June 1, 2017
by Neelima
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Witnesses and the Apocalypse @ Link Wanderlust

Some writers write because they have a conscience.  Scholastique Mukasonga, a Tutsi, who lost many family members to Hutu violence, believes that she started writing because of what she had witnessed. Genocide. She is not a political writer; she just writes what she sees though what a writer sees sometimes is political. Svetlana Alexievich, Nadine Gordimer and Elena Poniatowska are other writers who speak about political events through the lens of human suffering.

I believe this is a literary task. At the dawn of the modern age, James Joyce wrote that we strive to wake from the nightmare of history, which I take to mean that our societies strive to escape from a world that exists on a tribal, imagistic, mythic sort of order—to leave that world and enter into one that is grounded in peace, justice, and rationality. I do not believe we have yet so escaped, and so long as we continue in this nightmare of history, we will only be able to fully comprehend what is happening with the blessings of art. Writers must help document and explain the endemic forces that have gained momentum and are now drawing us along on their path. They must be witnesses to these deeds for our own sake, so that we can have some meaning and common understanding in this era of confusion, and also so that the future generations will learn from the mistakes we have committed.

Read From Mukasonga to Alexievich, We Need Writers who Bear Witness by Scott Esposito

While some writers bear witness, others foresee the apocalyptic end. There are many ways the world can come to an end. The narrative of climate change, nuclear explosions and dangerous technology are all ways that writers explore to describe what seems inevitable according to the Doomsday Clock. Sometimes reading fiction can tell you more about a particular time period than a history book. J. G. Ballard and Rachel Carson wrote about the detrimental effects of climate change. Max Brooks, Emily St.John Mandel and Margaret Atwood have spoken about the dangers posed by biotechnology. And now with a wave of populism in politics, the Doomsday Clock is closer to the doom of the world. The threats keep changing but, either way, the end seems near.

Let’s hope these are just writers who are writing from their imagination and not scripting a true story. Read this: Writing the end of the world: Charting trends in apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction.

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May 30, 2017
by Neelima
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Readers can’t Digest-Week 135 (24-May to 30-May)

1.Roger Moore dead: Actor finished ‘typically amusing’ autobiography two weeks before his death

2.Anthony Horowitz: I was warned off including black character

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3.Folio prize goes to Hisham Matar’s memoir The Return

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4.Bill Clinton, James Patterson Team Up for Novel

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5.Dad’s erotic novel turns into a podcast hit

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May 29, 2017
by Neelima
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Poetry, Migration and Andaman @ BYOB Party in April 2017 (Part 4)

Sreeraj also mentioned two poetry books by contemporary British poets. Answering Back: Living poets reply to the poetry of the past by Carol Ann Duffy is a compilation of poet responses to poems of the past. Poets of the now speak to poets of then and the ensuing conversation is a beautiful one.

Another poetry book Sreeraj mentioned was The Mara Crossing by Ruth Padel, great granddaughter of Charles Darwin. The book contains ninety richly textured poems on the broad theme of migration.  ‘We’re all from somewhere else,’ she begins, tracing the journeys of cells, trees, birds and beasts. “This is why I think that the idea of nationalism is weak,” Sreeraj said, “We emerge from somewhere and go elsewhere. Life is all about journeys, all about migration.”

I remember reading this wondrous book a while ago- you can go through the review here.

Apurba read The Last Wave, an Island Novel by Pankaj Sekhsaria, a journalist who has reported extensively on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The story is about how the protagonist Harish who has taken up a research job in Port Blair meets Seema, a native of the islands who studied in JNU and has returned home. The novel deals with many themes including the conflict that globalization poses in the islands, illegal immigration from Bangladesh and the Jarawa tribal community.

“The reason this book spoke to me was the setting,” Apurba said. “Most Indian English literature today is about the cities- Mumbai, Delhi, South Delhi…very few books are set in remote places and now particularly because we don’t read as much vernacular literature anymore, these kind of books are very refreshing. Take the books by Mahasweta Devi, for instance,” Apurba said.

Jaya also seconded Apurba about the thirst that the present generation has for books replete with remote geography. “If you want to know about Sikkim, Chetan Raj Shrestha’s is a fantastic author to consider.” The discussion went on to the importance of reading serialized versions of translated vernacular literature in Malayalam and the states in India where the literary scene is particularly vibrant.

If you want to get a flavor of Pankaj Sekhsaria’s prose, read this.

May 25, 2017
by Neelima
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Dystopia with Atwood @ Link Wanderlust

The Handmaid’s Tale is a talking point; this book by Margaret Atwood seems eerie now in the light of how lightly women’s rights are being taken world over. The story that is now a TV series had its roots in a tale that Atwood heard from her aunt about a seventeenth century ancestor, Mary Webster, who was hung on witchcraft charges but didn’t die. Atwood, a famous writer in Canada, is well-known for her predictions that are painfully accurate. She even did a little palm reading of the narrator of the essay and didn’t seem too off the mark. She isn’t too surprised by the way politics is playing out.

