Review – The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino

“It’s a famous one, the P=NP problem. Basically, it asks whether it’s more difficult to think of the solution to a problem yourself or to ascertain if someone else’s answer to the same problem is correct.”

In its essence, the book is about solving the P = NP problem. A dark suspense novel, the Devotion of Suspect X is actually misleading in its title since the actual murder and the people involved in it are laid bare in the first few pages. Tetsuya Ishigami is the very devoted neighbour of Yasuko Hanaoka, a single mother to Misato. She works at a lunch delivery place and is quite content with her life, until he ex husband walks in demanding more than just money. The fear of being blackmailed by him, fearing his influence on her daughter and their future she murders him in a fit of rage at her home. Ishigami who overhears the scuffle from his apartment, comes over deduces what happened and offers to help. What follows the discovery and identification of the body is a game of how did he do it and who actually did it. The detective Kusanagi teams up with Yukawa, a physicist at Imperial college and a close friend of Ishigami to solve a problem that is part math, part mystery and part psychological mind warfare. The climax brings together all the emotions that has been simmering through the novel and will not disappoint the reader.

The book is very deceptive in the sense that it throws up so many contradictions about the characters, the plot and the narrative itself. It reads like it is supposed to be a Japanese opera, but the writing is very devoid of emotion and settles itself for precisely formed adjectives that describe the details and nothing more. Ishigami’s devotion, and his willingness to face jail time belies his almost bellicose physical structure. The daintiness and the beauty that Ishigami describes about Yasuko is hidden by a strength and resolve that helps her stick to her story almost to the end. Brilliant logically performed moves to hide the murder by the mathematician and supreme deductive logic to discover the real killer by the physicist makes the book read like a ballet without the music or the emotions..until it comes to the end. It is a play on how sience inspite of its mastery of logic and reasonign has to always give way to the baser human emotions.

One of the best books by blogadda. Read and you will not be disappointed. Sign up for the Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. and get free books! Participate now!

Child Sex Abuse Awareness Month.

They said “Fool me once, Shame on you. Fool me twice, Shame on me.

There are no greater fools than us who implicitly trust the nature of  fellow people to see all children without lust filled thoughts. The idea that somebody, anybody could think of doing or actually doing sexual acts on a child is so revolting that we would rather deny that it happens than acknowledge the fact that it actually does. A campaign conducted last year opened up every household, every door that was closed firmly from family, by family. From stories of guilt, anger, misery, depression, betrayal, Obsessiveness..the range of human emotions that churn can drown every voice that denies child sex abuse.It is not just emotions that do a medley. The senses are so drowned by the nature of abuse, by the abusers and their actions, that it takes a lifetime to touch, see, hear without fear gripping your throat and feel a cold wave pass all over.

Touch is supposed to be a sensation that brings memories of warmth, love, protection, and gentleness. Yet every abuse victim can vouch for the fact that once abused, you never feel touch the same way again. You never see a relative or a stranger with the blind trust that you did before and you can never see a person the same way your parents see them. A little wall is built around you to protect you from the man who wants to fall all over you in the bus, to keep a distance from the cousin who wants to tickle you, from the uncle who wants you to sit next to him while he narrates stories of his youth. You add a few people into the wall and yet the wall remains. As an adult when you step out, you are wary of people coming close, you hair stands on its end when someone brushes past you, you agonize whether they meant to brush past you or was it an accident.

The way you view your world changes. The way you want the world to view you changes. The way you see children changes. Every child I see in school, in my complex, on the road, the kids of the girl who does housework for me…I hope with every fiber in my body that they grow up to be strong, capable individuals who will never have to go through the horror of losing trust in humanity and in their own family. Every child, I hope will never have to agonize over whether their parents can be trusted enough to talk about sensitive issues. Every child, I pray will never have to spend sleepless nights about choosing their own emotional health over keeping peace in the household.

Child Sex Abuse has to be addressed again and again every year. This is not only to protect our children, but also to ensure that they can grow up in an environment where abusers who take us to be fools are not tolerated and molesters can no longer stalk our kids within their own homes, localities, schools and cities. Our children need to know the joy of riding a cycle on the road, taking a bus to their schools and live a childhood which as adults they will not be ashamed, guilty, or burdened about.

Support CSAAM. Support your kid and every kid you know.

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Bring your experience and your expertise to this awareness initiative via

Blog posts with the logo (you can copy the image above), linkback to our blog, with the words “CSAAM April 2012” in the title
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Dear Friend

I always knew writing came easy to me. I took pleasure in seeing my thoughts spill onto paper. I felt comforted by the fact that what I thought or spoke never seemed to measure up to how I wrote. I took so much pleasure out of it, that just the act of setting myself up to write seemed cathartic. Clearing the table, removing a fresh sheet of paper, setting the pen, finding the soft spot on the chair and putting pen to paper….words were good. Yet, for almost the last one year, writing was being done more as a chore than a pleasure. I kept telling myself that it was just a block and that it will clear itself up, but it did not. The more I tried justifying my inability to write, the more it haunted me. It almost felt as if someone had crept up in the stealth of the night and had emptied my head of words, thoughts and rhythmic sense. Life gathered me around in its petticoat and swirled me around. It allowed me to get caught up in the ebb and flow of people coming home and leaving. It enveloped me with the idea that motherhood was always a good excuse. Somewhere within this tidal wave, at a little moment when the waves subsided and there was time for a little reflection. I need to start writing again, even if it is in fits and phases..only then can I get through this part of my life with my sanity intact. It doesn’t matter, what I write..I just need to stick with it and maybe someday I will find myself again.

