To Blog or Not to Blog is the Question

Now if someone can find a more widely read “crappy” book than this, please dont let me know . this is the second time I am reading this and both times out of compulsion. The first time I had to read this was because my girlfriends sister read it and recommended it to her and as usual it was shoved down my throat. This time I had to read again because it is a must read for one of the courses that I am taking. I almost dropped the course but I heard some good words about the course and the prof and decided to go through the pain of reading this book.

Let me tell you the ingredients of this sugary story . Take pantheism, Romanticism, mysticism, a little bit of Christianity,Islam and Zen, a poor kid searching for riches and lots of nice people helping him along the way and lots of mushy dialogues culled from all the lovey-dovey movies and voila you get a book called Alchemist, which a lots of chicks and girly-men (Schwarzneggar style) love.

I am sure any chick you meet if she has read this she will rate this as one of the best books she has ever read or if any of you guys want to get lucky get the chick this book and dont forget to tell her that this is the best book

Lemme be brief and describe the story. This guy Santiago, who has good education in theology to become a priest decides to become a shepherd, goes on to consult a gypsy woman about his recurring dreams only to be told by her to pursue his personal legend of getting treasure hidden in the Pyramids. Our Santiago now meets king of Salem exhorts him to do the same and gives him a couple of stones. Santiago now lands in Africa but gets robbed of his money and has to work at a crystal store, where he works his azz off and makes enough money in a year to go back to Spain filthy rich, but instead heads to cross the desert to the pyramids.

OK before I proceed any further words like Personal legend, omen, Universal spirit, universal language,”Listen to your heart” and such crappy elements keep appearing in the book like viruses and makes your stomach turn inside out. So beware.

So now Santiago meets an English guy who is heading to an oasis al-fayoum in search of an alchemist, who can turn lead into gold. Both of them join a carvan which is crossing the desert and reach the big-azz oasis where they are put up for some-time. But wait a war breaks out between two tribes and it will be impossible for the caravan to move out, so our guy decides to fall in love and proposes to this girl whom he has not yet talked on their second meeting itself. Now our guy sees an omen(sic) where the oasis, which is considered a neutral territory is attacked, and he informs the chief, who awards him lavishly when it proves to be true and everyone is saved.

Now the alchemist makes a grand entrance and befriends Santiago and leads him on a journey towards the pyramids. Santiago reaches the pyramids, but not before he talks to the wind and the sun and transforms himself into wind and of course loses the gold(sic) only to be replenished by alchemist using his miraculous powers, and starts digging only to be robbed again(sic). One of the robber tells him about the futulity of this exercise and tells him about his own recurring dreams about treasure hidden in a place in Spain, which resembles the church at which Santiago put up for a night. So now Mr. Santiago goes back to Spain and digs and gets the treasure. Poor chap too much of effort for a box of gold which I suspect if the story had continued further would have been robbed again .

Well not that everything is bad about this story a few things worth noting are the explanation of disillusionment with marriage and the various Zen like statements. Interspersed with it are several fatalist and crappy inspirational statements.
The stupidest statement I ever heard about this story is it is romantic. Oh puhleez first of all the shephered girl whom Santiago loves and yearns to meet after a year. Mr. Santiago dumps her to go for the treasure hunt and then dumps his next love Fatima, to go for the treasure, but not before “Miss, who kisses in the wind” Fatima delivers a lecture on how she is a desert woman and how she will wait for him. I am pretty sure had the story continued further and Santiago goes again to Africa to get Fatima he will fall in love with some other chick. Moreover when he was just a shepherd he ditched his first love, now When he has so much money he has endless possibilites

Gosh let me go and throw out once more. It has already made me puke a million times.

One statement from this book which resounds is
‘Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.’

Screw it, I have read the book twice ( and I dont think this is a good omen for me (

Referring to my earlier post, Teddy , the author JD Salinger was not only knowledgeable about Hinduism but also about Zen Buddhism, an amalgam of Indian Buddhism and the Chinese Taoism, from which he extracted a great story for his book, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. I am reproducing the story below.

