Run- Ann Patchett

This is one of those books which doesn't try to certify any line of thought, which doesn't try to build a yardstick upon which all people will be judged. It grants allowance to life's chaos while discussing any event or people.

The story is about a white father ,Doyle, his 3 sons constituting 2 colored adopted boys,Tip and Teddy, his wife Bernadette who has been dead for a long time now, the adopted boys' real mother Tennessee and her daughter Kenya. The biological son of Doyle is named after Father Sullivan, his uncle. With Sullivan, who is now 34 and away doing community service in some parts of Africa, Doyle rests all his ambitions on top of his adopted sons. He has big dreams for them, when one night turns their life upside down. The real mother who was non existent even in their dreams turns up as a life saver, Sullivan comes back unexpectedly and there is the added fuss of an extra sister conferred upon them. Their life -past, present and future- presents itself as a labyrinth and the solution comes through the events that follow.

The events, the thoughts, the pain.. everything is discussed in such minute detail that we can live through it. The author shows veracity when recounting the multitudinous of situations and people. Ichthyology, Africa, politics, faith are but a few among them.

Life is about making mistakes and how we react to those mistakes and how we are often given another chance to correct them. We can choose a better path then or choose ourselves to get penalized. Either way we can never predict the outcome and there is no point in wishing if this or that event haven't had happened. The way it happened might have been for the best.

At a few places the plot turns superficial, but undiminished enjoyment is guaranteed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

naked sun: Isaac Asimov

.

.

This book belongs to sci-fi genre and it had triggered off my interest in Asimov's works. Reading this book will make you familiar with the vocabulary in the Foundation series. Spacers are descendants of earthmen who had migrated to planets outside the solar system like Aurora and Solaria. In solaria people lived isolated from each other. The population was kept a constant. Each solarian had a large farm and each farm had a large no of robots. Solarians hated seeing each other. They despised personal closeness. They were trained from birth in nurseries to behave like that. They would never know who their parents were. They considered earthmen inferior. Earthmen lived underground, in constant fear of attack from spacers.

Elijah Bailey, an earthman and a detective of C6 class was invited to solaria for the investigation of a murder case. R. Daneel Olivaw, a robot from aurora who had been with him on another investigation in Earth was assigned to work with him. Under secretary Albert Minnim wanted Bailey to observe everything around him and inform the sociologists about the conditions there so that they can figure out the spacer’s weaknesses and devise mechanisms for defense in case the spacers decide to attack earth. Daneel was known as a robot only to Elijah. He looked so much like a human being that he would pass on as a real auroran before the solarians.

Engrossing power is at its zenith in this book. This is a tail of how an earth man outwitted the sophisticated solarians.

The 3 laws of Robotics
1)A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2)A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3)A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
.

.

the piano teacher: Elfriede Jelinek

The novel felt like a dark maze to me. No sooner did I reach the 20th page, I wanted to throw the book into a dust bin. I couldnt attach myself to anybody in the story. Not even a single incident seemed distinctly familiar. The protagonists are all Austrian. The book is like a Nazi concentration camp with the characters alternating the roles of tormentors and victims. My whole mindset was disturbed. But anyway I've read it in full.

Erika Kohut, a whirlwind as her mother calls her, loves and hates her mother with the same intensity. In her late thirties, still unmarried and a virgin, still under the constant control and interrogation of her mother, she begins to lead a secret life to fulfill her sensual appetite. In the meantime her attraction towards Walter Klemmer, her student who was only trying to take advantage of her, becomes uncontrollable. In this book, the author paints a person who cant help herself. She is a perverted human being, carrying the scars inflicted in childhood, unable to be herself even in adulthood and who draws saddistic pleasure from torturing others mentally and physically.

Positives I saw
>>Good language
>>Complex thoughts some described in a natural way with uncliche'd allusions
>>Importance to every nuance of behaviour
The portrayal is strong and powerful. I havent come across anything close to 'the piano teacher' in that sense till now.
I couldnt understand the piano teacher. But the author is a connoisseur.

Maybe I should have read it a little later in my life.