Coromandel: A Personal History of South India, Charles Allen, 2017

Rating: 2/5

I started reading the book with a lot of excitement as I hail from the southern part of India but know precious little about its ancient history. Unfortunately, the book is too dry to really enjoy it!

Coromandel (the south-eastern coast of India and derived from Cholamandalam of the Chola dynasty) is an extremely well researched book, however. Allen starts off by discussing the ancient history of northern India starting with the Harappan civilisation and then proceeds to the “south of the Vindhyas” — the Narmada river neatly divides India into two halves and is flanked by the Vindhya and the Satpura mountain ranges on either side. The book covers the beginning of Tamil culture, the prominence of Jains and Buddhists in southern India which was taken over by Adi Shankara’s Advaita philosophy, the history of the south-western coast (Kerala) and some of the dynasties such as Cholas and the Satavahanas.

The book is as much about (if not more) the discovery of the history of southern India in the past two centuries as much as about the 3,000-4,000 years of history itself. At one point, in a moment of self-realisation, he does point out that he’s risking boring the reader … and then promptly discusses one more Orientalist. All this makes the book a laborious read. It’s a pity because give the amount of research that Allen has conducted, he could have woven an interesting narrative just sticking largely to the actual history. Also, the book seems to take huge time leaps — there’s a fair amount of discussion of the BCE and very early CE years and then of the last three or four centuries and consequently, the mention of many of the important southern dynasties seem superficial. And the writing style is extremely dry!

I often look out for interesting factoids in books such as these. Again unfortunately, these were few and far between. The most interesting one: Mark Shand, author of Travels with my Elephant, noticed that his elephant Tara refused to move as it approached the Kalinga battlefield where hundreds of elephants had died 2000 years ago. He ascribes it to ancestral memory and elephants indeed remember everything!

Allen does dare to touch upon the touchy topics of Hindutva and revisionism of history in his endnotes. He laments the fact that Indian culture never had accurate historians and  makes an interesting contrast between the British (who elevated the historical at the cost of the mythical) and the Indian (the exact opposite) cultures. He celebrates Swami Vivekananda for helping create the perception of a spiritual India based on ancient truths even as he seems somewhat critical of Dayananda Saraswati and Savarkar for their brand of Hindutva. Whether one agrees or disagrees with this view, the book is reasonably balanced overall and Allen’s love for India does stand out.

Pros: Well researched and accompanied by interesting images

Cons: Too much focus on the discovery of the history versus the history itself, dry writing style, superficial discussion of the dynasties 

The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles, 2021

Rating: 5/5

This book is clearly among the best fiction ones that I’ve read! I was almost tempted to skip this review because I’m sure it cannot do justice to the beauty of this book.

It covers ten days of a road trip undertaken by four boys — Emmett Watson, Billy Watson, Daniel (Duchess) Hewitt and Wallace (Woolly) Walcott — from Nebraska to New York along the Lincoln Highway. The Watson brother eventually want to end in California on the same highway in search of a new life and a mother who abandoned them. The other two are heading out to retrieve Woolly’s inheritance in New York. Emmett is the serious one with a high sense of integrity but is doomed to cause unintended adverse consequences by his actions. Billy is young, precocious, filled with wonder at each of life’s experiences and mature beyond his eight years. Duchess “loves it when life pulls a rabbit out of a hat” as he puts it. His sense of morality varies as per his convenience but a fractured relationship with his father eventually spirals it downwards . Woolly is a free-spirited but a lost soul, addicted to some form of drugs but possibly the most perceptive of the four. Each character is etched so beautifully that you can’t but help root for them, even for the grey Duchess. For me, my favourite was Woolly!

One of the best features of Towles’ writing is his ability to flesh out even the minor characters and have them play an important part in taking the story forward. We saw this in Towles’ previous book, A Gentleman in Moscow, and this book has even more minor players, complex and nuanced, scattered around the book. For me, one of the best passages in the book was the interaction between Ulysses, a vagabond in search of his family, and Professor Abernathe, the author of a book of adventures that Billy has read 25 times, despite both of them playing fairly minor roles in the book.

