Rocking in the Free World

When I was in Bangalore to attend the Simian’s wedding on 23rd May, I had time to kill between the wedding ceremony (which I went late for, thanks to horrendous traffic, only to eat the lunch served there like the shameless freeloader that I am) and the reception later in the evening.

I then decided to indulge in my current favourite pastime, spending time at a bookstore. Blossoms on Church Street, where I finally went to, has fond memories that will transcend space and time and somehow, each time I visit that place and walk around in the aisles, the soundtrack of my life’s movie ends up playing ‘in my life‘ by The Beatles.

It was there that I picked up two books by Neil Gaiman, ‘American Gods’ and ‘Anansi Boys’. These were my second and third Gaiman books, after having bought ‘StarDust’ previously, thanks to the fact that I’d seen the movie one rainy sunday evening on campus last year when I had lots to do, but no inclination to.

StarDust the movie, I confess, impressed me so much that I decided to buy the book. The book in turn impressed me so much that I decided to pick up whatever else the guy had written, and I am glad I did so.

I’d strongly recommend ‘American Gods’ for its strong link to mythology and pop-culture (both ancient and contemporary) and after getting more fundas about the Gods featured in the book through this page, I’m strongly inclined to give the book another read to get a better sense of the mythological characters the book portrays.

One of the most memorable lines in the book is, “He [Shadow, the lead character] felt a pang, like a minor chord being played inside him.”

For someone who knows what a minor chord is, the sentence is truly truly brilliant in its depiction of the feeling that one would go through when one feels a pang as described in the book.

I remember back in the day when my guitar teacher had just started me off on minor scales and chords, he’d mentioned that one of the easy ways to identify minor keys aside from the technical way in which they’re arranged is that most sad songs are composed in minor keys and said association between minor chords and melancholia has been etched in my mind forever.

Back to Gaiman, a few friends of mine have read Sandman and opined strongly that the series has changed their lives. I have the soft copy for the series of graphic novels, but old school me wants to read it in the hard copy. Anyone know where in the NCR would be a good place to pick it up? I’d have asked if I could borrow the books, but I don’t lend and so, I will not borrow either.