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By Bilal Ibne Rasheed, on January 13th, 2011 Author: Patrick Suskind, translated from the German by John E. Woods
2001, Vintage
Filed Under: Literary, Historical.
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
8 |
| Entertainment..... |
9 |
| Depth..... |
9 |
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the protagonist of Patrick Suskind’s début novel is arguably one of the most extraordinary characters in contemporary fiction. This extraordinariness, which lies in his unprecedented and enviable power of smell, is an evident manifestation of the author’s creative genius and is responsible for the immense readability of this novel. Suskind hooks the reader right from the start. The novel begins:
In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. His story will be told here.
The initial couple of sentences are enough to convince the reader that there is so much of storytelling to be done. The words like ‘gifted’ and ‘abominable’ intrigue the reader whose curiosity is further increased with the mention of his gifts and ambitions which ‘were restricted to the domain that leaves no traces in history: to the fleeting realm of scent.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer was originally published in German as Das Parfum: Die Geschiechte eines Morders in 1985 and became an international bestseller. Since then it has been translated into several languages and has also been adapted as a film with the same title. The novel tells the story of Grenouille’s quest to make the finest perfume in the world–and in the process of doing so he kills twenty-five virgin girls. …
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By Bilal Ibne Rasheed, on December 20th, 2010 [Original short fiction from the upcoming Chamber Four lit mag, C4. Our first issue is due out this winter; stay tuned for details.]
After having translated a short story of Manto’s into English, Azad relaxed for a while and then took out an English translation of Chekhov’s short stories. He adjusted his posture, made some room for his feet on the study table by pushing the heap of books aside and busied himself with reading Chekhov. Immersed in reading, he didn’t notice the sound of blowing horn outside his room.
By the door of Azad’s faculty-hostel room sat a brand-new Land Cruiser. Its CD-player played recitation from the Holy Quran and on the driving seat sat Haji Sharif-ud-Din Sahib blowing the horn. Haji sahib,a colleague of Azad’s, thought he was not in the room when he did not turn up after his blowing of horn for two complete minutes. Just about to leave, Haji sahib thought of leaving a note for Azad to register his visit. So he locked the vehicle, crossed the ten-meter footpath, and pushed the door open only to see Azad adsorbed in reading.
Haji sahib had never imagined anyone so lost in reading that they could ignore the sound of the horn of his SUV.
“Assalam o Alaikum,” a frustrated Haji sahib said in an Arabic accent.
Azad turned to the left where Haji sahib stood dressed in an exquisite white shalwar-suit, a dark black waist-coat and an equally black turban. His shalwar was well above his ankles. Smelling of an imported fragrance Haji sahib was holding a Tasbeeh in his right hand. …
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By Bilal Ibne Rasheed, on December 13th, 2010 
Author: George W. Bush
2010, Crown Publishers
Filed Under: Memoirs, Nonfiction
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
5 |
| Entertainment..... |
4 |
| Depth..... |
5 |
Two things immediately came to my mind after reading George W. Bush’s Decision Points: a joke and an ancient Chinese novel Journey to the West (His-yu Chi – Xiyou ji). First the joke: once a professional consultant/adviser came across a shepherd with a large herd of sheep. He said to the shepherd, ‘I can tell exactly how many sheep you have.’ The shepherd apparently amazed at the claim asked him to go ahead but the consultant/adviser said that he will charge one of the sheep as a fee for telling him the exact number of his sheep. The shepherd gave it a thought and agreed to the deal. The consultant/adviser then took out his laptop and portable internet connection, got connected to the satellite monitoring system, browsed for the area where they were present, zoomed-in on the herd of sheep, counted them, and after consuming an hour or so told the shepherd that he had 139 sheep. The shepherd confirmed the number and the consultant/adviser took one of the sheep as a fee for the service. The shepherd then said to the consultant/adviser, ‘if I tell you your profession can I have my sheep back?’ Curious, the consultant/adviser agreed. The shepherd said, ‘You must a consultant or an adviser somewhere.’ The consultant/adviser was totally startled and asked the shepherd, ‘Yes I am a consultant/adviser, but how do you know?’ ‘Two reasons.’ The shepherd replied. ‘First, you created a job for yourself when there was in fact no need of it and told me something which I already knew. And the second is that you don’t know a shit about your job, now give my dog back.’ …
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By Bilal Ibne Rasheed, on September 15th, 2010 Author: Reinaldo Arenas; translation by Dolores M. Koch.
1993, Viking Penguin
Filed Under: Literary, Biography, Nonfiction
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
8 |
| Entertainment..... |
9 |
| Depth..... |
8 |
| Readability... |
9 |
When a friend of mine gave me an English translation of the autobiography of Reinaldo Arenas, Before Nights Falls, he insisted that the book was an effortless and riveting read–which was precisely the case. I finished reading the book as early as I could despite a couple of deadlines in my office and my one-year-old son going berserk.
The book is eminently readable and Arenas pins down the reader right from the word go. “The End.” This is how the book starts. He was sure in 1987 that he would die very soon but managed to survive although he had no medical insurance. He had to finish his Pentagonia and his memoirs before the night of death fell upon him.
Arenas’s father had abandoned his mother after only three months of marriage, something fairly common in Cuba in that era. He grew up in abject poverty, eating dirt and learning to hate his father. One day when he was six, he saw some boys of the neighborhood jumping in the river. The next day he masturbated for the first time. Life in the country was close to nature and therefore close to sexuality. Hens, goats, sows, mares, dogs, and even trees were used to satisfy his huge and eccentric sexual appetite during his boyhood. But the first time he went to a whore he was unable to have an erection. According to his own careful estimate, Arenas had fucked 5000 men by 1968. …
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