Find the sweet spot

Thank you for arguing: What Aristotle, Eminem and Homer Simpson can teach us about the art of persuasion (Allen Lane, £6.99) by Jay Heinrichs makes a convincing argument about the use of rhetoric to get one’s way. Heinrichs cites examples from Machiavelli to Monty Python to guide the reader through the art of talking smooth. The book is well-researched, tracing the origins of rhetoric as an essential skill of governance in ancient Greece and Rome, and going on to the devious employment of the art of persuasion in mainstream popular culture — in advertising campaigns and public relations, for instance. The author uses blurb boxes to explain rhetorical terminology, and includes “persuasion alerts” and instructions in verbal attack and defence. The book is a delightful read, as much for lovers of language as for those interested in improving their powers of effective communication. Where else would you come across Woody Allen’s antistasis a few chapters away from Abraham Lincoln’s dubitatio?

Under The Same Blue Sky (Frog, Rs 95) by Muhammad Taha Alam is yet another addition to the copious body of literature dedicated to stories of love and longing. And like many in that pile, it should never have been published. Badly edited, replete with clichés and with shameful grammar, this punishment of a book makes one rue the opening up of the Indian publishing industry, a phenomenon without which puerile indulgences such as Alam’s novella may never have been flung on readers. The plot — two boys from different socio-economic backgrounds and their parallel stories of love and loss — has been done to death. Characters in the book have unreal, exotic names but live frightfully mundane lives, mothers are either devoted or victims of domestic violence and preferably both, heroines are coy but independent. Love is predictably unrequited, lovers as predictable in their brave attempt at moving on, bruised hearts in tow. With luck, only the author’s friends and relatives will have this tedious package of adolescent angst shoved down their throat.

Gently Falls The Bakula (Penguin, Rs 150) by Sudha Murty is the touching story of a woman’s quest for selfhood. Simply-told, with a narrative heavily laid with interior monologue, this is a novel about the contemporary social malaise of urban marriages being torn asunder by unfair compromises and one-sided sacrifice. Murty, a Padmashri and wife of infotech pioneer, N.R. Narayana Murthy, writes with feeling, though not flourish. Originally written in Kannada nearly three decades ago, this novel remains relevant, perhaps more so now, for its exploration of the distance that a single-minded pursuit of material happiness can create between couples.

Soul Search Engine Till Now... (Undercover Utopia, Rs 199) by Al Raines, (a pseudonym under which television writers Abhigyan and Mrinal Jha write), tries hard to be different — both in terms of style and layout. Generously illustrated, it combines a prose narrative with poetic journal entries. Which is interesting, except for the completely over-the-top idea of journal-writing dinosaurs in the throes of existential crisis. In essence, the book tries to capture the history of the universe through the enduring love of two ‘souls’ who rediscover each other as they take on new avatars across Time. The 100-odd pages make only a half-baked attempt at fulfilling this ambitious project of covering “a story fourteen billion and thirty-six years in the making”. The poetry, though, flows well.