Two Lives- All Done!

I’m finally DONE with Vikram Seth’s ‘Two Lives’. I think it’ll be a while before I can bring myself to pick up a biography again. The story was a bit slow, detailing the author’s Aunt and Uncle’s lives before, during, and after World War II, she a German Jew during the Holocaust, he a dentist working for the British Army. The parts pertaining to the war, and the recovery period after it was very compelling, but the long list of friends and relatives, the hot and cold of relationships was a bit wearying to go through.

Another book I recently read concerning the Holocaust was ‘Briar Rose’ by Jane Yolen. It was my cousin who gave me the book, and it was from her school library. I was rather surprised to hear that it had been in the children’s section. Though it was based on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, I thought it dealt with some ideas that are far too disturbing for a child to read. But then again ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ is considered children’s literature by many, I read it when I was about eleven myself, and I don’t think this one is that much harder to read.

One point that made an impression on me in both Briar Rose and in ‘Two Lives’ , was that they both dealt with the fact that the trials and tribulations of the victims did not end with the war. Even afterwards they had to cope with massive bureaucracies, and just the unwillingness of people to admit that they had been wronged – because to admit that would mean admitting that they had to make reparation, perhaps giving up some of what they had gained, even if not directly, then indirectly through the oppression of others.

Now, the next book on my agenda is Schindler’s List. It’s another of those books I have always been meaning to read, but never got to reading.

One more book I quickly got through, over the weekend, was ‘The Prisoner of Zenda’. It was as good as I remembered, but compared to some of the other books I was reading, felt a bit soap-opera-esque or fairytale-ish, though its not really a happy ending…

That brings me to other books I want to re-read. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame for one, then Wuthering Heights. I only remember the vaguest details of the plots of these books. I read them when I was in sixth standard, in my room, with the door locked so that no one could see what I was actually doing when I was supposed to be studying.