Sunbeams play on my books like capricious faeries
And I dance trying to grasp them in my hands
Pages to explore, people to meet, places to see and words to cherish
A week’s trials forgotten in the paradise that is my bookshelf
How appropriate that I read a book on juggling a career, home and relationships at this time.
“I don’t know how she does it” by Allison Pearson is a wrought tale of a working mother and tackles the age hold debate (that is still raging like Australian bushfires both in the blog world as well as the real world out there) – are women cut out to manage their families as well as careers? What happens when you are pushed to the brink?
At times poignant and strangely resonant of the lives of many women I have known (including myself), the novel tears at your heart as the mother Kate fights her guilt at leaving her children behind each time she goes to work. Kate is a high profile investment banking analyst and travels around the world and assuages her guilt by buying loads of stuff for her kids each time she returns home. She wakes up at 2:00 AM to smash the instant pies she has bought to make them look like homemade pies so that the people at her children’s school fair think that she is a good mother who cares about her children (her guilt eats at her as she does this, but as she puts it, good mothers do not buy instant food for children or so she has been taught).
The story tracks her struggle in a male dominated career where she is told by her boss to stop saying can’t because “can’t is for pussies” and she has to swallow all her replies to sexist remarks because the men do not even realise that they are being old-school sexist. She is fielded with a Sri Lankan woman for an Ethical Fund Group presentation just to show diversity in the company which has almost no women working in its higher offices. The story also relates the harrasment of Momo, a Sri Lankan woman who joins the company and looks at Kate as her mentor and their revenge for the same.
As she leaves her daughter and son behind each day with her nanny Paula who holds her to ransom and her husband fights to get her attention, she makes to-do lists and promptly forgets them as she is pushed further and further into a juggling act. As she puts it one day when sees the Nanny watching TV with her son and daughter, ‘This is why we pay them, to cuddle our children because we are not there to do it.” She is judged by her in-laws and neighbours because she is working and they wait for her to fall on her feet while saying each time, ” I don’t know how you do it”.
She is in contact with her best friends by email (as she has no time to meet them) and is in an online relationship with a client (an addiction that she tries her best to be rid of).
Kate’s recurrent nightmare of being in a court facing a judge who takes her to task for her supposed neglect of her children are written brilliantly and highlight the guilt she is fighting all the time.
The story ends with her finally calling it quits with the corporate world and throughout the story highlights that which is still so difficult for working mothers to do – deadlines at the office are unforgiving and do not care what sex you are. And children really don’t care for your deadlines either. The mother is expected to be the linchpin of the family, the wife is expected to be there with a loving word and shoulder and the investment banker is expected to be sharp and has to keep looking back to make sure she hasn’t been left behind just because she is a “mommy”.
Some of the best quotes in the book are reproduced here”:
“The way I look at it, women in the City are like first-generation immigrants. You get off the boat, you keep your eyes down, work as hard as you can and do your damnest to ignore the taunts of ignorant natives who hate you because you look different and you smell different and because one day you might take their job. And you hope. You know it’s probably not going to get that much better in your own lifetime, but just the fact that you occupy the space, the fact that they had to put a Tampax dispenser in the toilet – all that makes it easier for the women who come after you…. The females who come after us will scarcely give us a second thought, but they will walk on our bones.”
“I need my husband to be more like a woman, so that I can go out and work like a man.”
“Women used to have time to make mince pies and had to fake orgasms. Now we can manage the orgasms, but we have to fake the mince pies. And they call this progress.”
‘Is it coincidence that we spend far more than our parents ever did on the restyling and improvement of our homes – homes in which we spend less and less time… It is as though home had become some kind of stage-set for a play in which we one day hope to star.’
“There’s only so much you can confess, even to your dearest friend. Even to yourself.”
While the book has been written like a light read, do not be fooled for each line/sentence is deep and poignant with meaning. It calls out to you and grows into you, taking you for a ride each time you read it. This is a book that you cannot keep down once you start reading.
I have read the book around three times over the last two months and will most probably keep going back to it. All in all, a 5/5 score for this one.
I am a great fan of fantasy books. Let me correct that, I am a great fan of fantasy books that challenge the genre. So, if it is a book that is centred around just dwarves, elves and humans, it may not appeal as much (certain cases may be an exception based on the plot and nuances in the plot), whereas books that take these realms, expand on them further or books that create their own realms will find in me a fascinated reader.
