Book Review | Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger

At the very outset, here’s a disclaimer: I’m an Arnie fan. I’ve been an Arnie fan since I was 12 years old, and first saw him drive a car through a police station wall, calmly get out and riddle everyone in the immediate vicinity with bullets of varying calibers. It was my first introduction to gratuitous violence and it was love at first sight. So it was with surprise and delight that I pounced on the last remaining copy of Total Recall at an airport a few weeks ago, wondering how the hell I hadn’t heard about this.

In an era when a few million YouTube hits is deemed worthy enough to warrant a ‘life story’, it’s strange that it’s taken Mr. Schwarzenegger this long to get around to writing his autobiography.  And let’s be clear-this is a guy with a story to tell. Thirty five years ago, he was The World’s Greatest Bodybuilder.  Twenty years ago, he was The World’s Biggest Movie Star. And five years ago, he was The Governor of America’s most populous state.

Of course, this being an autobiography what we get is Arnie’s version of his life. I wouldn’t exactly call it sanitized (he gleefully admits that his first ever words to Eunice Shriver, his future mother-in-law were “your daughter has a great ass”) but let’s just say that if you’re looking for the brutal, soul- baring honesty of Andre Agassi’s ‘Open’, you’re probably reading the wrong book.

For example, a large portion of the first half of the book is (justifiably) dedicated to his glorious bodybuilding career- his training regimen, his mental preparation, his Mr. Olympia rivalries with Sergio Oliva, Lou Ferrigno & Frank Zane and his enduring friendship with Franco Columbu. But nowhere is there any mention of anabolic steroid use. Granted, he does passingly admit to steroid use later on in the book, but to go through more than a 150 pages without so much as a mention cannot possibly be accidental.That being said, Total Recall is never less than compelling- chock full of humor, intensity and even the odd bit of self-deprecation.

As a lifelong Republican, a fair portion of Schwarzenegger’s book is dedicated to describing what it’s like to be married into the most famous Democrat family in America. But let’s be honest- we all know why we’re here; the movies. And Arnie doesn’t disappoint.From Conan the Barbarian to The Expendables 2, this book touches upon most of his catalogue. Some (the Conan & Terminator franchises, Predator, Twins, True Lies, Last Action Hero) are discussed in a fair amount of detail while others (The Running Man, The 6th Day, Collateral Damage, End of Days and the cringe inducing monstrosity known as Batman & Robin) mercifully warrant no more than a mention.

If you like his movies, you’ll love the trivia this book delivers. Arnold writes at length about clashing with James Cameron on the set of The Terminator regarding his most iconic line. Schwarzenegger preferred ‘I will be back’, arguing that a machine wouldn’t use contractions while Cameron insisted on ‘I’ll be back’ which he felt sounded better.

He talks about crawling through the jungles of Mexico filming Predator a day before his wedding and the ignominy of having to turn up in Church with a crew cut. And of course he talks about the genesis of his famous answer to ‘What is best in life?’ from Conan the Barbarian (to crush you enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women- in case you were wondering).

On the personal front, Schwarzenegger goes to telling lengths to paint a picture of love and respect for his family- both immediate and distant. Of course, we all know where this is leading- to the final few chapters of the book, where he finally addresses his infidelity and his illegitimate child.

Thankfully, this incident appears only at the end of an exceptionally readable book and does nothing to take away from its immense enjoyability.  

Sure, Arnold may not be Mr. Perfect, but then who is? The author of an autobiography earns the right to tell his story his way and that is exactly what he does.  This may have a marginal impact on the factual accuracy of the book, but none whatsoever on its fun quotient. 

A little bit about our reviewer

John Thangaraj is 34 years old, and spends most of his time reading comics, listening to obnoxiously loud metal and playing with his dog (who does not like the obnoxiously loud metal).  He also occasionally finds the time to work, though given that he works in advertising, the actual definition of ‘work’ is ambiguous at best. Having been traumatized by his parents at the tender age of 7 by being made to watch The Omen, The Exorcist and Salem’s Lot in quick succession, he has a somewhat unhealthy obsession with horror and fantasy. His favourite authors include Stephen King, Road Dahl, Bill Bryson and Neil Gaiman. He thinks The Lord of the Rings rules and The Fountainhead sucks.  