The story Seymour read to Franny that night, by flashlight, was a favorite of his, a Taoist tale. To this day, Franny swears that she remembers Seymour reading it to her:

Duke Mu of Chin said to Po Lo: “You are now advanced in years. Is there any member of your family whom I could employ to look for horses in your stead?” Po Lo replied: “A good horse can be picked out by its general build and appearance. But the superlative horse — one that raises no dust and leaves no tracks — is something evanescent and fleeting, elusive as thin air. The talents of my sons lie on a lower plane altogether; they can tell a good horse when they see one, but they cannot tell a superlative horse. I have a friend, however, one Chiu-fang Kao, a hawker of fuel and vegetables, who in things appertaining to horses is nowise my inferior. Pray see him.”

Duke Mu did so, and subsequently dispatched him on the quest for a steed. Three months later, he returned with the news that he had found one. “It is now in Shach’iu” he added. “What kind of a horse is it?” asked the Duke. “Oh, it is a dun-colored mare,” was the reply. However, someone being sent to fetch it, the animal turned out to be a coal-black stallion! Much displeased, the Duke sent for Po Lo. “That friend of yours,” he said, “whom I commissioned to look for a horse, has made a fine mess of it. Why, he cannot even distinguish a beast’s color or sex! What on earth can he know about horses?” Po Lo heaved a sigh of satisfaction. “Has he really got as far as that?” he cried. “Ah, then he is worth ten thousand of me put together. There is no comparison between us. What Kao keeps in view is the spiritual mechanism. In making sure of the essential, he forgets the homely details; intent on the inward qualities, he loses sight of the external. He sees what he wants to see, and not what he does not want to see. He looks at the things he ought to look at, and neglects those that need not be looked at. So clever a judge of horses is Kao, that he has it in him to judge something better than horses.”

When the horse arrived, it turned out indeed to be a superlative animal.

Here is a short story by one of my my favorite authors, J.D. Salinger. In this short story Teddy, from his book Nine Stories, the author writes one of the best treatises on Hinduism anyone can write in just 6-7 pages , ok 20 but the rest is pure crap.

The story is about this kid, Teddy who is going back to US from England on a ship along with his parents and sister, Booper. The story starts with Teddy pestering his parents and he looks like any other kid. But the reality is that he is a mystic and is the focus of attention of the learned at the major universities of the world.

The crux of the story is conversation between Teddy and a person called Bob Nicholson, a highly educated guy from Harvard or someplace. In less than 5-6 pages JD salinger explains a lot about Hinduism . Every single line is pregnant with meaning.

Teddy tells Bob that he had mystical experiences, what he calls “getting out of the finite dimensions”, since he was four and he achieved Nirvana when he was 6 , when he saw his sister drinking milk and saw that everything was God and that she was pouring God(milk) into God(her). Teddy tells Bob that in his last birth, he was a ascetic in India but fell out of grace for being associated with a woman and abandoning meditation and was born in the US, to suffer for his bad karma.

Teddy thinks that it is not good to be emotional, reflecting the Hindu and Buddhist philosophy of non-attachment, as everything is ephemeral.

On a question asked by Bob on how one can get out of finite dimensions, which the Hindu philosophy time and again urges people to do, Teddy answers that one should stop looking at objects as stopping at one place. He goes on to add that everything is continous. On being pooh-poohed by Bob, Teddy sarcastically tells him that he is just being logical.

Hindu philosophy believes that everything is part of God. To give an analogy, some scriptures say that we are just leaves of the big tree called God, and by doing Yoga and seeing objects through ones mind, one can get out of finite dimensions and see oneself as part of God.

Teddy tells Bob that what Adam ate in the Garden of Eden was an apple containing Logic and intellectual stuff and that one should vomit it from the system. The trouble, Teddy tells Bob, is that people dont want to see the way things are and that they dont want to achieve God where it is peaceful and want to be reborn.

Nirvana and Moksha in Hinduism mean achieving God and getting rid of rebirth.

