devi) which will attract students towards it &
make them feel at home.

Ketan R. Meher

22, Radhakrishna Apt., 3rd Flr., Manvel Pada Rd., Morya Nagar, Town -
Virar East. Tal. Vasai. Dist. Thane. State. Maharashtra. Pin Code
401303
meher.ketan@gmail.com

Anonymous said...

I am a regular reader of your column in Deccan Chronicle, but it was this week's piece that made me write this mail to you.
Though the article was primarily about the book "Darkmans", I was more intrigued by the initial paragraph which told me that the Leo Tolstoy novel "War and Peace" had 1, 488 pages! I had known this book till now only as the book which inspired Mahatma Gandhi but it never occurred to me that to read it myself.
So this mail is just a thank-you mail for reminding me that a good book is to be read. Pretty silly mail, but still, I have composed it and now I can't do anything else but click on send!
Thank you!
-- Mahesh Varma (mokujin@in.com)