Brave New World : Aldous Leonard Huxley

Brave New World

            -By Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963)

This is a futuristic story about genetically engineered humans.  An organization called Hatcheries and Conditioning manufactures humans as per the requirement of society. There are various types of humans:  alpha, beta, gamma and epsilon. Alphas are the supreme race and epsilons are designed to handle the low level jobs. The company’s ultimate goal is to create a society where everyone is in harmony, everything is planned and society without any anomalies. In an experiment, the company manufactures 22,000 alphas and observes the civilization and patterns of their lifestyles. As everyone is superior, those alphas that are asked to do low level jobs revolt and end up toppling the government. This explains why diversity is such an important factor in real world. Author explains the struggle of everyone who wants to be different in their everyday life through a character called john who tries to break up mundane life , but finally ends up hurting himself . The way the author depicts the conditioning procedures of humans is very absorbing. It’s really hard to imagine a society without bound by rules and norms that author portrays in the novel , that’s why this is a futuristic still even after 50 years it was written ..!

                                                                             

                                                                       Review by   

                                                                       Manoj Kumar Matala

                                                                       12/26/2012

Review of "The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne "

The Scarlet Letter : Nathaniel Hawthorne 

One can read this book to have a glimpse of 18th century English literature . You have to cut through a lot of cream before you get to crux of the novel .

Author explains the traditions/norms in England in 18th century through four characters  Hester and her child Pearl , Roger Chillingworth and Dimmesdale . Hester Prynne marries physician Roger secretly and bores a baby .However , she takes a vow not to reveal her husband's name . As per society norms at that time she gets ostracized by the community and she struggles with upbringing of her kid . Author explains the anguish and ordeal of a single mom in 18th century through the conversations between Hester and her kid Pearl . Finally after seven years of crucification , Priest Dimmesdale ends Hester's ordeal by revealing Pearl's father's name to everyone in the town . In his death bed , Dimmsdale bequeaths his property to her child Pearl who becomes the richest person in England in that epoch .

Nostalgia ..!

We savoured here everyday and night
winter gale and summer breeze moving left and right
bestowed upon us all the same delight  ;

frost has made still waters freeze
filling the fragrance of friendship in cool breeze
however , cold the day may be
its not too cold for you and me
frolicking a joyful sport all the time with me ;


we cherish every moment here
retained within our hearts at rear
as frozen ice splintering slowly
its heading towards ocean meekly ;

we race waltzing round n round
sensing destination of oceans around
haapy to be a part hoping again to be a part of
"spider manoevered web of friendship "

But now ,
The leaves are falling down and down and down
yes we are in "Squirrel town "  ;

                                                                  Manoj Kumar Matala

MY NAME IS RED by ORAHAN PAMUK

MY NAME IS RED by ORAHAN PAMUK

First thing to say about this book is , it won the noble to Pamuk in literature in the year 2006 . As all the books , that have won booker prizes, you will not get hold of what this novel is about till 100th page . Later once you got the essence of the story and endless characters, its very engrossing. Author narrates this story interestingly throught  with sixty characters , each character contributes one chapter in the book . You would be shocked to see even death itself is a character and its narration is very gripping . This is a story of an istanbulite, Black (name of the person) who to returns to istanbul after travelling the world for 12 years . Black meets his child hood love his maternal aunt's daugher  Shekure after 12 years. However , she is no longer miss Shekure but a widower . Shekure is a widower of a Istanbul war hero .  This novel is all about the Mr.Black and his childhood love for the first half and finding murderer who killed Shekure's father in the second half . John Grisham would have better narrated the crime trials better but orhan pamuk found that perfect blend by encompassing the love of black towards shekure and finding the murderer of his uncle  .

Overall , this is a medley of various feelings like love , cruelty , horror , poverty , traditionalism of istanbul, juvilenity of kids and love of a woman towards her husband and family. Worth of all the adulation critics have endowned upon . 

