Not too long ago, I read Watchmen, the graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, which is “one of Time magazine’s hundred best novels.” I confess that part of my motiva­tion for doing so was that there was this suppos­edly awesome book out there, and I couldn’t form an opinion on it until I had actually read it.

To describe Watchmen in one sentence: imagine that you are falling deeper and deeper into a well, and as time passes you start becoming more desperate, losing hope. Then, all of a sudden you wake up and realize it was all a dream, but then you realize you need to get ready for a long day of work ahead and wish you were — well, back in the well. (No apolo­gies for the pun; deal with it. And yes, I know I used two sentences instead of one.)

To put it in more meaningful terms, the story starts with a gloomy backdrop where it seems like the world is starting to fall apart, with nostalgic yet rosy scenes from the past being the standard to compare present day against. From there, it proceeds into darker terri­tory, with a violent and strangely compelling narra­tion “on the side” to set the appro­priate mood. It eventu­ally climaxes in what I would term a “moral muddle” — a situa­tion where there’s no “right thing to do” and every avenue leaves the reader with a bad taste in the mouth. Being power­less as a silent audience doesn’t help much, either.

Of all the charac­ters, Rorschach is portrayed as the most contro­ver­sial, and yet, he is, in my opinion, the most straight­for­ward, coura­geous and honest super­hero in the story. It is said that Rorschach sees the world in black and white, but I disagree. The whole argument for accepting “shades of gray” stems from the fact that people think differ­ently and believe differ­ently; it does not preclude an individual from having absolute personal opinions. From that point of view, Rorschach has certain princi­ples that he always stands by, and he takes it upon himself to “save the world” as he sees fit.

Dr. Manhattan, the only real super­hero, is an enigma of sorts, because the novel hints that it is impos­sible to truly under­stand his point-of-view until we see time and events the way he does, connected in a single, complex and intri­cate pattern. Even so, I would have respected his indif­fer­ence towards humanity if he had shown the same indif­fer­ence towards the rest of Universe (including Mars). That human life and humanity in general is point­less is a perfectly sound argument (see Note 1), but valuing dust storms on Mars over human life, or billions of years over thousands is not an argument I am willing to consider without justification.

In an odd twist, Dr. Manhattan’s position also subtly points out that real power is to have the strength without having to actually use it. Having to use it would mean that you are a slave to that power, and (unless you are omnipo­tent) you are likely to eventu­ally find yourself in a situa­tion where your opponent cannot be destroyed by any power that you possess.

In conclu­sion — find some time to read the book.

Note 1: People tend to believe that it is their moral oblig­a­tion to convince others that human life is not point­less, or that the argument in its favor is somehow taboo. I find it perfectly reason­able for one to agree that human life is point­less, but move on and be happy nevertheless.

Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea is the tale of an old fisherman who strug­gles to do what fishermen are meant to do — catch fish. His luck is against him, it seems, and when he finally hooks a fish that would have made the village proud, he loses it to ruthless sharks.

Despite the religious symbolism (among other things) that has been attrib­uted to the story, Hemingway’s novella is, at heart, a simple fable — a state­ment of facts you might say. While in real life facts may be hidden from view, in this fictional world, they stand out in plain view, naked and unfor­giving. It is the simplicity that makes the greatest impres­sion on the reader — when the author says, “The Sun rose in the East today -” one is forced to look for metaphors, like a Roscharch test of liter­a­ture. What did he mean by that? Is that all there is to it?

With lessons of endurance and a dab of innocence, The Old Man and the Sea is a refresh­ingly beautiful Sunday after­noon read.

James Michener’s The Drifters is an exhil­a­rating and timeless novel that describes the lives of a group of young men and women who set out to discover the world for themselves. More than just a story, it is a presen­ta­tion of the lives of the young and the old, and the relation­ship between the gener­a­tions. Although it was written in the 1970s, the narra­tive maintains its relevance even today. In part, this is because the problems and preju­dices that are gradu­ally revealed by the author can be easily seen all around us today.

