ಕರ್ವಾಲೋ: ಪೂರ್ಣಚಂದ್ರ ತೇಜಸ್ವಿಯವರು 1980 ರಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆದ ಒಂದು ಕಾದಂಬರಿ.
Karvalo is a sci-fi novel written by Poornachandra Tejaswi.
The story revolves around nature lovers and enthusiasts set in the eighties in the town of Mudigere. The author gently touches many topics including evolution. The narrator builds curiosity till the end. The book kept me turning pages continuously. The story starts off with Jenu.and eventually leads to following the flying lizard. The mystery of finding the rare lizard in the forest keeps the reader engaged. Tejaswi subtly describes the culture of the people in Mudigere in the era of the story. The author's love for his pet dog is clearly depicted.
The book reflects the sentiments and perception of the common man about the politicians and police. According to the novel, it was an established perception that an ordinary politician and policemen is corrupt.
One of the central characters of the novel is Mandanna. Yangta is another interesting character, an adventurer and skilled in many subjects.
The author also touches upon the topics of philosophy and religion. The author does not reveal his true religious following. He seems to smartly hint at being an agnostic.
If you want start reading Kannada novels, I would definitely recommend you to start with the writing of Tejaswi.
The policemen protagonist is a badass police officer. Yet, he is kind to people and tough for criminals. He goes out of the way to help out victims. He is an accomplice in many pranks especially kids and indulges in misdemeanors. He rigs the game, flouts the norms, rules and guidelines and is insubordinate. Because of his extraordinary reputation in nabbing criminals, being knowledgeable in criminology, his insubordination is tolerated by his ireful boss. When he is suspended from duty, he hoodwinks the force and continues to work on the case trying to nab the criminal. Even when there are personal connections to the case, the department does not remove the policeman from the case.
On the line of duty, he falls in love with victims of crime. The age old plot. The female lead character is out on the streets alone in dark. Rapists try to pounce on her. The police protagonist appears from nowhere and rescues the woman heroically, unaided. As the story unfolds, the woman is impressed by the act of valor and falls in love with the policeman.
This plot and character development is commonly found in Indian movies. One of the recent movies I watched that stands testimony to the policeman protagonist is Ratsasan. The policeman misses the psychopath few times and the director misses the bus few times. I think the director lost an opportunity to turn the decent plot into a great movie. I have wondered many times why the policeman cannot be a hero by working as a law-abiding law-enforcement professional. Perhaps, the tendency to create dramatic effect is the cause. It might be okay for James Bond to disobey M once or twice in order to save the world. Disobedience as part of the character is frustrating to watch. That kind of a character is well suited for a rogue cop story, but not a slightly badass hero.
Another common theme scene in such movies is references to Hollywood psychopath movies genre. The Malayalam movie Forensic is no exception.
What I would love to see in police stories:
Such old school loaded dramatic scenes do not excite attention anymore. Move on, innovate and entertain.
The book was recommended by many people. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is one of the favourite works of fiction for many people in my social circles. I had repeatedly heard about the forty-two joke. An ex-colleague who quit the job wrote a farewell email with the subject "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish". I was exposed to such Hitchhiker's Guide's memes many times in the past few years. The title made it to my to-read list. My expectation of the coolness factor of the book kept on building up.
Last year, I travelled to Odisha. I bought this book to read during the waiting time in the trip. The book gripped my attention instantly. In all the reading sessions, one could see me smiling often. I admired the brilliancy of Douglas Adams whenever there was a crackerjack idea in the story. Douglas Adams has the gift of pulling up admirable humour out of thin air. From seemingly simple situations he weaves astounding plots. The book is a short read, but full of joy.
Douglas Adams secured a spot in my list of favourite authors. He stands first in my list of best authors in the comedy genre. I'm privileged to read such great literary work. Douglas Adams is a comedy genius and the book is a comedy gold.
The book will appeal to you if you like genres such as science fiction, space travel, time travel, aliens, etc. The book is not about these technical subjects, though. You don't have to have degrees in physics to understand the story. You just have to have some kind of fancy towards such subgenres. Does Start Trek ring a bell?
