Review: Rajdeep Paulus', "Swimming Through Clouds"

First, a confession: I rarely, if ever, read within the romance genre. And the only Young Adult reading I've done in the recent past has been SF/F. So Rajdeep Paulus' debut novel, "Swimming Through Clouds", a contemporary teen romance, is as out of zone for me as it gets. I picked up the book almost entirely unsure of what to expect - both in terms of style and story. And, okay, I freely admit to starting with a terribly high number of preconceptions about the story arc. Among other things, I expected book filled with teenage angst, bff problems, and the ecstasy and trauma of romance-as-a-teenager. Seriously, ("Come On!" as Job would say), what else is there to a teen romance?*

Um, a fair bit, apparently.
Paulus' debut novel is indeed a boy-meets-girl story. But one that is delightfully devoid of the tropes that have been done to death by every high-school movie ever made. Sure, Talia is the quintessential outsider-looking-in lead character. But instead of secretly aspiring to be beautiful and part of the 'in' crowd, she is a teenager working actively to stay out. In the place of clique-based drama, the novel relies on Talia's life, with its particularly dark past and excruciating present, and on her relationship with the beautiful Lagan Kumar Desai to engage the reader. And in the place of fluffy bff issues, Raj Paulus takes on some serious, painful, heart-wrenching and problematic ones - domestic abuse, child abuse, sex trade (which I certainly did not expect out of a teen romance).
In the process, Swimming Through Clouds, becomes a very real, believable and touching story.

Paulus' is a very compelling storyteller. The characters - all the characters - are beautifully fleshed out. Stylistically (going by the foreword and lead in), Paulus' authorial voice is a perfect fit for the story that she's narrating. The romance between Talia and Lagan is delicate (given all the big issues with which they're dealing) and on the whole, rather adorable. At the same time, the narrative is also successfully poignant and poetic.

A few of things that I've been thinking about - first, there is the suggestion that Lagan's personality, his ability to be a pillar of strength and support to Talia, is driven by a deep and unshakable faith in the Divine. But I love that the treatment of Lagan's spirituality and its role in his life is not ham-handed.

Second, there are hints of Indian identity and third culture upbringing in the novel (Talia is half Indian, Lagan is of Indian origin). I'd have liked to see these fleshed out in more than cursory ways. But I can see how that would take away from the crux of the story as it stands.

And finally, I've been thinking about the whole "boy-rescues-girl" situation - specifically, about why I wasn't as troubled as I thought I would be with that construct in the novel. In general, I prefer female teenage protagonists who are more Willow Rosenberg and less Bella Swan. Talia Vanderbilt is somewhere in between. Despite the rescue motif, the novel is redeemed because Paulus writes Talia as a strong, determined girl caught in a bad situation (rather than, say, a hapless gel awaiting prince charming). In fact, the women in the novel, are layered, multi-faceted people, even if we don't always know everything about them. Like I said, Paulus' character building is very masterful and goes a long way to making this novel as powerful and irresistible as it is.

The short take: Read it. It's delightful, surprising and moving.

*Okay, I realize I sound(ed) like a complete ass. And especially after reading "Swimming Through Clouds", I stand suitably chastised. 

Reading List

I've been a little preoccupied (as hinted at in earlier post). But just in case you were wondering, here's a list of books I've read and been meaning to review (for SAWWC or otherwise)

1. Rajdeep Paulus' debut novel, "Swimming Through Clouds"
2. Samhita Arni's, "Sita's Ramayana"
3. Samhita Arni's, "Missing Queen"
4. Saladin Ahmed's, "Throne of the Crescent Moon" (not for SAWWC, but a fantastic read anyway)
5. Kuzhali Manickavel's, "Eating Sugar Telling Lies"
6. Kuzhali Manickavel's, "Insects Are Just like You and Me except Some of Them Have Wings"

Reviews to follow, shortly.

Whee!

