Under a Monsoon Cloud. By H.R.F. Keating

Under a Monsoon Cloud

H.R.F. Keating

Arrow Books. Published in 1986 in Great Britain.


This is an Inspector Ghote story, the only one I have read. Inspector Ghote is an honest policeman in the Bombay police force in the late 1970s and early 80s. He is the chief character in about 5 or 6 novels written by HRF Keating. This story is unremarkable. Ghote finds himself in a situation where he has to abet in a crime committed by a much-adored senior officer, who later commits a guilty suicide. Ghote then has to battle his conscience and an inquiry committee constituted to investigate Ghote's role in the crime. The conflicts ultimately are resolved unsatisfactorily. However the writing is quite pleasant, and Keating's descriptions of Bombay in the monsoon are quite evocative of my own experiences of them. Keating tries very hard to imitate the speech habits of Indians, including the constant use of the present continuous tense, but overdoes it often. However, the whole effect is not unpleasant, and Ghote and his family come across as quite likeable people, even if somewhat flat. Nice.

The Hobbit. By J.R.R. Tolkein

The Hobbit

J.R.R. Tolkien

Harper Collins Publishers. First published in 1937. This edition first published 1995.

This is the prequel to the 'Lord of the Rings'. It tells the story of Bilbo Baggins, uncle to Frodo, the hero of LOTR, who is pulled away by Gandalf and a bunch of dwarfs from his comfortable home in the Shire on an adventure to retrieve dwarf gold and jewellery stolen by the dragon Smaug who now lies on the loot and guards it. The book lacks some of the grandeur of LOTR, and also some of the interest. It appears that the book was written for children, none of the adventures are particularly dangerous and all the deaths and killings take place off-stage. There are however several themes and ideas repeated in LOTR, which of course is a more 'adult' book. Most importantly in this context, the magic ring, the 'one ring to bind them all', central to LOTR is first discovered by Bilbo in this book. In the beginning the ring is benign, helping Bilbo escape various dangers, and it's only towards the end that the evil and compelling nature of the ring is described, albeit only briefly. The chief theme of the book is that a very ordinary and almost lazy person, Bilbo, is able to not only achieve a great thing in the end, but also repeatedly play a key role in overcoming some danger or the other. And in the process, Bilbo does not loose his good natured timidness and laziness - he does not transform into a super hero. A nice read. The first few lines are worth quoting:

' In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat; it was a hobbit-hole and that means comfort.'

The Private Patient. By P.D. James

The Private Patient

P.D. James

Published by Penguin Books, 2008.


A detective story starring Adam Dalgleish, now a senior Inspector, about to marry Emma, and a lot of that relationship comes in, though not germane to the main detective story. There are similar references to a lot of other details about the lives of the various characters, all building up the atmosphere beautifully, though at the end of the story all of it is not tied together, and this left me somewhat mystified as to why these things were described in such detail in the first place. Anyway the book was a great read. PD James is as unlike Agatha Christie as possible, and her solution to the mystery leaves a lot of questions unanswered, one suspects deliberately. I need to read more PD James before I know whether this is her general style, or whether it's only this book.

A Place to Live. Translated from Tamil by Vasantha Surya. Edited by Dilip Kumar

A Place To Live

Contemporary Tamil short fiction. Translated by Vasantha Surya. Edited by Dilip Kumar

Published in 2004 by Penguin Books, India

A collection of Tamil short stories. Most of them deal with themes that are familiar to me. Perhaps therefore the collection is somewhat tedious. There are a few stories that are good. The first one, 'The Chair' by Ki Rajanarayanan was nice, so was 'The Man in the Terylene Shirt' by G. Nagarajan. The last story in the collection 'The Solution' by the editor, Dilip Kumar was also nice. Another that I liked is 'Curry Leaf' by Vimaladhitha Maamallan. These few I remember, specifically. Others were OK, but maybe they would be better in Tamil. In the translation, though Vasantha Surya does try, they all seem to be written by the same author, at least as far as the language is concerned, though the themes are different.

