Kafka and Totalitarianism

Disclaimer: This post is part of a series of essays I wrote at the Young India Fellowship. This particular essay was written as a transcript as part of the course titled Totalitarian Century.

The Trial by Franz Kafka

“Someone must have falsely denounced Josef K., for without having done anything wrong, he was arrested one morning.”: The Trial, Franz Kafka

The opening lines of Franz Kafka’s The Trial is one of the most chilling and memorable of all time. A well-established chief banker, Josef K. is suddenly arrested one day by unidentified agents from an unidentified organization for committing an unidentified crime. What follows is a host of absurdities: the guilt of the protagonist is assumed, he is allowed to roam free despite being ‘under arrest’, trial processes take place in shady attics and the convicted (and the reader) has absolutely no idea of the crime he has committed throughout the entire novel.

As with his other works such as The Castle and Metamorphosis, Kafka’s magnum opus has been subject to a variety of interpretations ranging from psychoanalytical to religious to political. Kafka was a German Jew and there is evidence that suggests that he was deeply influenced by the Anti-Semitic Trials that took place in Hungary, France, and Czechoslovakia in the late 19th century. This, combined with the tensions and rise of totalitarian states in Europe prompted Kafka to write his novel just before the outbreak of the First World War.

In the novel, Kafka states quite clearly that Josef K. lives in a society with a legal constitution, universal peace and enforceable law. Nevertheless, he gets arrested for a crime he doesn’t know he committed and is given little to no legal assistance or context by the state. He also goes through a thoroughly unfair trial and is brutally executed in the end screaming “Like a dog!”. Franz Kafka died in 1924 and little did he know that his absurdist novel would become reality in his country barely a decade after his death.

When Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party assumed power, they promised to resurrect Germany from its defeat in the First World War and establish a Reich that would last a thousand years. The Nazis were also morbidly obsessed with eugenics and believed that their race, the Aryans, was the master human race. Other lower races, especially the Jews, had to be eliminated to ‘purify’ the human race and make them pay for the crimes they had committed against the state, which was directly responsible for the defeat of Germany in the First World War.

Displaced people in Germany during World War 2

By the late 1940s, hundreds of thousands of Josef K.’s were met by Nazi agents at their doors and were arrested despite not having done anything wrong. Their assets were seized and they were sent to concentration camps without any trial where they faced torture and almost certain death. In other words, they died ‘like a dog’. Der Prozess had become an undeniable reality.

The Nazi Holocaust, although an extreme event, is unfortunately not an exception. Millions of Josef K.’s have died since 1945 in the USSR, Rwanda, and Armenia. All these countries had a constitution and a notion of justice in place. The Trial was most definitely Kafka’s warning about totalitarian regimes. It is fitting that he chose not to disclose the surname of the protagonist. It was his way of saying that this man could be anyone: a Jew in Nazi Germany, a Rohingya Muslim in present-day Myanmar or a Viet in Cambodia in 1975.

So far, this essay has created analogies between The Trial and historical events with the assumption that the protagonist of the story hadn’t done anything which could be considered a crime. The remainder of this essay will have a slightly different take: What if the protagonist had indeed committed ‘a crime’ and simply didn’t know he did?

By now, history has an extremely rich archive of the totalitarian states that have existed (or exist) around the world. Most of these states have very similar characteristics: fervent nationalism, a powerful tyrant dictator, rampant jingoism and tendency to commit genocide of minority and disadvantaged groups.

However, there is a new kind of totalitarian state brewing. Its primary weapon is not massive armies or concentration camps but data; extensive information that it collects about its citizens from every imaginable aspect of their lives. It is unlikely that Kafka had the clairvoyance to predict data-driven totalitarian states in the 21st century but nevertheless, his book manages to serve as a chilling warning to this nouveau totalitarianism too.

Nosedive, Black Mirror

In 2016, the Netflix series Black Mirror released an episode titled Nosedive. True to its theme, it features a dystopian world where people were required to rate other people based on the quality of interactions they had with them. Based on the ratings other people gave you, you would be assigned a social credit score. This score was as important as money as it determined the kind of public places you could visit, homes you could rent and neighborhoods you could live in.

On the outset, this episode may seem like science fiction but a state like this is actually taking shape in the People’s Republic of China. China announced that it was experimenting with a social credit system that could determine the kind of loans you could avail and jobs you could take. Traditionally private information such as shopping history and friendships of an individual could now be made public.  The Chinese Government claimed that it was to build a system of trust but the underlying repercussions of this system are immense. This system is the first step towards total surveillance. The effects have already begun to seep through. For instance, a number of students in China were barred from admissions in schools and colleges on account of their parents’ low credit scores. The parents were apparently on a ‘national blacklist’. Josef K. had once again faced consequences without having done anything wrong and without knowing the nature of his crime.

Another interesting facet of Josef K.’s trial was his freedom of mobility. Despite being under arrest, he is allowed to roam freely and conduct his business as usual. This is because the unidentified authority that has charged him has means and tools at its disposal that allows it to identify the location of Josef K. at any given time. Many countries in the west have tools that enable them to track people’s locations and they have misused severely by authorities. For instance, authorities at a local police department in the US were found guilty of using traffic light tapes to identify cars parked outside of gay bars and blackmail the owners into revealing their sexuality to their family. China is also undertaking a project of supplying its police force with AR spectacles that would automatically identify a person. Therefore, the surveillance aspect of The Trial is not science fiction anymore; it is slowly becoming a disturbing reality.