Like in his previous book, Towles’ writing is excellent — it’s easy to read but at the same time etches each actor’s thoughts beautifully. And to enable this, he’s chosen a structure where the narration alternates among the points of view of the various characters. He has also numbered his sections in reverse order (one section for each day) to give us a sense of countdown towards the inexorable determination of each of the boy’s futures. The only downside to his writing is perhaps the unnaturally high level of sophistication that he awards to the actors — which eight-year boy (Billy) thinks so maturely or which young adult (Duchess) is able to do the things he does given his messed-up upbringing! It almost makes the reader feel inadequate!!

Fun fact: The Lincoln Highway ends around the same date as A Gentleman in Moscow (summer of 1954 with June 21 playing an important role)

Pros: Superbly written, brilliant characters, an enjoyable re-read

Cons: Overly sophisticated characters perhaps

The Empire of Pain, Patrick Keefe, 2021

Rating: 5/5

This is the third such book that I have read in the last couple of years, the other two being “The Billion Dollar Loser” on WeWork and on Adam Neumann and “Bad Blood” on Theranos and on Elizabeth Holmes. While the first is about a business built on hubris and the second about a complete fraud, “The Empire of Pain” was the most shocking of the three. It is about a legitimate business that was extremely successful but one that was built using several unethical means and one that ultimately caused the death of thousands of Americans.

The book traces the history of the Sackler family and of Purdue Pharma, starting with the early years of Arthur , Mortimer and Raymond Sackler, children of an immigrant family in New York. Their parents desired their sons to become doctors, given the perceived nobleness of the profession, which turns out ironic given the later history of the family. The first section traces the lives and the initial wealth creation of the three brothers, especially that of Arthur. It gives an insight into their ambiguous views on integrity around medical products and conflicts of interest and their desire to be recognised as a leading family in the country. The second section is about the rise of OxyContin as a majorly profitable drug for Purdue, the issue of widespread addiction caused by it and Purdue’s attempts to fight the hundreds of legal cases. The final session is about the third generation and the eventual fall of the company. The book is extremely well-researched and written in a way that makes it interesting reading despite the subject matter and the length of the book.

The Sackler empire was built on Roche’s Librium and Valium, especially the latter. By the time Valium was controlled, it was used by 20 million Americans and became the most widely consumed — and abused — prescription drug. The second generation of Sacklers multiplied that wealth with OxyContin.It could be argued that OxyContin was a legal drug, approved by the FDA, but the fact was that America did not have an opioid crisis before the drug’s introduction. It is also clear that the company was aware of the problem for a long time but chose to ignore it for selfish reasons. And its usage of its legal teams, influential government representatives, threats and otherwise Machiavellian methods to thwart any attempts to stop it is simply shocking. The lack of oversight by government institutions is particularly galling — as Keefe puts it, “the opioid industry is, among other things, a parable about the awesome capability of private industry to subvert public institutions”. 

As I write this review, the Sackler family appears to have got away with it. They have had to pay billions of dollars as penalties, have had to give up their stake in Purdue Pharma and have to bear the ignominy of seeing their family name stripped away from many of their philanthropic attempts. However, they still have several billions of dollars of wealth created by the opioid crisis, have had no criminal charges against them and seem to have procured immunity against future legal liabilities. And that’s indeed a pity!

Pros: Extremely well researched, the narrative style makes it an interesting read despite its length

Cons: The length of the book to some extent

The Financial Expert, R K Narayan, 1952

Rating: 3/5

Books like PG Wodehouse’s for example age very well despite the fact that the idyllic world that they are set in and societal norms that they refer to are completely unrecognisable today. And that is due to the romanticisation of any situation and the ample use of humour. I have always viewed RK Narayan as an Indian version of Wodehouse with his semi-rural South Indian locales, quaint characters and understated and wry humour. His world of Swamy, for example, has provided endless delight to me and I’m sure to generations of readers. However, The Financial Expert, frankly, was somewhat disappointing — the plot was too simplistic and the humour rare to find!

