Anya's Musings

Okay, so I’m going to be writing about two of my favorite movies ever. The reason why I’m clubbing these two movies together is because one of them is the sequel to the other and they somehow seem incomplete without each other. Which is, I guess, why the sequel was made in the 1^st place even though it was made and released and set 9 years after the events of the 1^st movie.

Let's get past how melodramatic that title sounds and get to what is really annoying me these days. It really seems that slowly every bookstore in CP is closing down. I cannot imagine why, but there you have it.

Last year, Oxford Bookstore shut down. I loved that place. It was this charming little bookstore in Statesman House building which in itself is rather unique because Delhi, and especially CP, does not have charming little bookstores and certainly not well stocked charming little bookstores. But you, Oxford Bookstore was. It was lined with these beautiful rows and rows of bookshelves and if you went there rather early in the morning, you could just sit in between those shelves and feel calm. And it had the sweetest little kids' section with those tiny chairs and oh, and those adorable books. I think one of things that I loved about that place so much was the coffee, or rather tea shop called Cha Bar attached to the bookstore. Even though you couldn't browse the books while you sat in the Cha Bar, still, how many sweet bookshops are there in Delhi that have a nice, decent and spacious seating space where you can sit & look at the books and stare out of the enormous windows and look at the chaotic city down below. Where? And they tore it down about one year ago. So now when I'm tired & am having one of those days, I don't have a place in CP to feel calm again (the never-ending construction work doesn't help). Initially my friends and I thought that perhaps they were renovating the shop but one year later, I've almost no hopes left for it's reopening.

Another bookstore that shut down is the New Book Store. It was in the inner circle in B block and very convenient to reach, or at least as convenient as it gets in CP. They had rather decent comic books collection. They had a lot of Tintin, Asterix and even those new editions of Archie comics where Archie married Betty & Veronica. They had almost all the Agatha Christie's and a good collection of the classics. But then sometime in I think June last year, that bookstore shut down as well. Apparently (this is what I saw there last year) they were going to move to a new locations "soon" (one year later, I still have no idea where it is) and meanwhile we can order it on there new website. If I had to order a book online, I'd simply use Flipkart, won't I?

Oh then there was this teeny tiny bookstore on top of an Archies Gift Shop in the outer circle which shared it's space with an ice cream parlour. But about two days ago, I discovered that even that has shut down & now only and specifically stocks Children's books. Which was lucky because I wanted to buy The Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton for our next Book Club meeting. But still, what on earth! There will be times when I would want to read books that aren't specifically written for kids.

Of course there still are bookstores in CP. But they are all tucked away in such a corner that most people don't get to know about them. I once couldn't find Mansfield Park anywhere in CP and ended up buying it from a bookstore that claimed only to sell Law Books and Competitive Exam Books going by their display window, but has a somewhat hidden upper floor where they keep fiction! Still, all these shops are set in the old pattern. They are rather, how do you say? Damp? I mean, not damp but you know, they give that feeling. And no seating space. I wish bookstores such as those would come up soon. 

Beauty
Name of the author: Sheri S. Tepper
Genre: Fantasy, Time Travel

 I was roaming around in the Annual World Book Fair in New Delhi earlier this year when I came across this book called Beauty by Sheri S. Tepper. It claimed to be a re-telling of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty & because I like re-tellings of fairy tales I thought "Oh nice", buy it and keep it aside for the readings post exam. Which is now. I finished reading the book yesterday and went like "Whaaaaaa...???"

Beauty begins beautifully in the 14th century. Beauty is a 15 year old child who has never known her mother and a rather uncaring father, the Duke of Westfaire, raised by an assortment of aunts named after herbs and kind servants. It is made clear the minute we, the readers, open the book that we are reading the journal of Beauty. Beauty's world is full of weird aunts who don't really, truly care about her, a father who doesn't even bother to pretend to care about her, a soon-to-be evil stepmother Sibylla (and the stepmother's mother) who is evil even before her marriage to Beauty's father...and servants like Doll and Martin, Dame Blossom and the stable-boys who care about her, a half-sister, Beloved who is dear to her, a rather dear priest she is close to and a crush Giles pointing out that the sympathy of the narrative lies entirely with "commoners". And yet, the protagonist, Beauty, herself had to be the only legitimate daughter of a Duke and a rather important fairy. Yes, you read that correct---fairy. Delightful isn't it? The re-telling of a fairy tale will have real fairies and this will explain the evil fairy gatecrashing the christening and going about the whole curse thing.

