Before I go any further, let me quickly say: the best kind of friendships must be ones that hand you the right book at the right time. I have that kind of friendship. My copy of Dream Count was a birthday gift from a dear friend who somehow always knows what I need to read or hear even before I do. As I always feel after every single one of our conversations, I’m ever so grateful for friends like her who open up my world in ways I never knew I needed.

I must confess I have not read any of her other fiction before this book. I read Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions, her epistolary manifesto many years ago, and found myself trembling with awe, rage, power, because of the ideas it equipped me to deal with the world as a young woman. My experience with Dream Count tells me how she still writes in the same vein, and more interestingly, how her non-fiction and fiction don’t feel very different from one another. And what this did for me is that it reminded me that I still indeed have all of those feelings within me, the awe, the rage, the power, though time and circumstance have softened their intensity. Though I’m no stranger to feminist thought, it is rare to encounter writers who capture the nuances of identity, love, ambition, and the messiness of relationships with such intimacy. Who moves you not only by what they say, but by how they choose to say it.

What Dream Count makes clear, without declaring it outright, is that the personal is always political. These characters are not delivering some sort of message, but the circumstances of their lives reveal the type of negotiations and compromises they are forced to make, simply because of who they are and where they are. The political forces shaping their realities—gender, class, history, migration—are not background noise; they are part of the texture of their daily choices, their silences, and their desires.

Adichie’s skill clearly lies in observation: deep, precise emotional observation. I often found myself startled by how intimately I related to a sentence that may pass another reader by entirely. There were moments I had to stop reading just to think. These were not necessarily earth-shattering events in the narrative, but such beautiful, moving, even tragic daily conversations, realizations, griefs so small they slip between most stories. I admire Adichie’s ability to write emotional complexity without turning it into performance. The language is spare and measured, but what it reveals is often piercing. The writing doesn’t over-explain or dramatize; it simply shows, and that’s what makes it land so deeply.

I also loved that this book doesn’t center just one woman, but four. It expands our understanding of the female experience across different socio-political and economic locations. And yet, it remains deeply grounded in the personal. In each story, I found glimmers of myself and people I know, like my mother, my friends, even my younger self. It was almost like someone was reading excerpts from my own experiences back to me.

The stories also avoid easy resolutions. They’re not structured to teach lessons or deliver closure. We aren’t led to judge the women or their choices. Instead, we’re asked to witness them—flawed, thinking, feeling—on their own terms. Moreover, there is so much space in these stories for tension, for contradiction, for silence. That space asks the reader to do some of the emotional work, to imagine what is withheld. And that feels honest. Real life rarely offers clean explanations or resolutions, and Adichie seems to trust us enough not to pretend otherwise. That trust she put in the reader, and in the characters themselves, is where the book’s power lies.

Still, I have my reservations. Most of the stories revolve around traditional, heterosexual relationships and the struggles within them. I wish there was at least some exploration of the non-heterosexual, non-cisgender, and non-monogamous. I also noticed the recurring portrayal of men along a rather narrow spectrum—emotionally unavailable, inconsiderate or insensitive, traditional, careless, or misguided. Over time, this became somewhat repetitive. I’m not sure if this was intentional, but it stood in contrast to how richly women’s experiences are explored. Ultimately, though the book clearly wants to show how profoundly women’s lives are shaped by their relationships with men, I wished for more space and variety in the kinds of intimacy or desires explored.

Finally, three of the four protagonists are comfortably, perhaps more than comfortably, affluent. There’s nothing inherently wrong with writing about privilege, but I did wonder how the emotional arcs might shift if less comfort had been available. And this brings me to the inclusion of Kadiatou’s story, which, though powerful in its own right, didn’t feel thematically or structurally aligned with the rest of the book. It lacked the same subtle layering and emotional buildup the other stories had.