Revival Review | The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

The year is 2012. We are surrounded by vampires- most of them ridiculously good looking. Werewolves are largely misunderstood, but still manage to find the time to work on their abs in between bouts of angst ridden brooding. The world’s most watched television drama is about a zombie apocalypse. Three of this year’s most successful animated movies center around a young boy who can speak to ghosts, a dead dog brought back to life and a luxury resort for monsters run by Count Dracula.

Horror has become a pop culture staple, never more so than when it comes to demonic possession. In the last year alone we’ve been subjected to The Rite, The Devil Inside, The Last Exorcism and The Possession.   Yup, we’re surrounded by horror. And we love it.

But in 1971, the world was a very different place. Horror was predominantly escapist fantasy for teenage boys featuring classic movie monsters, things from outer space and scantily clad 50 feet tall women. Then along came a book that changed everything. That book was called The Exorcist and it taught us that horror was real, that it was lying in bed, upstairs. Waiting.

                                                                                               Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells was the perfect 

soundtrack to the movie and continues to be haunting.

41 years hence, The Exorcist may no longer be as shocking and visceral a read as it was when it was first published, but it still remains one of the greatest horror novels ever written. As the New York Times Sunday Book Review memorably put it, “The Exorcist is to most other books of its kind as an Einstein equation is to an accountant's column of figures”.

The Exorcist created the original blueprint for what has now become Demonic Possession 101: young, innocent girl is possessed by malevolent demon and is then exorcised by Catholic priest.  But its power lies not in its fairly linear plot, but rather in its tone, manner and immensely compelling style. The Exorcist is not a horror novel written in a literary style. It is a literary novel that just happens to be terrifying.

William Peter Blatty shuns fast and easy thrills in favour of slow paced, simmering characterization. The book’s three principle protagonists - conflicted Jesuit priest Damien Karras, traumatized actress Chris MacNeil and her possessed daughter Regan all become living, breathing people that you actually find yourself caring about. The book’s titular character, Father Lankester Merrin only really joins the proceedings in the last 50 pages, yet at no point preceding this does one feel the need for things to get a move on.

While the 1972 film (as brilliant as it was) relied largely on visual shock tactics to deliver most of it scares, the book is more restrained and instead worms its way into your psyche far more insidiously. It is far more than a simple tale of good vs. evil and raises some profound questions regarding the nature of evil, faith and God himself.

Given the increasing amounts of real world horror that we are exposed to these days and the resultant nonchalance with which we have come to treat it, The Exorcist may no longer pack as terrifying a punch as it did all those years ago. However, its message and its underlying implications have never been more relevant than they have today.  Is an emaciated, foul mouthed, head spinning little girl the only manifestation of demonic possession? What about the child molester? The rapist? The murderer? The terrorist? The man who shoots his neighbour over a parking space?

We often talk about how the world we live in ‘is going to hell’. The Exorcist raises the chilling possibility of that particular metaphor being a little too literal for comfort.

Is The Exorcist ‘the scariest book ever written’? Probably not. But is it one of the most disturbing? Most definitely.Ultimately, the book’s power lies not in its ability to make you want to sleep with the light on (though it’ll do that as well, trust me) but instead in its ability to make you think about your own particular belief system- or lack thereof.

In his poem The Generous Gambler, Charles Baudelaire famously wrote “the most exquisite of the Devil’s wiles is persuading us that he does not exist”.

The Exorcist reminds us that not only does The Devil exist, but that he’s waiting for you. In that little room. Just up those stairs…

A little bit about our reviewer

John Thangaraj is 34 years old, and spends most of his time reading comics, listening to obnoxiously loud metal and playing with his dog (who does not like the obnoxiously loud metal).  He also occasionally finds the time to work, though given that he works in advertising, the actual definition of ‘work’ is ambiguous at best. Having been traumatized by his parents at the tender age of 7 by being made to watch The Omen, The Exorcist and Salem’s Lot in quick succession, he has a somewhat unhealthy obsession with horror and fantasy. His favourite authors include Stephen King, Road Dahl, Bill Bryson and Neil Gaiman. He thinks The Lord of the Rings rules and The Fountainhead sucks.  

Buy The Exorcist from Flipkart.com

Guest Post | 30 Days of Night by Aditi Mittal

30 Days of Night is brutal. No seriously, simply opening the cover of the book will land you a roundhouse kick to the face and a punch in the stomach. I want to call it the Chuck Norris of Vampire graphic novels but that would be doing Vampires a serious disservice.

