Author Archives: Delia

Today I’m very happy to introduce this month’s guest blogger, Priya, who blogs over at Tabula Rasa. I’m a frequent visitor to her blog – in addition to reviewing novels she has reviewed poetry, wrote a post about music recently, and although she has not mentioned this, she is a writer. I really enjoyed reading her short story, The Dew Eagle which you can read online here.

1. Who are you?

My name is Priya, which means beloved in Sanskrit. It is a painfully common name here in India, a fact that used to bother me until I discovered that it shares linguistic roots with the name of the Norse goddess of love, Frejya or Frigg. I was further delighted to read that Frejya rode a carriage driven by cats. Scandinavian myths are a new hobby and the mythology section of the campus library is my favourite haunt. A twenty-something language buff, I am a year into a Master’s in Linguistics. I love to read and once had a friend introduce me to a group with the line, “She eats books for breakfast.” For a cat-lover, I am quiet as a mouse and rather fond of comfort zones. I am a TV addict, devouring everything from Downton Abbey to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I am a passionate doodler, a daydreamer and a closet believer-in-magic.

2. Why do you blog and what is your blog about?

Tabula Rasa did not start out as a book blog. But because my life is largely composed of books, it was only natural for my passion for reading to eventually take over my writing space. Tabula Rasa turns five this month, and it has gone through many changes over the years. But peel off all the layers and you will find that it is still just a cozy place for me to find my voice.

3. Favorite books/authors/genres.

J. K. Rowling, Sir Terry Pratchett, Stephen King. These three have more in common than being writers of genre fiction. Their books are sincere, passionate and they have created worlds I care about as much as, and sometimes more than, my own. All three traverse uncharted areas of the mind, shine a light of hope in its darkest corners and most strikingly, often and with great insight, wield humour to combat its deepest terrors.

4. Kindle or paper book?

Every time this debate fires up, I want to remind people that it is the story that matters, not where it is written. I would read Harry Potter on eggshells! I have begun to embrace the handy Kindle lately, with the convenience of a lit screen and the harmless virtual highlighter. However, this is not to say that there aren’t days when I crave the smell of old paper and the coarse touch of a worn dust jacket… I guess a part of me will always remain old school.

5. Three things you learned from a book.

1. The Book of Brownies by Enid Blyton is a story of three friends who are tricked by a witch into kidnapping the King’s daughter. Banished from the Brownieland, they set out to rescue her. This was my first foray into fantasy. I do not claim to have understood either the nature or power of magic at the age of seven, but I do remember the conviction that I had stumbled upon something big. Soon, I developed a near-reverence for Blyton’s stories and idly dreamt of tea parties for pixies and fountains of lemonade.
Blyton taught me this – reading fantasy is like taking your mind to the gym. It is a crucial exercise that will strengthen your mind, stretch its horizons. Growing up, you will have hurtling towards you truckloads of knowledge, big facts and unshakeable emotions. School will offer convenient explanations for some, solutions that you can pack away in neat little compartments of your head. But fantasy will teach you to accept and love that not every problem has an answer.
Fantasy gave me, early on, the curiosity essential for learning even as it made me comfortable with the inexplicable. Years later, when Terry Pratchett told me that humans need fantasy to believe, to be human, he put into words an idea that had struck me at seven.
2. I learnt the significance of the written word from Possession by A.S. Byatt, which made me see the good in keeping records of life’s seeming inconsequentialities. Byatt inspired me to maintain a (fairly consistent) diary. I will never stop thanking her for it.
3. Joining a book club made me realize, on the very first meeting I attended, that sharing your experience of reading a book makes it at least twice as pleasurable. The book in question was Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I have always had issues with it, and while the discussion did not drive all of those away, it did introduce a myriad little details I had missed and allusions I had failed to draw. Readers are like snowflakes, no two are alike, and each one will add something of his own to the interpretation of a book. That was also the day I heard someone state that the aim of the club was not to critique books, but to admire them; this, I fashioned into my blog motto.

6. Best book to take with you on a desert island.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel. The book is more than an entertaining adventure. It is spiritual and cynical, offers both hope and an essential reality check. More than anything, it cheekily toys with your conception of truth. Pi Patel is an intriguing character and Yann Martel is a genius world-builder. Really, what better story to read on a deserted island than that of a boy who survived two hundred and twenty seven harrowing days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger?

7. Favorite quotes.

I have always found Ray Bradbury to be full of this kind of sharp and delicate wisdom that forever sticks with you. I haven’t read nearly enough by him.

