December Book In Spot-light: Seahorse By Janice Pariat Book Review

The "Book in Spotlight" for December is the retelling of the Greek myth of the seagod Poseidon and his male devotee Pelops - "Seahorse" by Janice Pariat. A beautiful and under-rated gem, I hope you pick this up and love it as much as I did. This book has been shortlisted for The Hindu Prize For Literature 2015.
And here's how I met this beauty and what I think aboot it,

Title: Seahorse

Author: Janice Pariat

Publisher: Vintage, Random House.

Published On:November 21st, 2014

Page count: 294
Review By: Shonazee

Blurb (via Goodreads):
Nem was not like his college classmates. Instead of crowding around a TV set, Nem opted for lonely walks where he could indulge his passion for photography, until the night he saw Nicholas, a young professor from London, with another male student. The affair is passionate and brief. When Nicholas returns to London, Nem must move on. He graduates and soon finds success as a critic in New Delhi’s burgeoning art world. Then comes an invitation to speak to artists in London, and the past is suddenly resurrected. As London's cosmopolitan art scene envelops Nem, he is haunted by the possibilities of a life with Nicholas. But Nicholas eludes Nem, avoiding a reunion with his old student, but leaving clues that lead to someone else: Myra, a woman Nem thought was Nicholas's sister. Brought together by their love for Nicholas, Nem and Myra embark on a surprising friendship.

Janice Pariat explores the concept of emotional memory with the inquisitive mind of a scientist and the prowess of a poet. Rich, immersive prose drives a story with international scope, one that seeks answers to the age-old mystery of what binds us to others, and how we can ever let them go.

"What if that was all we ever wanted? The things that didn't happen."

The Setting & My Introduction To Seahorse:
This November I met one of my virtual book friends for the very FIRST time. Saying I was nervous about the meet-up would be an understatement cause I'm literally Cath from Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell when it comes to meeting new people buuuut this girl, we hit it off instantly. No awk- hi's or hugs. We bought books to swap, duh, of course, we did.
I gave her three of my precious, Twenty love poems by Pablo Neruda, The Shadow Of The Wind and our prev club pick, The Illicit Happiness Of Other People.
She gave me Water For Elephants, The Year Of Runaways and Seahorse.
Being the kind of confused soul that I am, I spent an entire week, yes, an entire week and I'm not even exaggerating or kidding - to decide which book I should start with.
I was just going through Seahorse, glancing at the first lines and before I know it, I'm on page 10. Like whaaaat even!

"We are shaped by absence. The places that escape our travels, the things we choose not to do, the people we've lost. They are spaces in trellis on which we trail from season to season."

Review:
This book ranks second on my Fav book beginnings (First being, Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts)
And so it began, my love affair with this beautiful book.
This book is the definition of beautiful writing. It's glorious. Yes, glorious.
I literally marked every alternate page for the quotes that I liked. loved.
The author seamlessly shifts between the past and present. New Delhi and UK, leaving us in wonder and awe.
You'll fall in love with Delhi's summers and London's bleak days. That is how good it is.
It is a story about incomplete, open gaping wounds. About the love of your life leaving without a goodbye or explanation. Just vanishes. Leaving you wounded. And forever trapped in past.
All those feels wrapped up in this book.
I did enjoy the story but was too busy admiring the writing to actually connect/relate to the story or characters. Having said that, you should definitely pick this book up. I'm not kidding when I say it has gems embedded in it. So go get your treasure chest in the form of this book.

Bite-sized Review: Beautiful, mesmerizing prose.

Also, click here to check the book trailer out.


"We treasure the incomplete, for it lends us many lives - the one we lead and the million others we could have led. We are creatures of inconsistency. Passionately partial. Unexecuted. Unperformed. Undone. Unaccomplished. And un-concluded."

Book Blast: When Our Worlds Collide by Aniesha Brahma

About the Book:

Akriti has led a pretty much sheltered life. 

Zayn has been shuttled from city to city when he was growing up. 

She is comfortable watching her life from the sidelines. 