When asked by Bob whether Teddy predicted death of some professors, Teddy tells him that he didnt but just wanted to warn them about certain times and predicts his own death (in a few minutes) in a very subtle way that the readers and Bob dont understand it in the first pass. Teddy even goes on to say that people have died thousands of times but are still afraid of death, again reflecting the Eastern philosophies of Hinduism and Buddhism.

Teddy gives Bob a good analogy between life and dreams and tells him that reality is nothing but an illusion, again an imminent part of Hindu philosophy.

On asked by Bob about what changes should he do to the educational system if he were in charge, Teddy tells him that he would teach kids on how to meditate and then make them spit whatever their parents and adults taught them and teach them self-knowledge and would not teach them the conventional subjects.

Self-knowledge is stressed in both the Hinduism and Buddhism.

On asked by Bob whether he would be interested in research say medicine when he grows up, Teddy tells him that doctors are too shallow and talk too much about cells and all that. Teddy tells Bob that he knows how to grow. He has done it unconsciously from his birth. All he needs is to meditate and get that knowledge to the foreground and he should be able to treat himself without any medicine and everyone should do the same.

It has a sixth-sensish end too, which makes you think over and over again logically, which is what Teddy has urged all over the story not to do.

If there ever was a book which was the mother of all the soap operas, this is it. What else would you call a book, which was published in weekly installments for almost a year way before the discovery of radio, a hero who leaves aristocrats life in France to live incognito in England marries a plastic woman who didnt know her Dad, the Dad has a history and becomes mentally instable, another guy who resembles the hero and who eventually sacrifices his life and who loves hero’s woman , very plastic interactions between the main characters, a gravedigger, an evil woman who gets killed by the heroine’s nanny, the aristocrats, who derive pleasure in raping the lower classes and killing them, one of the aristocrats gets killed and the hero is to be executed for the aristocrat dad and uncle’s crimes based on the letter by his pa-in-law written a gazallion years ago, a historical revolution wherein people will kill anyone related to the aristocrats in any-which way and an abrupt end wherein coincidences come pouring down on you just from anywhere and everywhere as if the author just wanted to get over with it and move onto better things.

Having led such a scathing attack against one of the best authors in English, Charles Dickens, I will term this a great book to know the various intricacies of writing a novel. His culling various instances from history and religion, his use of symbolism, alliteration, hyberbole(sic), onomatopoeia, drama, repetition, philosophy and a great start and an equally great end makes this one of the greatest, but highly unDickensian, books.

Well the story goes like this . The story takes place in two highly comepting and contradictory environments, England and France in 1775. Lucie, the heroine of the story, has just been broken the news by Mr. Lorry that her father,Dr Mannette, who has been presumed dead is not dead. Both of them now go to France to rescue her father, who is is now held captive by the Defarges, who become one of the leaders of the French revolution , and bring him to England.

In other news in England, Darnay, another Frenchman, is accused of treason but is exonerated because of his resemblance to Carton, who works with the highly succesful and bombastic lawyer, Stryver. Now all these three guys vie for Lucie, who eventually succumbs to the charms of the Frenchman and gets married, but not before the frenchman reveals some of his antecedents to his pa-in-law, who is stunned to hear it, but decides to carry on.

Meanwhile the French revolution begins and the French see Tellsons bank where Mr Lorry works as a safe haven and Mr lorry is sent to France to safegaurd the property along with the secret gravedigger, Cruncher, as a bodyguard (very funny). Meanwhile Darnay gets a letter from Gabelle, the local tax collector and protector of Darnay’s ancestor’s place after the death of his family, urging to rescue him from prison and our hero Mr.Darnay decides to leave, but not before writing a letter to his wife Lucie and his pa-in-law, only to get arrested on his arrival. Now our own Dr. Mannette decides to take matters in his own hands and leaves for France with Lucie and Miss Pross in tow. Darnay is now acquitted after it is proven that he had relinquished his aristocratic title cos of the torturous nature of aristocarcy of his pa and uncle, only to be arrested again, on the basis of a letter written by Dr. Mannette a gazallion years ago in prison. Now he is tried for crimes committed by his dad and uncle. Rescue nowhere in sight and Mr. Darnay looks heading towards the guillitone. But wait, Mr. Dickens uses a concept called deus ex machina, meaning God out of machine, where one just puts logic in a box and chucks it out of the window. OK OK it means the author devises a lot many coincidences and contrivances to put an abrupt end to the mess he got himself into. In the end our Mr Carton, who resembles Darnay, switches with Darnay and takes the guillitone and everyone else escapes to England.

