Read until you tire and die, it's better than any other way.

I started writing this towards the end of April, a little after we'd traveled to Kerala to visit my grandparents and meet scores of other people, most over sixty years of age, all related to me in some way. We went to the ancestral homes of my grandfather and grandmother, besides other places that were of familial importance. There, we met various elderly people of various generations and valiantly grappled with understanding the connections between them and their offspring. Many of these people were related through several genealogical links, and it was sometimes surreal to listen to an aged relative telling us how she was related to me from my mother's side of the family tree, and then from my father's side, besides other less direct linkages!

Tiring as it was traveling everywhere by auto rickshaw on bumpy roads, it was heart-warming to see how happy it made Achappan and Achamma that we'd shared their lives for a week, that we'd made the first voluntary effort to connect with the people who are an integral part of their everyday life, and with my roots. Despite my misgivings about whether the beginning of summer was the right time to visit and whether I'd feel bogged down by all the people-meeting, I'm so glad that we did. I actually did something that gave other people happiness - I must be growing up!

I carried two books on this trip - 'The Bed of Procrustes' and 'Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell'.

I didn't do much more than flip a few pages of the first one, because for the most part, I couldn't get my nose out of the second one. If you'd told me a few years ago that I'd be reading a novel written in a pastiche style, with elements of fantasy and 'alternative history', I'd probably have raised one eyebrow at you. But there I was, lapping up the really interesting story (because that's what it was, no more or less - a story) - it was just so nicely written! The picture of England in the early 1800s was sketched beautifully, but what the author really deserves adulation for is the colouring in - so careful, so detailed and so exciting! It did feel a bit like a great black and white movie, but I enjoyed reading it all the same. I didn't just think that it was a great piece of thought and prose, I really enjoyed it! There aren't too many books that I've read in the recent past that I can say that about.

I've been visiting goodreads.com quite a lot lately - a corollary to making a compulsive disorder of ordering books online. Some of the reviews there are almost novellas in themselves, and for all the world smacking of literary influences of some pretty great authors. I was looking for reviews of one of Vladimir Nabokov's books, and one of the reviews was so good I wanted to go 'Dexter' on the guy and find out who he was!

The flip side, not surprisingly, is that some of the books I probably would've liked reading, I have no interest in now. You read this one review which somehow convinces you that it couldn't be so biased as to be completely untrue, and its like a big red marker pen has crossed out that title. Still, if only for a little longer, until I get on this gravy train well and proper.

I also read Margaret Atwood's novel 'The Handmaid's Tale'. It was certainly very intelligent writing, clear and thought-provoking with vivid mental and physical imagery. It just wasn't a theme that I cared about very much. For someone who doesn't think very much of the world the way it is now, a dystopian novel, even in its extremes, wouldn't move around very much.

Still to read - Nabokov's 'The Luzhin Defense' ('Pale Fire' seemed to be the unanimous choice of the many reviews for a first book, but I didn't have the spine), Murakami's 'Norwegian Wood' which should be light enough reading, 'The Finkler Question' which is currently train reading and 'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell, which promises to be convoluted at best and impossible to read at worst. Most of these books that I've been reading have been my first by the respective authors, and I don't seem to be showing any tendencies of repeat offense with any of them, except Murakami perhaps. Even Borges, who I though would do it for me, I've relegated to the shelf, despite the initial connection that I'd felt. Maybe Nabokov will do it. If he does, maybe I can try Saramago next. If he doesn't, maybe I'll dig out my old Camus and Kafka volumes and see if they have something new or different to offer. Maybe I'll quit my job because I want to read all the time. Maybe I'll tire of reading, quit my job, and start writing. Maybe I'll quit my job and just laze around. Maybe I'll quit my job! Ah, dreams.