Tandia

A novel that I love is The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay. I can't remember if I wrote about it before, but it is a lovely novel about a young white English boy Peekay growing up in South Africa. Courtenay himself was born in South Africa and then immigrated to Australia. The Power of One was his first novel and it won lots of awards - I think they adapted it to film as well.
The sequel to The Power of One is called Tandia which was impossible to find in US. I had already read it a long time ago and I really wanted to reread it. Anyway I finally managed to get it on eBay from this Australian bookshop. The book is finally in my hands and i am reading it slowly to enjoy it. [Side Note: I do that sometimes, do something slowly to elongate the pleasure. The funniest one is my Firefly first season which I still haven't seen the last 3 episodes because I don't want them to finish!! Of course it's been so long since I last watched them that I have forgotten what was happening!!! :-P ]
Ok back to Tandia. While I was trying to find the book I read more about the life of Courtenay and the critiques of Tandia - I found out that Tandia was not as well received as The Power of One, even though there was a lot of expectations. It seems that almost immediate after The Power of One was published, Courtenay's family found out that his son was diagnosed with AIDS due to a blood transfusion and he died within a year or so. Meanwhile the publishers were pushing Courtenay to meet his deadline for Tandia and so... well that might be a definite reason why Tandia is not up to the same caliber as the earlier novel. So now while I read Tandia I keep thinking about the hell that Courtenay must have been going thru as he was writing Tandia. How can you be creative when something like this is going on? I don't know.
As a final aside, Courtenay has a bunch of other books which I have bought maybe 5 of. One of them is called April Fool's Day and is about the son who contracted AIDS and the days leading up to his death. The son died on April Fool's Day. what a day.
That is not a good day for anyone.

Yann Martel

On my last visit to the library, I saw Life of Pi by Yann Martel on the bookshelves. I picked it up and sat down and reread the last 40 pages of the story - it is such a wonderful book and all the emotions that I went through went I first read it came upon me again. It was so sad and so hopeful and so.. I am not sure. Last time I had decided i would believe the story of the animals but this time, I don't why but I believed the story of the humans. Does that say something about my frame of mind?

I went in search of other books by Martel and I found a collection of 4 short stories entitled The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, which is actually the name of the first novella. I read that story on the plane on Friday and it is another extremely well written, emotional and insightful story. There were a couple of passages which really hit home for me, some expressions which were beautiful to read.

The story is told by a young man in college, whose friend is diagnosed with AIDS. The story describes the last few months of the friend's life that the story teller shares.
Here are some passages from the book which I loved:

"He puffs out his story weakly. I feel each breath against my cheek. I have so much energy compared to him, so much good health. It feels arrogant. To atone, I do the equivalent of what people are very tall do: I go about with stooped health."

Another passage describes the act of walking a dog as "giving purpose to aimlessness".

Finally, the last is a long passage which I will write later. It is long and I feel offers so much insight and reflects my feelings. It is interesting that Yann Martel has only three books out. I would really like to read more of his stuff. If you read his bio as well, he seems like a very interesting and well traveled man - he has even been to Iran!! Anyway I really recommend everyone to read his books :-)