The Eternal Stories of Love

This was published in Hans India - A reputed daily in Telangana. 

It’s Valentine’s Day. While the love birds take to crooning to each other on this special day, the time is ripe for taking a sneak peek at novels that break hearts with their profundity and sensitivity. These stories will either break your heart or overwhelm it, while transporting you to a different world. The beauty of these novels is, unlike a few lovers, they don’t desert when you need them. They sit pretty adorningly on shelf, waiting on the moment you would take them into arms and fall in love with them. 

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy:  

Set among the echelons of power in Russia, the story is about Anna Karenina who visits her brother Stiva in Moscow to help him restore his marriage. Although a married woman, she falls in love with Count Vronsky. Fraught between her desire for Vronsky and her loyalty to her husband, Alexei, she leaves her husband. Paradoxically, she is denied a divorce. Torn between love life and married life she leaves Vronsky in anger. 

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak:

This is the story about one man torn between two women. Set during the 1917 Russian Revolution, the protagonist, Yuri Zhivago, is a well-known doctor and poet. While he is married to rich and aristocratic Tonya, as a twist of fate, falls in love with Nurse Lara. This is an interesting love triangle that is caught between love and wartimes and is scripted to emotionally appeal to the readers. 

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Love Story by Erich Segal:  

A story about two school mates - Oliver and Jennifer. They start out skirmishing with each other and later unknowingly fall in love. Oliver, who is cut off from his inheritance by his father, for falling in love with Jennifer, is jobless and has to live on his wife’s earning. After a couple of years of struggle, he lands a plum job only to realize that Jennifer has Leukemia. The intense love between the two and hapless situation they are caught in is sure to tear the heart. 

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: 

This is an ageless classic. The plot revolves mainly around two characters Elizabeth, one of the five daughters of Mrs Bennet, and Darcy, a reasonably wealthy man. Darcy on the outward seems like an arrogant man is actually a sensitive and caring individual. The initial disagreements between the two slowly transcend into love. While To everyone’s astonishment the two end up in blissful matrimony.   

Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare
This is one of the most celebrated works of William Shakespeare, albeit a tragic one. Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, who fall in love, come from two different famed clans of literature. The rivalry among the clans is so bitter that both kinfolk express their dissent towards the lovers’ marriage. The family’s disproval of love eventually leads to demise of lovers. 

Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hester Prynne’s love for Arthur Dimmesdale is uncompromised even when she is tortured and publicly humiliated. On the other hand, Arthur Dimmesdale, who is the priest, seems to be torn between his position and his love. The confession of Arthur Dimmesdale as the father of Hester’s child, pearl, and his sudden demise shocks everyone and leaves Hester in a complete quandary.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier: 

This perhaps is the only book where the narrator remains nameless all through. The protagonist meets Maxim de Winter and soon becomes Mrs. Winter. At every step of her journey, she finds it difficult to fill the shoes of Rebecca, Maxim’s dead wife. She is constantly harassed by Mrs. Danvers who is quick to point out that Rebecca was far better any every manner. But the twist comes when she finds out Rebecca was actually murdered. It is an undeniable page-turner. 

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http://epaper.thehansindia.com/721494/SUNDAY-HANS/SUNDAY-HANS#page/15

Naked Truth

Guess whose books are grabbed off the shelves moment they hit stands. Sidney Sheldon, of course! However, there are many who criticize him. But, I adore his craft so much that I commit his sentences to memory for sheer pleasure of using elsewhere to recreate a similar effect. Though I read his books countless times, I still wouldn’t back foot in picking any of his titles and re-reading again for nth time.  Mildly put, most of his sentences are hotly branded in my mind. 

Unaware of my passion for Sheldon’s books, out of the blue, a blogger friend handed out an autobiography of Sheldon ‘The other side of me’. I hadn’t an inkling, Sheldon’s biography even existed. The tome looked no less than 400 pages and I was filled with pure delight.

The book was phenomenal and quirky punches all through were resplendent of Sheldon’s streak of genius.  As always, I wished that the book wouldn’t end.  ‘The other side of me’ picked up pace in early pages itself; As a result, read past midnight. The book gave me new insights. New perspectives. New understandings. All doubts I had about his writings instantly erased. 

What always surprised me was how Sheldon knew so well about pits of poverty and highlife of wealthy which he depicts so commonly in his stories. After reading his biography I understood he swung from one extreme to the other frequently. It was clear that failure and success were his buddies all through life. 

Fascinatingly, even names accorded to characters in his stories were from his real life though they have been altered a bit. While immensely talented, he hardly comes across real success in life. He won an ‘Oscar’ yet he was always out of job. His scriptwriting for broadways didn’t really put him in spotlight either. Neither did the movies. 

It was only when he went on to script novels; he found his groove. He affirms unlike scriptwriting, which constantly got altered by directors or adapted to scenes, he was free to write whatever he wanted to. This, I believe, has granted him enormous scope for exercising his creative judgment. ‘The naked face’, the first book he wrote, based on a Psychiatrist, is actually picked up from his own life story. Sheldon was diagnosed for ‘bipolar disorder’ – a disorder where the patient suffers from acute bouts of depression and euphoria almost at the same time.  If I am not mistaken even the Psychiatrist’s name ‘Judd’ remains the same in novel. 

Here's what I found incredibly interesting about his launch of the first book, ‘Naked Face’. On the same day, there were three other writers, who launched their books. For book signing, all of the three had long queues. But there wasn’t a single person in front of Sheldon’s desk. Sheldon didn’t know where to look, so he put his head down and started scribbling on a piece of paper. After sometime, an old woman appeared and asked, ‘What’s the name of the book. He replied, she said, ‘Alright, I’ll buy it’. Sheldon goes on to say, “It was not out of pleasure that she bought it, but as an act of mercy”. I like the candidness with which he views everything. Incidentally, the book went on to become a phenomenal best seller, winning an Edgar award for the best mystery novel. 

His embarking on writing novels has whetted the appetite of many a soul hungry for mystery stories. The twists in the plot are no less praise worthy either. Each book takes you through a feeling of free falling and landing on an enormous comfortable cushion. Of course, not always a cushion. But definitely through a high you can’t really put in words. I guess many of us owe it to Sheldon for playing his role to the hilt.