He wants to feel rooted to a place he can call ‘home’. 

They meet each other quite by chance. 

And both seize the chance to be someone they both need in their lives: 

For Zayn, it’s a 'Partner-In-Crime'. 

For Akriti, someone who just knows how to be there for her… 

When their worlds collide, 

It is not what either of them expected it to be. 

Zayn has a steady girlfriend. And Akriti has a crush on him. 

What happens when these two become friends? 

The biggest adventure of their lives? Or the road to heartbreak? 

What happens when two completely different people collide? 

Do they become friends? Or, is their friendship doomed from the start? 

'When Our Worlds Collide' is the story of two twenty-three-year olds, Who are finally growing up and finding their feet in the world. 

A tale of friendship and love, crushes and betrayals, messes and second chances, Marriage and divorce… and the elusive happily ever after! 


Book Links:

Goodreads I Amazon

What inspired When Our Worlds Collide? 

(Background of how I came up with the plot.)

I guess the thing that I intrigued me was the fact that it’s not always about the happy ending. Sometimes, it just the story that is more important. Because if every girl who fell in love with a guy, got her feelings reciprocated and rode off into the sunset, it wouldn’t be real life. It would be a fairy tale. I did not want to write a fairy tale. I wanted to write a story that seems real, that people could relate to.



So I thought about this girl called Akriti who develops a crazy crush on a guy she meets quite by accident. She realizes later on that she would never act on those feelings because he has a girlfriend. A girlfriend that I did not put in the story as an obstacle, but as something that is very much a part of our lives. How often have you heard the joke, “everyone I like is either gay or taken?”



When I first began to paint Zayn with words, he was not called Zayn. He was called Piyush. In a short story called, “The Walk” (which is up on my blog), Akriti and Piyush take an evening stroll through Gariahat, talking nineteen-to-the-dozen. But once I concluded that short story, I felt as though there was more to their story. They could not just be friends who met up, walked and talked.

I began to piece together their histories, how their lives would intertwine with each other, how they would be drawn to each other’s lives like magnets against all odds. I wrote out the entire plot outline, added the secondary characters of Ayoub, Suzanna and Surbhi. (Each of them scheduled to appear for an interview of their own on my blog.)



Akriti and Zayn’s story basically tests the limits of their friendship. I am sure people can relate to it. They would be able to relate to the drama, the fun and the heartbreak that accompanies crushing on your friend.



After fleshing out the story a little, I decided to do something that I had never done in my earlier works. I decided to introduce characters from another work of fiction of mine in this story. The other novella would then act as a companion to this novella. So, that was a lot of fun. We will let you guess who those characters might be because we want readers to tell us who they want to read about next!

A question that I am sure will be asked of me is if this story was based on real life. Well, I am always inspired by real life. In fact, sometimes I put people I know into my stories. One such example for this particular tale is Suzanna was inspired by Diptee di, and she picked out the name herself. Although she named her character after the Suzanna from Ruskin Bond’s short story and novella, Susanna’s Seven Husbands. I just insisted on using a different spelling.



As for who Akriti, Zayn and Ayoub are based on: well, some elements for Akriti were borrowed from some pretty women I know. Ayoub was a figment of my imagination, and Zayn had been based in part on someone that I used to know. But my imagination made him into someone I wanted him to be. Not the person that he really was.



Coming back to When Our Worlds Collide, I was determined to tell the story of a mad crush and how it ends realistically in the story. Do they get their fairy tale happy ending or don’t they? You will just have to read the novella yourself to find out.



About the Author:

Aniesha Brahma knew she wanted to be a writer since she was six years old. She was schooled in Dolna Day School and went on to pursue B.A., M.A., and M.Phil in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur Univeristy. She currently lives in Kolkata, with her family and five pet cats. The Secret Proposal was her debut novel, followed by The Guitar Girl. She was a contributing author with her story The Difference, in the anthology: Voices, Old & New. When Our Worlds Collide is her third work of fiction, and first novella.

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