Throughout the novel, we do not have any idea of the nature of crimes that Josef K. has committed. And neither does Josef K. himself. But can this be possible? To answer this question, this essay will devise a thought experiment that borrows elements from George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984. In 1984, there is a separate class of crime called ‘Thoughtcrime’ which is the crime of having thoughts considered ‘illegal’. The Big Brother in the novel takes elaborate steps to ensure no one is committing this crime but recent development in technology might make this process much easier.

Neuroscientists and major Software Giants (including Facebook) are developing a technology that can directly convert thoughts to speech or text. Considering the fact that this technology will be embedded into wearable devices, this has the potential to give the provider unlimited access to our thoughts. The question, therefore, begs to be asked. What if totalitarian governments used this technology to read the thoughts of its citizens and incarcerate those that harbored thoughts that were considered dangerous? Then, we would finally have the answer to The Trial’s most burning question. Josef K. of the 21st century had harbored a thought that made it eligible to be considered as Thoughtcrime. Unbeknownst to him, this thought was recorded on his wearable device and transmitted to the Government. The Government then arrested Josef K. without giving him any explanations regarding the circumstances.

Dystopian novels have been revered as being important hallmarks of literature but we often ignore the salient warnings they give out. The Trial is no exception. Despite its ‘validation’ from history, readers will still find the piece to be absurd. But the warnings that it gives out must be taken seriously. It may not be very long before we too have agents outside our door waiting to arrest us, deny us a fair trial and execute us like dogs.

Bibliography

1. Mitchell, M., & Kafka, F. (2009). The Trial (Oxford World’s Classics). Oxford University Press.
2. Translating Kafka. (n.d.). Kafka Translated: How Translators Have Shaped Our Reading of Kafka. doi:10.5040/9781472543653.ch-001
3. Löwy, Michael (2009) “Franz Kafka’s Trial and the Anti-Semitic Trials of His Time,” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge: Vol. 7 : Iss. 2 , Article 13.
4. Taylor, A. (2015, April 24). It wasn’t just the Armenians: The other 20th century massacres we ignore. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/04/24/it-wasnt-just-the-armenians-the-other-20th-century-massacres-we-ignore/?utm_term=.db4f1f125afa
5. Zaretsky, R. (2014, April 28). 100 Years Later, Revisiting Franz Kafka’s ‘The Trial’ and World War I. Retrieved from https://forward.com/culture/196986/100-years-later-revisiting-franz-kafkas-the-trial/
6. Reisener, M. (2018, February 24). Does Kafka’s ‘The Trial’ Have Lessons for Today? Retrieved from https://nationalinterest.org/feature/does-kafkas-the-trial-have-lessons-today-24632
7. Song, B. (2018, November 29). The West may be wrong about China’s social credit system. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/theworldpost/wp/2018/11/29/social-credit/?utm_term=.66377863d9a4
8. Death by data: How Kafka’s The Trial prefigured the nightmare of the modern surveillance state. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.newstatesman.com/2014/01/death-data-how-kafkas-trial-prefigured-nightmare-modern-surveillance-state
9. Marr, B. (2019, January 21). Chinese Social Credit Score: Utopian Big Data Bliss Or Black Mirror On Steroids? Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2019/01/21/chinese-social-credit-score-utopian-big-data-bliss-or-black-mirror-on-steroids/#40b32d1748b8
10. Brooker, C. (Writer). (n.d.). Nosedive [Black Mirror]. Retrieved from https://www.netflix.com/watch/80104627
11. Kobie, N. (2019, January 24). The complicated truth about China’s social credit system. Retrieved from https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-explained
12. Guenther FH, Brumberg JS, Wright EJ, Nieto-Castanon A, Tourville JA, et al. (2009) A Wireless Brain-Machine Interface for Real-Time Speech Synthesis. PLoS ONE 4(12): e8218. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008218
13. Church, M. (1956). Time and Reality in Kafka’s The Trial and The Castle. Twentieth Century Literature, 2(2), 62-69. doi:10.2307/440948
14. Liao, S. (2018, March 12). Chinese police are expanding facial recognition sunglasses program. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/12/17110636/china-police-facial-recognition-sunglasses-surveillance
15. Orwell, G. (2014). 1984. New York, NY: Spark Publishing.

What do I know?

Disclaimer: This post is part of a series of essays I wrote at the Young India Fellowship. This particular essay was written as part of the Critical Writing course on Mind, Society and Behavior.

I believe the summer of 2016 was one of the most significant phases of my life. I had slipped into a period of depression and my personal and academic life was suffering immensely as a consequence. At my lowest point, I had turned to literature. It seemed to me to be my last respite; my messiah. And it did not disappoint. In a span of three months, I had read close to 75 books. There were days where I was completing 500 pages in a single sitting. I do not know if there is an upper threshold at which reading could be considered unhealthy but if there is, I am pretty sure I had far surpassed that limit.

I can say with absolute confidence that I learned more about myself and the world around me in those three months than the time encompassing the rest of my existence. Therefore, what I reflect upon in this essay will draw heavily from my readings (of philosophy, fiction, science, and religion) from the summer of 2016;.