This story can be read off the internet at http://www.litrix.com/twocitys/twoci001.htm . Also read the start and end in one of my earlier posts
I wish all the soap opera writers learn deus ex machina from Dickens .

Had no school this weekend . Hurrah . Had the whole weekend all to myself for the first time in more than a year. Decided not to tell any of my friends that I dont have school this weekend, so escaped their calls Saturday .Moreover had no CPU at home so no internet , thanks to the robber(see earlier posts). So decided why not have a no-technology weekend no cellphone calls, no internet and no TV. Didnt pick up any calls over the weekend. All in all had the best weekend in over a couple of years. Read a book ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’ by Yogananda Paramahansa, played guitar and soccer.

‘Autobiography of Yogi’ has been long due on my list of books. I rememeber one of my old flames suggesting it to me, and I mocked her on what would an atheist like me do with a book like this? Then one of the days in a bar in my drunken state, one of the chicks asked me if I read this book. I was so piqued that I told her that the only Indian book I have ever read is the Kamasutra, and went so far as to suggest that it was one of my ancestors who wrote it . Needless to say the only position I was in was a BAD one. Then one of my good friends suggested it to me saying that there is a lot of stuff in it and some of the chicks dig it. Now it all made some sense to me .

So I finally decided that this weekend is the weekend. The story started off in a very lovey-dovey-and-ah-so-happy-family and oh-I-am-such-a-rebel and I was like please dont do the David-Copperfield type of crap(ala Salinger in Catcher in the Rye). Still decided to slug it out as it was raining outside and my skating plans were not materialising anytime soon. Amazingly, the story took off with his meeting various saints and His description of how they were able to perform all the cool stuff that they were doing and story of each saint had some kind of philosophy in it. The story then goes into His search for a guru, which takes him to various places and how He finds His guru. The story now focuses on His studies with His Guru, Sri Yukteshwar and his studies at school , the accounts of both I found to be very uninteresting.

The story goes well where He is not talking about Himself but about other saints. The stories of Babaji, the immortal Yogi-Christ of India and His teaching of the long lost Kriya Yoga to his famous disciple Lahiri Mahasya are amazing. The back-bone of the whole book seems to be the Kriya-Yoga which Yogananda Paramahansa took to the masses both in the east and west. His mastery of Bible and various religious Indian texts, his ability to draw parallels between the two religions, and scientific explanations of the various phenomenon kept me hooked onto the book. But the best part of the book is His explanation of the science of Kriya Yoga .

His fascination of the West has perplexed me throughout the book and some of His accounts didnt exactly seem credible. I skipped the last 10 chapters of the book as I figured out (all by myself) that there is nothing more He has to say which I want to listen to.

What this book did do for me was

1. Renewed interest in Hinduism and Yoga. For me Hinduism was the gazallion Gods and superstitions, the utterly materialistic priests and the fanatics .This book has completely changed my blasphemic attitude towards Hinduism.

2. Gave a scientific explanation of the lives of saints and Yogis.

3. Somehow showed me that Hinduism is more atheist and scientific than I am (sad but true)

With this renewed interest and a week before my classes begin , I plan to read ‘Idiots Guide to Hinduism’ to know more about Hinduism.

