Afterglow

Afterglow tells the story of a woman coping with her husband's recent death and having to deal with the pseudo condolences of relatives and neighbors.

It's a short film based on a short story. The original story is by Rohinton Mistry, titled "Condolence Visit". It is part of his collection of short stories "Tales From Firozsha Baag". It is a diploma film by Kaushal Oza (Film and Television Institue of India). It won the Best Indian Film award at 10th Kalpanirjhar International Short Fiction Film Festival.

The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk

I began writing about this book long before I finished it. Halfway through I realized what a momentous feat it would be to get through it. At the end I felt quite a sense of accomplishment.

The book reads less like a movie and more like a TV series. That is to say, missing a few chapters wouldn't throw you off the plot at all. (Mostly since nothing concrete happens.)
It's the story of an older man's obsessive, compulsive, unrequited love for a lower class girl 12 years younger than him.  He begins visiting her house, where she lives with her parents and husband and stealing whatever personal items of hers he can get his hands on to build an odd assorted collection of memories. You might find this deeply romantic or deeply creepy depending on your perspective. 

To truly experience Kemal's 8 years of unrequited love  for Fusin one has to take the long and arduous journey with him (through 600 odd pages). What you get is a collection of symbols and motifs woven together into a story. There are some pieces that are beautiful: assigning each cigarette she has smoked with a part of her personality (which he added to his quirky collection) or the chapter 'sometimes'  (a list of things she does 'sometimes') which itself reads like a museum of moments. 

Pamuk was so obsessed with the idea of a museum he spent his Nobel Prize grant of $1.5 million to set up an actual museum in a 19th century house in Istanbul. You can visit it to pour through everyday items you might find in 1970's Istanbul: old clocks, film clips, soda bottles, clothes of that fashion, and of course a wall of 4,213 cigarette butts. 

 <Spoilers ahead>

Kafka

Franz Kafka is the perfect example of a What the Fuck writer. When you are done with a Kafka story you are filled with an overwhelming feeling of What the Fuck did I just read?

Kafka narrates the absurd in the most everyday language. When a story (Metamorphosis) opens with a man waking up as an insect it's odd. When the man's most important concern is how he is going to get to work that day (it's not easy getting out of bed being a bug) that's absurd.

Bytes from a Culture Vulture

Books, movies, TV shows, plays and more. 

These aren't reviews. They're are mini op-eds.