My Little Log Book

Well, I am the first to admit that the title is neither original nor applies to me. I am not a wimpy housewife, no way. Inspired by my son's devouring of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid and treating it as a bible - I had to pick up the "Secret Diary of a Demented Housewife" - when I came across it at the local library. There was an immediate affinity with diary and diarist - just reading the first page. Many a times I have vowed to spend "quality, life-affirming things to reclaim my spirit" and "staring vacantly into space" wondering about the "the selfless decision to leave the workplace." Or trying to feel noble about being a stay at home mother. As for being wimpy - I don't always give in to the others whims. If I do - I have strong reasons like: I do let my kids watch Cartoon Network 14 hours a day - but that's because I believe a moving, lively, colorful medium will do more for their brain than the staid colorless words in print. They ...

An Equal Music is the only Vikram Seth book I have read (so far). It is always a daunting task to start reading a book of an author of Seth’s stature. As one starts to read – the book comes to life like the music it portrays. Can a book which is solely about classical music (of which I have absolutely zero knowledge) sustain for the length of a novel? It can and does as it flows through chapters describing the perfect music, the love the protagonist Michael is in search of and the fusion of love, music and the life of a struggling violinist and a quartet named Maggiore. Michael is a narcissist. For him it is perfect or nothing. A butcher’s son from Yorkshire (no, Lancashire), he has started on his journey with the violin with encouragement from an elderly neighbour and inputs from the public library of unlikely Manchester - to make a small place for himself in classical music. As he struggles on in London , he finds his lost love Julia – while his quartet makes some of the perfect mu...