Steve Niles’ comic book series starts with the titular 30 Days of Night. Set in the windswept Barrow, the northernmost town of Alaska where the sun does not rise for 30 days, it details the survival of the town people against a horde of vampires.

Somewhere in their journey from 1922′s Nosferatu, vampires went from bone-chilling creatures to teenage brooding angst (or angsty brood-yness, depending on the day) that has inspired the irritating “He He He, it Twinkles” tagline. I’m surprised Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri or DeBeers has not signed on Edward Cullen as an ambassador yet.  Diamonds and vampires are forever after all.

But the vampires that descend on Barrow the moment the sun sets are merciless and relentless. Armed with a mouth full of shark-like teeth, black eyes and super-human powers, they know only one thing- hunger. Today they live among us, an unusually reticent neighbor, the nasty night shift manager at the 7/11. “Do you know,” as one of the vampires asks “, how many years it has taken us to convince humans that we are a myth?”

Ben Templesmith’s art work, based in water and pencil supplements the dizzying pace of the story, pages and pages of blood spattered snow and decapitated heads, it seems like he keeps daring the reader to turn to the next page. And turn we do, becasue along with the rich world of the vampires, he also creates an equally complete world of human characters that keeps us rooted in reality.

Eben and Stella Olemaun are the sheriff-couple of Barrow that manage to survive the 30 days of darkness. The speed, poetry and cruelty with which characters are introduced and destroyed (within panels sometimes), makes you lament the transience of the reality that Templesmith and Niles have created. We are reminded that the war of human vs. vampires shall be rife with casualties. At the end of the book, I found myself desperately looking for plot holes, trying to reconcile the fact that it’s just a comic book and I didn’t need to panic. There were some minor ones no doubt, but nothing glaring enough to take you away from the narrative of the story.

The second installment of the series labelled “Dark Days” follows Stella Olemaun as she tours L.A, trying to convince the world of theexistence of vampires. The female protagonist and antagonist add a psychological and emotional element to the story that’s normally missing in bad-ass, punch-to-the-face, get-up-inspite-of-being-shot-in-the-chest-10-times kind of hero.

The unnerving calm hides a conflicted woman trying to come to terms with her loss and desire for revenge. It’s this quality that makes the story so unpredictable, because the pivot is not situational, but emotional. The line between humans and vampires blurs as she makes her way deeper into their world.

The third installment “Return to Barrow”  takes us back to the scene of the original massacre. I’m ready with my truck full of ammo to take a wild ride on this one!

Aditi Mittal is this cool person who spends a lot of time getting paid to stand in front of people and not tell knock-knock jokes. We're super kicked that she let us rip this post off copy-paste publish this review of 30 Days of Night on The Caterpillar Cafe. You should read some of her other stuff on her personal blog that doesn't look big in this. You can also Follow her on Twitter and 'Like' her on Facebook.

Guest Post | A Pocket Full of Pages by Sarit Ray

If you grew up in the Nineties, you’re probably familiar with pocket classics – the squat little books with bold typeface (meant for kids, so easier readability) and black and white illustrations.

I had loads of them. Still do, in fact. My nostalgic mother refuses to throw then away. So, they gather dust somewhere in a forgotten corner of a bookshelf in Calcutta (bottom row, most likely. That’s where the displaced ones go, having made space for the newer, heftier, more serious, some-of-them-autographed books on the upper shelves).

I particularly remember RL Stevenson’s Treasure Island. I don’t think it’s the first book I read, or even the oldest I have. (That has to be the giant, illustrated book of alphabets that was then twice as big as me. Seriously.) But it’s my oldest memory of reading a book. I even faintly remember the sketches of the one-legged Captain Flint with a parrot on his shoulder and a bottle of rum in his hand. ‘Rum’ – It was the first time I heard the word; I loved the musical effect of saying it, and going by the pirate Captain’s fondness, was sure would love its taste too (I do, just not in the way I’d then imagined).

Then there were more: the carefree Huck Finn, cooler in certain ways than Tom Sawyer, and Jim, who was then just Huck’s friend, without any of the colour of race politics I’d decipher much, much later.