I was going to post other things, but turns out *two* books I wanted (not one, *two* - incase you missed that) are on sale on Amazon. And that, dear Reader, has derailed my posts for the moment.

Said books have now been moved off my wishlist to my reading list for this year. But Damn the Interwebs, even as I'm writing this post more books have made their way onto my wishlist. Secretly. But also, not so much.

Go on, see my list, you know you want to.

They're playing our game

***Edit: A Dear Witch pointed out that 'Sea of Sadness' was, on the scale of the dramatic, rather high. I edit this post to clarify that on said scale, it was meant to point to about 2 and a half (where 12 is the highest degree of drama) and therefore not meant to be more-than-usually dramatic. P.S. Witch, I lau you.***


The one where I dislike the place,
But love the people enough to miss them
insanely
Even as I'm thankful
for life's small mercies
That let me be.

I was just about to drown in a sea of sadness (and, appallingly, self-pity) when I saw this post  by beautiful Xhelsea:

Realize how very powerful you are as a woman, and what you can do—that your body can expand and grow, and you can still be whole regardless of what people say or how many people say it. Be powerful and grow into that woman, and let the earth inside of you. And whatever it is that is dark, turn it into light when it comes out of you. Don’t let it enter you and be darkness, and don’t be the darkness that the thing is. Be the light of the darkness.
Olympia Vernon

And so, I'm grateful again for small mercies from a vast, vast universe.

On another note, there's a new kid on the blog (cringe away, dear reader, cringe away).

Summer reads - Diana Wynne Jones

What have I enjoyed about this summer, did you ask?
It's the first summer in nearly two years that I have had the chance to read for reading's sake.

First, Oh My God,  Oh My God, why did I ever stop doing this? 
"What!" I hear you protesting, "But you're a humanities, grad. And one working in cultural studies and literature at that. How the fuck could you pull that off without reading?"

And so, I hasten to explain. I *do* read for school.
Thanks to coursework, more than I like, sometimes. 


Specifically, what I don't like is that I have to cram so much reading into a regular semester that I, (like several of my fellow grad students), have devised a way of reading for processing *ahem* key information. 
Thanks to the sheer amount of reading assigned, and to the horrible insecurity-generating environment of grad school, reading in / for a grad classroom, is so often transformed into some warped version of Toddlers and Tiaras. This has, of course, transformed my reading pattern for the worse.  


Summer provides the only respite - since I usually can't afford to take classes over the semester. 
But I've spent the last two summers (my only free time), working on classes and writing a thesis. This summer, however, I'm reading for reading and that's a huge relief. 


Over the last two weeks I've read (among other things), for the first time, "The Chronicles of Chrestomanci", Volumes I and II, by Diana Wynne Jones. Although the name had been on the periphery of my reading for a while then, I only picked up Diana Wynne Jones after she died last year (read Neil Gaiman's very personal post about saying bye to DWJ). Nearly everything I'm thinking about her work has been said before. 
Her craft is incredible. Farah Mendlesohn points out in this wonderfully eloquent article:

Many of these novels are intensely complex works which work with many different types of fantasy, urban, absurdist, fairy tale, often gleefully mixed in together so that, as in Hexwood, the reader has to continually adjust their expectations about what kind of book they are reading. Jones didn’t just “not talk down to children” in that old but valued cliché, she talked up to them, expecting that if they didn’t understand something they would go and find out, or if they didn’t understand it now, they would greet its source with the joy of recognition later. Her books are intensely layered with myth mixing with physics, musicology with metaphysics.

Since reading the Chrestomanci series, I'm a little bit in love with Chrestomanci - Christopher Chant, specifically (but also the post in general). But, more than that, I'm in love with Millie-The-Living-Asheth (from Charmed Life and The Lives of Christopher Chant) and with the power and fullness of her characters. And, I respect that her fantasy, while it is written *ahem* for children, is not escapist. 


