Sacred Games

THE book is out.

A book I'll probably never read, even though being from Bombay myself and having read and enjoyed an excerpt from this book in Amit Chaudhuri's compilation, Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature, I am sure I'll enjoy the book but who has the time and the patience for reading big 1200-page tomes like this. Despite liking Vikram Seth's writing, I never really ever seriously contemplated reading Suitable Boy and am afraid Sacred Games is going to be the same way...although I do plan to read his well-received book of short stories, Love and Longing in Bombay sometime soon.

Anyways, read a review by Nilanjana Roy, who blogs as Hurreebabu at Kitabkhana, a great literary blog. Also read another review by Jai Arjun Singh, also a journalist from Delhi, who, unlike yours truly, writes a great blog titled Jabberwock that lots of people read.. the title of the blog is based on a poem from Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll. Just learned that Jabberwocky has begun to mean

1. A manifestation of the deepest level of fear in the human psyche.
2. All of the things that one is afraid of that one can put no proper name to.
3. The name of Lewis Carroll's monster in The poem "Jabberwocky"; it appears only when Alice is afraid and once confronted, never appears again.

---------- A few month's back.. ----------

The barbarians shrug, knock down your walls with their amazingly powerful weapons and put a parking lot over your sacred grounds. "
- Vikram Chandra on the pointlessness of resisting technology

---------- Earlier this year... ----------

The book to look forward to apparently in 2006 is Vikram Chandra's (of Love and Longing in Bombay fame) big epic (1200 pages!!) book, Sacred Games. First there was lots of press about the huge advance the author got for the book, and in January the publicity machine in India was abuzz with interviews and profiles in almost every paper.

For example, read these interviews and profiles in various Indian newspapers:
The Hindu
The Indian Express
DNA - including an interview
Economic Times
Mid-Day

And this article listed the book as one of the 36 reasons to wake up to 2006 !!! Wow..now thats hype!! :)