But none of this takes away from the fact that Dream Count moved me. It made me think about the kind of stories we tell, and the ones we keep hidden. It reminded me that the personal is always political, and that our everyday longings and contradictions are worth exploring with care. Long after I put the book down, I kept returning to many of its moments, and not at all because they were dramatic, but because they felt like they belonged to real life. There is a kind of dignity in the way Adichie writes these women: not by elevating them, but by seeing them clearly.

It’s not a perfect book. But it’s such an honest one. And for that, I’ll not just remember it, but I will return to it soon so I can find myself in it again.

Once again, I can’t thank my dear friend enough for quite literally putting this book into my hands. I’m not sure I would have picked it up so soon (maybe even ever, who knows) without you—and I would’ve been all the poorer for it. Thank you, Samica.

I’m writing to you with the singular purpose of convincing you to read the book Do the Windows Open? by Julie Hecht. Of course, in the two or more years we’ve known each other, I have been trying to convince you to read many books that I love. Even though I’ve had only minimal success so far with this endeavor, I will relentlessly continue to do it, like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the mountain.

Now, before I get into it, I want to make some categorizations, for the sake of honesty and clarity. There are books I want you to read because I think you particularly, being the person that you are, would appreciate them. Patti Smith’s Just Kids, for instance, I want you to read because I think Patti Smitha and Robert Mapplethorpe’s dynamic is one you dream of. Because I know you’d love seeing that dynamic playing out beautifully in all its inevitable complexity and messiness. On the other hand, some books I want you to read merely because I liked them. This desire is rooted entirely in selfishness and narcissism (because of course, if I liked it, then surely, it’s worthy of reading). I must confess at this juncture that Do the Windows Open? belongs to the second category, which necessitates that I attempt to make a stronger case for it.

Do the Windows Open? is a 1997 interconnected collection of Julie Hecht’s short stories previously published in the New Yorker, all featuring a neurotic, photographer narrator living in and around New York. You already know that 20^th century New York-especially if it’s populated with neurotic artistic people-is my favorite setting. But among the countless people who’ve written about that including Woody Allen, J.D Salinger, Fran Lebowitz, Whit Stillman, Norah Ephron, Leonard Cohen and of course Patti Smith, I believe Julie Hecht carves out her own territory. Mostly owing to, I’d say, how original and unique her voice, her sense of humor, the way she sees the world and the things she notices are. Her narrator is the kind of person who tells people how to remove the polo man from Ralph Lauren shirts using a seamer, benchmarks her behavior in comparison to Jackie Kennedy and in vivid detail profiles the different kind of people who gets on a South Fork bus from different stops. Being 1/8^th Jewish, she suspects every German origin person of antisemitism, coming up with almost comical Nazi backstories for them in her mind, describing her neighbor’s eyes as "bluer than mine—they were that light, anti-Semitic blue—and her cheeks were that rosy, anti-Semitic pink”. She, of course, also always wonders if the windows open wherever she is, whether it’s a bus or a train or someone else’s house.

The unnamed narrator’s primary photography project is to photograph doctors with their dogs, to see if that reveals the evil or kindness or both in them. The main focus is on a doctor she consults, “the world-renowned reproductive surgeon Dr. Arnoldo Loquesto.” Dr. Loquesto is a formidable person, terrifies his staff and patients. Everyone followed his orders. Everyone except his dog, who was wild. The surgeon, however, didn’t mind when the dog didn’t follow his orders. And so the narrator feels compelled to photograph him with his dog, visit his house and interact with his kids and wife. The surgeon and the narrator, both incredibly stubborn in their own ways, frequently frustrates one another and it’s entertaining to witness. The doctor is appalled when the narrator asks him to turn on the air conditioner in his car and keep the windows open at the same time. The doctor’s rush to get through each activity and move on to the next thing fascinates the narrator:

Whichever thing the doctor was doing at any moment, he was always wanting to get on to the next thing. Once, I asked him, "What's the ultimate thing you're always in such a hurry to get to?"

"Well," he answered straightforwardly, "first we have the meeting, then we have the discussion, then we have the dinner.

"I mean what's the ultimate goal?"

