Blog 'Weak' : Book Review - Granta 123 + The Wildings - Back to Back

1.

Granta would definitely have to be one book I'll remember for a long time. Both for the imprint-leaving stories and the fact that the imprinting process was a painfully long one.

--- Barker, Barnes, Hollinghurst, Ishiguro, Mitchell, Rushdie, Smith, Tremain, Winterson . . . Long before they were household names, they were Granta Best of Young British Novelists.

With each Young Novelist list — in 1983, 1993, and 2003 — came new ways of witnessing the world, introductions to unforgettable characters and mysterious and addictive voices. In 2013, thirty years after the first collection, the magazine asked once again: which writers are setting the bar for a new decade in British literature? ---

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Granta 123 : Best Of Young British Novelists 4
By Various Authors
240pp | Granta Publications
$13.33 | Rs799
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Yes, as much as I don't want to say this, Granta 123 would have to be the longest book, in the sense that it took me 4 months to complete it. It was not that the book did not have good stories or writers, it was after all a collection of Britain's best novelists. It was something else, read on. 

In its fourth avatar, this decennial edition of Granta, which has earlier predicted, and quite impressively, some of the Britain's best future crop of novelists to the likes of Julian Barnes, Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan, can indeed be called as a true reflection of the country's changing literary scene. You can guess, just by looking at the index, how wide and encompassing different cultures and identities it has become. It would not be wrong to say that it is for sure, in a never before state right now.

The magazine, both in content and authors' profile is startlingly diverse. Something which apparently came about while the short-listing of the stories were done as the editor, John Freeman says that he and other people involved were really pleasantly surprised given it wasn't even intended. And one would find that the entries by Kamila Shamsie, Taiye Selasi, Sunjeev Sahota, Xiaolu Guo, David Szalay embody this diversity through their distinct subjects and varied styles, in each story. 

The freshness that you would expect by looking at the cover which depicts an non-hatched egg on a trophy and the colour pink, is totally exemplified in such stories as by Adam Thirlwell, Naomi Alderman and Steven Hall which talk about contemporary issues and humours interestingly. But beyond those, sadly, even if the freshness is still there, the curse of complexity strikes. The stories become increasingly boring, mostly because they are written in a deliberate non-expressive, unemotional style as contemporary stories are written these days. 

Maybe it's just me who is not a very big fan of contemporary fiction or maybe the stories are indeed not the best works of the respective authors but what comes out in the end is that although the settings and writing is clever, many of the stories, as they are random chapters from the writers' unreleased works, require a little too much work from the reader and which takes a little more than just a pinch of interest out of the stories.

I am definitely being a little biased here, given my hard work of fourth months, when I give the magazine/book 3/5 stars. Credit for this too mostly goes to Adam Thirlwell and Noami Alderman. I would recommend the book to contemporary fiction lovers and aspiring creative writers.

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2.

The Wildings treads into unexplored/less-explored territory and carves a path so colourful and exciting and interesting that it becomes near impossible to not come out triumphed

--- A small band of cats lives in the labyrinthine alleys and ruins of Nizamuddin, an old neighbourhood in Delhi. Miao, the clan elder, a wise, grave Siamese; Katar, a cat loved by his followers and feared by his enemies; Hulo, the great warrior tom; Beraal, the beautiful queen, swift and deadly when challenged; Southpaw, the kitten whose curiosity can always be counted on to get him into trouble… 

Unfettered and wild, these and the other members of the tribe fear no one, go where they will, and do as they please. Until, one day, a terrified orange-coloured kitten with monsoon green eyes and remarkable powers, lands in their midst—setting off a series of extraordinary events that will change their world forever. ---

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The Wildings
By Nilanjana Roy
312pp | Aleph Book Company
$37.58 | Rs595
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Wildings starts with the arrival of an outsider cat Mara, a kitten rescued and brought in by the Bigfeet(humans) in the territory of the 'alley' cats(the wildings) of old Nizamuddin and nearby places. The little kitten's arrival sends the wildings into a tizzy as they discover that she has some serious sending powers, which are basically the ability to connect to anyone's whisker transmission lines and send messages on them far and wide. We find out what the wildings do about this unique situation and how it affects them in the end.

Although the book is about cats, it also wings in the other common city animals and the wildings' relation and truce with the local dogs, cheels, mongoose and other hunters is presented in a very interesting way, almost like a fairy tale at places. The characters of Miao, Katar, Beraal, Hulo, Jethro- the mouse, Tooth- the cheel, and of-course of Southpaw and Mara, the cute and adorable kittens are so memorable that it is difficult to see these animals around you the same way as before after reading this book.

It is undoubtedly a tale that works its charm and makes you fall in love with the cats with a whole new understanding of the feline population. The writer, Nilanjana Roy has written, with the most excitingly imaginative and crisp narration, a book which bursts with life. The work done, the attention paid to the littlest of things, the adorable antics of cats and the detail about how they behave make the book truly interesting and lovable.

In fact, from the very first pages, The Wildings draws you in with the promise of an exciting, innocent and amazingly creative tale which it delivers so well that by the end of the book, you are completely and totally in love with the book, its characters and cats. And this is irrespective of whether you were a cat lover before reading it or not. 

This would have to be the first book in not just many moons but many summers, which made me absolutely fall in love with it and leave me in a state of awe by the author's imagination. There was not a single thing that I did not like about the book, I was just pure awesome. I would give it 5/5 and I'd suggest it to any and everybody.

P.S: Thanks you Ashna, for suggesting and lending me the book ^_^ 

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Disclaimer: The links to the online shopping stores in the review are for quoting purposes only and do not mean that they offer the best price. Nor do they imply any sort of recommendation from me.

Cover pics from Google and Goodreads respectively.