The Desais

Just been skimming through Feasting, Fasting By Anita Desai. And I'm going to return it barely read to the library.

Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, is also a book which I haven't been able to finish although I have tried several times.

I saw an interview with Anita Desai on NDTV last week on Just books. And she looked such a sweet old nice lady. I thought I am doing her an injustice by avoiding her books. She teaches creative writing at a couple of universities in New York and the UK. So she must be very creative herself.

The bad news she delivered in the interview is that creative writing can't actually be taught. It has to be in you. I say bad news, because the only people reading this will be bloggers themselves and all bloggers secretly hope, that they will write a book one day.

But attending a class gives you the time and space and discipline to hone your skills and give you little ways to improve. But the basics have to be already there.

The Desais have real life- like characters. And the things they go through are very real. The only problem seems to be (from the little I've read) that the characters and situations are very depressing. It’s all very grey. Which doesn’t make for good light reading.

I might have persevered with it except that my daughter's friend wants to borrow some books on the library on my cards.
I ask her "why don’t you come home and take some books from here?"
"I've read all of them Aunty. And they are all old books'.

All or most of them in the two years they were in school together? What has been going on?