For the most part, writers tell stories but have nothing to say. We are given the plot, character development, dialogue and a conclusion. Ideally it's done _ cover to cover _ in 350 pages. Several authors keep going for 700 pages, a number drag it out for 900.
IMAGINARY HOMELANDS by Salman Rushdie 439 pp, 1991/2010 Vintage paperback. Available at Asia Books and leading bookshops, 450 baht.
What is there about Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina that takes nearly 1,000 pages to tell? The Russian nobleman's wife is seduced by a cavalryman who then abandons her. Her husband takes custody of the child. She commits suicide. Three hundred and fifty pages would cover it adequately.
I say this as a book reviewer of long standing. Other book reviewers may or may not agree. They have their own opinions of books _ with some of which I may agree, others not. Where is it written that reviewers _ critics _ must agree? The literary criteria is the same, but not our personalities and experiences or backgrounds.
Salman Rushdie is a Pakistani Muslim man of letters, more than a few of his novels having won awards. One book got him into trouble, however. Iran's leader Khomeini declared his Satanic Verses an insult to Islam and issued a fatwah on him. Rushdie has been under police protection in the UK ever since.
Threat of execution by any Muslim hasn't prevented him from writing. His works are periodically republished. Imaginary Homelands, under review, contains his Essays and Criticism 1981-1991. I feel that I must caution you that he isn't an easy read. You may well ask yourself after reading a piece, what was that again?
The author's main theme: the West has a wrong stereotyped image of the subcontinent because the British deliberately distorted it for centuries. The claim that the English brought civilisation to the backward Indians is a lie and an insult. Kipling's "efforts" to have East and West meet were more apparent than real. He looked down on many of his Indian characters.
Rushdie found Richard Attenborough's Gandhi an agonisingly unhistorical film biography. He calls Gandhi a crafty lawyer and discards the foolish notion that non-violence drove out the brutal, bigoted British. In truth, the Mahatma was financed by and in the pocket of India's mega rich. Nor was Nehru his acolyte but his rival.
John le Carre is put down as an author unworthy of his fame. Russia has better contemporary if less famous writers. A moot question, certainly. And because Imaginary Homelands is 20-30 years old, it omits the 9/11 shock waves.
PRIVATE LONDON by James Patterson & Mark Pearson 358 pp, 2011 Century paperback. Available at Asia Books and leading bookshops, 650 baht.
Abundant abduction
What? James Patterson again! Yes, again, because with and without co-writers he turns out crime thrillers faster than I can review them. And we're given a choice of sleuths _ Dr Alex Cross, Detective Michael Bennett, The Women's Murder Club, Private.
Private is the world's most exclusive detective agency run by ex-US Marine Jack Morgan, with global branches. Its technological and computerised facilities are only matched by that of the FBI. They handle much the same sort of cases, but Private is more discreet. Expensive, too, offering value for money.
Mark Pearson is Patterson's co-writer of Private London. Going off in several directions at once is Pearson's doing, I think. A Patterson aficionado of long standing, I find him more disciplined. Not that this book suffers for it, yet the reader is being asked to bite off almost more than he can chew.
For a half century, the KGB was every Western novelist's standard villain. Considering the KGB's nefarious motives and activities, it made sense to focus on their misdeeds. Though they are still at under another name after the Soviet empire imploded, another villain has elbowed them into second place.
For a decade after 9/11, the number one nogoodniks are Muslim (not necessarily Arab) terrorists. Suicide bombings, which even the KGB eschewed, is their favourite terrorist weapon. Kidnapping is a close second. Western scribes can't resist including one or both in their stories.
In fact, the book under review is replete with kidnappings, luckless Hannah Shapiro abducted twice. Once by lowlifes in Los Angeles, who rape and kill her mother before Private's Jack Morgan comes to the rescue. The second time by Palestinian Arabs, who torture her father in London before Private's Dan Carter rescues them.
Then there's the group of perverts who kidnap schoolgirls, force them to perform in pornographic flicks and kill them. Not to mention the distaff _ women are the most ruthless of the characters _ surgeon who harvests and sells their organs for a hefty price.
Neither the baddies nor Private play by the book. Capture by any of the sides means beatings, torture, death. Sight of the mutilated corpses has even veterans throwing up. There's a bit of romance away from this. Oh, yes, the Palestinians have found a way of starting World War Three.
