'Gahire Pani' by Ratnakar Matkari

Pages: 206
Goodreads, Amazon

Last month, I asked my Twitter followers if they'd be interested in gifting me a book for my birthday. Though a few fell prey to this sentimental yet evil appeal, I backed off thinking that it wasn't too nice of me to do something like this and didn't go back to this request until the day arrived. However, Abhijeet insisted on sending a book even though the birthday had almost left the calendar. Many thanks to him for gifting me 'Gahire Pani' ('Deep water' in Marathi).

After the heavy duty Hindi dose of Rashmirathi, I was a bit uncertain about whether to read 'Gahire Pani' without a Marathi dictionary. The author's introduction wasn't too helpful either since, strangely, he had written only about the TV show based on this book.

The book is a collection of horror and thriller short stories. The author is blessed with a weird mind (which I like!) that has him all sorts of supernatural ideas. The stories belong to various genres predominant among which is horror.

Though the stories aren't very scary, they are definitely thrilling. I found myself thinking about a few stories long after I had read them. The first story about a boy being able to predict anybody's date of death when he is told that person's birthday is definitely one such story.

Though most of the horror stories score high on the thrill quotient, the ones about time travel. murder plot and witchcraft are forgettable. An impressive narrative in this maze of thrill is the story of a girl who keeps getting flashes about an assault in her previous life. Though the plot's climax is not much to speak about, the story has been told in the form of letters from the protagonist to herself. It was a really interesting way of unfolding the events.

Overall, I enjoyed reading the book and will gladly read anything else by the author. I thank Abhijeet again for giving me the chance to read something so out of my reading span. Without this gift, I would have been a stranger to a Poe-sque Marathi author. 

The Complete Stories and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

Pages: 821

Goodreads, Amazon

Edgar Allan Poe's works caught my fancy a couple of years back when I was introduced to horror writing. I had listened to the audio version of 'The Black Cat' rendered by Diamanda Galas from the album 'Closed on Account of Rabies'. The weird murder story as well as its rendition was nothing like what I had listened to ever before. The tale itself had such a eerie feel to it that it gave me the creeps. I listened to and recommended many friends to listen to all the audio versions of Poe's horror stories which were available online. Soon, I even read almost all the horror tales by Poe. I was immensely impressed by his narrative style and decided to read everything written by him. 

The book gives us an insight into the mind of Edgar Allan Poe. It is not an easy read as it is full of short stories and poems, many of which are extremely weird. After reading the book, it is easy to understand why Poe is regarded as a genius by some and a psycho by others. Though he is widely recognized as a horror and mystery writer, there are many stories that belong to Satire and Comedy genres. Beware though. Poe's sense of humour is nothing like ordinary and there is a good deal of gore in many of them too. 

Poe is considered to be the pioneer of murder mystery story-writing. The book begins with 'Murders in the Rue Morgue' in which we are introduced to C. Auguste Dupin, who is not a professional detective but is blessed with supreme deductive abilities. The stories are inspired by true events in Europe and Poe's attempts at solving the mysteries sitting in USA going just by newspaper reports. It is said that Dupin was the influence behind Sherlock Holmes. 

Among the comedy stories, 'The Spectacles' is the funniest. The protagonist falls in love with a stranger whom he sees at the opera. When the two finally meet and the protagonist wears his spectacles, he realizes that the lady is his great grandmother. Besides this, I remember 'The Predicament' as a story that's more morbid than funny. 

Other than horror, mysteries and comedies, there is a 'Flights and Fantasies' section which reads like science-fiction. Poe is clearly smitten by the Hot-air balloon. The most notable among the sci-fi stories is 'The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall' in which the protagonist takes a balloon trip around the earth but ends up leaving for the moon by the end of it. 'The Balloon Hoax' though cleverly written, is tiring to read owing to its details about the balloon's construction and the trip.

I'm not too big a fan of poetry and struggled to go through the huge collection. I particularly loved the poem - The Conqueror Worm. It talks about the inevitability of human mortality. Poe's conception of death as a worm and more importantly that of humans playing actors in the theater of life is nothing short of extraordinary. 

I'd recommend the book to someone who wants to study Poe. Otherwise, it's better to stick to the popular collection.