Beauty's description of Westfaire is charming, it really is, even though I didn't really understand why the daughter of a Duke who has never stepped out of her county and who lives in the 14th century England writes her journal with a lingo that is so very present day American. And it can't have been written in retrospect---every event in the journal has no mixing up or muddled up thoughts that comes up in memory. Still, overlooked since the narrative is charming and is a nice deviant from the same la-la versions of the original Sleeping Beauty. Beauty isn't a princess for one, her mother is a fairy who leaves her and was unhappy with the husband, her father doesn't give a damn & is a *ahem* rover considering he fathers illegitimate children quite a lot, and the curse does not fall upon Beauty but on Beloved, her half sister (illegitimate) who looks a lot like her, was born on the same birthday, the very same year as Beauty, is a commoner and loves playing the role of Beauty. Beauty and her cat escape the charm/curse because of somethings that the fairy mom sent her.

And then it happens. After that point, I'm not sure I understood what was happening in the novel entirely. I wonder if Tepper herself knew because she certainly didn't articulate it on paper. Out of no where comes a time travel in the plot from 14th century all the way to the 22nd (or was it 23rd?) century. It's odd, it's hard to swallow, but I think maybe it is crucial to the plot. It is not. I've no idea why the time travel was included. It made no sense, took up a lot of time and was rather silly. It seemed like Tepper's outlet to vent out out certain things to do with environmental changes like the death of whales. I don't know. I struggle to deal with the fact that the magical realism is intertwined this weirdly with sci-fi while Beauty along with some of the people in the far away and desolate future (there's no food, no animals, no space and everything, everything goes to a place called Fidipur) go back to the year 1991. In USA. I don't get it. It's just time travel, right? Or do they get to pick the destination? Or does the machine just throw it at them? Beauty was born in England. She ends up in the USA. Anyways, she goes to high school there and later on, college. She's hit on by many men (she is, after all, extremely beautiful), lives off her acquaintances from the future and is home-sick and wishes to be home with her family (except that they're asleep). By the time I get used to all this, another abrupt thing comes up--- Beauty is raped. By the time I reach the end of the novel, my only conclusion is that the abrupt time travel fulfills only two points: 1. To cry about the environmental changes that has nothing to do with the plot and should have been a part of an entirely different book and 2. To get a place where Beauty gets raped, which could have as easily have happened back in the 14th century considering Beauty is to roam around alone (now that her entire estate is asleep for about a 100 years) and is a beauty. Anyways, it is after she gets raped, that she suddenly realises that she has a way of getting back home.

She returns home pregnant and decides to fool and marry a rich man. Which she does. Oh, so much for the beauty that Beauty was trying to celebrate. She gives birth to a baby girl Elladine (named after Beauty's mom), decided she doesn't like her baby because she reminds her of the rapist dad, leaves her husband and child alone to go search for her own mother Elladine. And ends up in an "imaginary" place. I have no idea why this part is even in the book. You could rip the pages out and throw them away and read further and you wouldn't miss much. I struggled to make sense of (a) what the hell was happening and (b) what the hell is the book about, for crying out loud! After a very, very long and rather boring time in that stupid place, she ends up in Yelle (her mom's home) with the fairies, decides she doesn't like it after all, is scared for her life eventually and runs back "home". She reaches as a 35 year old woman. I don't get one thing. Beauty claims to be beautiful inside out. She claims to see beauty in the world. And then she goes ahead to oppose this very fact. She's a lookist and only appreciates outer beauty (and sex factor). She's sad when she returns because she isn't young anymore. I mean....what the hell, woman...and you were judging people who write horror books!

She goes back home to find out that her husband is dead but only after he had married a widow with her own many children. She claims to be an old aunt of some sort of her daughter, Elladine. Elladine's stepmother is rather useless and cannot manage her household well, making the servants lazy. Elladine, or Elly, cleans her own fireplace and goes about carrying ashes to do so. This doesn't make Beauty very happy. She'd rather the "lazy" servants do everything while her daughter washes her hair and looks prettier. She decided to help her daughter by making everyone work for her. And here she was judging the ugliness of the 1990s. Anyway, this is how the tale goes: