The Moses Expedition by Juan Gomez-Jurado

I bought this book without knowing anything about the book or the author. I purchased this book in a MPH book sale , as i was checking other books, this book popped up . I took it without reading anything i put it in my basket. Some books just come to us without warning! I did not regret buying this book.

I started the book on Friday evening and finished the book on Saturday midnight , by the way  i did not read the book day time. The story is about the a group of 23 men and women to find "Ark of The Covenant" believed to be given to Moses by God.The story starts in Nazi Germany and passes through Spain,Vatican and Jordan. The  Catholic Priest Anthony Fowler follows Nazi doctor many years and find him and the important object.

A little boy Raymon Kayn escapes from Nazis and immigrate to US during world war.Raymond Kayn  is a big businessman and his lifelong ambition is to find the "Ark of The Covenant".He uses all his money and power to hire professionals for the expedition .His right hand man is Russel , who is a classmate of  Kayn's son who died in 9/11 attack.

The Vatican too, in search of the "Ark of The Covenant " tie up with Kayn and send Father Anthony Fowler as a observer(of course they have a different motive for sending Fr.Fowler!).Fr.Fowler was once military chaplain and he was the one who found the half of the map.His aide is another priest,former hacker and an ISL,Fr.Albert. These priests are all part of 'Holy Alliance'- the Vatican's secret intelligence service.The two other important female characters are Andrea Otero , the Spanish reporter and doctor Harel, who is part of Mossad.These two falls in love while in expedition. The interesting part is no one knows anything about others in the group.  

The terrorism consultant and owner of Netcatch Orville Watson found some details of Huqan who is believed to be the leader of a terrorist group.He hinted this to Kayn and his assistant Russell, that made Watson a target for the terrorist.His office was attacked and the all the materials were burnt and he was under cover.Through various events Fr.Fowler came to know that someone inside the group is trying to kill one by one , after the first murder of Stowie Erling. He also came to know through Andrea that the security agents are using code words to kill one by one. Fr.Fowler has to find who is doing that. Mean while the archaeologists  in the expedition team almost reached the underground location of "Ark of the covenant". The remaining story is whether Fr.Fowler found who is Huqan and "Ark of The Covenant" ? The suspense created by each killing makes ones heart palpitating and the slowness in doing it make even interesting.

Read it for the beauty of suspense.

The author's research for this book

What makes a good reader by Vladimir Nabokov

I came across this in some website , i love Nabokov's essays on various topics and about butterflies and this one made me to think a bit .Am i good reader according to Nobokov?
The first point itself off for me because i'm not in any book club. One thing i came to know from a guy who is in book club was that 'it was fun way to know more about the book' . So im searching  for some book clubs here in singapore. I googled and found so many,now i have to choose one. How many book clubs we have in Tamilnadu?.The second point is perfect, i do that. I always identify myself with a character. I follow the third point somewhat , i look for social angle but not much of of economic .I follow the fourth point. Fifth and sixth point is not really for me. I think seventh point is must for a reader,imagination will open doors of world of wonders.
The eighth point is not for me because i used to forget things from the books ,now i'm some what better in remembering things.Yes, one must have dictionary while reading, i do that. While reading in Kindle,it has a good dictionary in it.The last point i'm not sure.

It does not matter whether one follow above points, it all depends how well we put ourselves into the book which we are reading. I always loves the books which talks to me.

வாடிவாசல்(Vaadivaasal) - சி.சு.செல்லப்பா

The great Chellappa's another great book. This is my second book of him. This book details the minutes of Jallikattu . Never read any book in tamil that explains this much details of a particular sport.I saw Jallikattu once near Ramanathapuram very interesting and was fascinated by the beast and men.Awesome!

This is the story of Kaari the legendary bull and Pichchi,who came to take revenge of his fathers death.Before getting into the story ,one need to understand the social settings of  that period.The bull was the status symbol of Zamindars and rich and they make sure that no one comes for the competition and tame it.I should  say my idea of the above was through movies , have not seen much like that in our side (Rameswaram area).  In this book the author introduces the zamindar with others talking about him . For him, Kaari is everything.

On the other side Pichchi who is from working class wanted to tame the famed Kaari for the sake of his father's will. Maruthan  Pichchi's brother-in-law helps him to overcome Kaari. Pichchi with great skill and hard work tames the famed Kaari. The author beautiful brings the essence of rich versus poor people when Zamindar meet Pichchi and gives his shawl and 100  rupees and latter the negative talks of people about the Kaari, which directed towards Zamindar himself. The Zamindar with all his status tarnished shot Kaari and kills it.

The flow and pace of the story is just awesome and more importantly the setting of the characters reflects the society beautifully.I liked the drawings by K.M Aathimoolam in the book ,just beautiful.

Wonderful book.

எக்சைல்(Exile) - சாரு நிவேதிதா(Charu Nivedita)

Charu Nivedita one of the most controversial writer in Tamil.I have been following his writings for last 3 years through his websites and articles in different magazines.So i did not had any expectations on reading this book.I just read to know what this book is all about.

Exile - as per the author and the publisher is a auto-fiction.I believe the fiction part has nothing to say, means there is nothing new in the story, an one liner- a married girl fall in love with a married man. Anjali's story is good but cinematic. The narration is good .Black humor in this book makes it interesting.The contradicting views of Anjali and Kokarakko runs through out the book and its enjoyable for the most part.There are lots of sub-stories for each characters.

First 40+ pages , the author defends himself from the different scandals/scams which he involved or forced to  involve.And another 10+ pages about Tamil Nadu's current state of living  and its people's role.I got so many questions to the author, he is not consistent with his views.He says Tamil people are not reading his so called "literary" works.With due respect to his essays on world cinema and other literature , after reading this book i realized that anything can be called "literary" work..I believe "Zero Degree" is better than this.

He mentioned in the book that Tamilians in Singapore don't know the book shop Books Kinokuniya ,im living in Singapore for the last 6 years, i knew most Tamilians don't know about Books Kinokuniya but Charu has to understand that there is no need for us to go there because one can find almost all the books in different libraries in Singapore. I hope if comes here next time he will visit different libraries, not just one.

So many unwanted things are there , which are not related to story , some are interesting some are just filling the spaces. But the author is having a good writing style. On the contrary he had done lots of research about many things for this book. His knowledge on French Literature is amazing.He introduces lots of French writers and books to readers like me.But Charu has to understand that its not necessary to know all these writers to read and talk literature and it does not make one less intellectual.

Before i read this book, i did some research on existentialism and understood somewhat. Is Charu existentialists? to the extend yes but, is he on par with those great existentialists?.Before i start this book  I read Willam S.Burrough's "Naked Lunch" which caused a literary storm  and was banned for sometime in US. This book is nowhere related to that book. May be i did not get the link.

I strongly believe this is not the best of Charu. As i mentioned earlier , he has brilliant style of writing and can write far better than this. When i told one of my relation that i was reading Charu's book he told "he is adult story writer". Without reading any of the books by the author , one should not criticize him.The thing i dont like about Charu Nivedita is that he always boast himself better than any other writer in Tamil and he is not writing proper review for those books which he read in Tamil. He mentioned in the TV show that he could not read more than 10+ pages of Poomani's "Anggadi" , i felt very sad. One should read fully and give his reviews.

Even though i was not impressed by the story but like the style of writing. He had mixed many things in this book : cooking , Alcohol, Meditation, Sex,Sithargal,French literature, etc and lots of anger on Tamil society.

A blog mentioned as the hero's guru :  http://siththarkal.blogspot.com  , now its a brand new website : Siththarkal

Some of the writers mentioned in this book:
Tahar Ben Jelloun
Nikos kazantzakis
Ferdinand de Saussure
Claude Levi-Strauss
Sophie Kinsella
Roberto Sosa
Helene Cixous
Julia Kristeva
R.D.Laing
Jean-Paul Sartre
Ray Bradbury  - The Pedestrian (Short Story)
Serge Doubrovsky 
Charles Bukowski
Georges Bataille
Jacques Derrida
Louis Althusser
Roland Barthes
Jacques Lacan
Georges Perec
Soren Kierkegaard
Julio Cortazar
Michael Houellebecq
Alejo Carpentier
Juan Rulfo
Alain Robbe-Grillet