M. Verne, où étiez-vous?

You won’t find me glued to Discovery Channel or National Geographic to glean knowledge which is potentially useless to me. (For eg Whale is a mammal or how the world’s largest bridge was constructed and so on.)

But the latest book by Jeffrey Archer made me search for Mount Everest on Wikipedia and devour all the information. Now I could tell you that climbing “Second Step” is most vital, while “First Step” is relatively simple; or that Mount Everest is called “Chomolungma” which means “Goddess Mother Earth” in Tibetian; bla bla bla…

 

 

As you would have guessed by now, the book is about Mount Everest. Well, partially true. It is about an extraordinary British mountaineer George Mellory, who tried to stand on top of the world in the year 1924. He never reached back safely. His body was found later and the mountaineering community stands divided whether he reached the top or not. Archer takes the view that he did reach the top and died on his way down.

The book contains all of the Archer pyrotechnics. A protagonist studied in a British Public School, later goes to either Oxford or Cambridge and obtains great heights in his later life. He has a rival and invariably wins over him, at cost of something the better not lose. The end is mollifying for the reader in the sense that the protagonist gets either what he has endeavored for or gets what he deserves.

Well, Archer keeps you glued.  If you are an Archer Fan, go for it.

It’s surprising that Jules Verne never thought about writing about Mount Everest (or for that matter about any mountain).  Verne wrote about travelling to moon (From the Earth to the Moon), traversing the then unexplored continent – Africa – using a balloon (Five Weeks in a Balloon) or going down the sea in a submarine (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea).

Some would argue that Jules Verne died in 1905 while first attempt on Mount Everest was made in 1921. But such petty difficulties never bothered Monsieur Verne. He imagined submarine and space travel nearly a century before it was a reality! Nonetheless, existence of Mount Everest was known from 1847.

If Verne would have written about accession to Mount Everest, the book would have been different than the Archer one. It would have involved a determined protagonist whose life’s dream is to climb atop the highest point in the world (like Hatteras the North Pole guy) and his friend (like Doctor in North Pole expedition) or servant (like Passeportu in Round the World in 80 Days) who will selflessly help him in this endeavor. Most probably he would have been a Sherpa. There would be detailed description of geology and flora and fauna of the Everest region. At some point of time the task would have appeared impossible, but due to tremendous courage of the protagonist and help by his friend/servant, he would make it possible. Last minute miracle of nature would make it possible!!

Alas! This was not to be…

–

Aditya J Panse

Book Review – Tales of Beedle the Bard

I was waiting for “The tales of Beedle the Bard” for quite some time. Finally bought it this Sunday from Odyssey ( Old faithful Crossword let me down on this one). This is the third book in the Harry Potter peripheral series after “Quidditch through the ages” and “Magnificent magical beasts and where to find them”.

About the book,  each of the five stories /fables have a sort of review written through Albus Dumbledore. So if one were to write a review it would be a review of a review. Also, introduction written by JKR is too well worded for me to add anything.  Except for “The Warlock’s Hairy Heart” all the stories have an  happily-ever-after-ish ending. The stories illustrate the reason why Harry Potter series is popular in the first place in that magic is only a framework  in which all the realities of life such as autocratic and racial supremacist dictators, filthy rich spoilt brats, honest and hardworking people and traitors exist. The ‘muggle’ children rave about bikes, wizards rave about broomsticks. Another speciality of Rowling is that she treats children in a very non-patronising way as independent human beings capable of thinking for themselves.

The notes by Albus Dumbledore at the end of each story merit a separate review by themselves. They are interspersed with excerpts from HP books and some great humour of Wodehousean vintage.  Sample this .

“ My response prompted several further letters from Mr. Malfoy, but as they consisted mainly of opprobrious remarks on my sanity, parentage and hygiene, their relevance to this commentary is remote.”

There are also a lot of  inside jokes such as Aberforth Dumbledore favouring the tale of Grumble the Grubby Goat over the tale of Three Brothers prompting similes like “It attracts trouble as Grumble the Grubby Goat attracts flies”.

There are also some Oscar Wilde like comments such as “ As the eminent wizarding philosopher Bertrand de Pensѐes-Profondes ( Freanch for Bertrand the profound thinker) writes in his celebrated work A Study into the Possibility of Reversing the Actual and Metaphysical Effects of Natural Death,with Particular Regard to the Reintegration of Essence and Matter: ‘ Give it up. It’s never going to happen’”

All this makes a great reading for HP diehards like yours truly; indeed I have read the book twice in two days.  The cost might be a inhibiting factor though, labeled at Rs. 599/- it is a bit steep. Odyssey is offering it at 385/-. Though for aficionados, anything with the master’s touch is priceless.