Life in the end seemed a prank of such size you could only stand off at this end of the corridor to note its meaningless length and its quite unnecessary height, a mountain built to such ridiculous immensities you were dwarfed in its shadow and mocking of its pomp.

– Something Wicked This Way Comes –

It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.

– Fahrenheit 451 –

We never sit anything out. We are cups, quietly and constantly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

– Zen in the Art of Writing –

8. Three tips for writers.

I am no expert, the only thing I can attest for is consistency. I learned this from Ray Bradbury, who says you must collect all ideas you get and try to finish one piece (story, if you are a fiction writer) a week. Practice certainly made me better. So here is my tip – read what writers you admire have to say. Stephen King tells you to read, for every good writer is a reader. Even he insists on consistency, telling you not to wait around for the muse to appear. Neil Gaiman thinks that so long as you write with honesty and confidence, there are no rules. He basically tells you to set your own rules, which is the best and hardest advice you will ever get.

9. What are you most passionate about?

I am passionate about language and how it creates and shapes thought. I am also passionate about teaching, especially children. I rarely talk about the latter on my blog, as I have not yet fully explored it. But I do believe one of the greatest pleasures in life is witnessing that moment of understanding in a kid’s eyes, catching the expression as it travels from dazed confusion to twinkling clarity.

10. Last book that made you cry.

I surprised myself last year when I teared up reading The Iliad. Admittedly, some of it may have been because I had made it through to the end, a feat I had deemed impossible. The Iliad presented a tense build up to its final showdown. It had been predicted from the start that Achilles would kill Hector, but even so, when it happened, Hector’s death hit hard. I was alone at home and had been reading aloud to myself, when I choked up. I could only imagine the stunning response the scene must have invoked in a live audience and found a new admiration for the style of narration.
The King and Queen of Troy react to their son’s murder in typical Greek-epic fashion, with wailing monologues. But it was the scene when Hector’s wife hears his mother’s cry that I found truly heartbreaking. Andromache is in a chamber, ordering her maids to heat a bath for Hector when he arrives, when she hears the commotion and runs out. The page ended with these lines:

“On reaching the great tower and the soldiers,
Andromache stood gazing from the wall
and saw him dragged before the city.
Chariot-horses at a brutal gallop
pulled the torn body toward the decked ships.
Blackness of night covered her eyes; she fell”

My tears resumed at the end when the Trojan King begged Achilles for Hector’s body, and he complied. I once met an English professor who waxed eloquent about the emotional strength of the Indian epics in contrast with the Greek ones, especially that of the Mahabharata, which is ten times the length of Homer’s works. If I ever meet the professor again, I would ask him to go back and read this.

There is a book I have been meaning to read, called Memorial: An Excavation of the Iliad by Alice Oswald. The book, which sounds intense and lyrical, is a translation of the Iliad, chronicling all the deaths leading up to Hector’s. Here is a reading from it:

11. Ask me a question.
Which is your earliest or fondest book-related memory?

I have so many great book-related memories that is difficult to choose just one. I used to read Jules Verne and westerns and Romanian folktales, but one book I loved very much and I would read again and again was a translated old copy of world myths. I remember the first letter of each story was an elaborate composition of curls and lines, such as you would find in a book of fairy-tales and each story had pictures. That’s how I found out about Gilgamesh, Tristan and Yseult, El Cid, Gudrun, Siegfried and Brunhilde, and King Arthur. It’s amazing how the books of our childhood stay with us for a long time. To this day I love stories based on myths and fairy-tales.

Today I’m pleased to post an interview with Brian, who blogs at Babbling Books. He loves the classics, Shakespeare in particular, and what I love about his reviews is that they reflect not only his opinion, but a desire to go beyond the words and into the heart of the writing itself.

1. Who are you?

First, I am a person who is all about relationships with people in my life. My wife, my family and my friends mean everything to me. They come before everything else.
Second, I am about morality and ethics. Trying to do what is right and absolutely essential to who I am. I do not look to a divine power for guidance here, instead it is based upon my own reason and feeling.
Next, I am a conscious being who strives to understand the Universe and humanity’s place in it. This means I am always curious and always learning about science, especially the “big questions”, as well as history, art, literature, philosophy and lots of other stuff.
All of the above sounds very serious. I am also a person who likes to enjoy life, including some of life’s material aspects. I really like having fun!

