...or so I think, but then who knows, given that the first SMS novel has already been done in China. My friend Amrita (whose SMSs give me hope that text messaging might yet coexist peaceably with traditional use of the English language) sent me the following appraisal of Alexander, spread over 3 multi-part messages:
"The visual glories were all in place, but the movie is catastrophically silly in many ways. The India bits, the constantly roaring phalanxes, the fashionable bathhouse gayness, Jolie as Russian Jew mama, the Band of Boys feel of the war scenes. I am sure Oliver Stone is an early Hindi film buff, seeing as how Alexander’s horse is mysteriously transmuted to a black Airavat in size and aerodynamic agility in the face-off with Porus, and how that whole battle scene has been shot through a cheap sindoor-tinted filter. And was his wife Roxanna Persian or Rosario Dawson? I mean, it’s one thing for Peter Brook to cast Japanese and Nigerian actors in something like The Mahabharat because it’s a story with a universal set of themes.. But here is Stone who doesn’t know not to mix up verisimilitude with kitsch PC.
But please leave my name off your blog or there will be a contract on me for antiSemitism, antiRussism, homophobia and colorism."
Alack, I didn’t.
Don't remember what you'd written on The Maharaja Of Connemara in your review, but I just finished reading it and was utterly disappointed. I realise how the 'information' about this little known or unknown part of Ranji's life is an interesting revelation, but it certainly didn't merit a book. Shite - at best a longish feature story in a newspaper. 80 per cent of the book is padding, mate.
ReplyDeleteYa, on reflection I was over-kind to it in my review. Think I got carried away because here was a biography that tried to focus on the less-talked-about aspects of a famous personality's life. And as you know, I'm a bit ho-hummish about conventional non-fiction. But yes, 80 per cent was padding alright.
ReplyDeleteTry to read Colm Toibin's The Master though. Even if you haven't read Henry James.