Book Review

By Fizza Ali Khan

SALUTE
By Siddiq Salik
Reviewed on: 21st February, 2012
386pp, Rs. 595

Struggle is the key to success. But what of those who do not bother to struggle, and yet have successful lives?

Siddiq Salik was one such person. After getting a Masters degree in English Literature, he “ruined” his future prospects by accepting an offer to join the Pakistan Army. Only the most basic military training, based on handling a pistol and saluting to seniors, was sufficient for him before he moved on to “serious captain duties”: in charge of “press and propaganda”, ending up considering himself equal to the Nazi master of lies, Josef Goebbels.

Salute records his memoirs, covering the enormous distance from captain to major as more of a newspaper editor/correspondent than a fighter. It gives the reader an insight into the lighter side of Pakistan Army, with instances like injured, hospitalised soldiers’ comments on a nurse and complaints about the lack of women in Pakistan Military Academy, and the married author’s own infatuation with a military doctor.

But life is not all fun and games in Pakistan Army, and Salik makes that very clear. His accounts of the 1971 war reported from Bangladesh would prove eye-opening for many, defying the then government’s attempts to censor all sensitive news. The causes and the consequences of the involuntary surrender of the 90,000 “robots” are brought to the limelight, with the latter discussed more in detail in his first book, Mein Ne Dhaka Doobta Dekha (I Witnessed the Fall of Dhaka). He also talks of his experiences with different governments, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s democracy and Zia ul Haq’s dictatorship focused more than the others.
             
The book was written in Urdu, albeit with frequent use of English terminology, which may be reflective of the initial “farangi” lifestyle of army men. It starts out sounding like a self-indulgent autobiography, but maturity seeps in and a more humble tone replaces the self-conceitedness of an obnoxious soldier as the story progresses.
               
Salik has not aimed for a specific audience; his humorous style of writing, marked by sarcasm and hyperbole, is meant to appeal to the masses, military and civilian alike. The popularity of the book may be due to the author’s civilian perspective of military life.
               
However, according to some, this perspective is the propaganda of the Pakistan Army to build support for itself, perhaps for yet another military takeover of the country. What they fail to take into account though, is that the author’s intention was to poke fun at every government for inefficiency, particularly the military dictators.
               
It is unfortunate that Siddiq Salik did not live to clarify the criticism. He died a Brigadier in a plane crash, even before Salute was published.

Book Review

Dune (1984)

Reviewed by Nimrah Nadeem

If handled right, a good novel can make a good film. However, a great novel almost never becomes a great movie, because the intricacies of the book can’t possibly be captured in such a limited screen time.
David Lynch’s movie adaptation of Frank Herbert’s cult classic sci-fi novel faced pretty much the same problem, but it seems this movie just took it to a whole new level.
The movie doesn’t even come close to doing the book justice. On the contrary, it was riddled with gaping weaknesses in the plot and bland, one dimensional characters.

According to Robert Egbert, Dune was “a real mess, an incomprehensible, ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time."
The protagonist is a young man, Paul Atriedes (Kyle McLachlan) of House Atriedes foretold as the “Kwisatz Haderach” who will lead the native Fremen of the titular desert planet Arrakis, or Dune to victory over the malevolent House Harkonnen. Riddled with dirty politics, intricate layers of meaning, and memorable, well developed characters, the book was a masterpiece. As winner of the prestigious Hugo and Nebula awards, Frank Herbert’s Dune has a massive fan base, one that David Lynch’s weak movie adaptation has deeply disappointed.

At the time, Lynch was one of Hollywood’s most avant-garde directors, having directed masterpieces such as the famous ‘Elephant Man’ and ‘Eraserhead’. He was even on the directing shortlist for ‘Return of the Jedi’. Lynch was considered worthy of a massive undertaking, but after Dune, he even resorted to releasing certain versions of the movie under a pseudonym Alan Smithee. Well, Lynch, maybe it’s too little, too late.

On the whole, the film wasn’t completely horrendous. The visuals and special effects were considerably impressive, when you think about it in terms of a 1984 movie. The worms were almost spot on, and so were the Fremens’ “blue in blue” eyes. Even the music score by popular 1980’s band Toto was appreciated. Too bad they couldn’t save the movie.

Personally, I just hope David Lynch doesn’t read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and try taking it on. We don’t need any more sci fi movie adaptation disasters.

The Blue Notebook - Review

By: Alisha Sethi

 ADULT/YOUNG ADULT

‘The Blue Notebook’

By: James A. Levine

206 pp, Orion Books Ltd. Rs.695.

Ages 16 and up.

So you’re in a bookstore browsing through the shelves and all of a sudden you come across a book called ‘The Blue Notebook’. You start to read the synopsis at the back of the book and find out that it’s a journal of a prostitute. Now you can have two kinds of reactions to this. You can either be the kind of person who puts the book back, shaking their head in disapproval at the author’s audacity to write about such a disgraceful topic or you can be the kind of person who goes to themself, “Hey, this could be kind of interesting to read”. If you’re the latter type of person, well then thumbs up to you. You have made a good GOOD choice.

The Blue Notebook is the journal of a teenage prostitute in India called Batuk. The character of Batuk is based on a girl James Levine saw standing outside her “cage” on the Street of Cagues in Bombay, writing in a blue notebook and the image of a literate prostitute gave birth to this novel. Batuk learnt how to read and write while she was still in her village being treated for Tuberculosis; a kind nurse saw her potential and arranged for a teacher to come everyday. Sold into sexual slavery at the age of nine, Batuk firmly believes that she has been blessed with ‘beauty and a pencil’. Her journal is her salvation and her pencil is a way of recording all of fates ugly little twists.  Her journal never lapses into self pity for naïve Batuk has not seen the world outside her ‘nest’ on the Common Street of Mumbai. For her, life just consisted of following Mamaki Brillia and Master Gahil’s ( owners of the brothel) orders on which men and how many to ‘bake sweetcake with’. Sweetcake can be considered and unusual way of describing the activity through which prostitutes earn their bread and butter but as Batuk points out ‘such is the whim of a dramatic soul’.

For six years her life remained the same but then it takes a turn for the worse. Her beauty and pencil become a curse instead of a blessing and lead her straight into the strangling arms of pain. A pain that no fifteen year old girl could ever imagine waiting for her.

Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner has commended Dr.Levine on his masterpiece by calling it a ‘searing reminder of the resilience of human spirit’. Starkly compelling, this book has all the features of an unputdownable book. It inspires and haunts readers in equal measure and I strongly urge you to plunge yourself into this pool of optimism and innocence created by Batuk in the face of unbelievable cruelty.