My favourite fantasy writers include – Terry Pratchet, Robert Jordan and of course the original father of fantasy novels -Tolkein. I have recently discovered Steven Erikson who I am now in love with. Steven Erikson’s series is referred to as “Malazan Book of the Fallen” and revolves around the Malazan empire.
The first book in this series is the Gardens of the Moon.
Gardens of the Moon
The series has its origins in a role playing game co-created by Steven Erikson and I.C.Esslemont (incidently, the Gardens of the Moon is dedicated to him). While Esslemont has published five novels on the same world in the Novels of the Malazan Empire series, this series by Steven Erikson was what caught my eye first.
Each book in the series has a self-contained plot in that the main war/plot is completed in the book, but the characters and stories are interlinked between the novels and it is a good idea (as with any novel series) to start with the first one.
In the Gardens of the Moon, the story starts with the siege on Mouse Quarters which is watched by a young boy, Ganos Paran whose stated desire is to be a soldier and hero (the military commander to whom he says this answers, “you will grow out of it). The Emperor and his main man Dancer are assassinated by a woman called Surly who then takes the throne to become Empress Laseen. The novel then moves seven years ahead where the Malazan Empire led by Laseen is now busy conquering the Genabackis continent which has only two free cities – Pale and Darujisthan and is assisted by her Adjunct Lorn as well as her elite assassin group – the Claw.
The novel is dark and any fantasy reader who is interested in light reading will find this very heavy to get through, the novel plunges you right into the story and then romps ahead at a non-stop pace. Characters and races blend in different shades of grey, each one at one time making you hate them and then fall in love with them all over again. There is no wrong or right defined in the novel, there is only protecting that which you believe in (and doesn’t that define reality!).
Parts of the novel leave you thinking, parts of the novel leave you gasping for breath. The Tiste-Andii leader Anomander Rake is a definite mention here – he is 300,000 years old and comes across as a cruel man in the beginning, raining down curses and flattening soldiers all around, carries a sword (Dragnipur) that can suck your soul into it and then evolves into a man whose sole dream seems to be one where he can get his people to will to survive and live again. He first enters into an alliance with Pale to fight the Empire, but leaves Pale after a battle damages his Moon (a floating fortress which is the home of most Tiste Andii) and Pale falls to the Empire.
With the fall of Pale, the tale now moves to the last free city – Darujisthan. In the meantime, there is culling within the Malazan army, of all the veterans who were considered loyal to the previous emperor. Of this, the elite group of the 2nd division, the Bridgeburners are targeted and their leader Sergeant Whiskeyjack is now busy trying to keep his men alive while carrying out the commands of the Empress.
In the meantime, the Gods (also referred to as Ascendants) have begun to interfere, with Shadowthrone (God of Death referred to as Hood) and Oppon (Twins denoting Luck – Good and Bad) the main players. The story also involves the Deck of Dragons – a tarot like card reading which can only be read right by true “Adepts” .
The plot is compelling and the writing style brings the images to life in front of you. Writing a review where the entire plot is revealed has never been my style, but this is a book I definitely recommend if you are into this genre. And a definite try even if you aren’t .
All in all, a score of 5/5 for this novel from me.
I know, I know…it’s been more than two months since I said this.
And I haven’t yet got around to doing the needful.
People have been gloriously patient and not one has mentioned it so far, which shows that
a) You have all been really busy
b) You know it will come along some day or the other and are in no hurry
c) You just forgot it and I have been dumb enough to remind you of it now
Suffice to say, I plead excess work and less time (the usual excuse, you cynics say while shaking your head), however, I have finally got around to segregating most of it and it should be mailed across sometime next week.
In the meantime, thank you for being such wonderful children…:)
For Writer’s Island on the prompt for Curiosity:
Crisp, they have a sound and smell of their own
As one after the other is turned
And avid eyes scroll down
Drinking it all in;
A new book
That has caught the eye of the bookworm;
Treated with care
For the treasures held captive
Within the pages;
If the reader had listened into an actual conversation
OF the kind he was reading about
People would call it morbid curiosity;
Now that he reads it instead
It no more is curiosity
But a thirst to know more;
Day turns to night
Another page is turned
For life for the bookworm
Depends on the turning of another page.
Twisted tales on life 