Day 5

monday -

back to work -

architectures

of a mainframe kind

Z

Z is for 'Zhivago'.
I love Russian authors, I love the way they write. I'm fascinated by their lifestyle, their cold cold days and lands, their women, their courage. I'm still reading Dr. Zhivago. But I'm already in love with it. It begins with a funeral scene, a small boy, and his uncle. It goes on... with the Russian Revolution as a backdrop. Did you know that the author was awarded the Nobel? And did you know he refused it? I'm looking forward to keep at reading it and trying to find a way into the author's head... all those years past...

Everything Russia seems... cold and blue

So far: Atticus, Beth, Cassius, Dumbledore, Estella, Francesca, Gandalf, Humbert, Ishmael, Jean-Baptiste, Kali, Long John Silver & Lisbeth, Miu, Nancy, Oliver, Piyali, Quentin, Rebecca, Scarlett, Tita, Ursula, Valhalla, Watson, Xenophilius, Yossarian

I'm writing every day of April for the A-to-Z April Blogging Challenge 2012. I'm writing of characters of fiction that are immortal and touch hundreds of lives everyday...

PS: Ladies & Gentlemen, it has been a real pleasure being on this journey with you!

V

V is for 'Valhalla'.
In Norse mythology, a valkyrie (from Old Norse valkyrja “chooser of the slain”) is one of a host of female figures who decide who will die in battle. Fascinating, yes?
Here, in Paulo Coelho's 'Valkyries', it is a group of women dressed in leather jackets and chunk, antique jewellery who ride on dirt motorbikes (I already have a very brazen image in my mind) and live a floating life, like a mirage. They meet and guide travelers, have cult rituals in abandoned caves, talk to the coyotes, and make love to strangers in the desert sands to satiate themselves. This book should have been as famous as the Alchemist, the imagery is beautiful…
Valhalla is one of these women, she is sort of like a leader. After she is done with the author an his wife, they feel like whatever they knew so far was not themselves at all. Her personality is magnetic and shifting, she is there but no really there. I love powerful women!

The battle, the final resting place...

So far: Atticus, Beth, Cassius, Dumbledore, Estella, Francesca, Gandalf, Humbert, Ishmael, Jean-Baptiste, Kali, Long John Silver & Lisbeth, Miu, Nancy, Oliver, Piyali, Quentin, Rebecca, Scarlett, Tita, Ursula

I'm writing every day of April for the A-to-Z April Blogging Challenge 2012. I'm writing of characters of fiction that are immortal and touch hundreds of lives everyday...

T

T is for ‘Tita’.
She is the protagonist of a book that should be better known, Like Water for Chocolate. It is a strange book with a strange name and an even stranger theme. The plot is simple, a man not allowed to marry his loved one Tita, marries her elder sister Rosaura so that he can be around the one he loves. I like themed books, the kinds that have a single theme running across all chapters, sort of like a spine to the book. In this case, the theme was Mexican cooking. Every chapter began with a list of ingredients for a dish and the events in that chapter somehow managed to give the entire recipe within it. Not once was there a disconnect, not once did the pace falter. Now that’s powerful writing.
Tita is obsessed with cooking and her dishes are delicious. There is a scene in which she is baking the cake for Rosaura’s wedding with her love, Pedro and her copious tears mix with the icing. Everyone that eats the cake is overcome with an eerie sense of infinite longing.
At times though, the magic realism foes into an overdrive and things are too strange to be true. I definitely recommend this book, not if you’re looking for classic magic realism; but more if you’re looking for a beautiful love story and a very unusual narrative. And of course, if you want to whip up some delicious Mexican!

From the movie, Tita, cooking

So far: Atticus, Beth, Cassius, Dumbledore, Estella, Francesca, Gandalf, Humbert, Ishmael, Jean-Baptiste, Kali, Long John Silver & Lisbeth, Miu, Nancy, Oliver, Piyali, Quentin, Rebecca, Scarlett

I'm writing every day of April for the A-to-Z April Blogging Challenge 2012. I'm writing of characters of fiction that are immortal and touch hundreds of lives everyday...

