Solve mysteries to dispel myths
• THE MOSAIC OF ISLAM: A CONVERSATION WITH PERRY ANDERSON (Three Essays Collective, Rs 395) by Suleiman Mourad presents critical reflections on Islam as a faith and the politics surrounding it. The book also breaks simplistic myths about the religion that exist in the West. In spite of having a common genealogical wellspring and originating in the same geographical region as the two other Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Judaism, Islam has repeatedly been locked in battles with those faiths. At present, this enmity defines the political and military policies of many powerful nations and is the cause of, among other things, the refugee crisis. An equally important outcome of the animosity is that Islam is widely misunderstood by the people. It is this misconception that Mourad attempts to dispel. Anderson's questions are on point. Mourad's answers are packed with information and situate Islam in the world of monotheism. Mourad argues that "the only way Islamic terrorism can be defeated is by understanding its theology and producing a counter to it".
• HERE FALLS THE SHADOW (Hachette, Rs 350) by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay may seem familiar at first to anyone who has read "Feludar Goyendagiri". The principal character, Sangram Talukdar, worried by the death threats he keeps receiving, seeks help from an ingenious private detective, Janardan Maity, who is just cutting his teeth in investigative work. Maity and his friend-cum-satellite, Prakash Ray, visit the picturesque town of Nimdeora to help Talukdar. This is the second whodunnit by Chattopadhyay featuring Maity and Ray. And though they aspire to be Holmes and Watson rather than Feluda and Topshe, the similarity between Janardan Maity and Prodosh Mitter are too obvious to ignore. Pacy and mildly puzzling as Chattopadhyay's work is, it comes across as a montage of excerpts from too many crime bestsellers. Here Falls the Shadow may be a good investment for a train journey, but it is not one of those crime thrillers - in spite of the abundance of dead bodies - that send a shiver down the spine even after many readings.
• HALF-OPEN WINDOWS (Speaking Tiger, Rs 299) by Ganesh Matkari has been translated from Marathi by Jerry Pinto. It is a book about people from well-to-do families living in posh areas of Mumbai. Most of them are overly stressed students of architecture, à la Peter Keating from Ayn Rand's Fountainhead. But where Mumbai is involved, can corruption be far behind? So the lonely, lost and corrupt protagonists -there are eight - navigate life in a city that cares for none. It is the banality of success, of dreams and of life itself that Matkari tries to capture. Banal would also be a great word to describe the book. It may be that the original and the (hopefully) individual voices of the protagonists were lost in translation, because one sounds just like the other (from 8-80 years of age, male and female) as they drone on and on about their trials.