As I sat pondering upon what knowledge is, I was immediately reminded of a powerful anecdote from The Little Prince, an extremely influential  French novella penned by Antoine de Saint Exupéry.

The book contained an image (perhaps one of the most famous in world literature) and asked the reader to ponder upon what it was. At first glance, many readers would agree that the image was that of a hat. However, the author argues that it could very well also be a boa constrictor that had swallowed an elephant whole. I shall reference this allegory in the subsequent sections of this essay.

I believe that the Universe and the Truth that is associated with it is nothing but utter, absolute chaos. Knowledge to me is simply a proxy; a tool that we think allows us to infer truth about the Universe. And while knowledge does succeed in making sense of some parts of the Universe, there always comes a time when it fails to explain something and descends into futility.

I shall try to demonstrate the above statements using an allegory. Imagine that you are lying on the grass and you see a cloud in the shape of an elephant. The fact that you see an elephant in the cloud is like knowledge. The cloud is the truth. While the shape of the cloud is chaotic and inherently random, you try to build a model of an elephant around its shape in order to explain it and/or understand it better even though nature never intended for that to happen.

Therefore, the creation and pursuance of knowledge is nothing but a never-ending quest to form proxies that would help understand the Universe a little ‘better’ than what previous proxies could do. Ever since mankind was given the gift of sentience, it has indulged in an almost insurmountable quest of making sense of the chaos in the midst in which it found itself in.

The first humans were perplexed by phenomena such as lightning, rain, the stars and the endless cycle of day and nights. In its quest to make sense and gain knowledge of what was going around, mankind developed its first proxy: God. Alexander Drake, in his treatise The Invention of Religion, has argued that any sentient being when placed in an environment of zero knowledge will firstly and eventually develop the concept of God in order to explain phenomena that surrounds him/her.

However, mankind soon realized that the concept of an omnipotent being responsible for everything that surrounded them had its shortcomings. While it performed a satisfactory job of explaining events that had already occurred, it fell extremely short of predicting outcomes around circumstances that were extremely similar. And it is in this shortcoming that we see the genesis of science.

Although science understandably enjoys intellectual hegemony over religion, at its core, the two attempt at doing the same thing: making sense of the Universe. Science tends to enjoy superiority on account of its modeling prowess and predictability. For instance, when the laws of motion were formulated by Newton, it was possible to compute the velocity with which a ball would land if it fell from a certain height. This was true of every ball and every setting as long as the height remained the same. However, we often misjudge this discovery as ‘truth’. Scientific models were never the absolute truth. They were just proxies that explained a certain behavior of the Universe accurately. They were like the elephant in the clouds. The Universe simply does not care for scientific or mathematical laws. It isn’t aware of the laws of motion. It just so happens that in its chaos, we manage to sometimes find apparent order in it.

Since, by its very nature, knowledge is nothing but a collection of proxies, it always tends to break after a certain point of time. As an illustration, consider the evolution of the structure of the atom. In the beginning, it was believed that an atom was a blob of positive charge with negative electrons embedded in it. All phenomena observed in association with the atom could be explained by this model. But then came a period when something else about the atom was observed. The cloud did not look like an elephant anymore. So, now it was postulated that an atom was mostly empty space with a dense, positive nucleus at the center and negative electrons revolving around it. This model, in turn, was rendered useless when quantum mechanics was discovered.

Thus, we see that knowledge and its acquisition is merely the development of proxies that we presume are better on account of its potency to explain more facts about the Universe than its predecessors. The scientific world has a current set of proxies with which it understands the world. However, it is an absolute certainty that some phenomena will be eventually discovered that will render it impotent.

Now that we’ve established that knowledge is nothing but a proxy to create order out of something that is inherently chaotic, development of knowledge is simply an exercise of developing apparently more ‘potent’ proxies over existing proxies. Understandably, there is always a base set that arises out of nothing. In this essay, I will refer to these points of knowledge as axioms (akin to Mathematics). These are ‘facts’ that cannot be proved and are assumed to be the truth. All knowledge is built from this base set of axioms.

The potency of knowledge is constantly tested by ensuring it is consonant with the phenomena that it attempts to explain. Once it fails to explain something, it must be either discarded or modified in order to explain the aforementioned phenomena and still maintain consonance with everything that it has correctly explained before.

Some knowledge is created by the easy modification of the current state of knowledge. An example of this is the evolution of Rutherford’s nucleo-centric model from Thomson’s positive blob. Some knowledge, on the other hand, requires a modification of the base axioms in order for it to come into existence. For instance, atoms were considered to be matter. This was considered base truth. However, when quantum mechanics emerged, this axiom had to be discarded in order to make room for the duality notion. It is at this point that I make a reference to the Little Prince hat. Knowledge to me is like that har. It is constantly changing and is never a reflection of absolute truth. For all we know, the shape drawn above is just a random collection of lines. Our observations and existing notions (knowledge) lead us to believe that it is a hat. However, should we see this hat starting to slither, we will evolve our understanding to label it as a boa constrictor that has swallowed an elephant. In the future, we may observe some other things that may not be cognizant with this model either. Then again, we will attempt at describing it as something that explains that particular phenomenon in addition to everything that was observed earlier.