After reading the first part in the trilogy of five, I was constantly thinking of the next four parts. Pictures of the setting lurked in my mind for several days. One question constantly lurked in my mind: "How could anyone cook up such clever concepts and plots"? The book had impressed me many times with innovative ideas like the infinite improbability drive. So much so that I accepted "trilogy of five" as a joke. I could hardly wait for a few days and the impulse kicked in. Then I read the remaining four parts:
After reading the trilogy of five, I am content. I can peacefully move on to other other books.
The sweet talk of the other world
Transformed the role of the writer
The writer became the character
The melody of the music abound
The aroma of the sweetened pot
Intoxicated the cuisiner
The birds danced to the number
With rhythm, advanced the chariot
The wheel hit a protruding stone
The hen jerked in shock
The cock was surrounded by black
The journey was now bygone
The remnants of the flower remain
Two petals - memories and imagination
Breath rests on the shoulders of salvation
Drunk talk - name for the work of fiction
If you are a grammar Nazi, the first thing you might have noticed is the weird capitalization of this blog post's title. It is hard to spot such capitalization of titles in modern publications. I don't know if there's even a name for the style. I personally do not like writing titles with prepositions in lowercase and everything else capitalized. Somehow, a lot of book titles are written in this manner. When the book arrived, I was excited. As soon as I opened the cover, the sight of the title put me off. I thought to myself, "if the title itself is written like this, how would the entire book have been written?". Perhaps, the publisher chose to write the title in that style.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a highly acclaimed autobiographical novel written by James Joyce. Chasing my dream of reading all major literary works in English, I came across Ulysses. I read many reviews of Ulysses. Many readers had recommended getting accustomed to early twentieth century Irish culture and the author's style before reading Ulysses. Thus, I bought A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man. The book contains two hundred and thirty four pages. Not a long read. Due to various reasons like busy work schedules and several trivial things in life, I could not pay much attention to the book initially. It took several reading sessions to finish twenty five pages. But the narration and the story was good. Somehow, it took me more than a month to read up to fifty pages. The slow reading was definitely not caused by the book.
The 'hellfire' sermon incident in the story drew my attention. My soul was awakened! From then on, I could not put down the book before reading it completely. The book was published in nineteen sixteen. The punctuation is noticeably different. For example, the author doesn't enclose conversations in quotation marks.
Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.
The narration is steadily engaging. It never slows down. The story gets you thinking about psychology, philosophy, religion, atheism, education and many other topics. It was a pleasant experience reading the book.
1984 is a novel written by George Orwell. The book falls under the science fiction category. At the mention of science fiction, I can sense your disbelief, you hard science fiction fan. For some of us, sci-fi means robots from fantasy land and amusing imaginary journey in the outer space. Science fiction has many subgenres such as hard science fiction, soft science fiction, time travel and superhuman. 1984 belongs to the subgenre social science fiction.
I had read George Orwell's Down And Out In Paris And London more than a decade ago. Memories of my deep appreciation of the author is still green. I had heard about 1984 and its fame at that time. 1984 has been in my wish list ever since.
A few weeks ago, I ordered the book from Indian Amazon. They promptly shipped it in two days. After reading State Of Fear, I picked up 1984. After reading a few pages, I was impressed by the richness of the narration. Sometimes, after a reading session, I was curious what would happen next in the plot. Few humourous passages made me laugh out loud.
The story involves the invention of a new language called newspeak. Newspeak contains politically doctored words and phrases to control thought. For example, in newspeak, to express something that is not good, you would use the word ungood. I liked the idea instantly. I thought of saying this to an unsuccessful professional - "if you continue to be unskilled, uneducated and unmotivated you will soon become an unperson". If you read the novel, you will enjoy the other words of the newspeak language.
1984 is truly a great novel. If Ravi Shastry were to praise George Orwell's writing style, he would sure say terrific. If you wish to read all major literary works in English, you shouldn't miss 1984. There are several Wikipedia pages dedicated to George Orwell and his works. Many blog posts can be dedicated to George Orwell and 1984. However, I would like to mention just a trivium. George Orwell was born on 25 June 1903 in Bihar.
If you have read or eager to read 1984, I would love to read your comments.