This book, like most of his other stories, is based in the fictional town of Malgudi in southern India with the characters and their milieu being similar to his usual ones. Margayya (literally the person who shows the way) is the resident financial expert who helps the villagers inveigle loans from the local co-operative bank but aspires for more wealth and respect from his fellow citizens. His journey towards that goal forms the crux of the novel and his long-suffering wife, his spoilt son Balu, and Dr. Pal, a bohemian author, play important roles in that journey.

Narayan has managed to imbue his central character of Margayya with multiple facets to his nature — greedy, miserly, pompous, sensitive, self-righteous yet one who appears simple at his core. His relationship with his wife is the one that Narayan has captured the best, he’s usually dismissive of her yet tender on occasions. Parts of the plot, like his engagement with his clients, his conflict with the co-operative bank officials, his encounter with the local priest, his hunt for a red lotus and his experience as a publisher have subtle humour and irony and are a delight to read. His writing is simple (perhaps a bit too simple at parts) and easy to read. However, the story and the writing does drag on for a significant part of the book. The beginning of the book is extremely promising with Margayya doling out advice to his customers under a banyan tree outside the co-operative bank but the narrative surprise peters out in the second half of the book.

Surprisingly, while this movie was adapted for an award-winning Kannada movie, it has not been recreated in any of the mainstream languages. Malgudi Days, Narayan’s collection of short stories, was made into an absolutely delightful TV show back in 1986. I will hope that the same is done with The Financial Expert!

Pros: Subtle humour, quaint characters and milieu

Cons: Second half was simplistic and dragged

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, Claire North, 2014

Rating: 5/5

What a book! Right from the opening line of “The second cataclysm began in my eleventh life, in 1996” until the very satisfying final chapter (or as satisfying as a time-loop story can get), “The First Fifteen Lives” is a page-turning ride filled with imagination, great story-telling and wonderful writing.

The book’s essence is a “Groundhog Day” type of story — only that an entire life is lived repeatedly in a loop  rather than just a day. Harry August belongs to a class of men and women known as kalachakra (it’s literal meaning is a wheel of time and is a term in Buddhism that refers to time cycles) or ouroborans (from the serpent swallowing its own tail, an Egyptian-Greek symbol of life-death-rebirth) who, after living their lives, are born again in the exact same way at the exact same time and place but with  complete memories of each of their past lives. Additionally, Harry is a mnemonic, a type of kalachakra, who retains all his memories perfectly. During his eleventh life, he discovers that something is changing the course of human history and possibly leading to its destruction and it’s up to him to prevent it.

A usual problem with such a genre of books is the inevitable repeatability, and that leads to such books dragging somewhat especially in the middle parts. North (a pseudonym for Catherine Webb), however, structures “The First Fifteen Lives” cleverly in a non-sequential fashion that makes each chapter feel fresh. And towards the latter part of the book, which is more traditionally structured, the story transforms into a cat-and-mouse type of thriller that prevents the reader from keeping the book down. This book could easily have been caught up in the science behind the events and while there is some perfunctory discussion on it, it does not distract and the book is as much about history, philosophy and ethics as it is about science.

Books involving time travel or time loops invariably need to adopt the concept of a “multiverse” to explain away the anomalies of the story and even that adoption does not offer a full explanation. “The First Fifteen Lives” is no different and the reader is bound to have lingering doubts about the plot once the book is read. But that’s only to be expected — my approach while reading such books is to take a few things for granted and just simply enjoy the ride.

Pros: Imaginative plot, page-turner, superbly written, satisfying end

Cons: Unanswered questions in the end, as to be expected from this genre

The Billion Dollar Loser, Reeves Wiedeman, 2020

Rating: 4/5

The “Billion Dollar Loser” chronicles the history of WeWork and its founder, Adam Neumann, mainly from the beginnings of WeWork to the failed IPO. While Wiedeman acknowledges Adam’s ambitious persona and the possibility that he may be back sometime in the future, the book largely focuses on his hubris that eventually led to the collapse of the IPO process and to his sacking from the company he founded, poking fun at Neumann and his wife, Rebekah, along the way.

