The Seaside Library

 

 

Author: Margaret Atwood Acquired in: October 2020 Ah, the glee of finally reading a book you've wanted to for a long time is a feeling like no other. And yes, The Handmaid's Tale is like no other. Books like these belonging to speculative fiction have enormous potential for imagination. Margaret Atwood's work aims to show what a government led by a fundamentalist regime would pan out.  A radical quasi-Christian outfit overthrows the US government and establishes a totalitarian theocracy named the Republic of Gilead where women have no rights. They have no right over their bodies; only fertile women are considered useful. Women hold different positions on the social ladder according to their past roles in pre-coup America- the Wives, the Handmaids, the Marthas, the Econowives and the Unwomen. Due to the dangerously high levels of radioactive pollution, most Gileadians are sterile, including the new elite consisting of the Commanders and their Wives. To somehow salvage a chil...

A cloud of cherry blossoms The temple bell Is it Ueno, is it Asakusa? How many, many things They call to mind These cherry blossoms! Very brief- Gleam of blossoms in the treetops On a moonlit night A lovely spring night Suddenly vanished while we Viewed cherry blossoms. -  Matsuo Basho

Author: Michael Ondaatje Acquired in: December 2019 Booker Prize winner The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje was on my reading list for a long time. When I couldn't find a copy, I decided to try out Warlight, another of Ondaatje’s books to get a taste of his writing. Note to self: never try it again. The espionage-themed book is so vague and obscure that I frequently lost track of what is happening. I don't think I would buy The English Patient after this. In post-World War II London, Nathaniel and Rachel's parents set sail to Singapore to attend to some business, leaving them in the care of 'the Moth', a man shrouded in mystery. Several of the Moth's friends drop by their house over the years, each one shadier than the last. Amidst this medley, the children grow up and gradually realise that their parents had left for good. Years later, Rachel wants nothing to do with their parents who she feels had abandoned them, but Nathaniel digs deeper and deeper to unc...

Author: Mario Puzo Acquired in: May 2019 "Audacity had liberated them. They were pioneers, though they never walked an American plain and never felt real soil beneath their feet. They moved in a sadder wilderness, where the language was strange, where their children became members of a different race. It was a price that must be paid." Doesn’t this quote express fully an immigrant’s turmoil? For however good the life in the new land may be, the feeling of being alien never receded fully for Lucia Santa.  Lucia Santa Angeluzzi-Corbo is a formidable woman who has suffered much- set sail from Sicily seeking greener pastures in America, widowed in the blink of an eye and later married to another Italian on the verge of a mental breakdown. She now lives in a tenement in an Italian-majority settlement in New York, trying to instil Italian values in her family that is becoming rapidly Americanised.  It broke my heart to read how these poor immigrants literally work themselves to de...