It was also my introduction to Shakespeare classics – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet. I would read them several times yet; in college, studying literature, I would discover new facets and layers (I’m sure there’s plenty more yet, because that’s what makes Shakespeare so fascinating). But the storylines in my head are still the ones I read back then.

Of course, I deviated. I didn’t just grow up reading classics, going from Illustrated Shakespeare to Complete Works. There was Tinkle, Superman, Tintin, Chacha Chaudhari (Imagine my excitement when I found them at Comic-Con last year), and that prized, hardbound Asterix collection my uncle gave me on a birthday. Lord of the Rings was still a few years away, and JK Rowling would write Harry Potter much later.

There were phases as well: Famous Five, Nancy Drew etc. If young kids now must survive Twilight, we survived Sidney Sheldon (incomparably brighter and surely more realistic than Stephenie Meyer, however).

But it was the pocket classics I must thank, and my parents, of course, who bought them, for my love of reading. Those ritualistic trips to the dusty annual Calcutta Book Fair, hunting for new books, and then clasping on to them in a polythene bag on the way back – I imagine myself as a perfect little picture of an ardent reader. I exaggerate, of course. But more than the time, I’d be glad to find that indomitable desire to read again.

Sarit is an articulate fellow and an excellent writer who didn't need to be bullied into submitting this post at all (let the record state). You should meet him for a coffee sometime to talk about travel, food, film and most importantly, literature. He's also one of the best amateur shutterbugs I know! Take a look through his photos on Flickr and read more of his stuff on Ideas Random

Guest Post | No Man is an Island for the Child is Father of the Man

An entrepreneur and professional doodler talks about his stumble and fall into the world of poetry...

Back in the uniformed life of school, I still remember the first time I was chosen to recite a poem for an elocution competition. The English teacher handpicked me from her ‘average-Joe’ club to fill in the vacancy of the chosen five, probably because I could blankly stare at the chalkboard without a blink for a long duration, lost in my own world, while she thought I was ardently paying attention to her. Or maybe it was just my seemingly irresistible charm! I was to join the five class toppers, for only those who topped the class, the high rankers, were showered with prospects such as these. The moment he had learnt of his son’s undeserved opportunity, my father was more excited than me. He slid open a steel trunk from under the bed which belonged to the days of his bachelor life and pulled out a dusty book. He placed the palm sized book onto my hands, carefully turned the flaky pages and said, “Here you go Son, my favorite, Wordsworth's The Rainbow. If you recite this you shall be remembered forever."

You have to realize I was just a little boy of 8 years who enjoyed capturing dragonflies and tying their abdomens with long threads to the tips of my fingers, telling tall tales to gullible friends about how I spotted superman and how he knew me by name, doodling everywhere, stealing guavas and love apples from neighboring trees, spitting competitions of bora berry seeds the furthest, being the gutter-keeper when the big-boys played cricket (12th position in street-cricket, a special position, that’s what they told me, I had to protect the ball from going in the open gutters and I took the position seriously) and watching Sunday morning cartoons on Doordarshan (the only nation-wide broadcasting channel in India). That was my philosophical paradigm, and that’s all I wanted out of life.

For a boy of my outlook, I couldn’t gauge the worth of words of William Wordsworth’s Rainbow. And after memorizing the poem a lot many times, I went on stage and rambled it out.

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky;

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

To an audience, used to limericks and rhymes, a yawn was all I heard, and followed by some giggles. My ears had turned red and warm. Of course I did not win; I did not care about winning. A topper and his mother who had cleverly devised a mouth gargling, stomach churning poem about the Principal, a priest, titled "MySecond Father" won the prize and the favor of the self-absorbed judge, the priest himself. 

I forgot about William Wordsworth and the event, though he occasionally did cameo in our English text books among other note-worthy poets.

English as a subject, taught in school was a rudimentary proposition of comprehension and composition and poetry was unglamorous, taught only to be devoured and excreted during exams for marks. It was not taught as an art that has to be loved, admired, cherished, respected and held onto dearly to justify our existence. It was distasteful.

But as I grew, debating philosophies and beliefs, searching for my purpose and still searching, I read, and I fell in love with poetry. At this juncture, rainbows took the form of poetry and my heart leaped as a boy once again – only this time I was a man, who saw a rainbow as if it were his first. It was comforting.