Mike At Wrykyn. By P.G. Wodehouse

Mike At Wrykyn

P.G. Wodehouse

Originally published in 1910 or thereabouts, I read the Penguin paperback edition published more recently (about 1990)

This , in my opinion, is a transition book for PGW, when he started to move from tales for schoolboys (The Golden Bat, A Prefect's Uncle, etc.) to stories for adults. He has not yet made the transition in this book, and the tale about Mike Jackson, a cricket prodigy like Sachin Tendulkar, is still meant mainly for British schoolboys. But all the same, it is well worth reading, many times, as I have done, especially if you are a cricket fan - there are at least three lovely matches described. In the follow-up to this book (Mike and Psmith), Mike gets taken out from Wrykyn due to bad marks in his lessons and sent to another school, which is not so keen on cricket. It is here that he meets Psmith, who is the first fully 'great' character created by PGW, a forerunner of Galahad, Uncle Fred and maybe even Jeeves.

PS I read this book about a month ago, and have read another book since, so this and the next post come together.

Nicholas Nickleby. By Charles Dickens

Nicholas Nickleby

Charles Dickens

First published 1838-39. The edition I read was the Penguin Popular Classics edition published by Penguin Books in 1994

Maybe the third or fourth time I am reading this book. One of Dickens' best, but not the very best. It was serialized in weekly or monthly parts when Dickens first published it, and some of the requirement of such serialization shows in the book. There are frequent climaxes, characters are introduced even late into the novel (e.g. Arthur Gride and Madeline Bray), and many stories, apparently unconnected, are interwoven, Nevertheless it's a wonderful book, worth the three or four reads, and maybe worth more. The most memorable is Dotheboys Hall, both the name and the description of the school.

Wolf Hall. By Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall

Hilary Mantel

Published in 2009 by Fourth Estate, London

This historical novel won the Man Booker Prize for 2009. It deals with the mainly political events in the life of Thomas Cromwell, a man who held various offices during the reign of King Henry VIII of England, including that of Chancellor (of the Exchequer?) and Master Secretary to the King. He was responsible for the reformation, i.e. the breaking away of England, especially, from the Roman catholic church and the power of the Pope over all Kings. Henry VIII probably had no real philosophical or larger social motives in wanting this to happen - apparently it was his infatuation with Anne Boleyn, (who comes across as a tough lady, desperate to bear a male child by Henry, but failing ultimately) that made him want to divorce Katherine of Aragon (who in addition, did not bear him a male heir, either). And since the divorce (or annulment of the marriage) was not permitted by the Church, he wanted to break away from it. In the book, Mantel imputes larger motives of good governance, etc., to Cromwell, as underlying all his activities in furthering the reformation. This gives a somewhat pragmatic and sympathetic aspect to his character which other biographies (e.g. Wikipedia) have described more harshly.

An interesting story, but I found the writing irritating in the extreme. Apparently Mantel does not care too much about the reader, and does not work hard enough make it a good read for him. For example, she rarely refers to Cromwell by name, but simply keeps saying 'he' did this, and 'he' did that. And there are so many characters that one has to keep backtracking to figure out who actually is saying what. The characters are not properly identified by the author, and since they have very similar names (Anne, Jane, Thomas, Henry), and since their surnames keep changing according to their positions (e.g. Cromwell himself becomes the Earl of Essex) the book is very difficult to read and understand fully. I suppose Mantel will say 'that's the whole point'. But unless I am particularly a historian, or a student of literary theories and criticism, I do not see why I should spend so much time and effort to have a good read, and to understand some of medieval English politics.

So on the whole, the topic is great, and Mantel has done a great deal of research, but, I think, not enough work at writing the novel. Perhaps enough for the Booker judges, but not enough for me. I bought this book not just because it won the Booker, but because it was a described as a 'historical novel' and it received some good reviews. I think I have to be more careful how I interpret the reviews as well.