Review #626: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“A woman's perfume tells more about her than her handwriting. ”

----Christian Dior

Patrick Süskind, a late German writer and screenwriter's internationally, critically acclaimed and an award-winning novel Das Parfum: Die Geschichte eines Mörders translated into English with the title, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer The German novel set in the backdrop of 18th century France that rocked the whole world with its intensity, level of fantasy and surrealism, historical realism, sensuality and scents surrounding around a young man, with a god-gifted talented to identify the subtle and underlying scents of worldly things as well as of human beings.

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Review #610: The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”

----F. Scott Fitzgerald

Doris Lessing's, the Nobel Prize winning debut book, The Grass is Singing revolves around a youngish woman who after marrying a South African white farmer, and within a few years, looses herself and becomes a victim to immense loneliness as she realizes her husband's constant failure both in his farm as well as in their shared marital life, and that's how her remorse grabs her soul and makes her extremely critical towards her black servants treating them with distaste and hatred, ultimately paying a heavy price for her racial discrimination towards her servants.

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Review #564: A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“Wild roses are fairest, and nature a better gardener than art.”

----Louisa May Alcott

First let's just wish this talented and brilliant author, Louisa May Alcott, a very, very Happy 184th Birthday and we will only hope that her stories be loved, read and adored by all ages of readers from around the world. And on this special occasion, I'd like to pen a review piece about one of her not so popular book, A Long Fatal Love Chase which is targeted for mature audience and was written before her literary success for the books like Little Women, Little Men, Eight Cousins etc.. Although this particular book has not been widely read or loved by the readers, but I would like to notify such readers to not to judge the book harshly as this when she wrote this book, this young writer was on the road to financially support her family and did not even begin her writing career professionally at that time.

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Review #539: All the Sad Young Men by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


“He wanted to care, and he could not care. For he had gone away and he could never go back anymore. The gates were closed, the sun was down, and there was no beauty left but the gray beauty of steel that withstands all time. Even the grief he could have borne was left behind in the country of youth, of illusion, of the richness of life, where his winter dreams had flourished.”

----F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, an American writer, published his collection of short stories, All the Sad Young Men after the fame of his most popular novel, The Great Gatsby where the author has used the same themes of flapper and Jazz age, where the rich men and women had the time of their lives without giving a care about other people around them. This collection reflects that era in American when money mixed with sweat looked like glitter and emotions ran wild among the folks.

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Review #534: Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”

----Leo Tolstoy

Kamala Purnaiya Taylor, a.k.a, Kamala Markandaya, the late Indian internationally bestselling author, had penned a terrific yet extremely honest tale of a woman's struggling yet endearing life right after India's independence in her book, Nectar in a Sieve which marks as a pioneering book in Indian literature, that outlines the importance of a woman's simplicity, her sacrifices, her unconditional love for her family, her dying desires, her struggles during the times of poverty and her intelligence in rural India.

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Review #477: Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan, Irene Ash (Translator)

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


"L’amour fait les plus grandes douceurs et les plus sensibles infortunes de la vie."

English translation: "Love makes the greatest pleasures and most sensitive misfortunes of life."

----Madeleine de Scudery

Françoise Sagan, an award-winning French novelist, has created an uproar in the French literary world as well as in the French community, with her debut novel, Bonjour Tristesse that has been translated into English by Irene Ash, after its crazy popularity and scandal, that earned Sagan a reputable spot in the literary world. Sagan was barely eighteen when she published her first novel featuring a teenage girl flying away freely with love, physical intimacy, carelessness, promiscuity and other such immoral acts, on the pretext of her father's engagement with rather young mistresses.

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Review #420: Persuasion by Jane Austen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope...I have loved none but you.”

