Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Of Love and Insanity.

I read a real life story titled "Of Love and Insanity" in the Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star. The story is of a young lower middle class guy who fell in love with a girl six years senior to him and belonging to an elite class. The common story is narrated poignantly. I especially like the comment of the writer about love. Here it is

"Stories in real life end in such prosaic ways that one wonders what is the meaning or purpose of all the heart-rending, foolish happiness and sufferings that precedes them. Why do we get entangled in the cobwebs of lunacy called love, when the endings are almost always so mundane?".

Yet we do fall in love, there is no escaping from it. I believe tribulations and elations experienced in love make one wiser not to fall in love again. Love brings pain and severely hampers the cerebral function and eventually brings a period of depression from which the sufferer recovers with phenomenal efforts and at great cost of time. Despite all the sufferings a lover must endure there is no point regretting the experience of love because not to fall in love is to live life too safely and insipidly. I do agree with the conclusion that the endings of love are mundane but without love the beginning and middle are mundane too. With love some part of life becomes exciting and even the mundane ending of love gives life something to reminisce. This isn't a bad deal, is it?

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Doris Lessing wins Nobel Prize in Literature.

Since last few years I am following the literary world with interest. I read literary blogs and book review sections of Guardian, New York Times and Dawn. The literary blogs I read with most interest are Chandrahas' The Middle Stage and Laila Lalami's blog. I was keenly waiting for this year winner of Nobel Prize in literature. The announcement has been made finally and its Dorris Lessing of England who has won the prize. Frankly I have never heard of her name before the announcement of her winning the prize so an internet search on her was inevitable. What I found was an 87 years old self taught writer who was born in Persia (Iran) in 1919 and spend most of her early phase of life in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Her childhood was of much pain and less pleasure and once she commented unhappy childhoods seem to produce fiction writers. Once she asked that what use are men and then answered herself, men had been introduced to "pep up" a slothful, lazy world of women. An interesting answer indeed. Though I believe that all women may not agree to the answer of Lessing. Will I be looking for her books to read? I am not sure. I will read more about her books and then decide if Ireally like to read her books. The most likely book that I will read is "The golden Notebook" as it is considered her best. She is the oldest Nobel Prize winner in Literature.