December 24, 2011

Rohit Reviews: Midnight's Children

After an inspired spell of reading over the summer, the autumn again brought the twin (self-imposed) malignancies of overwork and ill-conceived travel that have long plagued me (and this site). Naturally, as a consequence, the feverish pace at which I had been consuming books ground to an unseemly halt. But as I had quietly committed to finishing the four books I bought in an ill-advised book-buying binge in July before the end of the year, I spent the last few weeks in a mad dash to finish the last—and by far, the longest and most difficult—of the lot: Salman Rushdie's 1981 Booker Prize winner, Midnight's Children. We are nothing, after all, without our entirely arbitrary commitments to ourselves. (I might be nothing regardless of my entirely arbitrary commitments to myself, but that's a story for another day.)

December 27, 2011

Rohit Reviews: This Side of Paradise

Only a few days ago, I lamented the slowing of my reading pace caused by what I deemed the twin malignancies of overwork and ill-conceived travel. The holidays, however, have brought some spare time and today I wrapped up the first of four new books purchased in yet another ill-advised book-buying binge last week in Brooklyn. Compared to Midnight's Children, F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise was a breeze of a read that I could most likely have finished in a day had it not been for other commitments. Having read and enjoyed The Great Gatsby a couple times (once in high school and again in college), I had rather high expectations for Fitzgerald's 1920 foray into the literary world at the tender age of twenty-three. Unfortunately, the novel ended up being somewhat of a disappointment.

December 31, 2011

Year in Review, 2011

Well, dear readers, it would appear that both you and I have managed successfully to keep the existential demons at bay for yet another dismal year, undeterred in our never ending pursuit of nothingness. Whether that is an accomplishment or a most miserable development, I leave for you to decide.

Rather than spread holiday cheer this year in an uncharacteristic display of misguided merriment (as I have been want to do in the past), however, I thought I might take a moment to comment on the state of this most dismal site as it charges on (futilely) into its tenth year of existence. Yes, you read that correctly: it's been ten years. Hard to imagine, really.

And while the state of its author has not much changed in that time—I remain as unmoored in a turbulent sea of loneliness, despair, and the like as ever—this site has taken a definite tumble, both in intellectual caliber and technical adequacy. I can't much help the former; tacit failure is largely what this site represents, after all. But I can and do intend to remedy the latter, probably sometime in the first or second quarter of 2012. (It's important to have goals.) So stay tuned for a better platform by which I will deliver my usual enlightenment.

Oh, and Happy New Year. Be sure to enjoy the festivities tonight. If the Mayans were right, it'll be this planet's last.