शाहजहानाबाद

Wholesale book market, Old Delhi.

Shahjahanabad or 'Old Delhi' as it is more commonly known, was the fantastically unreal starting point for mine and the bf's adventure in India that has almost brought us all the way up to the end of September. I can't believe it's almost October! (Although quite an unseasonably warm one in Manchester this week..)

As most people seem to the first time around, we decided to focus on the area of this vast country nicknamed 'The Golden Triangle'; a bewitching region that encompasses Delhi, Jaipur, the Taj Mahal, and a whole bunch of other fascinating nooks and crannies along the way. Although I have travelled and lived abroad in the past, I had never been outside of Europe before now and to say we felt as if we'd landed on Mars (and I mean that in the best possible way) would be an understatement. Chaotic and romantic in equal measures, this country is absolutely beautiful, despite the incredible poverty that would shock even the most seasoned individual. The people are friendly, the food mouthwatering, the atmosphere invigorating and I loved every minute of it. Without sounding hackneyed, I genuinely feel enriched (and slightly shell-shocked) by the last few weeks we've spent there.......for now, let me just share a few book pictures with you ..

Happily our book choices seemed to be right on the money. The bf read Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts; a swashbuckling (and apparently fairly corny) true story of an Australian fugitive living in Mumbai, a book I am still trying to wheedle a review out of him for. William Dalrymple's personal love affair with the ancient city of Delhi also added an extra layer of significance and romance to our stay and, although I was initially daunted by the size and subject matter of Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, this masterfully accurate and heartwarming portrayal of four individuals struggling to get by in Mumbai has ensured that I can maintain my spaced-out, captivated state of mind for just a little bit longer...

La Llorona

After reading this wonderful article in The Paris Review a few days ago I decided to devote this weeks' post to the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo; a woman whose inspirational life and artwork I rightly devoted an entire year to studying at University.

I have racked my brains to try and remember when I first discovered Frida and am proud to say that, unlike certain 'Fridamaniacs' who obsess over her chronic health problems, I discovered the art first and the personality afterwards, something I would hope that the artist herself would be pleased about.

Bold, quirky and unconventional, Kahlo's paintings have a distinctively revolutionary air. As a teenager I was attracted not only to their unnerving subject matter but also to the handsome, moustachioed woman at their center. As I gradually began to discover Kahlo and the work of her husband, Diego Rivera, the lives I found behind the images were so extraordinary that I fell in love with her work all over again.

During her early twenties, Kahlo was involved in a horrific traffic accident when the bus she was travelling in with a friend crashed into a trolley car. The collision left her close to death with broken bones all over her body (including her spine) and an iron handrail pushed through her uterus. The event understandably altered her life, one that was subsequently spent in a great deal of pain. Knowledge of this harrowing incident opens up entire windows of understanding when studying her artwork; work that is littered with images of death (a hugely popular theme in Mexican Culture) pain and symbols that betray her frustration directed at other areas of her life such as her inability to have children (also due to the accident) and her philandering husband Diego. HOWEVER. Let's stop here. Unlike the Fridamaniacs out there we don't want to become bogged down in the tragic details, something that is so very easy to do.

Ironically the world may never have had the joy of knowing Frida the artist had Frida the invalid never come to exist. An inability to leave her bed for long periods of her life coupled with the necessity to find an outlet for pent up pain and energy gave us the art we know today...although I am much keener to focus on the woman who had a great sense of her heritage and a strong desire to promote ancient Mexican culture as it was crushed underfoot by the great Western superpowers. Having suffered bouts of severe illness myself, Frida Kahlo is an individual whose story I have drawn strength from throughout my life. However, what ultimately inspires me is a woman who, in a mans world, pushed her opinions and her politics to the fore, openly criticising capitalist culture and lamented a world where the individual, and particularly the female, was forced to take a back seat. Battered, bruised and eventually drunk as she was, she is a figure for all to look up to and admire and she can have a seat around my dinner table anytime.

NB: Obviously I won't have mentioned (haha!) that Literary Relish will be taking a break whilst I go away to India for a couple of weeks. I am jabbed up and RARING to go so wish us luck! The boyfriend is taking Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts and I am going for two Indian and one very English book so I have the best of both worlds; i.e. something for discovery and something for a bit of nostalgia. Hip hip hooray!