2. Why do you blog and what is your blog about?

I started a blog because I wanted to be heard. I love to share my ideas. As reading is my primary life’s hobby, and because I can relate reading to just about all my three interests, I choose book blogging. Of course it is not all about me; the interactions with others relating to my blog, and to reading, are an essential reason for my blogging. I do this via my comments section, through email, twitter, etc. This communication with others is so valuable and rewarding, it alone would make blogging worth it.

3. Who are your 3 favorite authors?

My favorite authors are:
William Shakespeare who is incomparably great. His characters, themes, language and humanity are so rich and unequaled by anyone else.

Hermann Hesse is admittedly a flawed writer who probably does not belong in an objective list of all time great authors. Yet his explorations of the human personality as they relate to history, art and human existence are right up my alley. He pushes all the right buttons for me. Thus for personal reasons he is among my favorites.

Albert Camus depicts a secular and gloomy view of existence that is infused with compassion and caring for other humans. This odd mix just does it for me.
Honorable mention to Anthony Trollope – I am tempted to add him as a fourth name. I find that his depictions of people and their interactions may be the most realistic out of all the authors that I have ever read. I really need to read more of his books before I actually put him on the list.

4. Kindle or paper book?

This is an enormously controversial subject! Though this confession may vex some of my friends, I must sheepishly admit that I love e-readers. When using one, I take a lot of notes and highlight text. I would never do this with a real book, as this would damage the tome. In addition the cutting and pasting feature is invaluable when including quotes in blog posts. Of course being able to order or download a book whenever I want it is so very advantageous.
Folks often mention that they lose the aesthetic feel of a book when using an e-reader. I confess that I find it difficult to appreciate the aesthetics of a paperback or even a low cost hardcover. I do appreciate aesthetics of higher quality hardcovers. However I really cannot afford to collect those anyway.

Though I know that sales of old fashioned books have stabilized, I am not sure that low cost physical books will survive indefinitely in the digital age. I do foresee a possible future where people mostly read digital books but where some people maintain collections of high quality hard bound books. I am thinking of something similar to the way that some folks have gone back to collecting vinyl records with high quality packaging.

5. Best book to take with you on a desert island.

I tried to come up with something intellectually rich and comprehensive. Obviously I would want my choice to be long so I choose “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare”.

6. Best book to use as a doorstop.

Though I think that there are a lot of bad books out there, I would contend that the worst books champion ideas that are detrimental to people and society. I must first note that I am not in favor of censorship or the suppression of ideas. I am in favor of criticizing certain ideas however.

I choose two Ayn Rand Novels as doorstops. They are “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead”. In certain quarters, particularly in the United States, these books, as well as Rand’s ideology, exemplified by these novels, are all the rage. The books simplistically categorize all group efforts, particularly efforts initiated by the government, as “collectivism”. Furthermore such group efforts are depicted as harmful to human well-being. Furthermore the books espouse an extremely narcissistic and cold form of individuality, over all other human values. Rand goes even further and tends to demonize characters – those who do not adhere to her dogma. These days this ideology is having an extremely strong influence in American government and politics and is helping to drive really bad and extreme political and social decisions. Though occasionally insightful, the ideas here are more often sophomoric. As final word on these books, I must mention that I find Rand’s storytelling skills to be downright awful.

7. Favorite quotes

Carl Sagan from “Pale Blue Dot”.
The below quote refers to a picture of the earth taken from the Voyager 1 spacecraft when it was four billion miles from Earth. In the picture the Earth is just a speck.

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The below quote is from William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. I am not always so nihilistic about life as this quote implies, but I do think it does put some things into perspective.

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

8. Three tips for book bloggers.

1. Write as much or as little as you want. It is your blog.
2. Even if you are blogging about a limited subject, strive to express something about your beliefs and feelings about life and other important ideas into your blog. This is your chance to be heard.
3. Reach out. There is a dynamic and friendly blogging community out there. Engage with others. Comment on the blogs of others. Consider guest blogging or inviting others to write posts on your site. Join in on reading events, read along events, etc.

9. What are you most passionate about?

I tend to be passionate about social and political issues. These are the things that affect the most people. It is in these areas where much of our morality is played out. Though I believe that my views are moderate and reasoned, I feel very strongly about them and I am not shy about expressing them.

10. Last book that made you cry.

Though it was not the last book that made me cry, there is a passage from a book that never fails to make me emotional when I think about it. This is true years after reading it. It comes from “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse. When the main character, Siddhartha, has sunk into the deepest depths of despair as a result of the vacuousness of the world and the hollow life that he has created for himself, he attempts suicide by drowning. As he nears the end he hears the sacred word “Om”, which at least in the context of this story, is symbolic of the harmony and balance inherent of the Universe. At this moment Siddhartha chooses not to die. Though I am not a believer in external spirituality, I do place a high value in finding meaning and strength in life based upon one’s own positive values as they interrelate to the Universe at large. I find this passage to be enormously impactful and affecting in a positive way. Thus, this scene never fails to bring tears to my eyes when I contemplate it.