I'm off to wait for the next book I've ordered from the series. But, if you had to pick just one thing to read this summer, please let it be Charmed Life. 

Another *Sweet* (ahem) Breakfast, or, more pancakes

My pantry is in a constant state of want.
It's true.
There are a few factors that contribute to this state of want:
a) I'm a grad student. In other words, I have a budget. And no time.
You should probably read that as  I only stock bare essentials -  groceries, spices and produce that I will always use - milk, eggs, bread, rice, some veggies, basic spices for (mostly South Asian) cooking and some chocolate.
b) I'm a grad student. This time, this reads: I only re-stock when I've run out of nearly everything.
And,
c) I'm a new recipe junkie*. In other words, I read a whole ton of new recipes and I almost never have everything I need for a particular one that catches my fancy.

Like, this morning, when I woke up (once again) wanting a sweet breakfast. One that was not cornflakes. Not Even Mohun's**.

For my new fix, I've been reading Smitten Kitchen (thanks to a new friend). So what I really wanted is one of her Breakfast Goodies. But instinctively knowing that that was not to be (see reasons listed above), I would happily have substituted those for the yummy scones I keep talking about or even last week's banana pancakes. 


But, hélas.
Quick pantry survey reveals that I have no more candied ginger, bananas or nuts. And I've not had blueberries since the move.


I did, however, discover a small bowl of super-tart cherries from a few weeks ago which would have made it to the trash in a few of days. In three days, I could have just left the door open and I'm sure they'd have jumped out of the bowl and walked to the trash of their own volition.


Now, normally, I love me some fresh cherries.
I just ended up with about 2 pounds of somewhat sour-ish, super-tart ones.
And to my household's credit, we actually finished most of them (despite a general distaste for sour fruit***). Except a handful of cherries that I threw into a bowl and stowed away, way out of sight, at the back of my refrigerator.

Until this morning, when I used them to make some wonderfully light pancakes based on Deb's Recipe for Blueberry Pancakes, except since I don't own any fancy equipment (like pastry brushes), I went with using a flat spoon and folded tissue to make sure my girdle was well-oiled. (The Poor Baker would approve, I think).

My modifications:
I didn't use any egg. I cut the recipe in half. And added a dash of All-Spice to the batter. 
And thus, my ingredients:

1 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Less than 1/4 teaspoon table salt
A pinch of All-spice
1.5 tablespoons sugar
2 cups buttermilk (No buttermilk? The Poor Baker's fix is to  substitute a cup of milk added to a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice. Make sure to add the milk to the acid rather than the other way around. Let sit 5 minutes.) 
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (this, I did not halve)
1/2 cup chopped cherries


And now, the how: 


1. First, set the girdle to medium heat and let it get hot enough.
2. Make yourself a cuppa chai to sip while working (clearly, optional).
3. Roughly chop up the cherries (making sure, of course to keep the pieces and throw away the pit - I say this, because if you're me, it is easy to throw a pit into a pancake mistaking it for a particularly large piece of cherry. I'm told by Mr. FD, who got the pancake-with-the-pit, that it does not make for delicious eating.)
4. Melt the butter.
5. In a medium bowl, mix the all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, all-spice and sugar.
6. Whisk in the buttermilk and the butter. 
7. Both the Poor Baker and Deb of Smitten Kitchen will tell you to make sure that the batter has some lumpiness. Makes for lighter pancakes.
8. Grease the girdle and pour out the batter. Sprinkle the cherries on the top, and once "eyes" (those little air bubbles) start to appear on the pancake, flip over.

Ta-Da! 
I'm definitely re-making these. What I loved was that the tartness that made me stow away the cherries was a perfect fit for this recipe. And that I could dispense off with the egg (see prev. recipe post for why I need to do this now) and still make the pancakes work really well! 

*true this I read, nay, actively seek out new recipes that are all kinds of yummilicious
** I love, love, love Mohun's and my dear sibling has just sent me a whole bag. Whee!
***This does not include fruit that are supposed to be sour, like green mangoes. These go down real well. 

