The thing about having Sona as your reading partner is, she will share bookish news with you like, “The JCB Longlist is out.” It was only thanks to her enthusiasm that I understood why that phrase made her act like an adult in a bookstore. And only now do I appreciate how much that phrase has come to mean to me too.
It was around 6 September that I thought of embarking on a quest of reading the JCB Longlist, a list of 10 desi books that have been selected by a jury. It’s been 2 months since then and though I have read only 7 out of the 10 books, the experience has been nothing short of illuminating and exhausting. I feel like I have changed as a person.
In fact, Blogchatter team and a few veteran book reviewers got together to share their thoughts on their JCB reads. You can catch the conversation here.
Let’s delve into my bite-sized reviews of the books I read:
Manjhi’s Mayhem by Tanuj Solanki
A quote that beautifully captures hashtag Mumbai Rains:
One more week, and we would have the monsoon. A different hell was always welcome.
Thoughts: This is what I call a “plotty” book where characters, intrigue and depth are sacrificed to keep the book moving. There is a lovely unsettling plot point with Santosh, the character who gets our hero Manjhi involved in mayhem, but it gets resolved too quickly and does not make a reappearance, much to my disappointment.
My rating: Meh
Fire Bird by Perumal Murugan, Janani Kannan (Translator)
A quote that captures the essence of the book:
Peruma may find the village and its land bitter. She was, after all, transplanted there. But it was not the same for him. He had germinated on that soil and was rooted there. Thirty years of memories lay buried in him.
Thoughts: Muthu’s story is an enduring tale of finding a place to belong, of who family is and the different ways love manifests – sometimes painful, sometimes quiet, sometimes in angry bursts and sometimes, through a shared struggle or drink. I loved the slow burn.
One of my grouses with this book though was, the writing didn’t seem to have a rhythm. The poignant story did not match the words and that was jarring for me.
My rating: Hmmm
The Colony of Shadows by Bikram Sharma
Thoughts: This is a special book because of how gently and sensitively it explored different facets of grief and disability. The title of the book makes the colony feel like an important character in the story but it did not live up to that potential. It didn’t matter to me much because other than that, it made my heart hurt. I loved how Varun, Usha and Jyoti deal with the loss of such important people in their lives so differently. And of course the mystery of the elder child – where the parent thinks the child is infallible but the younger one knows just how deep that rabbit hole goes.
My rating: What a fun ride
Mansur: A Novel by Vikramajit Ram
A quote to showcase the lost potential:
Bichitr bursts through the door like an agitated yellow turkey.
Thoughts: Uff what a disappointing book. The writing, the atmosphere that it built, showing how Jahangir was a patron of the arts is exquisite. There is nothing else that works for this book. There is no story, plot, characters, arc, etc. It feels like a mish-mash of ideas, none fully developed.
My rating: Ugh, WTF
The East Indian by Brinda Charry
A quote from the many highlights my Kindle showed:
I, Tony, was to be born yet once more.
Thoughts: There are some books you read that change you from the marrow. This was one of those books. From the onset, it reminded me of Jane Eyre in the sense it felt like a classic but one that is immensely readable. On the surface, this book is about Tony’s journey, the many rebirths he goes through and what it means to belong – whether to a community or to your work or to your land.
But if you go deeper into the book, you will see conversations around race, opportunity, money and how deeply fear and hatred of the other are intertwined.
My rating: Thank you for existing
The Secret of More by Tejaswini Apte-Rahm
A quote that made me smile:
In his view, the thing that was worth celebrating was not the fact that he was still alive, but that he hadn’t lost his taste for mangoes.
Thoughts: Out of all my reads, I was most excited for this because the blurb talked about Bombay and cinema. It was an unexpected book, in the best of ways.
This book is a history – of a city, of a country, of a man, of traditions and of a family. The painstaking details transport you to British-era Bombay. The pomp of a King alighting at Gateway of India and the Taj Mahal hotel, snippets I have read in my history book to now reading it in a fiction novel felt surreal. This isn’t a book, it’s an experience.
My rating: Thank you for existing
I Named My Sister Silence by Manoj Rupda, Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar (Translator)
Thoughts: The book felt a bit disjointed to me like I was reading three stories in one novel. One story was about an elephant, one of a beloved sister and one of a ship’s captain. Our narrator is the only connecting link which felt repetitive at times. But what was absolutely stunning was how silence was juxtaposed with the loudness of violence.
My rating: Hmmm
If there is one thing I will take away from reading these 7 books, it’ll be how discrimination, violence and displacement seem to be a part of our country’s and my history. And how important it is to understand that history, instead of erasing it.
If you want to know more about the books and the authors, you can check the JCB Prize for Literature website here. You can read this to understand my rating system.
This post is part of Bookish League blog hop hosted by Bohemian Bibliophile.
Header image: Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash
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