Chaos Pavanred’s Blog ….. Exponential Eroor

Keep off the grass

I just started reading books a few months ago and I must confess I never choose any book that didn’t figure on any “best book” list on the internet. I did the same again this time; I read a lot of reviews and decided to read Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. I ordered for this book on flipkart and that meant a 21 day wait before it is delivered. Meanwhile, I had this book “Keep off the grass” which was a gift from my friend and I figured, anyway I had to wait for a long time so I could read “Keep off the grass” instead. Besides, it’s a small book; it had thick pages and big font.

I began reading this book and most of the book is based in and around IIM-Bangalore, this place is just about a couple of kilometers from my house. It’s a place I have been to a few times for Barcamps, Startup Saturdays etc and I could immediately see what the author was describing.  It’s a wonderful place and now I was getting to know how it is to be in IIM-B as a business school student.

I read on and I must say, I was very impressed and I loved Karan Bajaj’s work. I am guessing I being an Indian and having lived almost all my life in Bangalore must have had some effect in making me feel connected to the characters in the book. I mean the sleepless nights, college study methods, common hangouts, the talk, and the music they listen to and even the tiny things like quoting Gordon Gekko and Bud Fox often. A lot is quite similar to how things actually are here. I could belong in the story.

I loved this book and because it isn’t one of the most popular books, it got me wondering about all the books I have chosen to read till now. I am new to reading and all I do and perhaps what many do is to pick from the “best rated” or “most reviewed” on Amazon or from the “best sellers” stand in a local book store. I could have missed a lot of good books just because some 500 strangers on the internet didn’t like that book. I am not sure how else to make a choice from so many millions but it sure isn’t a good feeling to know that you are so dependent on strangers to make choices in your life.

And, it isn’t just a story of some students in a business school but the book also makes you think and connect to it. Well I can illustrate a few examples, there are pages contemplating if what you chase in life is success as defined by the so called “society” or is it following a dream or happiness. Or, after these mentions of following your dream is it also illustrates that everyone is not blessed with a vision like they wake up one morning and they just know that they were born to be an author. It’s true. I never had any definitive dream goal like that, even if I had, it kept changing always. And what I do now, well I enjoy that too. Would I have enjoyed something more? Frankly, I don’t know. Well, citing these two instances doesn’t even remotely do enough justice to the book. It’s a lot beyond that.

Another thing I enjoyed is how the author feeds the readers with some sense of choice through the story. The protagonist is contemplating some important choices in his life and somewhere between his thought processes there is a list of good books suggested. It’s like stuffing it in your face, use your head and don’t always choose books from the best sellers stand. That’s how some of them got there in the first place.

Good story, good content, good language. Good book.

The Catcher in the Rye

“The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one”

This for sure is the one of the best thing that I can take away from this book. This quote provoked thought, so did a lot of the book, and I must say it’s very true and it perhaps has more to offer than it seems like, just spare a thought. Well, I can say “It killed me”, just as Mr. Salinger’s protagonist; Holden exclaims so often.

To tell the truth, this book isn’t as depressing as it is described in thousands of reviews on the internet. I always make sure I read the negative comments on Amazon before  I choose a book to read. A negative user review of “The Catcher in the Rye“ described this book to be so depressing that the reader couldn’t pursue any further and had to give up reading it. In my opinion, that is quite an overstatement.

Well, the plot is designed that way; a teenage boy just expelled from school spends a day without friends and trying to stay away from his parents and meets some strange people and incidents along the way. Almost every teenager I know is the same, perhaps so was I when I was a teenager – rebellious, angry, believe you have got all life figured out etc. Holden isn’t too different. He is rebellious, he disapproves the phony society and its people; he is supremely confident how he could lead his life by getting away and picking up a job, his dilemmas, his state of mind. He is expelled and is trying to escape from his parents who naturally would be furious. He’s been drinking, smoking and is lonely and trying to beat it. That’s it. I don’t see this extremely depressing; I would say this perhaps is more or less something that everyone can relate to, of course in accordance to their own emotional magnitudes.

It is a very good book, I liked it a lot. It’s almost a cliché now in reviews of this book but I would yet say it again – I would have loved to read this book when I was a teenager.

This is a book has been a part of the American curriculum for quite some time now and it also is one of the books that has been analyzed and reviewed the most. I learnt this when I was researching about this book before I picked it up to read. Well I wouldn’t lie, one of the first reasons I heard about this book and decided to read it was because of its controversial John Lennon connection. Later, I found out it indeed was a classic.

I was curious to know how this book would be analyzed and interpreted and so it drove me to foray into many student forums, discussion threads where there were detailed character plots, assignments and deep analysis of small details in the book and some beautiful metaphors I had missed when I read it. For instance, Holden keeps wondering where the ducks would go when the lake is frozen but in fact he is trying to escape from a place where he doesn’t fit in or Holden’s hunting hat which he used to “shoot” people.

Just read the book. I bet you will like it.