The narra­tion begins with the background stories of a variety of charac­ters, each extra­or­di­nary in his or her own way. Chance brings them together and they set out on a journey through Europe and Africa, in the search of meaning to their lives. Eventu­ally, their journey is seen to be a spiri­tual trans­for­ma­tion, rather than a mere explo­ration of places and people.

The appeal of this novel may be different for each kind of audience. The passage of time gives the current reader the benefit of hindsight; there are problems and problems, but will there ever be solutions in sight? The diverse group portrayed in this novel also raises the inter­esting question of allegiance — when it comes to the ‘crunch’, who will side with whom? If we can take away an impor­tant lesson from this novel, it is that the world as we know it today is the result of the choices made long ago: will we make the right choices today?

This theme of society and choice always lingers somewhere in the background, never quite raising its head until the very end. Until then, the author treats us to a world of excite­ment, rituals, sex and drugs, a world always in motion.

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is a bold piece of work, partly because the style of writing differs drasti­cally from the mainstream, and also because it leaves in the reader’s mind, a feeling that Woolf is more inter­ested in capturing the thought, the idea and the essence of the moment than in impressing the reader with the narra­tive. The latter obser­va­tion can be contested, but the former cannot be denied.

The reader will soon realize that the events in the story are immate­rial. In fact, events are an inter­rup­tion to the flow of thought, and it is through this flow that the reader becomes a part of the fantasy world. The charac­ters themselves are more impor­tant than what they do, for what they do is a mere reflec­tion of their state of mind at that instant. Under­standing the charac­ters is the impor­tant thing; all else is secondary.

Woolf makes this task of under­standing easy, by flitting from one character’s mind to the other. Every fleeting moment stretches across minutes, and every thought lingers for sometime on an object, and then makes its way through deeper roads. Every­thing is connected to the past, and the past is, in a way, more real than the present itself.

The style of writing needs some getting used to. There is nothing linear about a person’s thoughts, and this non-linearity is reflected in the writing. To keep track of what is going on requires a good deal of effort.

In the copy that I had borrowed from the library, somebody had scrawled after the last line of the book -

“All these people only feel, feel, feel, but do nothing.”

- which was right, of course! Woolf coaxes the reader to live the story, become a part of it, and trans­form the ordinary into the extraordinary.

This 2005 novel by Cormac McCarthy is a definite page turner. A gory blood-bath inter­spersed with the good Sheriff’s musings, it is a carefully crafted narra­tion of the inevitable. The antag­o­nist has a definite Lecter-ish quality about him, albeit with a little less charm. The intel­li­gent reader knows what to expect from the very begin­ning, but McCarthy succeeds in demon­strating that it is not the unexpected that keeps us awake at night: it is what we know to be true, but refuse to accept, that leaves us in fear.

The plot revolves around a young man who comes across a couple of million in cash thanks to a drug deal gone bad — and decides to keep it. There is little time to ponder upon the morality of his choices, and time is running out for regrets.

I would give this novel a rating of 4 out of 5, a book that should definitely be added to the reading list.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is one of those books that’ll have you rolling on the floor with laughter all day. Composed primarily of narra­tions and dialogues, the work was origi­nally broad­cast on radio, and subse­quently converted into a book.

It’s not really a story that attempts to get somewhere; it meanders into unknown terri­tory like Alice in Wonder­land, and occasion­ally forgets its desti­na­tion, but at the end of the day, the desti­na­tion doesn’t really matter — the jokes along the way do.

Like many other sci-fi books, the Hitchhiker’s Guide intro­duces a lot of jargon, but here, it’s not essen­tial to remember the terms in order to compre­hend the plot, so it makes things easier for the reader.

One aspect of the book that I’m thankful about is that there’s no waking-up-from-the-dream kind of ending, which would have been a terrible disaster. Something like that happened in Josh Kirby: Time Warrior, in which it turns out that the whole story was part of a dream. It happened in Alice In Wonder­land too, of course, but that didn’t seem very disappointing.