SYLB Session III - A review

In the last SYLB session Mathew expressed that as child, as a teenager and as a man he always wanted to read all the books in the world and from cover to cover but soon came to terms that its not possible. He liked the book reading session that atleast through this he can if not read as many books could nevertless know about newer and more books. And I could not have any lesser consenus with him after the coruscating presentation of Jhumpa Lahiri`s "Namesake" by Arun Da. What waterfalls of self-displaying energy!Cheers to Arun!

Neither very slow nor a tedious style of Jhumpa`s writing, as brought out to us by Arun, has confirmed that Namesake is a welcome addition to the shelves of personal libraries of all of us. Arun did a lot of due delligence to bringforth what he did last Thursday.He selected the best of the excerpts from the book and explained the spirit of the author and the hiding thread throught out the novel - Relationships. Arun is a good presentor;he is also Bengali; and its is difficult to decide which comes first. He chose lines to read that assembled together presented the great quality of Bengali way of life, a remarkable phenomenon and the mark of exuberant belongingness that Indian immigrants breath.

Arun Da very sapidly read out excerpts that proceed a living challenge for the immigrant population to survive the culture shock abroad.He made sure that he sketches Jhumpa to show the shades of her liking for Russian literature and more specifically Ruso author Nikoloi Gogol and his book Raincoat, which is the sixth character in the story line apart from the five main shades.Once we scape through the early chapters of the book, the story line gains momentum it moves as swiftly as jazz rhythm.
On the whole, though the assmebly of partcipants was not as vibrant and high in number as the acceptance responses that were received, Arun`s perspicacity and efforts to present the book like a movie to all of us has fortified one thing for sure….that books are still a serious hobby for a many of us and SYLB is not a fugacious attempt to rejoice about our love for them.For those who missed the session attached is a review of the book.

Sesank