With my thoughts on knowledge substantiated, I shall now turn my attention to what it is I know. If by the term ‘know’, I’m referring to the absolute truths about the Universe, I find it necessary to quote Socrates in saying that I know nothing. All I have with me is a set of useful proxies that allow me to make sense out of some components of the Universe I exist in. I am cognizant of the fact that they may be proved wrong in the future but so far, they have helped me in explaining everything that I have observed and/or experienced.

In the same breath, I would, therefore, say that my conquest of knowledge is simply the acquisition and development of better proxies that enable me to understand a superset of the components of the Universe that my present state of knowledge may fail to explain.

A stated several times in this essay since knowledge is nothing but a set of proxies, the question begs as to how do we actually develop these proxies. We do so by interaction and observation. We observe something that is happening in the Universe and try to construct causal reasoning behind it. If the reasoning (or model) holds for subsequent events of the same nature, it survives for the time being. If it doesn’t, the model is modified. In some other instances, we supply a stimulus and record the response. We observe how responses differ to different stimuli and again, we try and construct a model that is potent enough to extrapolate on stimuli-response pairs that haven’t been explicitly tested before. This relationship between stimuli and its corresponding stimuli is again something we construct. It doesn’t inherently exist. As before, it is like the elephant in the cloud.

If I am made aware of something that I do not ‘know’, it could mean one of two things. Either I do not have a proxy in my set of proxies that can help me understand it. Or I possess a proxy that had given me an incorrect result. In the first case, I simply add the state of the art proxy to my set and in the latter, I modify my existing proxy using techniques that I have explained above. There are several instances where the latter might cause cognitive dissonance in my head. In other words, the modification of a particular proxy threatens the existence of the other proxies. In such cases. I make a cost-benefit analysis. There is never a right answer to this question. It boils down to which I would consider being more taxing to my mental and ethical well being: the ignorance of one phenomenon that my premature proxy cannot explain or a major overhaul of my entire set of proxies altogether.

In the final sections of the essay, I will attempt at creating a narrating around me knowing my self. I have come to understand that there are four components to knowing me. The first is observations and a set of associated explanations that are public knowledge to me as well as others around me. The second are those that are known to me but not to others. The third is vice versa. The fourth and the final are things that are not known by anyone.

I have come to realize that I will never come to know the absolute truth about myself. In that sense, I am like the Universe in which I reside. I can only create proxies that help me to understand a component of myself better. The truth about me resides in the fourth component. The other three are merely observations and proxies created on account of it. There are things that I believe are true about myself. There are certain moral principles that I believe I adhere to. But I am cognizant of the fact that these may all be rendered false when I’m put in a situation that forces me to alter my vision of myself. I will never know who I truly am. I will only know parts of me as I progress through life that will hold true until they are broken under certain circumstances. In my pure essence, I am chaos. There is no inherent order to who I am. I can only run with assumptions and be resilient when faced with the prospect of changing my perspective of myself.

Lord of the Rings

 

I’m finally done with the Lord of the Rings volumes. It took me over a month to go through Tolkein’s colossal work. And I have a strong feeling that what I’m going to state in this post may fall into the domain of extremely unpopular opinion. But here goes: I found the reading experience to be painfully mediocre.

It was a struggle to get to the end of the six books, compiled into three volumes. And the usual thrill and suspense associated with most fantasy books was absent. I felt the majority of the literature focused on describing surroundings than on actual dialogue and character development.

Now, make no mistake, I do understand and appreciate Tolkein’s contribution to the world of literature and the fantasy genre in particular. But Lord of the Rings, when reviewed objectively, didn’t turn out to be such a great book. Personally, I felt more than half the book could have been omitted without making a huge difference to the narrative. Also, Tolkein didn’t seem to have too much of a regard about building suspense towards the climatic scenes of the book. Frodo Baggins and Gollum fighting over the ring in the heart of Mount Doom will always remain one of my most favorite cinematic moments. This monumental scene took place in the first half of the last book. And it was over before I could even start to savor it. And with Sauron gone, it seemed pointless to continue reading the narrative for seven more chapters (practically three to four days).

I’ve always been a fan of Tolkein’s world. Peter Jackson’s portrayal of his books will always be among the few cinematic masterpieces in film history. I strongly feel Jackson’s narrative was a lot more engaging. His movies had significant female characters, something which Tolkein’s books utterly lacked. Additionally, Jackson conveniently removed all the parts that were a pain to read and otherwise unimportant to the main narrative (think Tom Bombadil, Goldberry and Saruman’s conquering of the Shire).

Everything said and done, I’d be stupid if I denied that the books give a valuable insight into how the entire genre of fantasy took birth. Most people I know swear by the books. Maybe it all boils down to a matter of personal taste. And although I did not like the books and may never read them again, I’d strongly suggest you do. It is a must have in every serious reader’s bookshelf.

Finance and Dystopia

 

I don’t know why but it gets really hard to do anything once you’ve progressed to the middle of the summer vacation. It took an immense amount of effort to do something that was even worth mentioning here in spite of there being a post drought for almost a week. Nevertheless, I did finally manage to read up Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange (the only book I hadn’t read in Goodreads’ Top 10 entries in the Best Novellas list). The book was a pain in the beginning. It took time to get used to Burgess’ lingo. The issues the book raised were definitely worth some thought but overall, I’d consider it a one-time read.

