Our man in Havana Graham Greene   English spy story, that is true to life, probably began in early twentieth century with Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden tales. Maugham worked for secret service during the second world war. He was stationed in Lucerne, in the neutral Switzerland, and was also sent to Russia ‘ to prevent the Bolshevik Revolution and to keep Russia in the war’. He wrote a few short stories based on these experiences. These are collected in his book,  Ashenden.  Ashenden was Maugham’s chosen pen-name. In the preface to the collection, Maugham wrote that ‘this book is a work of fiction, though I should say not much more so than several of the books on the same subject that have appeared during the last few years and that purport to be truthful memoirs’.   Later Graham Greene and John Le Carre wrote popular and acclaimed books in this genre. Commenting on his work as a spy, Maugham said in the preface that, ‘t he work of an agent in the Intellige...

The Heart of the Matter Graham Greene (A Tale of the Matter of Heart)                                                                                         It was fortuitous, and also fortunate for me, that the first book of Graham Greene I read was The Heart of the Matter. I have had similar experience with two more artists: writer Somerset Maugham and classical singer Kishori Amonkar. The very first volume of their works I came across , spawned an ardour that has grown stronger in decades- Love at first encounter. With The Heart of the Matter a similar fondness was born for Greene’s books, perhaps seasoned in more reason.                        ...

I must assure you, before you begin, that what follows is not an exegesis on consciousness – a task for which I’m abysmally ill-equipped. I only want to draw your attention to a gripping story I read this month. If prelude to my notes on the book seem like a tail that’s wagging the dog, blame is mine, novice in this art as I am.   One overarching feature of our species is consciousness. If asked to define it, most of us will flounder. But we know instinctively what is being conscious. We know consciousness is not merely ‘not being unconscious’. Every living organism is conscious in this sense; even single-celled amoebae respond to external stimulus in some way. Consciousness is being able to think of self as an aware, living entity; the ‘I’ surveying the world. It is the ability to form an opinion on the world and self. It is possessing a theory of mind, which enables us to impute reason as to why people behave in a fashion. It is the capacity to confabulate in our mind’s eye, ...

Novel   The Deadly Affair John Le Carre   This was Le Carre’s first book, published in 1961 as  Call for the Dead.  It was later filmed as  The Deadly Affair.  In this book, Le Carre introduced George Smiley, his protagonist spy who later featured in his many popular books. George Smiley has recently separated from his wife, Anne Sercomb. He is now middle-aged, has finished with field work in espionage, and is assigned office job in London by his Foreign Intelligence (MI) bosses. Novel begins with a short history of Smiley and then rapidly plunges into the plot of the story. It is the post-second world war era of anti-communism paranoia of west, the peak of infamous cold-war years. Smiley interviews a high-ranking foreign-office bureaucrat for his alleged links with communists when the former was in college, decades back. Smiley has found nothing in the interview to substantiate the allegations, referred in an anonymous letter received at MI. Da...

                                                                                                                                                                                                        Novel   Dark Circles Udayan Mukherjee   Udayan Mukherjee had a two-decade long career as a television anchor and editor. This is his first novel. I read a couple of good reviews of ...

Novel   The Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger               What a strange name and what a strange book. Holden Caulfield, the protagonist explains in the book what he would like to be in life; a ‘Catcher in the Rye’. This is from a Robert Burns’ poem: ‘If a body meets a body coming through the Rye’. To understand the context one has to read the book.             Holden is a sixteen year old dropout from a high-end private school. This book describes a few days in his life as he roams around New York after being expelled from the school where he failed repeatedly in all subjects except English. Holden finds the world and its ways utterly intolerable. All the people are phony, their conversation is pain in his a*** and their way of life just kills him. If there is one thing that drives him nuts it is pretence. But the problem is that Holden sees pretence in a...

                                                                                                                                                         Novel A Legacy of Spies John le Carre John le Carre has been writing for more than five decades now. In 1960s he wrote his first espionage novel The Spy Who Came in from Cold . This book put him in the front row of authors writing espionage stories, in the severely polarised world of Cold War amidst West’s paranoiac fear of communism. Book attained a cult status. Except for tragically comic spy of Graham Greene in his thrillers-a feast for litera...

                                                                                                                                                      Novel The Comedians Graham Greene On a ship bound for the strife torn Haiti, are travelling four white passengers. Mr Smith, who has been an American presidential candidate in past, and his wife; Mr Jones, a British citizen, bound for Haiti on a clandestine mission; and Mr Brown, the narrator of the tale, who is returning to Haiti to reclaim the hotel he owns there and his love for Martha, wife of a South American diplomat stationed in Haiti. Brown is possibl...

Novel Three Men in A boat Jerome K. Jerome Three friends, George, William Harris and the author-himself-the narrator of the tale- sit in a room, discussing their maladies, for all of them are ill. But they know not of what. The conclusion they reach is, ‘whatever it was- had been brought on by over work’, and all they want is some rest. Thus, is hatched the great plan to ‘go up the river’, a boating trip from Kingston to Oxford on Thames. Their fourth partner in the trip is Montmorency, a Rat Terrier. This is an evergreen classic, featuring in most, ‘Greatest novels of all time’ lists. We had an excerpt form the book in our English textbook in school. It has been on my wishlist for decades. I was reminded of it a few days back, as the blurb in an Eric Newby’s book, which I was then reading, compared Newby’s book, Slowly Down the Ganges, with Jerome K. Jerome’s story. I ordered the book and picked it up soon after finishing Newby. I realised, postponing it for years was m...

Novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold John le Carre I first read this book about twenty years back. It hit me hard. Till then I had not read any espionage book of such intensity. The book and Alec Leamas haunted my thoughts for long. Over the years I forgot the smaller details and the plot, but remembered the overall gloomy atmosphere of the novel which had so enticed me then. Yhe bleak atmosphere  is the most distinguishing character of the book. If there is a colour in the book it is grey, an all-pervading grey. John le Carre is unsparing in painting the frailties of his characters, the commonplace follies of all men and the ultimate futility of much of human scheming and endeavour. Second unique facet of book is the way author has deglamourized the Spy. ‘What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors also, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play Cowboys and Indians to brighten their r...

                                                                                                                                                       Novel Cakes and Ale W. Somerset Maugham Being something of a bibliophile, I obtain books much faster than I read them. As a consequence, there's a huge backlog of books I always have in mind and on my bookshelves that I have to read. This list has become intractably long now. I'm seized by a tormenting anxiety as I finish a book and am confronted with the decision to pick up my next read. I dare not waste my time on a book that I'll later regret having ...