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Fleeing
the cage has its pains too
Cookie Maini
Desirable Daughters
by Bharati Mukherjee. Rupa, New Delhi. Pages 310, Rs 195.
CLOSE on the heels of
Manju Kapoor’s Difficult Daughters comes Desirable
Daughters by Bharati Mukherjee, at any rate a progression
in the fictional recasting of gender from the earlier title Enslaved
Daughters by Sudhir Chandra. Interestingly, both the
former books are a search for roots, and an endeavour at
mapping gender identities.
Saga
of Dostoevsky's tussle with the ideas of his day
M. L. Raina
Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet, 1871-1881
by Joseph Frank. Princeton University Press, Princeton &
Oxford. Pages: X+784. $35
BORGES
declared in 1922 that 'the self does not exist'. Derrida,
Barthes and Foucault - to say nothing of their current
academic legatees - go cock-a-hoop over the 'death of the
author'. Still, ironically enough, lives of writers, painters
and musicians continue to be written about and published by
up-market publishers.
Write view
Different
religions, common ideals
Randeep Wadehra
Ethical Perceptions
of World Religions
by Dr Karam Singh Raju. Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar.
Pages 332. Rs 350.
WHENEVER an
enlightened soul has tried to erase social stratification —
be it creed-based or otherwise — he has been crucified and,
posthumously, deified. Thence, in his name, a new religion,
and hence an additional stratum, has been created. So today we
have a plethora of religions, creeds and sects that preach
essentially the same universal values and yet have managed to
be at loggerheads with each other.
Chivalry
in the exotic Deccan
Arun Gaur
When the Fight Was
Done
by Frank Rogers. Penguin. Pages 281. Rs 250
THE title When the
Fight was Done almost contemptuously (or self-mockingly or
broodingly or nostalgically) does away with the content of the
novel raising the pointer to the endnote—the invisible
oblique epilogue—in one quick portentous sweep. What rich
harvest awaits one (here Captain Robert—Robbie—MacKenzie
of the Poona Subsidiary Force), when the much vaunted, much
sought fight is done or possibly overdone?
Right
to life is more than physical existence
Kanwalpreet
Fundamental Human
Rights, The Right to Life and Personal Liberty
by Sunil Deshta & Kiran Deshta. Deep & Deep, New
Delhi. Pages 269. Price not mentioned.
THE Emergency clamped
on the people of India by one of our former Prime Ministers
and subsequently the 42nd amendment have been the starting
point for many discussions. Some questioned the status of
Articles 19, 20 and 21 during the proclamation of Emergency.
It is basically these fundamental rights, especially Art 21,
which the authors set out to explore. Written in a very
technical language, you cannot simply browse though this book.
Looking
for trouble on a holiday? Read on...
Deepika Gurdev
Holidays in Hell
by P.J. O’ROURKE. Grove Press. $20 (Singapore). Pages 272.
IF you want a guided
tour of he world’s most desolate, dangerous and desperate
places, then P.J. O’Rourke’s bestselling Holidays in
Hell is just the book for you. From
Warsaw to Managua to Belfast, O’ Rourke takes his readers
around the globe on a fact-finding, fun-filled mission. The
result is a no-holds-barred romp through politics, culture and
ideology.
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