"Ultimate goal? There is no ultimate goal. I have to keep moving."

Typically, a more eccentric character like the doctor or the narrator is complemented by more “normal” people surrounding them, accentuating their absurd traits, but with these two characters the clash of their eccentricities might make one seem like the saner person, but only momentarily. Now that I’m writing to you about this, it makes me wonder how our clashes were perceived by people around us back when we were enemies. I’m sure you believe you are the sane one.

Anyway, back in our fourth year at Ashoka—I don’t believe you were present for this interaction—our mutual friend Kriti, perhaps being annoyed by my jokes about her vegetarianism, cursed me, proclaiming I will end up falling in love with a vegan. Thankfully that has not happened, but Julie Hecht has impressively made me love a radical vegan character; one who would buy a worse refrigerator model solely because the better model had a drawer labelled “meat and snacks”. The narrator makes her distaste for meat-eating clear throughout the stories, and I don’t just like her in spite of it. I enjoy the sardonic commentary enough to forget that I would also be an object of her distaste:

I saw that the thing being heated wasn't anything people should eat but something like meat loaf, and I was participating in its heating up. I supposed the surgeon had eaten meat the night before operating on me when I was his patient, but what could I do about that? I supposed that meat eating went on in every segment of society including healthcare and medical professionals, but it would be best not to think about this now.

I think it’s certainly an achievement when fiction makes you like a character with traits you dislike in real life. I can’t help but wonder what exactly is the secret ingredient here. Is it just the humor? Is it that I appreciate the way Hecht writes? Is the character she created, over and above the quality of the writing, likeable? That is, would I actually like to hang out with this character if she somehow came to life or am I just tricked by the writing and would only want to experience her inner life through Hecht’s prose? I think you should create a machine that magically makes characters come to life so that we can wear white lab coats and through serious scientific enquiry come up with answers to these questions.

I will wind up by saying, I understand why Hecht is not as popular as I believe she should be. While she is published in the New Yorker and has won an O. Henry Award, she doesn’t do interviews or public appearances, and remains mysterious. I understand too that, books like Do the Windows Open? you either get or you don’t. Maybe the humor isn’t your style or maybe you don’t care for stories that aren’t tightly plotted, for instance. I’m sad to admit, Zenya, that I don’t know about your sensibilities and literary preferences enough to assess confidently whether you’d like this book or not. We shall remedy my lack of Zenya knowledge in time. But if you’re ambivalent about whether you’re interested in reading this book after getting to this point, well, I can only ask you to take a leap of faith.

Yours sincerely,
S

P.S. It didn’t. But maybe it gave me something more rewarding. More on that in a second, though:

Holding the book in my hand as I got comfortable in bed, I wasn’t sure what I might expect. Three chapters in, I knew there was something in this book for me. But by the time I finished, I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt. Rooney’s novel didn’t seem to offer answers—it was a mirror, quietly reflecting the flaws, complexities, and tenderness of human relationships. I loved many parts of it. I was infuriated by some others (SH & SV warning). And I slowly came to realize that this ambivalence is precisely why the book resonates so deeply—or doesn’t—depending on who you ask.

Readers of Normal People seem to be mostly divided in their opinions of the book, with some relating to it as a painful exploration of love, identity, and vulnerability, and others complaining that it was nothing more than an underwhelming tale of two people who just can’t seem to get it together. The debate is everywhere—book clubs, online forums, offline conversations. Why does this quiet novel evoke such strong responses?

Critics of the book might point to its notable mundanity. The plot is sparse, relying on snapshots of time that focus on the push-and-pull dynamic between Marianne and Connell, two young people navigating life and love in contemporary Ireland. Nothing grand happens—no dramatic twists, no explosive confrontations. And the characters? Frustratingly flawed. Marianne’s self-destructive tendencies and Connell’s inability to express himself can make them so difficult to root for.

But isn’t that the point? Life rarely unfolds in grand gestures or neatly resolved arcs. Sometimes we need to read about the awkward, unresolved, and deeply human moments that most plot-heavy stories gloss over, and then sit with it.