My Inner voice says ‘Shame on you Rock you were a born Hindu and have lived in that country for better part of your life and now you have to read Idiots Guide. I guess it is for people like you ’

The full book can be read on the net at
http://www.thenazareneway.com/Autobiography_of_a_Yogi/

I was thunking today morning as i was driving to work about how I miss the sea-shores here in this mid-west and how it will be cool to sit on the sand and watch the waves and the boats and the ships in a distance and watch all the nice babes and read a book, probably Robinson crusoe , read it long time back and what a book except for the ending? I always felt that the life of Robinson Crusoe was the life of most of the adventurous men.

In this book, Defoe depicts the life of a middle class irreligious man ,Robinson Crusoe, whose dad tells him to play it safe and not take any risks and live an almost tasteless life and that adventures are only for the rich or for the poor. (so true of all confrontations between a son and a Dad).

Defoe says that one has to choose between adventure and security and its impossible to have both. ( Bungee jumping anyone) . Defoe has compared sea voyage to the risks one takes in life and the failures and travails one encounters by undertaking such a journey.

But Robinson crusoe gets restless of his dull life and decides to take up sea-travel without telling his parents. As soon as he gets on his voyage he regrets leaving the happy life, but still doesnt want to go back, showing that he lacks confidence as well as clarity of thought. After a tough storm he is dumped by the captain at a seaport. He somehow makes to London and then convinces another captain to take him on seavoyage again. This time he is captured by pirates and sold as a slave. He somehow escapes along with another boyslave and in this voyage, he gets stronger and more decisive.

Finally he is rescued by a ship.

Crusoe shows his hypocrisy by selling the boyslave to the captain but later regrets it. He is taken to Brazil where he works hard and now owns huge plantations of tobacco and has gotten far richer than the other planters .But again he becomes restless for a sea-voyage and undertakes it. This time his ship crashes and he is alone in a cast-away island. I guess this is where the story of ‘Cast Away’ starring Tom Hanks comes from. The story is more or less like the movie , a story of survival,a will to survive.

A few notable points . First, he promises to himself that he wont be materialistic but still goes to the wrecked ship and gets all the riches.(so true, most people wants to be less materialistic but still pursue materialism with a zeal) Second, on this desolate island he finds religion. He finds solace in God, sort of a physchological crutch. (Is this how man found God ? ).Third, he seems to identify with his father ( I remember a famous quote, When a man understands that his dad was right , he already has a son who thinks he is wrong). Fourth, he pets some animals to keep company and be subservient to him(is this why man pets animals ?).Fifth, he starts to enjoy the simple pleasures of life.(Every man does that late in his life). One very moot point was he now has lot of money but all he craves for is a pipe and he cant get it .(oh how true of everyones life?)

He finds some foot-prints of humans and although he should be happy , he is scared . May be rightfully he thinks that they might be savages. He rescues one of the victims of savages ,enslaves him , teaches him religion and English . A very funny point during one of the conversations is raised by the slave ‘Why cant devil be beaten if God is stronger ?’(I still cant understand this) .

After this the story becomes all cloogy and there is nothing philosophical that Defoe has to say. A good read to follow this might be Gulliver Travels.

One can read Robinson crusoe on the web at
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/DefCru1.html

Still going through my jetlag. Havent got a wink of sleep the whole night . So decided to blog rather than stare at the ceiling.

If there ever was a book which can get the title of ‘Just-cant-put-it-down-once-u-start-it’ this should be it. I dont have the taste for whodunit books and I heard somewhere that ‘Da Vinci Code’ was one such type. But seeing the popularity of the book I decided to give it a try. Bought the book in Boston read a few chapters liked it , kept it in my travelling kit to India. Once I was on the plane I just couldnt put it down and was done with the last 70% of the book during my flight from chicago to Frankfurt.

The story is more or less about the ‘Holy Grail’ quest, remember the Indiana jones movie .The story goes into history and various conspiracies that led to the evolution of Christianity. No doubt the church is enraged. I have heard that the Church has come with a different book which refutes what was said in this book. If I do get some time I will definitely look into it .

Some interesting points about the book.

