Music And Movies

Oscar's for Best Film and Best Direction suddenly threw the focus on Cormac McCarthy. His 'No Country for Old Men' won these honors as well as the Best Supporting Actor honor. Made by Coen Brothers , who also made 'Fargo', this movie was based on the novel of the same name by Cormac McCarthy. It will be a dark tale, if I know my McCarthy well !! A strong recommendation by David Davidar, editor of Penguin India, in his weekly column in Hindu a few years back was how I got to know about Cormac McCarthy. What caught my fancy was the fact that Davidar mentioned him as a successor to Faulkner. I was naturally curious about McCarthy since Faulkner was one of my favorite authors. I bought and read his 'Orchard Keeper' and then the book recommended by Davidar, 'Blood Meridian'. (It is a pity that Davidar no longer writes that column. I came to know about a lot of good books through that column) I can understand why lot of people compare McCarthy with Faulkne...

With the recent death of Sujatha, Tamilians lost one of their most beloved authors. Sujatha, whose real name was Rangarajan, brought a style into Tamil writing which can be variously categorized in modern terminology as 'hip', 'hep', 'cool' etc. Even those who would turn up their noses and say, "I read only English novels", didn't mind reading Sujatha (and letting others know). If it was 'hep' to read him in those days, it was 'cool' to read him in the 21st century. The fluency of thought, which made reading him so much fun, the conciseness of his descriptions, an experimental bent of mind with respect to language, his way with words which sprung up pleasant surprises, a keen sense of observation and an ever present sense of humor contributed to his unique style of writing. Sujatha's prose can be compared to some of S.D.Burman's best tunes. They remain very fresh and contemporary decades after they were written / tuned. Read...