I think it was Stephen King who had once said, in a conversation about writing, that he distrusts plot because our own lives are largely plotless. I am inclined to agree: plot is supremely useful as a tool in storytelling, but it shouldn’t be everything. I have seen many reviewers and even movie watchers dismissing entire stories (which are pieces of art in their own right) over what they perceive as a lack of “good plot”.

But the loose plot and the resulting clarity of context building in fact is exactly what makes Normal People so rewarding as a piece of fiction—it allows you to slip into the cracks of daily life without even trying. And when I think about it that way, I am impressed with Rooney’s ability to choose such fitting moments from the beginning of the book till the end in a way that synthesises the complexity of the characters’ relationships AND leaves room for the reader to come to natural conclusions at various parts of the story. I am glad to have found a book as emotionally polarizing as Normal People, and I hope to read other contemporary fiction that draws such a range of reactions.

Coming to my own reactions to the story, what I loved the most, above all else including the storyline, the characters, or even the premise of the novel, was the sheer honesty of the writing. Though my life looked nothing like those of these two strangers, at many points it felt like Rooney had taken fragments of my own experiences and reframed them on the page. And it wasn’t in the details that were obvious or central to the story, such Connell’s struggles with self-worth or Marianne’s oscillation between strength and fragility. For me, the beauty of the book was in the smaller details, in the little things left undone and unsaid, the distances they created between themselves and then how they conquered it. Thinking back to the many nuanced thoughts and questions drawn out of difficult conversations and situations in the book, it no longer surprises me that it took me almost twice as long as I normally would have reading a book of this length.

These literary choices from Rooney—no matter how small or unassuming they seem when reading—are what give Normal People its power. They linger. They demand reflection. And they make you wonder: why do these characters feel so real?

Is it because, in some ways, they’re mirrors of ourselves?

Another layer that fascinated me was how Rooney weaves social dynamics into the personal. Marianne and Connell’s relationship isn’t just about love; it’s shaped by class, privilege, and power. Connell, from a working-class background, struggles with feeling out of place in Marianne’s upper-class world, even as their intimacy transcends these boundaries. And this acute awareness that relationships don’t exist in a vacuum is something that Rooney captures with quiet precision. This adds another dimension to the story, making it not just about two people but about the world they inhabit and how it shapes them.

I like to think that the polarized opinions about Normal People say as much about us, the readers, as they do about the book. If you love it, perhaps it’s because you see yourself in its pages—the awkwardness, the yearning, the hope. If you hate it, maybe it’s because its unresolved nature feels unsatisfying, too close to the discomfort of real life.

For me, Normal People is a reminder of why I read in the first place. Not to escape, but to feel seen. To grapple with the complexity of human emotions. To find beauty in the ordinary.

If there’s one thing Normal People left me with, it’s this: connection is both fragile and transformative. Whether it’s the quiet understanding between two people or the unspoken gaps that grow between them, these moments shape us. And sometimes, it’s in the spaces where we fail to connect that we learn the most about ourselves.

So, here’s my question to you: how did Normal People make you feel? Did you love it, hate it, or land somewhere in between? And more importantly, why? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Love,
Zen.

My main interest is in the novel, which, notably, came after the movie. While the novel was published on Valentine’s Day of 1970, a good ten months before the movie, the novel was created as part of the marketing for the screenplay. The intent of the people behind Love Story was clearly to drum up some interest in the movie, and given its commercial success, critical acclaim, and all the confusingly mixed reviews, the project did exactly that. The novel topped the NY Times Bestseller list the same year of publication and was also nominated for the National Book Award (NBA). Yet, the judges of the NBA were so disappointed with the book that they threatened to quit, the head judge declaring it “a banal book which simply doesn't qualify as literature.” The movie met with a similarly divided audience: Rotten Tomatoes, the film review company, retrospectively released a perfect comment on the movie: "Earnest and determined to make audiences swoon, Love Story is an unabashed tearjerker that will capture hearts when it isn't inducing eye rolls."