11. Ask me a question.

What book has influenced you or affected you the most?

That is an easy question because this book is also my favorite – Don Juan by Josef Toman, a Czech author. I love the mix of history, religion, the battle between good and evil and the strong positive message in the second half of the book. I have never met a person who has heard of it or read it, although one or two people have done so at my recommendation. That makes me sad, because it’s an incredibly beautiful book who deserves to be out there next to the best historical fiction. I own a Romanian translation and thanks to a good friend I met in the blogosphere, an English translation from 1958. The book came out in 1944.

My guest for this month’s interview is Caroline who blogs at Beauty is a Sleeping Cat. Her blog is one of my favorites because she writes in a way that makes me want to read most of the books she reviews, even one or two that I started and then abandoned. We also hosted some reading events together, the most recent being Angela Carter Week back in June last year. I was very happy when she agreed to answer the following questions.

1. Who are you?

This is such a difficult question. I wrote three different versions, one worse than the other. The first was an almost philosophical exploration of what “I” means. The second sounded a bit like a job application, and the third gave the impression that all I ever did was reading and failing at not buying more books.
And then I thought of a meme I’ve seen years ago on a few blogs. I liked it so much but never tried it myself. I figured this guest post was a good opportunity. As far as I remember, it was called something like “I’m from”. The idea was that you try a sort of prose poem about yourself and what you like.

I’m from dark purple and rainy days, the pattering of drops on a glass roof, the dawn chorus on a bluish summer morning, from stuffy boudoirs and open spaces. I’m from sleeping cats and playful dogs, from rounded hills and leafy trees, bookshelves as high as cathedral roofs, sacred spaces and noisy pubs, from friendships spend talking until the early morning, from a smile on a dark night on a lonely road. I’m from a lively room and a quiet garden, from a writer’s despair and a reader’s delight. I’m from an old bathrobe and a silky dress, from high heels and bare feet on dewy grass. I’m from a book devoured in three hours and a poem learned by heart. I’m from silver jewelry and lucky charms, and talismans carried in a pocket. I’m from honey milk on sleepless nights, from popcorn while watching a movie, from olives and dates and elaborate meals, from coriander and spices. I’m from a painting of blackberries and African masks, from a song by the Waterboys and a composition by Glass. I’m from magnolia blossoms and the scent of lilac, from fern in the shade and moss under trees. I’m from the murmur of a brook and the wind in the reeds. I’m from saying no when it needs to be heard and yes when that’s what I can give. I’m from walking through Bath and dining in Rome, from book shopping in Paris and sleeping in Brittany. I’m from no parents, no siblings, no relatives, no kids; I’m from a few very close best friends. I’m from a day spent reading and a night at a club. I’m from no God but many saints, from prayers and from song. I’m from melancholy and the jokes of a trickster, from a pun and a curse. I’m from heady perfumes and freshly washed sheets, from a story told by firelight. From a poem by Yeats and a cat on the lap, from an owl’s hoot and bats chasing at twilight. I’m from foggy autumns and yellow leaves, a walk on a graveyard and a phone call late in the night.

2. Why do you blog and what is your blog about?

Initially, my blog was meant to help me stick to a daily writing routine. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to blog about. I have too many interests to stick to one topic only and, finally, I began to write two blogs in parallel. One was a movie blog dedicated to war movies, written in English, the other one was a blog about spirituality, music, and personal essays, written in German. I wrote them both on an almost daily basis for half a year – and still post regularly – before I decided it wasn’t enough. I had to start another English blog, dedicated to “Books, Movies, Cats and Other Treasures”. At first the blog was more varied but then, eventually, it became more and more of a book blog, or rather a blog, in which I review mostly literary books. These days I feel that that isn’t enough anymore. I feel like starting a book blog dedicated to children’s books and another one focusing on genre other than crime. And maybe a blog about writing.

3. Favorite books/authors/genres

My favorite fiction: literary fiction, crime and children’s books.
My favorite nonfiction: memoir, psychology and spirituality.

I don’t think I have a favorite author. Not anymore. It used to be E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Jean Rhys, and Raymond Chandler, but since I’ve read all of their books when I was a teenager and haven’t re-read them, I don’t know if I would still like them as much. I suppose I would.