Review – The Land of the Wilted Rose by Anand Ranganathan.

“The Land of the Wilted Rose” is an allegorical black comedy designed to understand the psychological scars that are inflicted on victims of empires, and how colonisation deeply paints the fture in its own shades. It tells the story of an Indian Empire that stretches from Angkor to the chapel of King’s all ruled by a seventeen year old Maharaja. The empire is at its most powerful and at its most ostentatious period crushing all dissent, doubts and indiscretions. With the white man firmly under the 17 yr old thumb, rac**m runs rampant and the whites are firmly put in their place. To fight against this tide of injustice rises an unassuming little white man rises leading his people towards freedom and towards the pages of history as “The White Mahatma”

The premise of the book was promising enough for me to sign up for it when it came up at the Book Review program at BlogAdda. That premise however remains the most interesting part of the book. The project is quite ambitious..a reversal of roles, an idea of how an Indian Empire would have functioned as opposed to the British Empire and how history could have been had that been the case. The concept challenges so many ingrained notions of how we look at history and at our own prejudices regarding racism, colonization and inequality. The main issue was the lack of a strong base for the book. Even fiction at some level has to be plausible. One of the main drawbacks of the book is this..the British colonization started with the idea of trade and the idea of sourcing materials that was required for the growing population and increasing the power of Britain within Europe as a whole. India very realistically speaking did not have any of these compulsions. To root the story in the fiction genre, it would have been nice if such a foundation had been written in. The language is very pedestrian and unreaserched in many places. If the king is the Maharaja..then why Viceroy and General, surely they were British terms. The book also talks about an Indian Empire..the problem was there was never a unified India, so to say. The book also dragged and the black comedy at times became all most sitcom humour. There is no chemistry between the characters and almost very little engagement between the reader and the novel itself. It took me a good part of the week to get through just the first half and I am almost sure I don’t want to sit through 4 other books. Character development and plot development is essential to a quatret or a trilogy and when there is very little of either in the first book, the rest become just pieces of what should have ideally been just one huge novel.

The book can be read for challenging our idea..thinking from the other side of the brain..so to speak. An idea of how an India empire would have treated the other or how our idea of colour and equality would have been different. But the differences remain and the idea of an intriguing Indian empire remains unwritten.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

Review – I am not Twenty Four by Sachin Garg.

 

Saumaya is 110% girl, saddled much to her embarrasment with an unisexual name. Her life in glitzy Delhi revolves around her friends, clothes, shoes and making sure he lands a high profile job where men and money come fast. Full of hopes for her job interview, inspite of her grades and lack of completed projects, she is interviewed and accepted much to her delight by Lala Steel. To her horror, she is posted in Toranagallu, a tiny place in Karnataka where her chances of showing off her Gucci handbags, designer dresses and capping a man are almost nil. The emotional journey she goes through and the lessons she learns from the sattelite township and the various people who inhabit it and whose survival depends on the steel plant, forms the gist of the story. Intrinsic to her development are two people Malappa – a fellow recruit, and Shubro – a focussed vagabond deeply interested in weed, wine and working on micro loans.

Initial shocks about the place, food, people being stared at for being the only female in the town and the fact that she has to wear a dowdy, shapeless uniform..soon give way to the horrors of her new position. As an assistant manager in the HR department in charge of the reaction team in the safety department, her job involves dealing with the relatives of people who have died or been maimed in accidents in the plant. She realizes much to her chagrin that every small action, word and reaction has life or death consequences. Her one source or comfort and stregth is Shubro, the MBA grad from Calcutta who is equally at home anywhere atleast for 3 months. How she finds her feet and her purpose in life forms the rest of the story.

The story line was definetly interesting, but Saumaya was reduced to a one dimensional caricature initially. Her stint in the HR department seemed too rushed and descriptions too inspired by the gore and macabre of B grade horror movies. So many accidents in such a short period of time should ideally earn Lala steel an inquiry into its practices and safety standards. The best etched and thought of character was that of Shubro, the hero of the novel. Says something about the writer who wanted to put a new spin on “chick-Lit.” There are many instances in the novel, when the story drags and characters are given banal, cliched lines to mouth. Grammar, spelling and editing is appalling to say the least. Coming from and IIT-MBA grad and a well know publishing house, it is absolutely unpardonable. Saumaya’s growth feels like it happens in fits and bursts and she seems not very convinced about the decision she finally takes. It could have perhaps been more strong if her stay with Shubro had been written more vividly. The last few chapters do give a different touch to regular books..almost Bridget Jonesish. Overall, an interesting read, but definetly not worth the buy.

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!