Length and time :

Habitual readers will be able to finish in 15 to 20 casual reading sessions . Close to 600 pages

 Devil’s Wear Prada . :- Lauren Weisber

This is one of the most hilarious novels I have read off late. This is the story of a 23 year old girl , Andrea , who wants  to pursue career in writing . Andrea is a wanna  be a writer in  “Newyorker”   , but happens to ends up starting her career as a fashion assistant for Miranda Priestley, CEO and editor of worlds famous and number one fashion magazine.  Miranda is the most annoying, peevish, scrupulous, petulant , and may be even raucous creature of all those ever lived on planet earth . Andrea’s daily job encompass babysitting , taking clothes to dry washing , fixing Miranda’s appointments and confirming hotels for her boss and even bringing coffee from star bucks to her . The bargain is that , Andrea serves her one year of servitude as fashion assistant to her notorious boss and she can walk way with any job that she likes . Author describes how Andrea tries to manage her personal and professional life  .  The author‘s narration of Andrea’s swooshing thoughts on her boss is quite ludicrous . Quite clearly the author has in-depth knowledge on high fashion brands like prada , Gucci and Chanel that are day to day wear in fashion industry , it would be feisty novel for fashion buffs . Overall it’s quite a good hilarious novel and a good read for a weekend .

Rise of Subbu a project manager :

The curious case of Subba Rao ( A Project Manager ) :

                On one fine day a huge client decided to give a huge project to our huge MNC . SDM jack salmon wanted to have an experienced project manager to handle this prestigious customer . He wanted an project Manager of 11 years experience in this new technology which came to market  just 5 years back  . Here comes the role of Subba Rao – a curious project manager . Subba rao went through the internal requirement while checking the blog . Project Manager role  seemed good and subbarao looked at 11 years exp . Subbu qick went on a ride on his old bicycle into his long years of  experience , ofcourse he had that . 3 years experience  as field support (disguised as Hardware support ) , 2 years experience as voice support ( disguised as Customer relationship Manager ) further 2 more years on transition as another huge MNC happened to buy Subbu’s company ( so he appointed himself as transition Manager ) and then 2  more years understanding what do in the new company sitting on bench( Well this is projected as Business analyst ) and finally 2 more years as first line support for some reporting stuff only that god understands , so overall its 11 years .  Subbu thought  , since he had 11 years exp , he wanted to give a shot and applied to it . Subbu wanted to learn this new technology in 15 days before interview. Owing to pressure from his wife he ends spending 13days as usual . So he quickly googles up this technology and remembers 10 keyword. SDM jack looked at experience and asks few questions considering the fact that subbu is the only applicant. Our subbu fresh from google knowledge, ushers these 10 words and boasts of 11 years exp  and finally much to the fate of customer he is appointed as project Manager . Then starts cursing the customer for giving this project and deadlines. He decided to hire an engineer with 3 years experience in this domain. He wonders how could this young geek manage to get same salary as his vast 11 years exp job, covering that he wants him . He wants a team, so he picks up some ten more guys sitting on the bench all a campus grads. He expects them to be indebted to him for the rest of their lives for giving opportunity . Much to his shock, all the boys in the team concentrate on playing games in the company and girls concentrated on finding matching accessories for these attires. Finally, the deadline for the project has come up and subbu got nothing but his 11 years experience of mastering nothing. He first bullies his domain expert and starts taking happiness out of the other team members trying to understand the output of the project. Finally, the product is released and sent to customer. Customer gets shocked looking at the half working product and questions our subbu . Our subbu blames the non-functionality on the old version of the tool and informs customer that newer version has better features. the hapless and poor customer gives the new project to enhance the functionality to again to our MNC . Subbu gets promoted as senior project manager for the success of his previous project and you know what subbu starts doing.

                                                Another search for another SUBBU begins ..!

                                                                                : By Manoj Kumar Matala