I’ve loved too many books to pick only a few favorites. I have a list on my blog, in the About section. The books I like the most are those that touch my soul and find their ways into my dreams. Giorgio Bassani’s novel The Garden of the Finzi Contini is one of them and so is Jonathan Coe’s The House of Sleep and Paula Fox’s The God of Nightmares.

I’d like to mention three nonfiction books that have been extremely important to me. They are the type of books I usually don’t review. Ken Wilber’s Grace and Grit, Suzanne Segal’s Collision With the Infinite and Judith Handelsman’s Growing Myself.

4. Best book to take with you on a desert island.

I wouldn’t take a novel. I would take either one of Jiddu Krishnamurti’s books, or one by Ramana Maharshi. Or a book like Barbara Walker’s The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets because it is so full of stories.

5. Best book to use as a doorstop.

I would never use a book as a doorstop. I simply couldn’t. It would feel sacrilegious.

6. Three tips for bloggers.

Enjoy what you are doing and try to write regularly. Whether once a week or daily doesn’t matter, just stick to some routine. Be welcoming and answer comments. Someone has spent time reading what you have to say and was kind enough to leave a comment, so, unless you’re a famous blogger who receives hundreds of comments, you should always try to answer.

7. Best/worst blogging experience.

I’ve had too many great experiences blogging to name just one. I love to organize events and I’m always astonished and happy to see how many people join and contribute.
I also love that I’ve made some extremely good friends. I wish that I might meet them in real life some day.

8. You are also a writer. Tell us more about your books.

I am a writer but I’m not published yet. Until this year that was by choice. I didn’t want to publish too early. I’ve written two novels in German, several dozen short stories, personal essays, thousands of diary pages and a lot more. Then, a few years ago, I realized I didn’t want to write only in German and French anymore. Since then I’ve finished two novels and over a dozen short stories in English. Just like I read in different genres, I write in different genres. My „first love“ will always be literary fiction, but one of my novels is an Urban Fantasy novel, another one is a children’s book. At the moment I’m finishing another children’s book and a book for adults. I’ve also started a crime novel.
A month ago I finally took the plunge and sent out a few query e-mails and submitted some of my short stories to literary magazines. I’m still waiting for answers. The response time, in some cases, can be up to eight weeks or more. I’ve got one negative response, which was still very nice. The agent told me that she thought the book was hard to sell but that she’d be very interested in reading anything else I had to offer. Since she’s one of the top US agents, I’m more than happy.

9. What is your writing routine like? Do you have one?

I write daily, mostly in the mornings, and again later in the afternoon. I try to write at least 1000 words. On good days it’s a lot more. Sometimes less.

10. Four tips for writers.

Write regularly. Daily. Fix yourself a word count and try to stick to it. If you write more – that’s good, but try not to write less.
Don’t show your project or talk about it before it has a shape. If you share too early you might disperse the energy.
Finish your projects. Starting one story/book after the other is a form of procrastination.
Don’t try to publish too early!

11. What are you most passionate about?

Authenticity, compassion, and tolerance. Not just of different skin color or gender but of different styles and different rhythms.

12. Last book that made you cry.

I don’t usually cry because of books, that’s why I’ll always remember the one book that did make me cry. Back when I read it, I was working for an editor, reading foreign language fiction and assessing whether a book would be a good fit for the German market. One of the books the editor sent me was by an English author I’d never heard of, Lucy English. She’s written three novels, one of which, Children of Light, was sent to me. I don’t think I’ve ever been moved emotionally as much by any other book. It’s set in the South of France and in Bath. It contains so much joy and so much heartbreak. It is a truly lovely book. Her second book, Our Dancing Days, was a very emotional read as well. I’ve still kept her first novel Selfish People “for later”. I’m sad that she’s stopped writing and that hardly anyone knows her.

13. Two books that helped me overcome difficult situations.

In the past I’ve often sought solace in books. I distinctly remember two books that I found during extremely difficult moments and which were so helpful. One was a book of short texts by the Japanese author Kenko. Here’s my favorite quote from the book:

It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met…

The other book that was important was Nell by US writer Nancy Thayer. Her novels aren’t exactly literary, they are rather mainstream, but I like her very much. I loved that the character Nell was almost exactly like I was back then.

14. Ask me a question.
Will you stay in Thailand or do you have plans to move somewhere else?

I plan on staying here for now but I don’t see myself living in Thailand forever. I may go back to Europe at some point.