#abookishshade

[abookishshade]

hiii :) storygraph?

Hi, yess, would love to connect 😁

Edit- Is this link working? I'm not sure 🤔

[abookishshade]

[abookishshade]

Thoughts on Laapataa Ladies (spoilers)

Loved the found family theme! Both Jaya and Phool ended up finding loving families after the mishap. Jaya formed such a great bond with the other daughter-in-law in Deepak's family and also got close enough to the other family members for them to so lovingly send her off at the end. On the other hand, Phool formed such sweet bonds with Manju Mai and Chhotu. I was really happy for Phool finding them and getting to spend time with them. She had good instincts to stay away from Jaya's husband when he offered to help her. And I loved Manju Mai!

Multiple perspectives- I really liked how we got to see multiple perspectives of women in different situations. We had the perspective of Phool who had a nice family, the family that later also sorta adopted Jaya. Then we had Jaya's and Manju's perspectives, both of whom had suffered at the hands of deeply rooted patriarchal mindset in their families. While getting lost due to the swap situation and the encounter with Manju opened Phool's eyes somewhat to her disempowerment due to patriarchy, at the same time, it seemed like Manju also learnt something as Phool's situation didn't turn out to be as bad as Manju had imagined, that is, of Phool being abandoned by her husband. Also, Jaya's situation was honestly the worst. Despite her sharpness and intelligence, her fate entirely depended on the whims of chance and other people's conscience or generosity. Though she tried her best, she would not have been able to pursue her dreams, had she not been swapped with Phool in the first place, and in the second place, if the police officer had not had the attack of conscience in the last minute which was quite unexpected frankly. She didn't really seem to have much control over the situation. But I did love her character too. She made the best of the hand she had been dealt with.

Cops and Corruption- In the beginning, the main cop seemed quite corrupt and exploitative, but at the end he had an attack of conscience and he helped Jaya. He was also the one who was on Jaya's trail from the beginning for money. So it was quite a surprise when he ended up helping her. I was happy for Jaya but that sudden turn in his character arc was a bit jarring.

Also, liked all the sprinkled digs at the orthodox customs and practices to disempower women in the name of honor.

[abookishshade]

Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand pens—there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. “I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read novels—It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss—?” “Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it.

—from Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

[abookishshade]

[abookishshade]

[abookishshade]

[abookishshade]

What's the last book you gave up on and stopped reading?

Assassin's Apprentice. I hope I feel inspired to pick it up again sometime. What's that book for you?

Sidenote- Last December, I tried listening to Dracula, and gave up after a few chapters, though the audible book was pretty good. Now, I'm giving Dracula another try, this time through Dracula Daily. Thanks to tumblr for hyping it up, I feel optimistic about finishing it this time around 😁