Man Of Verse
“He is the most famous poet writing in English you have never heard of,” said Jeet Thayil of his friend Vijay Nambisan, the reclusive poet and writer hiding in Coorg right now, as First Infinities, his first collection in 22 years, was launched. Thayil, along with Anup Kutty of The Toddy Shop in Delhi’s Hauz Khas, organised an intimate evening for Nambisan, who regaled all with his poems. The evening wasn’t without its share of laughs. While introducing Nambisan, Thayil said: “Vijay is not that well-known because he never knew which hand to shake, which cheek to kiss, which ass to lick.” Pat came the repartee, “Why don’t you give him some tips?” It was the inimitable Upamanyu Chatterjee.
Not So Lucky
How do you think Salman Rushdie would rate Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim? One star. And his son and Rushdie’s friend Martin Amis’s Money? Three stars. He gave To Kill A Mockingbird also just three stars. Rushdie was rating books on the website Goodreads, not knowing it would go public. When caught out, he tweeted he was just fooling around and they weren’t to be taken seriously. “Stupid me,” he said.
Just Like A Spoon
In the fascinating This Is Not The End Of The Book—a conversation between Italian author Umberto Eco and French intellectual Jean-Claude Carriere, about how the internet is affecting our lives, among other things, Eco says the book is the perfect carrier of information which hasn’t had to change, unlike storage gadgets like the floppy disk or CD-ROM. “The book is like the spoon; it cannot be bettered,” he notes.