----Jane Austen

Our most beloved author as well as one of the most widely read author of all times, Jane Austen's, last notable piece of literature, Persuasion, unfolds the story of a twenty-something woman in the early 19th century England who is caught between the choices of her heart as well as her family to decide on whether she will honor her heart's choices that once loved a man so dearly or or will she pay heed to her family's wishes who once persuaded her not to marry the one whom she loved because of his status or poor finances.

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Review #269: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“One's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the beautiful, and to not accept the conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.” 

----Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert, one of the greatest Western novelists who ever lived in France, had penned a beautiful and thoroughly realistic story about common life in a provincial town of France, Madame Bovary and when the book published in the year of 1857, it caused an outrage among the common people of then times, later the book was widely accepted and people had agreed that Flaubert have vividly portrayed the triviality of a common housewife with nothing good to do to pass her days, apart from her religion and her motherhood.

I was tempted to buy this book from Amazon after watching the movie version with the same title featuring Mia Wasikowska and Ezra Miller, that released last month and is directed by Sophie Barthes. Although the movie didn't intrigue me that much, but Emma's life, portrayed through Mia Wasikowska, left me enthralled with the gravity of her pain and her exceptions about married life falling short.

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Review #258: The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


“The more you love,the more love you have to give.It's the only feeling we have which is infinite...” 

----Christina Westover, an American novelist

Patricia Highsmith, an American classic novelist, has penned an incredible tale of love and despair between two same-sex human beings, originally known as The Price of Salt. Later it was re-published with the title, Carol. And in the wake of Supreme Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage across all the states of USA, I chose to write the review of this beautiful same-sex love story which I read quite a few years ago.

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Review #136: Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


“Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.”
                                                              ---- Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy, an English author, spun a spectacular and classic tale of love, Far from the Madding Crowd whose movie adaption is going to release in the month of May, starring Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Tom Sturridge and Michael Sheen.

Synopsis:
The first of Thomas Hardy’s great novels, Far From the Madding Crowd established the author as one of Britain’s foremost writers. It also introduced readers to Wessex, an imaginary county in southwestern England that served as the pastoral setting for many of the author’s later works.
It tells the story of beautiful Bathsheba Everdene, a fiercely independent woman who inherits a farm and decides to run it herself. She rejects a marriage proposal from Gabriel Oak, a loyal man who takes a job on her farm after losing his own in an unfortunate accident. He is forced to watch as Bathsheba mischievously flirts with her neighbor, Mr. Boldwood, unleashing a passionate obsession deep within the reserved man. But both suitors are soon eclipsed by the arrival of the dashing soldier, Frank Troy, who falls in love with Bathsheba even though he’s still smitten with another woman. His reckless presence at the farm drives Boldwood mad with jealousy, and sets off a dramatic chain of events that leads to both murder and marriage.
A delicately woven tale of unrequited love and regret, Far from the Madding Crowd is also an unforgettable portrait of a rural culture that, by Hardy’s lifetime, had become threatened with extinction at the hands of ruthless industrialization.

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Review #58: Bee Summers by Melanie Dugan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Such a beautiful, classic and compassionate story that will only make your heart cry!

Melanie Dugan is an American author, whose new book, Bee Summers is an exciting classic tale story about a young girl and her lost mother, and lots of bee-keeping and a number of exciting trips!


Synopsis:
Melissa was 11years old when her mother left her with her father and never returned. Feeling disappointed, Melissa asks her father about her mother's whereabouts, and in return she couldn't receive any concrete answer. But now it's Bee Summer, and it's the time when her bee-keeper father takes the hives into his clients' orchards to fertilize. And there begins a remarkable journey for Melissa along with her father, where she gets to make lot of new friends, like, Mr. Earl Caulkins, Mr. Chance, and the couple, Les and Opal. But her life changes drastically, when her father asks Opal to marry him after her husband's death, and thus putting Melissa in the back-gear of his life. And years pass by, and we see Melissa as a happily married author, and still resent her estranged father. But when she stumbles upon Mr. Chance’s new book, the truth about her mother comes gnawing at her thus making her filled with regret and love.

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