September 14, 2012

Magic Realism And Three Women - A Review

Fractured LegendFractured Legends -  Kranthi Askani
Publishers - APK Publisher
Genre - Speculative fiction - Contemporary fantasy - magic realism - women's fiction
Novel - Paperback - 200  Pages
Price: Rs 192
Available at Flipkart.com/Indiaplaza.com  (India)

Blurb:
We are like the moths that follow invisible spiral loops to go round and round a flickering flame before jumping into the center leaving in their wake, a glowing red sore in the eye of the flame,” says the narrator, a temple slave. Priyambada makes up her mind to leave the temple where she melt into flesh at night and froze into statue by the morning. She renounces her immortal chalices, the temple facades, for a mortal life, for a life in flesh... But the tangles of life in flesh – marriage and bearing children – thrust her into a world of tribulations that cast her off into the past, sealed past, frozen past...
Nandhini, a professional assassin, is plagued by an assignment to retrieve a mysterious manuscript that is smeared with a rope of blood across its pages. She finds herself in the midst of a complex game of deceit and rivalry between two factions... Pravalli is drafting a very long letter to her mother. She is grieving, glowering, repenting, atoning....
Fractured Legend is the story of these three women who are sailing away from their turbulent pasts, the denouement puzzlingly curling them all together into one tight ribbon of hope...

This narrative follows the lives of three women - Priyambada who as a temple slave is immortal, but forgoes it for a human life and goes through the cycle of marriage & childbirth. Though she can't make a clear break from her past; she is happy in her new life. Nandhini is a trained assassin eliminating people for a price. She is entrapped by a close relative to kill someone related to her job, and for the first time in her life wonders at the futility of it all. Pravalli, on the other hand, is estranged from her mother Priyamvada over the secrets of the past, and is writing a letter of forgiveness and trying to come in terms with her mother's behaviour. The story progresses through the eyes, actions and reactions of the three female protagonists.

I liked the use of magic realism to get the tale across. That the book is based on a female perspective focusing on the trials and tribulations of Indian women (some of these aspects have universal connotation) makes it interesting enough to plow through the slow first 1/3 of the book.

The author had tried to portray the heroines (each of them is one in their own right) in a humane, understanding and empathic manner. He has attempted to infuse a vintage feel to the grey of contemporary realities. The concept is intriguing enough, and comes as breath of fresh air among all the college romances and chick-lits floating on the Indian book scene. It shows a side of India, applicable to many regions of the world, where women are struggling to assert themselves, while being bound to often well meaning but grossly misused traditions and customs.


 If you can leave aside all rational expectations of the world we inhabit, the book has the ability to move you with the sadness, pain and loneliness of the three women. The secondary characters, especially the husband - Priyamvada’s and son - Nandhini’s stand out, though their presence in the book is limited. The women move back and forth through their memories, dream a lot and often traverse between the real and surreal world. The author has left us with an open ended story, maybe a sequel is in line. 

 On the flip side, the author uses a dry narrative style of storytelling throughout the novel. The lack of dialogues makes it a very distracting read. For someone used to books, even long winded classic ones, with flowing conversations, this can be a difficult book to attempt and read through. The sentence structure  is awkward, and the overuse of adjectives and adverbs could have been avoided.

I am not sure I could recommend this book to a reader in its current version despite descriptive and detailed analysis of the lives of contemporary women and use of magic realism. A major review of the language usage and a rewrite would do wonders for this book. 

I would give this book a 3/5 rating basically for the debut effort, for attempting a book without the prejudices of the male point of view and for choosing a difficult women's related story.

Personal Disclaimer: This book was recieved for the purpose of review, hence the post in entirety is my basic impression after reading the book. It is not based on intervention by the author, publishing house or the blog review forum.
September 08, 2012

One Sigh Too Many

 I forgot my IWSG post this month, and I almost forgot this...having been away from my blog for over two weeks. 

 Before I proceed my Friday Guest post at Misha Gericke's  Blog sylmion.blogspot.com - guest post friday-rekha seshadri.html. Do  check it out. My first one. :)

RFW Challenge No 44 for Featured Writer/Runner Up titles . Post Any genre, any POV. Remember the romantic element. 

 My attempt at Prosetry for the prompt.

Wish I had kissed you then
When Chance hovered around, flapping her multi coloured wings. We were no longer just friends, but maintaining the status quo. So afraid of saying the word, so guilty of holding back.  
Now, empty words, emptier dreams, and emptiest memory that I alone drag along.

Wish I had kissed you then
A piece of You forever with me -precious and sacred, my secret visitation.
Nothing more than a Kodak moment,  a rarely visited spot on the shelves littered with books and stuff - your bored eyes proclaim. Is the spot taken by more significant others, old friends relegated to a rusting steel almirah at your parents retirement retreat?

Wish I had kissed you then
 Lost - the charmer, idealistic and innocent to the wolfish ways of the world. 
Found  - the expert rat racer, flipping through your black berry, revealing the unbridgeable chasm that separates us.
 Choosing what you once said never mattered, hollow words.  I see her by your side - tall, slim, vivacious yesterday as she was a decade ago, our proclaimed rose queen - every valentine.
Did you secretly wish to send her those 1001 roses her boyfriend deemed then, his exclusive right?

Wish I had kissed you then
Seeing you hand in hand -  in love? So easy for you with her, impossible for you with me. Was it me who keep you at a distance, or was I just an available backup while you waited for a chance with her?
Wonder if that ex boyfriend nursed hidden wounds in a dim lit pub, as I did in crowded escalators of the latest mall in the Metro.
I could never be her then, do I wish to be her now? Do I dare find unpleasant answers to  these mocking questions swirling all around me?

Wish I had kissed you then
These seven years past seem like seven lifetimes, the gulf between what we were and what you are, plain for unblinkered eyes to see. People change, it's oft said, oh, they do, not quite like you.
The real You before me in all his glory, kept well hidden from our unsuspecting hearts then, a pretender and a master of disguise? The simple, care free boy no longer, this one I'd rather not know.
Your smile is the same, but leaves no tugs on my heart strings, much to my surprise. Is it because I see with fresh insight, the smile of an all knowing flirt?

Wish I had kissed you then
On that watery night, taking refuge from knee high, black, muddy pools. The monsoon and her electric backdrop, sending shivers of a different kind amid much discomfort. 
Wished I had seized a stolen moment, that stolen kiss. 
No meaningless memories,  not wasted years of longing.  
My heart wouldn't have known betrayal. 
What we were - laughed way with tears of regret. 
What we could have been - unsolved mystery no more.
What we are - not evoking one sigh too many.


WC - 495  FCA















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