S

S is for ‘Scarlett’.

What a girl, what a woman! She is the epitome of womanhood. A match of strength for every Rhett, a match of folly for every Ashley… This O’Hara is beautiful, brave, cruel, and brilliant. So what if Rhett left her (I do not think that the sequel to Gone with the Wind counts); she was no left weak. No when he played with her, not when he loved her. Bonnie’s death was Rhett’s fault. Period.

Scarlett needed a different man, she didn’t need a charmer, she didn’t need a fool. She was ahead of her times and men just couldn’t catch up with her. Ever since I’ve read the book five years ago, her words have given me strength on many a hopeless day. Whenever faced with trials and tribulations, judgment, loss, and despair; she always believed:
"After all... tomorrow is another day!"

Vivian Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara

So far: Atticus, Beth, Cassius, Dumbledore, Estella, Francesca, Gandalf, Humbert, Ishmael, Jean-Baptiste, Kali, Long John Silver & Lisbeth, Miu, Nancy, Oliver, Piyali, Quentin, Rebecca

I'm writing every day of April for the A-to-Z April Blogging Challenge 2012. I'm writing of characters of fiction that are immortal and touch hundreds of lives everyday...

P

P is for 'Piyali'.
This girl is the heroine of The Hungry Tide, she studies cetaceans. An American of Indian origin, she comes to the Sundarbans to study them Irrawady dolphins. In a haunting tale of love, high and low tides, and shtrrange relationships that follows, the reader is led through a brilliant travelogue. The writer, Amitav Ghosh, has made a brilliant tale out of this one. The novel is well-researched. And the relationship of Piya and Fokir, her boatman, trancends time and space.
Love that has no words, love that has no name or meaning, perhaps it is not even love but a curious feeling that can exist only in the Gangetic swamps... This is the only contemporary Indian author I have true respect for. The way darkness and light have come together is beautiful, yet disturbing, a highly recommended read. I have written more about it here.

Irrawady Dolphin

O

O is for ‘Oliver’.

I read Oliver Twist a long time ago, when I was a child myself. I was horror-struck by the little orphan’s life in a massive city like London. He endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and is then placed with an undertaker. He also meets the Artful Dodger, leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets. Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin, naively unaware of their unlawful activities.

Apparently, in the Dickens era, there were a large number of orphan kids found around London, something that led to The Waif Crisis. Eventually, of course, all is well. The criminals are behind bars and the awful people are reduced to the same sordid conditions that they had subjected little kids to. Dickens is dark, but not the kind of dark that only adults can deal with. Characters like Oliver, David Copperfield, Pip are ones that children should be exposed to. It is a good way to acquaint them to the real world, which has people like Estella, Fagin, and Pegotty.

Oliver in the cruel warehouse

So far: Atticus, Beth, Cassius, Dumbledore, Estella, Francesca, Gandalf, Humbert, Ishmael, Jean-Baptiste, Kali, Long John Silver & Lisbeth, Miu, Nancy

I'm writing every day of April for the A-to-Z April Blogging Challenge 2012. I'm writing of characters of fiction that are immortal and touch hundreds of lives everyday...

H

H is for 'Humbert'.
I, for one, have a very different opinion of Lolita (read about it here). I hate Humbert too, not that I don't. But, I don't think he's gross. I mean, come on, Lola was a child, but she wasn't immature. She wasn't traumatised either. I am against abuse, but Humbert truly loved her. And love can never be limited by age. Sigh!
I have re-read Lolita twice, just to hate him like most other readers do, I have failed.

Lolita & Humbert (from the 1962 movie)

If you are reading this and haven't read the book, you should. This kind of novel is not written too often and Nabokov has worked true magic here. I Hate him, I don't Hate him too.