The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

At first, I was quite dejected that the capitalists wanted to stretch a 330 page book into 3 movies!
But then, it was Peter Jackson.

This movie exceeded expectations on many counts; the director took his own sweet time in finishing  the first third of the book in nigh 3 hours and the new HFR (High frame rate) screening is mind-blowing (or as my folks in India like to say: mind-blasting).

About the HFR experience; I was surprised at how clear the image was - detail that made real life seem boring and focused shots which got one counting the strands of waters down a waterfall. In addition to this, one can even see how far filming technology has come since the third LOTR movie.
But this isn't an action thriller, kill the bad guys movie.

It's a story as a story should be. Slow, purposeful, inspiring, emotional and reigniting the strength of good fiction. Bilbo is a good cast, Gandalf is brilliant, not a big fan of any of the dwarves, and Gollum too is amazing. Sure, there are a lot of inconsistencies but I have come to a stage where I give credit to another Tolkien lover and his creative spirit.

The mountain trolls, and the eagles, and the elves - Galadriel in all her majesty and Elrond in his wisdom - and Smaug! and Erebor - Oh! how grand Erebor was... and how that home was lost!
For me, the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit and the Silmarillion were a part of my formative years - hence, I am biased.

Oh, there were tears inside me.

Lord of the Rings

The most fantastic trilogy ever!

"Arise! Arise! Riders of Theoden! Swords shall be shattered, shields shall be splintered! A sword day!!!! A red day!!!! Ere the sun rises!!!!!!
Death!!!!!! Death!!!!!"

(Rohan Horn blowing)

This particular scene when the riders of Rohan have assembled on top of a hill, with the rising sun behind them and a sea of orcs before them. The horn blows, the music starts and the riders charge and whenever I have seen this scene (7 to 10 times up until now), I have had goosebumps. It may possibly go down in history as one of the best scenes ever.
The movie did not do justice to the book - they usually never do. But Peter Jackson did one of the best works ever. If one would ever read the book, it would be rather inconceivable to make a movie out of it, because the movie demands expenditure and grandeur. I am sad that I can't write much about the three movies; but the three movies are awesome.
People have generally rated The Return of the King (part 3) as the best, but for me The Fellowship of the Ring comes first.
The bridge of Khazad-dum, the Shire, the mystery surrounding the elves and the Black riders, the formation of the fellowship - everything gels so well as an introduction to an epic of our times.

Into the Wild

Chris / Alex McCandless wrote well.

"The very basic core of a man's living spirit is hit passion for adventure.
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

"You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience."

This is from the book "Into the Wild" and the above quotes are Alex's own.
The last quote he negates before death when he notes:

"And so it turned out that only a life similar to life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness... And this was most vexing of all. HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED."

Did he have to go through his ordeal to realise this? Could he have been one of the very few who actually realised this? I ask because most of us don't know the other possibility, of living without society and love.


The book is quite excellent. It's not as glorious as the movie but is sobering. Jon Krakauer is the author and he expressed his compassion for the kid in the introduction/ foreword. There are two chapters which I really liked. One in which Jon talks of other weirdos/ loners/ pursuers and the other when he describes his youth and his journey to Alaska to conquer Devil's Thumb. Fantastic stuff.
I enjoyed the part where when he came back to the town and recited his tale to the town folk, they didn't seem to care :)
I relished the part where he compared his ... well... this is the statement (He was 23 years old then):
"At that stage of my youth, death remained as abstract a concept as non-Euclidean geometry or marriage."

This book and books like this make one realise how shallow a city-dweller's journey can be. Yes.

Indian Summer

Book

March 1947:

"While all this [riots] was going on, Mountbatten had to meet the Indian leaders. For that first week, the two least compromising and highest profile among them declined his invitation... Mohammad Ali Jinnah, representing the Muslim League, remained in Bombay making inflammatory speeches. Mohandas Gandhi, representing Mohandas Gandhi, was living among the outcastes in distant Bihar, and refused to take advantage of the viceregal aircraft. "


1937:

Excerpt from published article:
"Men like Jawaharlal with all their capacity for great and good work, are unsafe in democracy. He calls himself a democrat and a socialist, and no doubt he does so in all earnestness, but every psychologist knows that the mind is ultimately a slave to the heart and logic can always be made to fit in with the desires and irresistible urges of a person. A little twist and Jawahar might turn a dictator sweeping aside the paraphernalia of a slow-moving democracy... His conceit is already formidable. It must be checked. We want no Caesars.

This powerful vilification was published under the pseudonym 'Chanakya', after an ancient political philosopher, and caused great outrage among Nehru's followers. What they did not realise was that 'Chanakya' was actually Jawaharlal Nehru himself. Introspection, honesty, wit and mischief: few other politicians in history could have written such a lucid essay in self-deconstruction. "

1947 August:

From the outset, Indian women would earn equal pay for equal work - a right not conferred upon British women until the 1970s....
But behind this image of feminist progress, lay a long, dark shadow of feminist despair. At Calcutta in 1946, and subsequently, the vengeance of the rioters had been wreaked deliberately on women. As the great migration and great slaughters following partition got underway, so too did a sustained and brutal campaign of sexual persecution. The use of rape as a weapon of war was conscious and emphatic. On every side, proud tales were told of the degradation of enemy women. Thousands of women were abducted, forcibly married to their assailants, and bundled away to the other side of the border. Many never saw their families again. Thousands more were simply used and thrown back into their villages. There were accounts of women who had been held down while their breasts and arms were cut, tattooed or branded with their rapists' names and the dates of their attacks.





- Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann

Fantastic book. Brazen and factual. Boring in parts but enjoyable nonetheless.