The intriguingly titled “The Marriage Bureau for Rich People” by Farahad Zama was a Christmas present (somewhat delayed) from Aunt Betty. I read it as an antidote to the vulgarities of “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer – and I ended up enjoying it.
Its style reminded me of “The No 1 Women’s Detective Agency” novels by Alexander McCall Smith. Zama’s book set in Vizag in south India concerns the retired Mr Ali’s success in setting up the eponymous agency.
The first part of the novel is episodic and different with the same mix of banality and exoticism that characterizes McCall Smith’s books set in Botswana. There is a picaresque quality to Zama’s book which is reminiscent of the sort of writing which you find in a magazine columnist with a settled weekly audience fascinated with his take on a foreign oddity cantered on an unfashionable cultural institution like the concept of the arranged marriage.
As soon as the central love story takes off then there is a completely different dynamic to the story line and it becomes, inevitably perhaps, more conventional. Though not necessarily less enjoyable for that.
Mr Ali becomes a figure of considerable authority and insight and someone who seems to embody the common sense of experience to an extraordinary degree. Perhaps one should treat the book as a fairy tale! I recommend it as a fairly easy and spasmodically funny read.
St Valentine’s Day came and went. It was enlivened this year by television showing a group of Muslims burning the rubbish associated with the commercialization of the day. It was bizarre watching some bushy bearded elder rather maladroitly attempting to burn a big pink heart - obviously constructed by the zealots specially to be burnt!
I must admit that it rather an endearing thought to imagine some embittered imam buying pink cardboard and cutting out a heart. It was rather depressing watching fluffy toys singeing in the flames as well, watched by heavily veiled girls whose sparkling eyes watched the carnage!
I do, of course agree with the rejection of the more garish aspects of commercialization, but I also object to demonstrations by religious fanatics devaluing my position by throwing blind faith and mindless prejudice at my carefully thought out political position!
Tomorrow one of the interminable meetings after school that our institution likes so much.
And I don’t.
Its style reminded me of “The No 1 Women’s Detective Agency” novels by Alexander McCall Smith. Zama’s book set in Vizag in south India concerns the retired Mr Ali’s success in setting up the eponymous agency.
The first part of the novel is episodic and different with the same mix of banality and exoticism that characterizes McCall Smith’s books set in Botswana. There is a picaresque quality to Zama’s book which is reminiscent of the sort of writing which you find in a magazine columnist with a settled weekly audience fascinated with his take on a foreign oddity cantered on an unfashionable cultural institution like the concept of the arranged marriage.
As soon as the central love story takes off then there is a completely different dynamic to the story line and it becomes, inevitably perhaps, more conventional. Though not necessarily less enjoyable for that.
Mr Ali becomes a figure of considerable authority and insight and someone who seems to embody the common sense of experience to an extraordinary degree. Perhaps one should treat the book as a fairy tale! I recommend it as a fairly easy and spasmodically funny read.
St Valentine’s Day came and went. It was enlivened this year by television showing a group of Muslims burning the rubbish associated with the commercialization of the day. It was bizarre watching some bushy bearded elder rather maladroitly attempting to burn a big pink heart - obviously constructed by the zealots specially to be burnt!
I must admit that it rather an endearing thought to imagine some embittered imam buying pink cardboard and cutting out a heart. It was rather depressing watching fluffy toys singeing in the flames as well, watched by heavily veiled girls whose sparkling eyes watched the carnage!
I do, of course agree with the rejection of the more garish aspects of commercialization, but I also object to demonstrations by religious fanatics devaluing my position by throwing blind faith and mindless prejudice at my carefully thought out political position!
Tomorrow one of the interminable meetings after school that our institution likes so much.
And I don’t.
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