Robin Hood's Cave

Ever since moving from Derby up to the bright lights of Manchester I have thrived on the buzz of big cities; people, parties, galleries, restaurants...the advantages to living in such a thriving hub of activity are endless and I have loved every minute of it. However, as I get older and a little more settled I can also see the beauty of the more peaceful corners of world and, particularly after having been in a relationship with Mr Outdoors himself for quite some time now...of long days out in the countryside, the nicely buff Mr Monty Halls and perhaps one day even the prospect of living on a little croft in the remote regions of Scotland....

For now however I am still a city-slicker at heart and not ready for rearing pigs and digging up turnips quite yet. Weekends to our beautiful green patches walking and climbing gets me out and today was no exception. If you're heading over to the Peak District this Bank Holiday weekend and are around Hathersage-way, head over to Stanage Edge. It's one of the most popular locations for rock climbing in the area and the views are gorgeous (particularly when you get bored of watching bobbing-bums hanging off the side of the rock face :-))

(Robin Hood's Cave is a particularly nice little secret hidey hole that you can climb into from the top of the edge and out onto a naturally formed 'balcony' where people have quite sweetly carved love messages into the wall and you can see the wax left over from romantic nights out under the stars...)

 © Copyright John Fielding and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

The History of Love

During a frenzied charity-shop-bag-drop at Oxfam a couple of weeks ago I was delighted to see Nicola Krauss' The History of Love perching snugly on the shelf, just a day after listening to her on the Radio 4 Bookclub. Woopee. It immediately went on my Wish List and after reading this beautiful story I am looking forward to delving into her other offerings when I get the chance.

The only less-than-perfect comment I have to make is that the plotline is ever so slightly convoluted, and I couldn't even begin to summarise the many twists and turns, and thrilling highs and lows that we are treated to as we dive into the colliding (though they don't yet know it) world of Alma Singer and Leo Gursky.

Alma Singer is a loving, imaginative, resourceful child growing up without a father in New York. Desperate to fill the gap that this terrible loss has left in her mother (and brother's) heart, Alma embarks on a mission to make a connection with a mysterious writer who commissions her mother to translate The History of Love.  This profound and eccentric book that Alma's father bought for her mother on a trip to South America (portions of which we are fortunate enough to be able to read here) inspired the name for their daughter and now it seems, holds the potential to carry her family a little further...

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, 80-something pensioner Leopold Gursky is living out the final years of his life, milking this quiet period by spending time with his 'friend' Bruno and sitting for life drawing classes whilst musing on the more painful experiences in his life; the great losses he suffered during the Holocaust and the lack of relationship with his unwitting son, Isaac, a bestselling novelist.

At the risk of delving into any convoluted storylines myself, all I will say is that the object that essentially brings these two wonderful characters together is The History of Love (this is a book within a book - now concentrate please!) and this concept alone is simply perfect for a book FIEND such as myself. How utterly romantic. Weaving and wiggly as the storyline is, everything does come together at the end and Krauss' style of writing at least kept me on my toes over my morning coffee on the way to work. Love, loss and finding the words to express these powerful emotions seems to be the focus here and it makes for compelling reading.

This was a bittersweet experience and the closing (I want to say 'scene'? I regularly found myself imagining what this is going to look like as a film next year) ...the closing scene actually moved me to tears. Along with this I found myself belly laughing at some of Leo Gursky's antics - growing old with gusto and not much grace, I found him the most compelling character of the book whose lonely but equally hilarious ramblings were simply wonderful. He is massively vulnerable yet has huge amounts of love and grief and comedy within him and I LOVED him. LOVED him. 

Books that make you go 'oooo'

I'm not keen on focusing too much on a specific company/brand in any of my posts, however, I read an article on the Tesco Books Blog today talking about the innovative new way that the uber-supermarket brand have decided to market the latest must-have reads; by grouping them not alphabetically or by genre but simply by how they make us feel.

I don't know what everyone else thinks but I couldn't think of a more inspired way to sell books. Since starting this blog I have tried to branch out from my strict charity shop-no book above £1.50 rule and shop not only at little individual bookshops but at high street chains (including the supermarkets, however uninspiring their displays might be) as well, as I want to support the industry on every level I possibly can. Whilst the charity shop technique of throwing everything onto one shelf still works for me as it throws up countless surprises, the main obstacle I find when faced with your standard A-Z or Bestseller stand is .... well, what am I in the mood for? And if all I have is the blurb on the back to base these choices on then how can make the right decision?

My Name is Red

I AM A CORPSE.

These are the first four, attention grabbing words that title the first chapter of Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red, and my attention was well and truly grabbed.

My Dad bought this book for himself months and months ago and from the moment I saw the cover I was absolutely itching to discover it. I'm a true medievalist at heart and the thought of exploring the world of 16th century Istanbul through the eyes of its master-artists was a tantalizing prospect.