State Of Fear is techno thriller novel by Michael Crichton. The book was released in the year 2004. I read it a couple of weeks ago.
The book was gripping and fast paced. Throughout the nightly reading sessions, I kept on turning the pages. Global warming is the central topic of the novel. The character, John Kenner asserts the fact that global warming doesn't exist at all. The protagonist and others travel to places like Antartica and Africa to avert catastrophes conspired by eco-terrorists.
In addition to the story, you will also find
All these rather fancy things, give you a feeling as though you are reading a science text book. Not a bad publication style for a science fiction. Don't you think?
Reviews That Put Down The Author And The Novel
If you do not heed to the scientific facts, The novel maybe entertaining. When you read a science fiction novel or any fiction for that matter, do you assume them as facts? Having said that, I still like some of Crichton's work. Haven't we all enjoyed the book and the movie Jurrassic Park? The Lost World? Anyone recall Rising Sun? How about Twister, The Great Train Robbery, The Andromeda Strain?
In the sunshine
He starts the engine
He gently guides the boat
Towards the destination
Then comes the storm
Pausing the journey
At night while resting
He gazes at the stars
He thinks about the universe
At dawn, he resumes the journey
Chatting with his buddies on board
They leave when their islands arrive
The boatman rows on and on
He thinks about the journey
His eyes catch a glimpse
Of life everywhere
In the air
In the water
In and on the earth
He thinks about life
He becomes one with the serenity
Of the blue sky
And of the water
He wishes the peace to last for ever
He thinks about the wars
He builds a new boat
Solving a hundred problems
Buddies join him to celebrate
The marvel the boatman created
He thinks about harmony
I've been reading many books authored by John Grisham these days. Theodore Boone was an enjoyable read. Then I tried to read Playing For Pizza. That's the only John Grisham book I didn't like. I read about half and gave up. I even threw the book in the old newspaper lot at home. I wouldn't be surprised if someone else wrote the book and inscribed John Girsham's name on the cover. It was that bad.
A few years ago, I had read The Brethren and The Client. I was impressed. John Grisham suddenly secured a spot in my list of favorite authors. A few months ago, there was a book sale going on near to our office. I bought two sets. The first one had two novels packed together, The Firm and The Pelican Brief. Unfortunately, my brother lost that book in a train. The only fortunate thing about it is he had at least read The Firm before losing the book. A few days later, The Firm was broadcast on television. We watched it. Yet another movie in which Tom Cruise has played a lawyer. I don't know whether I will ever buy those books again. The other book set I bought contains two novels, The Chamber and The Rainmaker.
The Chamber was a fascinating read. I was hooked on to it till 2:00 AM and 3:00 AM the last few days. The book was on my mind throughout the week. Heck, the protagonist even appeared in my dreams.
The novel is a gripping narration involving the gas chamber, capital punishment, Ku Klux Klan and of course lawyers. I'm sure everyone, at some point has thought about capital punishment. Is it the right thing to do? Tit for tat? This is one of those subjects that makes me indecisive. After reading the story, I have been pondering over the matter. At the moment, I am leaning towards being against death penalties. What's your opinion?
After reading the book, I'm so full of praise for John Griasham, that I want to read all his works. Except Playing For Pizza. John Grisham has written twenty four books so far. Practically speaking, it will take a long time, really really long time to read all twenty four titles. When I started reading books my goal was to read one hundred books. That seemed to be a very good thing to accomplish. After a few years, I had read one hundred books. It was time to raise the bar. I decided to read one thousand books. After reading a blog post by Google Books, I have decided not to raise the bar again. Because there are 129,864,880 books on earth.
The Chamber deserves a good rating. I'm giving it four stars!
It's the disease
It won't let you do
What you want to do
You were punished for not doing it
You thought you could get away with it
But you couldn't
You continue the race
Get stuck somewhere
Nowhere to go
Nothing to do
You start running back
But you don't want to
It won't let you go forward
It won't let you go back
You want the cure
Don't run back
Take a break
Rest for a while
Trash the illusion
Then proceed
Increase the pace
Win the race
Remember what you want to do
Reach where you want to go
Don't succumb to the disease
Make this the habit
The winning habit
Take my word for it
Victory is yours
Why lose?