O'Blivions Written by Brandon Wells

O’Blivions Written by Brandon Wells

The author worked as a ghostwriter and now publishes literary fiction under his own name, drawing inspiration from realist and surrealist traditions. He studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before entering the world of ghostwriting. He was raised primarily in the United States and has travelled across the world, including Mexico, South America, and Asia. His work is characterized by a blend of realism and surrealistic symbolism, often exploring themes of dark content.

STORY LINE:

The short story is about a young lad, Nick, who dropped out of a famous college in pursuit of a free life which gives him name and fame in short period. He joins a night club called O’Blivions, where he works as a bartender to earn his living but soon gets addicted to alcohol, drugs and girls. Though he is blessed with dedicated workmanship, he, without much direction in life, constantly gets engaged in heavy drinking, random sex, drug abuse and frequent scuffles. He falls in love with co-bartender Olivia, but she is hooked on to another guy with better lifestyle. One day he loses his well-paid job due to random abusive phone messages, sent by one of his room mates to his boss, under intoxicated state. Finally, Nick ends up in suicidal mission after a prolonged dysfunctional, incestuous lifestyle.

Pros: One gets to know how today’s youth is ending up in self-destructive tendencies expressed through promiscuity, recreational drug abuse, and uncontrolled exposure to dark social media content.

Cons: There is not much of a plot or point that would engage a reader but for some American slang used, which I think was unnecessary at some junctures. Absolutely uninteresting and boring.

My favorite quote in this book :

“Drinking alone is one of the first signs of alcoholism.”

My rating: 1 out 5

 

The Black Hill Written by Mamang Dai

Author of this book, Mamang Dai (born 23 February 1957) is an Indian poet, novelist and journalist based in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh. She received Sahitya Akademi Award in 2017 for her novel The Black Hill. She was selected for the IAS in 1979, but later she left the post to pursue her career in journalism. She is the first woman from her state to be selected for IAS. She received Padma Shri in 2011 from the Government of India. She occupied many high positions in government as well as private media institutions and is well-known as a writer who focusses on close knit communities of remote villages of North East India.

Story Line:
This book is a novelized version of Western means of propagation of Christianity into Tibet, the untouched land of Buddhism, in the nineteenth century and finding ways and means to enter Tibet through Arunachal Pradesh of India. The story starts with the introduction of a Mishmee tribal leader called Kajinsha who falls in love with a woman called Gimur, who is from another tribe, the Abors. Gimur elopes with Kajinsha and they start a family in a remote place, in a small hut, on top of a black hill. All goes well until one day a foreigner arrives on a mission from France, in those dense forests in search of a way to enter Tibet. This white man who is called Father Krick, calls himself a priest and a preacher of a new God and religion. He starts curing the ailments of local tribals with his simple medicines, gaining their confidence and expecting them to guide him to Tibet. Though once he enters a border Tibetan village Sommeau, he is driven back to India by the local Chinese authorities, under the restriction of foreigner entry into Tibet. But Krick doesn’t lose hope and tries to re-enter Tibet through the Mishmee hills, which falls under the guardianship of Kajinsha. This is disliked by Kajinsha and goes to warn Krick to return back but in that circumstance, Krick gets killed by Kajinsha’s rivals. This murder of a white man in tribal land infuriates the British rulers of India and they order arrest of the culprit. But here the twist is that Kajinsha gets arrested, his home, villages and tribe annihilated, instead of the actual culprits, due to their false testimonies to the British. Kajinsha pleads innocence, but in vain. He is sentenced to death after severe torture in prison, as a punishment for the murder of an innocent priest. This event finally results in the mass revolt of many tribes of Arunachal Pradesh against British, as a revenge, leading to heavy casualties and suffering on both sides. Overall, I consider this book as one of the most interesting pleasure reads.

Pros: The exquisite English language used by the author in detailing the beauty of Arunachal Pradesh landscape is worth reading. The reader gets immense pleasure in imbibing the grandiose of expressions of love, hatred, anger, sympathy, innocence, independence and respect amongst the tribal cultures of the State. One also gets to learn the dilapidated conditions of tribal lives in these dense forests in those times. The splendor of English used by the author is mesmerizing and makes the reader flip through the pages undisturbed. Hats off to the knowledge and research of the author in writing this book, which has earned her a Sahitya Academy Award.

Cons: Though this appears to be a true story to a reader with factual information, the author leaves a benefit of doubt to the reader in the end, due to absence of any records of such characters or incidents that have been cited in the book, anywhere in Government vaults, except for some details of Father Krick’s book “An account of an Expedition among the Abors in 1853, (published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1913).”

My favorite quotes in this book:
‘What is this land? Men spoke of land as a possession. ‘From this stream to the limits of the jungle and up to that hill with the white rock is my land,’ they said. Every piece of earth was claimed. The big trees, the high mountains, the rivers rushing down crevasses, the steep cliffs and jagged rocks. Waterways changed course and dried up. Men fought and killed each other. Blood flowed. Brothers became enemies. How could the mere features of a landscape ignite such love and ferocity’

‘The time we have is what we call our life. It is how I stand, hunt, sleep, breathe. Who knows when life will end, and how death will come— by fire, water, a falling tree, illness, or from the hand of an enemy? But whether one will live a long life, a successful life, these are not considerations. The desire is to live!’

‘These are texts that are thousands of years old, written and passed down from generation to generation but it will not interest you because you do not know what religion is, what a script is. It is what makes us strong and invincible. It is what keeps us safe from strangers’.

My rating : 4.5 out 5