I had thoroughly underestimated the vastness of Udacity’s Intro to Artificial Intelligence course. I must have spent over 15 hours on it cumulatively and I’m not even halfway through. But the amount  I’ve learnt is immense. AI is seriously something I see myself pursuing and studying in the future. Up until now, I’m done with 10 units of the course with 12 more to go. Hopefully, I’ll follow up with courses which treat its sub branches in depth.

Rommel Rodriguez’s Everything You Wanted To Know About Business and Economics presented a lot of useful information about the Indian Economy and the working of Stock Markets. The writing wasn’t exceptional but it is one book I can fall back on if I needed help with almost anything to do  with money.

Lastly, I’ve started reading Philp Pullman’s His Dark Materials. The Golden Compass has turned out to be a pretty interesting and easy read so far. I hope series lives up to its third place on BBC’s Big Read List.

Some Fiction and Inspiration

 

In the past few days, I really haven’t done anything of substance. I have been a reading some fiction  though. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was one of the highest rated books on Goodreads. Austen’s commentary and satire of nineteenth century British gentry is considered one of the all time favorites of literature. Unfortunately, I cannot say I relate with the opinions of two centuries of readers on the novel. The writing was impeccable, yes, but the book on the whole was a bore. I cannot simply fathom why any reader would be interested in knowing the household affairs of upper class Englishmen. It was like watching an Indian soap with absolutely no plot. Austen’s writing style, though, enabled me to finish the book.

O.Henry’s The Gift of the Magi reminded me as to why this legend was one of my favorite authors in high school. The story of Della and Jim and the sacrifices they make to provide for their significant other is a welcome reminiscence of how wonderful and loving relationships couples were willing to sacrifice even a little for their better halves. And the most poignant message the story gives out is that money, status and power really dwarf in comparison to loving, nurturing relationships.

The Last Lecture was definitely on the emotionally charged side. And that is not very surprising considering the fact that the author wrote the book in the last few months of his life whilst dying of cancer. Rausch’s swan song serves to remind everyone how valuable and ephemeral our lives are. In his last days, this what he seeks to preach. Love everyone to the fullest. Live to the fullest. And let people around you know how much you mean to them. This is one book I’d certainly look up to whenever I find myself in distress or in need of advice.

 

The Invention of Religion

 

Alexander Drake’s The Invention of Religion is one of the most convincing account against the authenticity  of religion. Drake uses concepts of social psychology like conformism, authority and conditioning to make an argument as to how religion actually came into existence due to fallacies in our cognitive abilities. Meticulously building on concepts such as ritual, worship, deity, soul and afterlife, Drake convincingly argues that it is absence of knowledge that leads to the creation of religion. Although I do not consider myself a hardcore atheist, this book did manage to convince to look more deeply into the subject which I intend on doing in the near future.

After a long time, I read some fiction and what great fiction it was! The Perks of Being a Wallflower is one of those books you can read over and over again and not be bored by. There are few characters like the protagonist Charlie with whom I could relate so much with. And Sam’s message at the end of the book coupled with some of the best quotes in  literature (We only accept the love we think we deserve) makes it a must read for every teenager and young adult out there.

 

Summer Reading

 

Urval av de böcker som har vunnit Nordiska rådets litteraturpris under de 50 år som priset funnits

Galaxy S5 Wallpaper

Summer vacations have arrived and people without internships or holiday plans are wondering what to do over the next few months. Quite encouragingly, a considerable number of people have decided to devote a considerable amount of their summer reading books. I’ve had a few people come to me and ask me to give book recommendations for the absolute beginner. That is exactly what I’m going to do, and a little more. I’ll be highlighting all the books that I think would be worthwhile of your time, from the absolute beginner to the seasoned readers who read more than 50 books a year.

The Beginner

For those who have never read, it can be really hard to start. The task of sitting with a 300 page book can seem daunting. And you may not know which books to begin with. Here, I will attempt to do just that. Hopefully, after reading some of the books listed here, you will pick up reading as a lifelong habit and the books you read will open the doors to spectacular worlds for you.

Some of the books listed below are usually regarded as children’s books, meant for kids aged 12 or below. However, don’t let that bother you. I list these books down here because a majority of us were introduced to the world of literature through them. And it’s not like you’ll find them too kiddish. These books are timeless. In fact, I picked up a few Goosebumps titles just a week back and found them as enjoyable as I did in seventh grade (see The Goosebumps Nostalgia)

1. The Goosebumps Series- R.L.Stine

Numbering more than a hundred titles, these horror books by R.L.Stine have sold over 300 million copies worldwide and are one of the best selling books of all time. And it isn’t without good reason. The books are rarely over 150 pages long. They’re extremely easy reads and even though there isn’t much gore, they can manage to give you the creeps. Perfect books for the beginner read. Personally, I’d recommend you try The Headless Ghost, The Cuckoo Clock of Doom and Welcome to Dead House.

2. Famous Five– Enid Blyton

Like R.L.Stine, Enid Blyton’s books to have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide. She is the undisputed champion of children’s books. Famous Five is my favorite Enid Blyton series (It was the favorite of the majority in my school). These are adventure books centered around 4 children and a dog and their adventures during the summers. Extremely small and light reads. Enid Blyton has been responsible for introducing generations of children to the wonderful world of reading. Hopefully, she will succeed in doing the same with you too.