In reality, and I feel like such a heathen saying this, this book was hard work. We begin with the murder of one of the brightest stars of the Ottoman Empire, one the master miniaturists, killed whilst working on a controversial new book for the Sultan under the guidance of Enishte Effendi; a man tasked with managing the creation of this new masterpiece and heavily inspired by the techniques and styles emerging from the West, art that favours more realistic portrayals of perspective and individual people (seen as utter sacrilege to the Ottomans.) Enishte's nephew, Black, arrives in town, keen to impress his Uncle and win the affections of his daughter Shekure, a beautiful young widow he has adored since childhood. Instead he finds himself thrust into the controversy surrounding this manuscript and the murder mystery that has arisen because of it.

I was hooked from the first chapter however by the fifth I knew that I was in for a slog, and by the tenth (out of 59 chapters!) I have to say...I couldn't really have cared less who killed who and had to ensconce myself in the conservatory on Sunday evening with no phone and no boyfriend to fight to the final chapter (sorry Dad!)

I was really excited about this book and there are moments of true greatness here that betray a Nobel Prize winning author. The lengthy monologues on the nature of life, art, religion, death, the threat of the West and a whole host of heavy subjects are exquisite and the medium of art and colour the perfect way to begin these discussions. However, these monologues quite often felt like lectures and the subject matters incredibly repetitive, to the point where I had to force myself not to skim read paragraphs as this often felt like Groundhog Day à la Ottoman Empire.

There is also great beauty to be found in the first person perspective Pamuk writes from ... seeing the world through the eyes of the people loving and living in Instanbul in the 16th century, and the constant change of perspective (particularly some very intriguing chapters written from the perspective of 'a coin' or 'a tree' etc) kept things flowing, and I appreciated the occasional glimpse of the more everyday, human aspects of life through the female characters of the tale. However, all of the characters, particularly the artists and murder suspects were quite similar and began to blur into one by the final chapters.

Although the ideas in this book are incredibly profound and some of the descriptions absolutely stunning, I just felt a little bored at times I'm afraid. You're a special writer Orhan Pamuk, but not for Literary Relish at this moment in time, perhaps I'll revisit you when I've grown up a bit.

Bookmarked Manchester Debut Night!

We've all been a little bit distracted Manchester-way this week with the terrible riots that have blighted our fair island these past few days. Happily we seem to have missed the worst of it in Manchester and luckily no-one (touch-wood) has been hurt, although our lovely city centre is looking a little worse for wear at the moment. I think I echo most people (and blogger's) sentiments when I say that we have all felt heartened by the actions of those who, the very next day, got to work clearing up the mess in a true show of solidarity. It in't so grim up North!

Now, back to books! Before the drama of Tuesday I was fortunate enough to grab a ticket for blogger Simon Savidge and author Adam Lowe's new literary salon BOOKMARKED, hosted at Waterstones Deansgate. These chaps rightly identified that, for a large, cosmopolitan, hip happening city such as MaDchester, we have embarrassingly few independent bookshops/literary events in the city centre. 

The promise of a literary event full stop, never mind one featuring the wonderful Sarah Winman, whose novel, When God was a Rabbit, has been a beloved holiday read this year, was enough to get me excited, and I certainly wasn't disappointed. There were a lot of like-minded people milling around to see both Winman and SJ Watson (author of Before I go to sleep) and I would have loved to have more opportunity to those bookish types sitting around me... Sarah Winman's reading of a particularly hilarious portion of her book was side-splittingly funny. The life she brought to her characters, even putting on completely plausible voices for each one, were brilliant, and I wasn't surprised to find out she actually used to be an actress. I, of course, for want of anything intelligent/endearing to say made a complete fool of myself in front of her as I shuffled forward sheepishly for a book signing, making a lame comment about dropping all of my books in the bath before blushing and backing away. She was wonderful, enigmatic and cool as cucumber.

Another great discovery was SJ Watson, whose novel is being lauded as a psychological thriller... a genre that doesn't usually float my boat. However, to be honest I realise that I've never really given it a go. What better opportunity than now. He was an incredibly engaging, down-to-earth guy and you simply cannot hear the first few pages of this book without rushing out to buy it immediately. I'm curious to see how I find this groundhog day-style tale of a woman who loses her memory every time she goes to sleep and therefore can never really trust those around her....

Although I can't be there for the next BOOKMARKED session with Val McDermid in September I will certainly be there for October. Thankyou very much to Simon an Adam for hosting!