Reading Reflections (Jan 7, 2018)

Saturdays usually turn out to be a day of low reading for me. Only read a few pages of Parthiban Kanavu over the 2 days - Friday and Saturday. Parthiban Kanavu so far moves reasonably fast giving us background through show rather than tell. We are shown the queen and how the marriage took place, her tears over her married life that is going to come to an end. Then we the king taking the prince to the painting hall. Here author launches into description mode describing the various paintings from Indian mythology present in the hall. Then they move into a special hall where Parthiban keeps his paintings hidden. A suspense is built on what they may be a then revealed. It was a nice way of showing the reader the titular Parthiban's dream. Instead of just describing his dream, the character has drawn them as paintings and slowly tells his son about his dream and how at this moment he cannot even show these to anyone. It brings out the emotions of the king who chaffs at being a minor king after the Cholas had reigned over the entire region at one time. He is hoping to see his son take the kingdom back to its days of glory. A powerful army with the king's elephant at its head but the seat on top of the elephant empty is quite powerful.

In the conversation, we also come to know not just Parthiban, but even their enemy Pallava kings were into art and craft. He manages to give lot of information.

The other book 'Fifth Discipline', there author starts discussing the various pitfalls comparing human life and the faults in an organization. I like this kind of comparison between humans and organizations.