Perfectly irrational

Be warned, this post is a several years-overdue rant about a book I hated the first time I read it. There, now it's out.

I'm an indiscriminate lover of words, and I will read anything, almost. Even as I crib about a horribly written novel, I will finish reading it- its an instinct something like being unable to take your eyes away from a train wreck or a massacre. Given this, it takes quite a bit to make me stop reading an award-winning book that comes highly recommended by several people with impeccable taste.

It's got a fantastic story. A boy and a little zoo adrift in the Pacific in a  tiny lifeboat. You know the one, don't you?

A completely unbelievable story, of a boy and a tiger and their strange names and even stranger relationship. That I found completely plausible. But I've never heard a government official or a hotel concierge in India use the word 'bamboozle'. In fact, I've only ever heard it used in the most amused contexts, always with implied humor. Never met a Muslim man or woman with the name Kumar. Never, ever met a child of less than ten who "loved religion". Loved God? Possibly. Loved temples, or churches, or rituals? Certainly. But "I loved religion", coming from an eight or twelve year old? No.

Add to that a semi-traditional mother and a liberal/ atheist father in South India. Expect that these parents will be accepting of their ten year old running off to namaz or confession or pray endlessly to the deities of three religions. Once again, no and no. Add to this the thirty chapters of introducing animal behavior, which are essentially a schoolboy's essay version of Gerald Durrell's theories on zoos.

And even if I were to believe it all, pretending it part of some magical adventure, there is no narrative spell strong enough to pull these incongruous threads into that little boat. Even with my meager editorial skills, I could have cut every reference of religion out of the book, and it would still be an amazing story.

That is to me the part that hurts the most. If the unneccessary words hadn't gotten in the way, this would be an even greater story than it is. The book, as a whole, feels like an attempt to make a perfect line through a perfect circle in an even hundred chapters just went terribly wrong, adrift on choppy detail that nearly drowns a story that really will make you believe in God.

Just this once, watch the movie instead.

(In case it wasn't clear from the annoyed introduction, I did actually, finally finish reading the book this week, on the third try.)

Tourist

Screaming at someone who doesn't understand what I say is rather like being the annoying tourist who thinks if he/she just speaks loud enough, the locals will understand.

Raising my voice doesn't automagically improve the way my words reach you. A different communication must stem from training my words to find a path through the landscape of your experience and understanding. Screaming is hacking a path through the woods with fire and wood choppers, communicating might be hands gently pressing the undergrowth apart to make contact with the understanding earth beneath.

But so heavily and intensely, this relies on the faith that you, the local, are in this with me, trying to figure out this path together with the least destruction to whatever's blocking us. I have to trust that you aren't smirking at my dumbness in your world, understanding my words but pretending not to because it suits you, not because if you pretend to not understand then I'll stop trying, stop forcing paths that you don't particularly like.