"Committed"

No, I am not sharing my views on (not) being committed.

Yes, this is one of my (vain) attempts to keep this blog alive.

No, I have not made any effort of writing in the past few months even though I had all the time.

Yes, that is certainly not a very good thing.

So, this is a book review.

Well, not really a review, just a few words here and there since I finally managed the onerous task of finishing reading this mostly boring book.

Just a few things that will stay with me.

Ok fine.

Yes, this is a book review.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9805465-committed

A brief background about how I came to read this book. My dear friend for almost six years now gifted me this this Valentine's Day (much to my surprise as I did not expect him to actually take into consideration my all-time love for Eat, Pray, Love) and hoped this would give me some insight on our 'future'. Marriage was always on the cards albeit things have been extremely rocky lately. This was supposedly my anchor to rough the high seas. And I must admit it did serve its purpose. And so I began-

Nothing quite like its prequel, Committed did not manage to hold my interest for long. It was, therefore, quite a task to get it over with. I had dropped it almost altogether after February, but managed to pick it up again a couple of days back. Apart from the chapter on Marriage and Infatuation (and a part of Marriage and Women), the entire book seemed like a crystallized educational thesis on marriage. The narrative is mostly drab and, for the lack of a better word, seems educational. 

However, I very much related to the narrative on infatuation. Fortunately or unfortunately (one can never be sure since even this marriage of Gilbert, after all her issues, her phobia of getting married, her extensive research, has fallen apart, and how!!), I see a lot of Gilbert in my own life. I understand what it is like to lose yourself completely to another person, to not be able to see where they end and you begin, to not be able to understand, as she aptly puts it, that sometime 1 plus 1 has to equal 2. So while her love story with Felipe does give me hope that I may eventually grow up to not always get so swayed by another person that I lose myself completely, I am very skeptical about how long it will last (considering, well, you know what), or how it may eventually end.

The book does have some good parts. I have earmarked those to get back to them later. What I do understand now, and I quote - ...anything that the heart has chosen for its own mysterious reasons it can always unchoose later-again, for its own mysterious reasons.

Pick it up for the love of Gilbert, if nothing else.

Gyaan and Geisha

Happy New Year?

Not really. It's a new year, alright. Not all that happy though. Hoping a bad start leads to a better end.

Anyhow, it's good to be back after a year. I think this has become more of an annual ritual for me now which, to say the least, is extremely disappointing. And since even this post is rushed, I will only say the things I absolutely want to.

A dear friend gifted a copy of 'Memoirs of a Geisha' to me for my 26th birthday (yes, that happened :/) and needless to say, I am thankful to him for more than one reason. Firstly, it took away the most tedious task of choosing what to read, which is what takes (wastes?) most of my time. I ABSOLUTELY cannot make up my mind about what I want to read. End result? Piles of unread dusty books. Since that was taken care of, all I needed to do was be diligent enough to find time to read it. And I did! In less than a week! You see, that's the thing about a good book, you just cannot keep it down till you're done. But the tragedy is that once you're nearing the end, this irrational fear of your life losing meaning once the book is finished floods your mind with so much intensity, it's hard to explain. And hence the last 50 pages of this book were rationed by me very carefully, so that I could delay seeing the end of it for as long as possible.

And now secondly, because the book is such a wonderfully written, beautiful beautiful book! Safe to say, it was the best book to have reignited my voracious reading habit. Not only did the book transport me to another time, another place, the narrative is so honest, it teaches you so much about life and more!

And hence this post. Just sharing my favorite quotes and thoughts from the book. :)

"This is why dreams can be such a dangerous thing: they smolder on like a fire does, and sometimes consume us completely."

"Grief is most peculiar thing: we're so helpless in the face of it. It's like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it."

"We human beings have a remarkable way of growing accustomed to things."

"A woman living in a grand house may pride herself on all her lovely things; but the moment she hears the crackle of fire she decides very quickly which are the few she values the most."

"Nothing is bleaker than the future, except perhaps the past."

"Sometimes we get through adversity only by imagining what the world might be like if our dreams should ever come true."

"I don't think any of us can speak frankly about pain until we are no longer enduring it."

"Sometimes,' he sighed, 'I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see."

On that note, Happy New Year! :)