1. Author argues that modern Christianity is a mixture of Mithrainism, a pagan religion and christianity. ( This was a known fact. Christmas and Easter were borrowed from Mithrianism). The author has taken this to public for the first time. Evolution of modern christianity was for the lust for power by Constantine, the Roman emperor.

2. It was a woman’s world and the advent of Christianity changed the world into a man’s world and that sex was considered holy. Christian leaders tried to suppress women by tainiting them as witches and burning them at stake and denigrated sex as ‘original sin’ .

3. Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and they had a kid. (Early christian Popes denigrated Mary Magdalene as a prostitute). Mary Magdalene was the Holy Grail and a secret society had maintained this code which was passed onto them by the Templars, who found this secret from the temple at Jerusalem during the first crusade. These Templars were brutally killed by the pope in a covert operation.

4. Jesus was considered a mortal prophet by early christians .

5. The Bible was tampered with to show Jesus as God. The author cites Dead-sea scrolls and hammadi documents as examples.

I will have to read the reaction by the Church and devout christians , but this book is definitely a great read.
I would like to see this book converted into a movie.

I walked into the Barnes and Noble book store and out of instinct I picked up “Tale of Two cities” after a long time to read just the first line and the last line.

Makes me feel better or worse , good or bad

The first line of “Tale of two cities” by Charles Dickens.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

The best opening lines ever ,according to me.

“Life is difficult.”
–Scott Peck . Road less travelled.

“It is a universally acknowledged fact that a man in possession of fortune is in need of a wife
–Jane Austen Pride and prejudice.

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, an what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.
–Catcher in the Rye ,JD Salinger .

Happy families are all alike ,unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.
— Anna Karenina , Leo Tolstoy.

“It was love at first sight”
—Heller ,Catch 22.

“It is a sin to write this.”
—Ayn Rand, Anthem.

“Who is John Galt?”
— Ayn Rand , Atlas Shrugged.

But can anyone match Charles Dickens in the way he ended “Tale of Two cities” ?

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known”

One can read Charles Dickens book free off the internet at

http://dickens.thefreelibrary.com/

Mark Twain’s books can be found at

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton/index2.html

“Adventures of TomSawyer” is a master piece and I admire this book more for Mark Twains capability of looking straight into a childs mind. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to understand a childs physchology.

I got hooked on to Tom Sawyer when I was in High school and our English teacher Miss Lily taught us this chapter where in Tom tricks the children of neighborhood into doing his job of whitewashing the fence.

“Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” Tom asks to the kids, who come over to mock him, for doing a chore on Saturday. Oh what a way to play around with the other kids minds. This is where Mark Twain is phenomenal , he knows exactly what kids are all after . They have this big ego and they want to be the ones who are doing all the cool stuff and getting all the accolades and can boast later to the other kids of how they r so good and the others r not. All the neighborhood kids now want to whitewash and trade their goodies with Tom for a chance to whitewash. Ah Tom just turned his job into fun and gets paid handsomely by others. Wow I wish !!!

In conclusion, Tom says “that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”

In contrast, there is Huck (Mark wrote another book called “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” ,have read half of it ) who is a complete non-conformist, lives life by his own rules and is the envy of all the kids. Huck and Tom become good friends and the rest of the story is about how they find the treasure and how Huck is finally adopted by the society.

Although both Tom and Huck believe in a make-believe world of superstitions, pirates, ghosts and warts ,they also want to be more adult-like by smoking pipes and drinking. Teenagers in making ?

Another point worth noting is the great desire of Tom to be temporarily dead. Which kid doesnt want to do it? They want to know who really cares for them , and when they r dead they know who really will cry for them and who wont, and by that they can find who cares and who doesnt. And Tom gets his wish sort of fulfilled when he, Huck and Joe(??) run away and are presumed dead. Tom comes back to the house one night stealthily and sees that every one including Aunt Polly is crying. And at his own funeral Tom sees that the whole town is missing him. What a fantastic feeling for a kid to be wanted ? It satisfies his big EGO.