Reads, Recipes, Rain

It's raining. Finally. After the first day of summer. Even so, it is raining and that's a good thing.

In the time that I've been away, I've tried, with success might I add, yet another one of the Poor Baker's Recipes: Banana Walnut Pancakes. And since I am not altogether averse to breakfast, or waking up early these days, (now that I don't really have to), these were Breakfast-for-Breakfast.

**An aside as I reprise this post, nearly four hours after I've begun: Good heavens, Turns out that these days, I can't sit still at the computer for more than a few minutes at a time. And that too, only if I force myself to stay.**


The Recipe
So where were we? Ah yes, Breakfast-for-Breakfast pancakes.
I was just going to use the Poor Baker's recipe to the last word - except that I was out of wheat flour, brown sugar and baking soda. And, a quick survey of my meager pantry revealed that I had just one walnut. No, I mean that. Literally One Walnut (oh the fun of living in a house where the other person loves dry fruits and nuts). 
Oh, and one banana (this, I admit, is my fault).

Said pantry-survey, however, also threw up a couple of slices of ready-made eggless tutti frutti cake (eggless , because a part of my family is entirely vegetarian and is currently here, chez-moi) close-to-expiry.
(Just so you know, Indian Tutti Fruitti Cake, Not to be confused with the Italian Tutti Frutti, which is also yummy.)

Tutti Frutti is Candied Fruit Peel type stuff. Your Local South-Asian (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi) grocery will likely carry this bit of artificial yumminess.


And thus, my modified ingredient list:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1½  tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 1 overripe bananas, mashed
• 1/8 cup white sugar, packed 
• 1 cup buttermilk (which, like a good South-Indian girl, I now stock at home)
• 1 walnut and 1/3 cup chopped almonds
• 2 slices of eggless tutti frutti cake

For the process, I refer you to the Poor Baker's original post  (since I did basically the same thing and she explains it so much better).


The Reads
I've just finished Diana Wynne Jones' Charmed Life. And this is the first Wynne Jones that I've ever read. Why did nobody tell me about this when I was much, much younger?

Also, I'm just a wee bit appalled that the version of the book I have says "Mad about Harry? Try Diana."  on the front cover. 
Really, U.S. News & World Report? Really?
The article that this references dutifully calls The Chrestomanci series Harry Potter's "spiritual ancestor" - but, seriously? Such galling taking out of context bothers me. Gah!

Fayetteville as in Fate

Since I've moved here, I've grown increasingly interested in how an immigrant, or people of immigrant descent, specifically anyone of non-Caucasian descent define their identity in America.

Some of these definitions make me cringe, some make me cock my head to one side and think, some are closer to my heart than others, but all of them, are interesting. And of course, this is not the most eloquent post I've ever written. But ignore me... go on and read / listen to Dr. Mohja Kahf's "Fayetteville as in Fate"

(*edit: Thank you, NH for introducing me to the poem. )

New music up at: http://www.aniketbandekar.com/sounds.html

Also new addition to the blog-roll: http://nwamotherlode.com/

More music: http://www.myspace.com/thewhatifband

Aight. While I think up my next post, please read:

His blog

Her new post

Parts of the roof have flown off and lie on the grass below
(I refuse to believe the boy who is trying to convince me that it is banana leaves that someone ate in and threw out. No, I'm not stepping out in the rain to check)

Incessant rain seeps through my smoke alarms and softens my roof and thus the sky might actually fall on my head.

But instead of working, securing belongings, reading etc. I'm busy being the virtual social butterfly.

Today's absolute read is this:
Beating a Brazilian Path to India

and on that note (C sharp minor, if you must know) I'm out of here for a bit.

Arundhati Roy: Mumbai was not our 9/11 World news guardian.co.uk
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=40515269142&h=yB2TF