IQ

Just finished Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes and really liked it. It is very well written and it makes you feel everything that is happening to the main character, Charlie Gordon. The only flaw I could find in the book is the human testing after testing only on mice. But I guess it should be allowed as artistic liberty. The best thing about the book is that it makes you question whether intelligence is really good for anything. Other than boosting your ego and making you feel supercilious towards others, a high IQ doesn't help you make friends. As a genius or as a retard you can't really relate to others, but you may be happier as a retard since you don't know it. It may be better to be mediocre and blend in.

Here is what my brother thinks about the book.

Building your vocabulary

Well, there are two ways of going about it – the long & easy way and the quick & hard way, but sadly no quick & easy way. The first method may take years but involving nothing, but reading whatever you like. This is a very relaxed and reliable way of improving your vocabulary, you learn new words very slowly but you can be sure that you will not forget them. But if you are preparing for competitive exams like GRE this is an impractical way of doing things. That’s where the second method becomes essential – mugging up a humongous wordlist. It is a very tedious process and involves a lot of hard work, but you do get quick but unreliable results. So that is what I have been trying to do the past week, trying to cram in the Barons wordlist. But as wordlists go, the Barons is not bad, I mean the example sentences do contain a kind of wry humor. It’s almost like watching a Woody Allen movie – very intellectual, taxing and mildly humorous.

Absence and some good books

I took a three week break from college and went to my brother's place. It is so strange that when you are out of the college and facing the real world, things like blogs and emails become so insignificant. When in college I check my email(s) at least every hour, but in the last three week I have checked only twice. But then you are not so jobless when you are outside the college (you actually have to do some work and not just sit in front of the computer and pretend to).

During this time, I finally finished Of Human Bondage and liked it very much. But I think that if you are going to read only one of Somerset Maugham's books then you should read The Razor's Edge because that is a much better book. Never mind all the hype surrounding Of Human Bondage.

I also read Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie which was highly recommended by my brother. It is a very colourful and imaginative tale. I think the author was having a lot of fun while writing it and so it contains lots of amusing lyrics. But in the end, I think it is just a children's book and not one of Salman Rushdie's serious works.

But the best book I read during this time was Not the End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean which is about what might have actually happened aboard Noah's Ark. The main character in the story is Timna, Noah's daughter, but the book also provides the perspectives of the rest of the family and also of the animals on board the Ark. The book went on to win the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year Award. But I really think that the book is for grownups too. It is very brutal, especially the scene of the birth of the wildebeest calf on board the Ark, and very thought-provoking. By giving the perspectives of the people and the animals on board the Ark, it makes you question whether there is really any difference between them. It is a very short book but will keep you thinking for a long time.