The story also tells that kids have more conscience than adults. This is shown when Tom saves the drunkard by testifying that it was Injun Joe that killed the doctor , inspite of having a written contract with Huck not to reveal it to anyone. This while the whole town is judging that the drunkard must have killed the doctor just because he is a drunkard. I remembered a Bible quote during this whole episode “Judge not for ye shall be judged”. This quote says dont judge anyone because on the day of judgement I will judge everyone and its my job, not yours . Ah !! God is also looking for job security

My personal favorite is the Becky-Tom affair and how the whole thing is so adult-like and in turn Twain tells us that some of the adult relationships are so child-like. Also Twain implies that love is a illogical and irrational necessity.

The following two episodes depict the fascination of the kids with RobinHood and wanting to be pirates .

The pledge that the kids take that they would rather be outlaws for a year in Sherwood Forest, where Robin Hood operated, than the President of US forever depicts this fascination.

Tom convinces Joe,who gets a flogging from his mom and wants to run away from home and become a ascetic , that a life of crime would be more desirable. wow !!! A great peep into a child’s mind.

“There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life,” writes Twain, “when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure. Amazing .

And this forms the crux and climax of the story. Finally Huck and Tom get the treasure .

Mark Twain also puts in a lot of verses from Bible in the story but never lectures on morality. I have read somewhere that MarkTwain was not a believer in organized religion.

Towards the end MarkTwain’s philosphy startled me . He writes when he describes the drop that is falling from the cave and Injun Joe is lying dead at the mouth of the cave ” That drop was falling when the Pyramids were new, when Troy fell, when the foundations of Rome were laid, when Christ was crucified.” Is he saying here that time is relative way before Einstien. I cannot grasp it till now what it actually means.

And then he goes on to say “Has everything a purpose and a mission?”.

Boy is he questioning life, himself, his work and everything at the end of such a fascinating story? Or is he sad that such a wonderful story is coming to an end. Or that these kids will no more be kids. Did he write “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” to take it a little further. I smell JD Salinger in this quote.

I feel after this, one should read JD Salingers works, Catcher in the Rye , Raise the Roof Beam High carpenters , Nine Stories and Franny n Zooey.I will put in comments about these later.

I would like to point out here that I am no literary critic nor am in any position to comment on these two great books ,WH and TGG nor on these authors , Emily Bronte and Scott Fitzgerald.

Having said that I see some commonalities in the two books which stuck me all of a sudden while I was driving to work today.

Both these books have as their basis the men, Gatsby in TGG and Heathcliff in WH, who couldnt get their women, Catherine in WH and Daisy in TGG. Circumstances force these women to take a different path. Gatsby went to war for 5 years and Heathcliff ran away from WH after over-hearing part of Catherine’s story. Both the women considered that riches will give them all the happiness and get married to richer men. Gatsby and Heathcliff now come back after their women are married probably as rich or richer than the men that their women married . The men in the both the stories considered that wealth will get their women back into their lives. The women still love their men, with or without the knowledge of their husbands. No moral lectures are given by any of the authors on the way these women behave, although Scott Fitzgerald(TGG) may have tried to justify it by showing Tom as a womanizer. The women in the two stories wanted their men and their husbands to fight over them , very interesting women to say the least. Coming to symbolism , Gatsby looking at the green light at the end of Daisys dock and Catherine keeping her windows open so as to see Wuthering Heights are symbolism of hope .

Both the men , Gatsby and Heathcliff die a very lonely death. Its revenge that kept Heathcliff alive after Catherines death whereas it was hope in Gatsbys case . Both these men have hardly had one person to mourn their death . Nick in case of Gatsby and Hareton in Heathcliff’s case.

Both these books, although set almost more than a century apart, show men as having succumbed to the charms of their women and unable to escape it. These men go to great lengths to get their women. One can argue that Heathcliff wanted revenge and it was directed at Catherine too, but the author has had so many narrations that it can be very difficult to distinguish the real motive. Both the authors used their narrators, Nelly in WH and Nick in TGG, as essential part of the whole story