While following the WeWork story as it unfolded, I was amazed at the strategy of venture capital investors such as SoftBank and the book reinforces that feeling tremendously. While I can understand how early investors were willing to take a bet that a simple real-estate leasing model can become a “physical social network” (in Adam’s words), it’s mind boggling that an investor could pump in $10 billion at a later stage, especially when the founder spouted inanities such as “we used the work mission to enter into the larger category of life”, had a mission statement “to elevate the world’s consciousness” and pointed to financial parameters such as “return on community” and valuations based on the company’s energy and spirituality rather than on revenue (my favourite was the concept of “community-adjusted EBITDA)! Also, a part of SoftBank’s investment gave Adam a sizeable exit for himself. 

The WeWork story highlights the many issues with modern-day venture capital investing, which appears to be based on the “greater fool theory of finance”, as Wiedeman points out. There is too much money to be deployed rationally (SoftBank had raised $100 bn in its Vision Fund). The entrepreneurs with the most chutzpah and ambitions, however impossible the ambitions may be, are preferred to their more solid but conservative peers, and in the process, the latter’s genuine business models are often wiped out. Unlike a traditional model where valuations follow the success of a business model, companies such as WeWork have had to pivot their model often to justify the lofty valuations that they commanded early on. And venture capitalists are willing to turn a blind eye to serious governance issues such as conflicts of interest or blatant nepotism. This issue was best summarised by Jake Schwartz, one of of Adam’s early competitors: “the reason I care is that if the most successful companies are the ones that just drive really hard, and play fast and loose with the truth, then maybe the whole idea that capitalism is great, or even useful, is really challenging to uphold.”

My benchmark for a great biography is Walter Isaacson’s one on Steve Jobs (on a separate note, I can’t wait for him to finish the one on Elon Musk). Jobs was a multi-faceted character and the biography brings out the various nuances of his life — the good ones and the bad ones. On the other hand, Adam comes out as a unidimensional person in this book, all bombast and hubris, and that was a slight disappointment.

Pros: Details the rise and fall of WeWork well, gripping especially towards the latter part of the book

Cons: A uni-dimensional portrait

Foundation, Isaac Asimov, 1951

Rating: 5/5

“Foundation” is the first part of a trilogy and comprises five short stories (four of which were published several years before the book) which are interrelated and fit nicely as a single novel. The novel is based approximately 50,000 years in the future when the Galactic Empire presides over twenty-five million planets inhabited by a quintillion human beings. Hari Seldon, a psychohistorian (an imaginary branch of science that predicts future events), foresees the demise of the Empire within five centuries and a period of thirty thousand years to rebuild a second empire, which he hopes to shrink to just a thousand years. The administrators of the empire send him away to a planet called Terminus at the fringes of the galaxy to work on his plans along with a hundred thousand people. He creates the first Foundation there while a second one (which is not discussed much in this book) is set at the other end of the galaxy. The rest of the book covers the next 150 years and is about the efforts of Salvor Hardin - mayor of Terminus, Hober Mallow - a trader, and others to ensure Seldon’s plans are executed, making the Foundation more and more powerful. Quotations from the “Encyclopaedia Galactica” fill the reader in, as the story leaps through time.

“Foundation” has many of the typical elements of science fiction. It is set in a futuristic world and has tropes such as hyperspace travel, ultra-wave beams, televisors and others. But other than that, it is also a commentary on human psychology and behaviour — the secondary role that nature plays to technological advancement (the key city of Trantor has 40 billion people but no greenery), the fall of an empire due to rising bureaucracy and reducing curiosity, the use of religion to control humans and the eventual might of economic power over religion. And this commentary provides the book with a soul and makes it interesting reading. It is light on the action elements that we have got used to in science-fiction movies and it will be interesting to see how AppleTV+ interprets the book when they televise it later this year.

I had read this book when I was much younger (and remembered very little) and was pleased to see that the book still feels modern despite the seventy years of significant technology advancement and the umpteen dazzling sci-fi movies that I have seen in the past few years. One glaring feature, however, is the absence of women in any pivotal role in this book, possibly a reflection of the times in which it was written (the trailer of the TV show seems to be correcting that though). I look forward to reading the next two books of the original trilogy (more books have been written since then) and watching the AppleTV+ show!

Pros: A grand landscape, interesting plot, human psychology at the centre, contemporary feel

Cons: A complete absence of women in the plot