3. Chetan Bhagat

Yes, I am recommending Chetan Bhagat. No, I’ve not lost my mind. And please don’t close this tab. Hear me out.

This man might write trash but he has taught an entire generation of Indian youth to read. Read trash, but read nevertheless. And a lot of people I know who consider themselves avid readers have confessed that they’d started with his books. It would be stupid to deny that there is a certain charm in his books. Through his stories, he is able to connect with the country’s youth: Engineering students, Call Center employees, Entrepreneurs, High School Students etc.

If you have a hard time reading, pick one of his books. You’ll certainly find them relatable. And his language is extremely simple and vulgar. It’s got a lot of sex. Not what the literary connoisseur will ever recommend to you but if it gets you reading, I guess it’s not that bad a decision.

4. Asterix- Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo

If you’re having a hard time sitting with picture-less novels, consider trying Asterix as a start. These French comics by Goscinny and Uderzo have sold over 350 million copies worldwide. The 48 page albums are bound to leave you in peels of laughter.
You could try Tintin too. From what I’ve heard, the comics are as good as Asterix.

4. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid

These books are officially meant for children below twelve but I can unhesitatingly state that these are my favorite books. Jeff Kinney’s humor is one of a kind. These journals by adolescent Greg Heffley are sure to keep you humored for the entire duration you have these books in hand. Even the seasoned readers, please give this one a read if you haven’t already.

5. Harry Potter- J.K.Rowling

If someone tells you that they’ve read only one book series, it is highly likely that that series is Harry Potter. The popularity of the series has spawned a multi-billion dollar franchise and has made its author, Rowling, the only person in history to become a billionaire through writing.
One amazing characteristic of the book is that it matures throughout the series. You start with a 11 year old orphan and you end with a 17 year old trying to save his world from the clutches of evil. Harry Potter is testament to the power of books and the worlds it can open to the reader. Pick up the first book and find yourself lost in the wonderful Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Short Fiction

Once you’ve read a few of the books above, you can transition to mainstream literature. In this section, I will list the best (or at least, the most well known) novellas which are considered must-reads by the literary community.

• Lord of the Flies- Willam Golding
  A group of children find themselves on an isolated island and must now fend for themselves sans any adult. What ensues is nothing short of a horror story.
• Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradbury
  This book is an account of a futuristic world where books are burned down. You’ll start appreciating the impact of books on society after reading this book.
• The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald
  Considered by many as the greatest American novel of the 20th century, this book captures America in the 1920s like never before.
• Of Mice and Men- John Steinbeck
  This book is about outsiders trying to find a place and trying to dream in an unforgiving world. One of the greatest American tragedy novella of the 20th century.
• Animal Farm- George Orwell
  Orwell’s satire on Communism, the Russian Revolution and Josef Stalin is widely regarded as one of the best books of all time.
• The Little Prince- Antoine De Saint Exupery
  The most translated French book, The Little Prince attempts to view our world through the innocent eyes of a child.
• A Christmas Carol- Charles Dickens
  This novella by English great Charles Dickens attempts at showing its readers the importance of festivity, family and relationships.

Fantasy

If you loved Harry Potter (You cannot NOT love Harry Potter. It’s impossible), then you should probably give these books a try. Few genres can create that feeling of teleportation to an entirely different world like fantasy. I loved them. I’m sure you will too.

• Percy Jackson- Rick Riordan
  These books chronicle the adventures of a demigod who must save the world from the rise of the Titans. This series borrows a lot of elements from Harry Potter making it a very interesting read.
• The Chronicles of Narnia- C.S.Lewis
  This series of seven books has been an inspiration to innumerable fantasy authors. The language is much simpler than any other series in this list and makes for a quick, light read.
• The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings- J.R.R. Tolkein
  The father of the fantasy genre, Tolkein was the first to introduce wizards and elves and mythical creatures into contemporary story telling. Admittedly, these books are a difficult read but a staple to everyone who considers themselves a fan of the genre.
• His Dark Materials- Philip Pullman
  BBC rated this series third in its 100 greatest books of all time. It chronicles the adventures of two children as they travel through a series of parallel universes.
• The Hunger Games- Suzanne Collins
  The most popular and highest rated book on Goodreads, The Hunger Games is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a show is held annually with 13 participants fighting to the death.
• A Song of Ice and Fire- George R.R. Martin
  Generally viewed as the greatest fantasy series of all time, A Song of Ice and Fire’s world of Westeros and Essos eclipse even Harry Potter in detail. Each of the books is over 1000 pages long. Gore, sex and violence are in plenty. You need have a hard stomach (and heart) to get through them without any damage.

Classics

I’ll be honest. I’m not a huge fan of classics. I tend to find them boring. And with the exception of The Picture of Dorian Gray, I didn’t find any of the books listed below interesting. But I still include them for the sake of completion. We all have different tastes. Who knows. After reading one of these books, you might actually fall in love in with the genre. Everything’s possible in love and literature.