At the risk of being sophomoric with the above display of my poetry knowledge, and not to appear as a patron to the over dramatic film called Dead Poets Society with it tragic end to one of the protagonists – poetry is for the living and those in love with life - poetry is lucid, free flowing and devoid of mechanisms. Rhyme schemes, alliterations, personifications and onomatopoeias are just figures of speech and tools employed, but words and thoughts are exclusive. Whenever two or more words are placed, profound, emphatic or somber, rhyme or no rhyme, reason or no reason, a story, love, earthly or divine, simple, creative or musically inclined, stanzas or plain lines. If I could hear you and feel your thoughts through...for me its poetry.

I will leave you to interpret the poem that had profound influence on me. I had chanced upon John Donne’s work. It struck a chord. The poem was revisited, when the American novelist Ernest Hemingway used the words from the poem as the title of his book on the Spanish civil war, For Whom the Bell Tolls. Donne, the 16th Century poet, wrote the poem as his meditation while he was being treated for continuous malaria attacks in a hospital run by monks. He helplessly listened to the monks toll the bell, whenever a patient had given in to death. Donne had carefully stitched together two themes, of how one man's death diminishes all of mankind and the fact that all mankind is connected, no one is an island.

No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Each is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manner of thine own

Or of thine friend's were.

Each man's death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

For whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

I wish upon myself that if I have to leave this world abruptly, I hope I could leave it with a stack of my own written poems in a steel trunk under my bed.... an ode to the poets who taught me how to love - from rainbows to island bells, maybe one day to be slid open for another lad to recite and have his ears turn red and warm.

Hans Albert Lewis is a prolific doodler of words and author/artist of a web comic which showcases his short-stories, paintings and poems.

Review | The Emperor of all Maladies

Don't you just love Mondays? Neither do we. Guest post # 1 for the Caterpillar Cafe. We enjoyed reading it and if you have the book, feel free to lend it to us. Love - Us.

I finished reading The Emperor of all Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee about a week ago, but like all good books, this one has been kept within easy reach for re-picking, reference and rumination. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction 2011, but I didn’t get around to reading it for quite a while, simply because I thought it might be a tad disturbing and full of gory case studies of mankind’s greatest killer – Cancer.

Nothing could be further from the truth. While the book’s subject matter is grim, with the incidence of cancer growing decade by decade, the treatment of the subject by Siddhartha is done in a manner that is thought provoking instead of terrifying. Through his eyes we discover the history of cancer, the many efforts to treat it, and how technology has played a great role in combating this disease.

However, he is quick to underscore the fact that cancer by its very nature is stitched into our genome. A cancer cell is one where its genes have spiralled out of control, and all the switches relating to growth have been jammed on permanently. We can rid ourselves of cancer then, only by limiting the processes in our bodies that depend on growth and regeneration - an impossible task.

He deals with the fact that while we understand much more about the nature and functioning of our cells, and while specific cures have been engineered to fix some of those broken “switches”, the end of cancer is not in sight. This is because cancer itself is evolving. Like a smarter version of us, it finds a way to thwart the cures and keep surviving in the body.

One section describes the greatest cause of cancer (you guessed it) – smoking. Tobacco is a potent carcinogen. Lungs form pre-cancerous lesions from layer upon layer of tar which irritate the membranes - the longer one smokes, the greater the risk of cancer. When the layers of tar and lesions have grown too many, cancer springs up. And then of course, it moves very swiftly, spreads throughout the body and kills you in a gruesome manner.

He concludes the book with some upbeat stories of those who have waged war on the cancer in their bodies, and have lived to tell the tale, thus holding out the hope that as our understanding of the cells in our bodies progresses, and technology improves, we should be able to find more cures which will not be as damaging to the patient’s body as the current ones – namely radiation and chemotherapy. From being a disease that was virtually untreatable at the turn of the century, some cancer cures have progressed to the point that simply taking a pill every day can keep a patient in remission for the rest of his life.

I highly recommend reading this book simply because we will all come face to face with this disease in our lifetimes –  directly or through our friends and family. Understanding its nature will go a long way to removing the horror of the unknown. Buy The Emperor Of All Maladies: A Biography Of Cancer from Flipkart.com

P.S. This review was written by our friend, Firdaus Variava, who divides his time between the video games that he plays at work and being a Daddy Blogger. Jump to his blog by clicking here: Delirious Daddy.