She attended the Toronto iteration of the Women’s March, wearing a wide-brimmed floppy hat the color of Pepto-Bismol: not so much a pussy hat as the chapeau of a lioness. Among the signs she saw that day, her favorite was one held by a woman close to her own age; it said, “i can’t believe i’m still holding this fucking sign.” Atwood remarked, “After sixty years, why are we doing this again? But, as you know, in any area of life, it’s push and pushback. We have had the pushback, and now we are going to have the push again.”

Atwood is the rare kind of writer who can write anywhere. The Handmaid’s Tale was written in 1984; she was influenced by Orwell, and the idea of the book frightened her.

What does feel familiar in “The Handmaid’s Tale” is the blunt misogyny of the society that Atwood portrays, and which Trump’s vocal repudiation of “political correctness” has loosed into common parlance today. Trump’s vilification of Hillary Clinton, Atwood believes, is more explicable when seen through the lens of the Puritan witch-hunts. “You can find Web sites that say Hillary was actually a Satanist with demonic powers,” she said. “It is so seventeenth-century that you can hardly believe it. It’s right out of the subconscious—just lying there, waiting to be applied to people.” The legacy of witch-hunting, and the sense of shame that it engendered, Atwood suggests, is an enduring American blight. “Only one of the judges ever apologized for the witch trials, and only one of the accusers ever apologized,” she said. Whenever tyranny is exercised, Atwood warns, it is wise to ask, “Cui bono?” Who profits by it? Even when those who survived the accusations levelled against them were later exonerated, only meagre reparations were made. “One of the keys to America is that your neighbor may be a Communist, a serial killer, or in league with satanic forces,” Atwood said. “You really don’t trust your fellow-citizens very much.”

Read more of this story to get a better understanding of Atwood, her life and writing: Margaret Atwood, the Prophet of Dystopia by Rebecca Mead.

 

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May 23, 2017
by Neelima
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Readers can’t Digest-Week 134 (17-May to 23-May)

1.The Orwell prize for books 2017 shortlist

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2.Burglars steal Harry Potter prequel written on postcard

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3.George RR Martin says Game of Thrones spin-offs will all be prequels – and announces a fifth

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4.Channel 4 Acquires MGM’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ for the U.K

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5.Amazon Charts is a Weekly Best-Seller List

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May 22, 2017
by Neelima
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Cyber Psyche and Bureaucratic Algorithms @ BYOB Party in April 2017 (Part 3)

In today’s screen age, the book that Sreeraj talked about is pertinent. The Cyber Effect: A Pioneering Cyberpsychologist Explains How Human Behavior Changes Online by Mary Aiken, the world’s leading expert in forensic cyberpsychology, talks about how the cyber world is intruding on our way of life, the minds of our children and the way people interact or not with each other. From the madness of trolling to excessive sexting, Aiken navigates the corridors of cyber crime and addictive behavior. The book is not academic in flavor but goes on a case by case basis, providing stats and trends that may want us to shut down our laptops for a while and rethink appeasing our children with digital tablets.

Ralph mentioned a companion book to this called Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O’Neil. The book talks about how algorithms that are making life simpler by helping make decisions about whom to give a loan or a scholarship to are as biased as people. On one hand, there’s the view that engineers need to be empathetic as their biases rub off in the algorithms they create. But the problem is not so clear cut. Data-driven decisions are based on what the mathematical models are learning continuously. While biases are inevitable, algorithms end up being the new bureaucracy.

“Be afraid,” Jaya said.

More books in Part 4.

May 18, 2017
by Neelima
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Why Witches Look the Way they do @ Link Wanderlust

Stumbled on an essay by Jon Crabb. He starts his essay Woodcuts and Witches in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when England was witnessing a publishing revolution in the form of pamphlets, ballads and woodcuts. It was also a time of witch hunts (around three thousand so-called sorcerers were executed in England alone) that had papal endorsement. Today witch hunts still exist in places like Papua New Guinea but around five hundred years ago this was a punishable offense in the western world.

One of the earliest and most notorious British witchcraft pamphlets was published in 1579: A Rehearsall both Straung and True, of Hainous and Horrible Actes Committed by Elizabeth Stile, alias Rockingham, Mother Dutten, Mother Deuell, Mother Margaret, Fower Notorious Witches. Stile was a 65-year-old widow and beggar accused of bewitching an innkeeper. The pamphlet describes her association with three other old women known as Mother Margaret, Mother Dutten and Mother Devell, as well as a man named Father Rosimunde, who could transform himself “into the shape and likenesse of any beaste whatsoever he will”. Woodcuts show these old women and several animal familiars, which they reportedly fed on their own blood.

A witch was usually an old woman who lived on her own and owned a cat. A woodcut chronicling the Damnable Life of Doctor Fian, a Notable Sorcerer, who was Burned at Edenbrough in Januarie Last, 1591, had a stock image of witches with devils swimming around a cauldron. These images that were part of popular culture back then have stayed. Witches still have pointed hats, stir bubbling cauldrons and travel on broomsticks, though now they play Quidditch on broomsticks. Muse on that.

Castle, Cat, Evil, Female, Fictional, Flying, Full Moon