• The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde
  This novel by Oscar Wilde is the only book I’ve listed in my Favorites list on Goodreads. The novel caused quite a scandal upon its release. But it’s literary genius. Prepare to fall in love with Lord Henry.
• Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen
  The magnum opus of the champion of women authors, Pride and Prejudice deals with issues such as marriage, family and society in 19th century England. Almost all my female friends loved it. Almost all my male friends hated it.
• Little Women- Louisa May Alcott
  The storyline of Alcott’s novel is very similar to that of Pride and Prejudice. Again, I suspect it’ll find a much bigger audience in female readers than male.
• A Tale of Two Cities- Charles Dickens
  One of the best selling books of all time, A Tale of Two Cities contrasts the life of the commoner in Paris and London before and after the French Revolution.
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame- Victor Hugo
  Honestly, I do not remember much of the plot line of this book. I read it a long time ago. What I do remember is that it is a story of father and son fighting over a beautiful damsel which leads to a grisly tragedy.
• Around the World in 80 Days- Jules Verne
  Through this book, the father of science fiction delivers a tale that was far ahead of its time. It follows Phileas Fogg as he tries to travel the world in 80 days through land and sea to win a wager.
• 1984- George Orwell
  Probably the most famous dystopian novel of all time, George Orwell’s frightening prediction of how the world would have been in 1984 is a horror story in every right. You’ll be glad the world didn’t descend to such anarchy after reading the novel.
• To Kill A Mockingbird- Harper Lee
  “Shoot all the bluejays you want but remember, it is a sin to kill a mockingbird”. This monumental work of Harper Lee is perhaps the finest commentary on the notions of racism and justice.

Thriller

There are very few people out there who don’t enjoy the thriller/detective genre. These are the ones which do not let you put the book down unless you’re done with it.

• Dan Brown
  According to me, he is the best thriller writer in the world. I loved each and every one of his books. They tend to focus on Science, Religion and Philosophy, topics I’m deeply interested in. Even if you don’t end up reading all his works, make sure you at least give The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and Inferno a try. Trust me, they’ll be worth every second you spend with them.
• And Then There Were None- Agatha Christie
  This is my favorite Agatha Christie book. It is easily one of the best thriller stories ever written. Few books had me so dumbfounded until the very end as this one.
• The Hound of the Baskervilles- Arthur Conan Doyle
  Now required reading for every 12th grade CBSE student, I consider this the best Sherlock Holmes story. Set in a remote moor with a gigantic man killing hound on the loose, The Hounf of the Baskervilles will not allow you peace until you’ve found out the end of the story.

Philosophical Fiction

• The Fountainhead- Ayn Rand
  This book introduced Ayn Rand’s school of philosophy, Objectivism, to the world. It is considered Bible by many an architect in my college. It follows the life of Howard Roark as he struggles to find a place in a collectivist world.
• The Stranger- Albert Camus
  Albert Camus’ most famous work, The Stranger introduced us to the school of philosophical thought known as Absurdism: that there is no inherent meaning to human life.
• The Trial- Franz Kafka
  Very similar to The Stranger in terms of the plot, The Trial too focuses on subjects such as absurdism and existentialism (To know more, you can read my post on Absurdism and Existentialism)
• Siddhartha- Herman Hesse
  This book follows the great Buddha’s namesake as he travels and struggles to find the meaning of life.
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra- Friedrich Nietzsche
  It is unlikely that you will read a book as complex as Thus Spoke Zarathustra. It is one of the most misquotes, misrepresented books of all time. To know more, see Nietzsche.
• Dostoyevsky
  Few can spin magic with the pen as well as this eighteenth century author. Although his books are centered around characters living in St. Petersburg in the 18th century, there are few works of fiction that you’ll find so relatable (I’ve written a separate blog post on this. See Reading Dostoyevsky)

WordPress tells me I’m close to 2500 words in this post already. I think I’ll stop here. I shall post a sequel to this, listing contemporary fiction, biographies, poetry and non-fiction.

The list I have compiled above has been directly influenced by the literature I or my peer group has read. As a result, it may seem skewed to many readers out there. So let this be known that this list is in no way exhaustive. There are plenty of good books that I’ve missed out or haven’t listed. Please feel free to list your favorites in the comments. I’d love to go through your recommendations too.

Innocence, Experience and Dreams

 

After a long time, I read Dostoyevsky again. And boy was it worth it. The Dream of a Ridiculous Man definitely ranks at the top of my all-time favorite works of his, along with White Nights. The message conveyed by the story, like most of his works, are so simple yet so powerful (see Reading Dostoyevsky). The Dream of a Ridiculous Man talks of a man who is intent on committing suicide but undergoes an epiphany after meeting a distresses girl on the street and having a strange dream that night. Through the story, Dostoyevsky conveys one message that I’ll always hold close to my heart: All of mankind is inherently good and capable of incredible love. Love can triumph all evil, all misery, all pain. The essence of mankind and humanity lies in its capability to love. We are humans because we love.

Reading William Blake’s Song of Innocence and Experience was a much needed change in writing style for me. It’s music and simplicity starkly contrasted Nietzsche’s works that I had been reading recently. Although the language is simple, the message Blake conveys is considerably deep. The two parts of the book, Innocence and Experience convey one message in two different ways. In Innocence, Blake says that mankind can blossom only if its given freedom. In Experience, he says mankind withers in the face of fear, inhibition and corruption. The poems beautifully mock the ruling classes and the Church of its day. But more than its message, it is its mellifluousness that blew me away. Seldom have I come across any written work with such lyrical beauty. Almost every line was source of amazement and joy. This is definitely one book every person who has a love for poetry must read.

