Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment

I am a bit disappointed I didn’t read this book earlier. Why didn’t anyone recommend it to me? Or did they and I just ignored them as it seems like one of those books that you have to read at school. I was never a big fan of “have-to’s” so maybe that’s why.

It was a really enjoyable experience to get this old edition of the book from my mom’s shelf (from 1974) with its brownish pages and the smell of dust adding to the experience of the times it describes. You can’t not like Raskolnikov as a character, despite the brutal crime he committed. Though I have to admit, killing two women with an axe seemed a bit comical to me. I suppose that could simply be due to all the more brutal crimes we’re used to seeing in movies and on TV nowadays.

The journey Raskolnikov goes on to after the crime is a brilliant description of human’s mind, an amazing journey through thoughts, emotions and feelings of one person put brilliantly and eloquently on paper. Dostoyevsky treats us to not only a great study of human nature but does it with a great dose of humour by bringing a whole variety of characters into play.

Raskolnikov’s punishment is long and exhausting. And you, as a reader, feel that exhaustion yourself and want to end it by giving yourself in, the sooner the better. Though there were many moments when I thought – why not just let it go and get away with it if no one has any evidence against me? Does that mean I have a murderer inside me?

My rating: YYYYY

J.M. Coetzee: Waiting for the Barbarians

It is truly incredible how Coetzee made this story so timeless that, even though written 30 years ago, you can see it repeating in the world around us over and over again.

The story is settled in a nameless town on the borders of some Empire and the main character who leads us through its history is the Magistrate whose name we never learn either. He reigns the town in piece and symbiosis with the surrounding tribes of native people – fishers, hunters who come to the town occasionally to exchange their worthless goods.

That is until the Empire starts its actions to find and defeat their enemies. The Magistrate has to face the arrival of Colonel Joll whose aim is to find those “barbarians” who are a threat to the Empire’s safety, especially when it comes to its frontier towns. The cruelty of the interrogations to the “barbarians” that are caught causes a mixture of feelings in Magistrate’s mind – a great disgust and hatred to people who can so cruelly hurt other innocent people and a determination to stay out of it and let the Empire do its work without saying a word to stop it. And that’s what starts bothering Magistrate’s mind when Joll finally leaves. Should he have done something to stop this instead of looking in the other direction?

He later engages in a pseudo-erotic relationship with one of the “barbarian” girls left behind by Joll’s army. Her father died during the interrogations, she was blinded and her ankles broken. The Magistrate lets her move into his room, massages her body every evening, tries to heal her broken ankles but never engages into anything more sexual, even though we learn about his liaisons with other young women from the garrison. The scary thought that comes to his mind at some point was whether this girl will one day remember his touch, his care and the time spent with him as vividly as she will always remember the soldiers interrogating her, blinding her eyes with fire and God knows what else. He does for a split moment consider hurting her just to leave his mark on her. Is the cruelty entrenched so hard in our nature or does witnessing it make us feel the power of it too? I think, despite all the scenes of cruelty shown by Joll and his supporters, this was the moment of the book that touched me most.

The power of Coetzee’s story is that it shows people on all sides of the conflict, shows the questions and doubts they have. It shows how incredibly easily human can find a reason for a war against so called “barbarians” and in effect quickly become a barbarian himself. How love can take different forms and how it can be distorted by our feeling of belonging to a different race. And how terribly easy it is to convince the crowds that the cruelty they are seeing is right. Doesn’t it all sound like the world that surrounds us now?

There were many little things in this book that I found fascinating, many characters that Coetzee doesn’t try to stereotype or caricature; they all have their good and weak sides. And the most eye opening moment is when in the end you find out how the “barbarians” finally defeat the Empire army…

It may be a bit hard to read the scenes of cruelty at times or cringe at the romantic liaisons of the old Magistrate, nevertheless, this is a book well worth reading and definitely worth being on the 1001 best books list.

My rating: YYYYY

Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go

This was not what I was expecting from Kazuo having read The Remains of the Day some time ago. You could call this book science-fiction but it wouldn’t give it justice. Even though the world portrayed here isn’t real it does feel as if it was. To just say that the book talks about cloning would be very unfair too.

If you’ve read The Remains of the Day you know the beautiful style of Kazuo’s writing – it is the same here. As you go through the slow paced and incredibly descriptive pages of the book you see all the places as if you were there, you like or dislike the people as if you’ve known them for ages. It’s definitely not the kind of book that you read very quickly to get to the end, it is a book you read slowly, enjoying the beauty of every single page. Which is probably why I haven’t posted anything here for a while...

So what would our lives look like if we were clones, or “students” as they’re called here, created only to provide organs for other people? We grow in a glass tube, then spend our early years in a farm until we are ready to become donors. Would anyone care about what happens to us in those early years before we are ready to serve the purpose we were brought to the world for more than we care about chickens for example? In Kazuo’s world the “students” are given a proper childhood, with education, friendship, love, rules that keep things in order and future they dream about. The only thing they do not know about is that their future has already been written and they have no chance of starting a family or getting an office job.

It is a truly scary vision and you do start to wonder if this will become a reality in future. Can a human take the right to become God and give life to people but not give them the right to live like people? Do the clones have souls like we do or are they just our back-up organs in human bodies? I do ask these questions to myself but the book doesn’t at all. It’s not a point of view on cloning, it just paints one possible way things could take and lets you live in this world for a while. Sad but beautiful world nonetheless. But I bet it will raise lots of questions in your head too once you’ve finished reading it.

I have really enjoyed reading Never Let Me Go, the subject of the book is disturbing though interesting, the characters are complex but clearly identifiable, the childhood at Hailsham seems so joyful. And I love the language Kazuo uses – simple but how beautiful. All this will stay in my head for a while I suppose.

And I think it's time to add The Unconsoled to my waiting list - it's been on my shelf for years now but always scared me away by its length. Given the varying reviews it got I think it may we worth a try!

My rating: YYYYY

Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger

Balram Halwai comes from a poor part of India, a little village that he calls Darkness. He’s an entrepreneur who owns a taxi company in Bangalore, one of the largest outsourcing centres in India. How did he become one? Through his eagerness to see the world outside his village, persistence in getting to work somewhere else than a tea shop, listening what may be useful to hear, learning English and murder. And he is extremely proud of his achievement. So much so that he feels he needs to share his recipe for success with the visiting premier of China: “you Chinese are far ahead of us in every respect, except that you don’t have entrepreneurs. And our nation, though it has no drinking water, electricity, sewage system, public transportation, sense of hygiene, discipline, courtesy, or punctuality, does have entrepreneurs”.

The book tells the story of Balram’s life, of how he got to become who he is now. And it is a fascinating story. He tells it with a great deal of humour and wit. He shows us all aspects of India through its casts. He shows us how the globalisation touched India – Balram’s taxi company offers its services in the the late night working hours of the American outsourced call centres. Given the lack of public transport these services are strongly in demand.

I couldn’t stop reading this book. It reads easily, the language is light and funny and the story is so close to my heart. Through my job (welcome globalisation!) I’ve been to India many times and spent a lot of time working with our team there. I love going out there, I love the country (though I haven’t really seen the touristy parts of it), I love the people and every time I go there I find it really fascinating. But there are still so many things that surprise me and that I don’t understand about India. I either don’t ask them as I feel it’s inappropriate to ask or I do ask and it’s as if I was asking why the sky was blue – I never get the answer I was looking for. And that’s what Adiga helps me with – shows me the “backstage” of India, the mentality and the culture and the way of thinking. It's a breath of fresh air and I think it really deserved the 2008 Booker Prize.

My rating: YYYYY