 

Absurdism and Existentialism

 

Recently, I have been reading books that tackle the subject of absurdism and existentialism. The first piece of work to introduce me to the subject was Albert Camus’ The Stranger. I subsequently followed this up with his essays titled The Myth of Sisyphus. It would be foolish and vain of me to proclaim that I completely understand this school of thought, I do not, but nevertheless from the little I could grasp from its essence, I don’t think it is a school of thought I’d identify myself with.

Absurdism is the state of apparent paradox that humans live in. We strive to seek inner meaning and reason out of our lives in a world which is unjustifiable. So, how is it that we tackle this conflict? Do we commit suicide as our lives ultimately amount to nothing? Or is there a way? According to Camus, there is. He suggests that inner peace can be achieved by accepting the absurd world as is. Acceptance will lead to happiness. It will erase every kind of expectation and meaning we try to derive from our lives.

As I’d stated in a previous post on Buddhism (Camus philosophy aligns very closely to that stated in The Dhammapada), I believe that hope is an incredibly important element which is crucial to human survival. This is in direct conflict to Camus’ school of thought. Yes, it might be true that there is no meaning to our lives. We are infinitesimally small, insignificant beings in an extremely vast Universe. But it is futile to delve deep into our damned condition. Maybe, we ought to deceive ourselves. We ought to lie to ourselves, convince ourselves of a meaning. For satisfactory human existence, there must be hope. And I think the Universe can forgive us for forsaking Her truths in favor of possessing hope.

Franz Kafka’s stories also contain elements of absurdism (In fact, in the appendix of The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus analyzes absurdity in the works of Kafka. He concludes saying that although Kafka’s description of the absurd condition is near perfect, he fails as an absurd writer as he retains a glimmer of hope). The two works I’ve read of his, The Metamorphosis and The Trial are often cited as his best works. To be very honest, the books didn’t strike me as exceptional pieces of writing. Maybe what it tried to convey went over my head. In both his works, the protagonists are faced with bizarre, surreal predicaments. One gets turned into a giant insect, the other gets convicted for no reason at all. Both meet a grisly end. Through his works, I think he tries to draw a parallel between the blatant absurdity his characters face and the disguised one in which we live in. But like I said, I didn’t like the books very much. It’s highly unlikely I’ll return to him again.

My main criticism and problem with Camus’ philosophy is explored brilliantly by Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, probably the best Batman comic of all time. It was purely by chance that I picked up this graphic novel and found it to be aligning with the subject of the books I was dealing myself with. In the novel, Joker tries to drive Gordon insane to prove a point: that one bad day is enough to drive a person to madness. He fails and this is where the comic’s primary message comes out. Both Bruce Wayne and Joker had a bad day in their lives. Both lost their dear ones and for a time, their lives lost meaning. They had pushed cruelly into the world of absurdism. One chose to carve meaning out of it and become a symbol of hope; the other succumbed and became the champion of anarchy and psychopathy. That’s probably the only difference between The Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime: A belief in good. A hope for a better world.

 

The Goosebumps Nostalgia

 

B0XP03 Enid Blyton’s first Famous Five Children’s Book Five on a Treasure Island first published 1942 FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. Image shot 2008. Exact date unknown. Enid Blyton Famous Five Hardback Book 1942 1940s Enid Blyton writer Famous Five Hardback Book 1942 1940s Children children’s old vintage Enid Blyton writer Famous Five Hardback Book 1942 1940s Children children’s old vintage Clive Rowley

A senior of mine had to get a few books on Accountancy for his sister (believe it or not, there are some things, including books, which are available in Roorkee but not in Chennai). I happen to meet him on his way and I decided to accompany him to the Cambridge Book Store in Civil Lines. Inside the store, I found a shelf of books which hit me with a sharp wave of nostalgia. It was a shelf full of Goosebumps and Famous Five books. It’s been almost a decade since I read them.

Feeling nostalgic, I actually decided to pick up a couple of Goosebumps titles and read them. It was an amazing feeling. It was like I was in seventh grade all over again. And just like its style of writing, it was a reminiscence of a time which was so much more simpler. I still remember waiting for the weekends so that I could cycle to the library and pick up a couple of Goosebumps titles. I would then proceed to my aunt’s house where I would lay in bed, read through both of them and finish them in one sitting. I’d then have dinner, go back home and watch a movie on television with my family.It’s amazing how going through a book you used to like as a kid creates a gigantic craving to go back home and live those moments once again.

I may not be able to go back to seventh grade again but his time when I go back home, I’m going to pick up my old bicycle and visit that library again. I’ll probably renew my membership for a month and pick up a few books just like the old times. I’ll visit my aunt’s house, lie in her bed and read those books. I really want to do this. It’ll probably make me realize the need to keep my life simple, happy and devoid of bullshit.

(Oh, and by the way, I was digging through my old blog and actually found some ghost stories I’d written back in middle school. They’re terrible pieces of writing but they serve as a reminder to the time I actually considered being an author. Strange how we learn to forsake our dreams and completely forget about them in such short time.
In case you’re interested, you can find my old blog at Fantasia. )