Despite all the controversy surrounding its literary merit, Love Story has endured as a beloved classic. The novel’s charm lies in its simplicity and the rawness of its emotions. Segal’s writing is straightforward, making the story accessible to a wide audience, yet it doesn’t shy away from the complexities of love and loss. The story follows the lives of Oliver Barrett IV and Jennifer Cavilleri, two simple young lovers from different backgrounds. Their story, though seemingly ordinary, if not straight-up cliche, is rendered extraordinary by the end through the depth of their connection and the intensity of their love.

Segal himself said that he wanted to create a "story out of a 1940s movie" updated to the present day, "based on what I have observed among my students, living as I do right on campus…” This context is vital to understanding Love Story’s appeal and its limitations. The novel was intended to capture the essence of an era while making it relatable to a modern audience. Segal’s academic background provided him with insights into young love and the societal pressures faced by students around the time of its release, which he wove into the narrative.

The novel’s success can attributed to its universal themes. Love, grief, and the struggle to balance personal aspirations with relationships are experiences that resonate with many. Segal captures these themes with poignant simplicity, allowing readers to see reflections of their own lives in the story of Oliver and Jenny. This relatability is perhaps why Love Story continues to be a favourite among readers, even decades after its initial publication.

The novel’s famous line, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” has become iconic, encapsulating the ideal of unconditional love. While some may argue about the realism of this sentiment, it undeniably captures the aspirational nature of love that many people hold dear. Segal’s ability to evoke strong emotions with such economy of language is a testament to his skill as a storyteller. Yet, this simplicity can also be seen as a drawback, as it leaves the narrative open to interpretations of melodrama and cliché.

Love Story is clearly not without its criticisms. Some argue that the characters are too archetypal, with Oliver as the wealthy, privileged Harvard student and Jenny as the spirited, working-class Radcliffe student. This dichotomy can feel overly simplistic and somewhat dated, especially when viewed through a contemporary lens. Additionally, the novel’s brevity leaves little room for character development, which can make their deep connection feel rushed or under-explored.

I try to remember that Love Story is a reflection of its time. The late 1960s and early 1970s were periods of significant social change, and the novel’s exploration of themes such as class differences, personal freedom, and the pursuit of happiness must have resonated with the original audience. Oliver and Jenny’s relationship challenges societal expectations and norms, making their love story not just a personal journey but also a commentary on the evolving cultural landscape.

But why are stories like Love Story are important? I like to think that simpler (or at times cliche) narratives like this provide a foundation for parodies, homages, and variations. These stories often become templates because they capture fundamental human experiences in an accessible way. Their simplicity allows for broad emotional resonance, making them a comforting return to something heartfelt and real. That’s why I think the purity of a simple love story offers solace and a reminder of the essential emotions that connect us all.

This reminds me of the heavy criticism certain mainstream Indian authors receive from the more well-read amongst us. Though the Indian literary scape is a complex beast to understand, there are plenty of mainstream bestselling romance and fiction novels that get that for their simplicity. Of course, many of these stories also have very stereotypical depictions of gender, societal relations, and power dynamics, to name a few questionable aspects. But I feel this is more of a reflection of the time it was made in, maybe even just the context that the authors grew up in or experienced.

Irrespective of how much success an author or a piece of work garners, all these stories, even the more corny ones that don’t have a single line in them that doesn’t make you cringe, deserve a space out there. These stories, whether or not they are of the romance genre, can provide comfort, familiarity, and joy to different people of different ages and from different walks of life. Some might see a bit of their own life in it, or some watch it to dream about the ordinary magic that we call love.

Besides, I am very happy to note that there are plenty of novels, movies, and TV Shows available now that do a better job of keeping up with the times, and in very tasteful ways. There are plenty of authors and writers out there pushing the boundaries of what we can read, watch, or listen to, and with so many platforms, self-publishing services, and writing spaces, there is enough room for all. My bottom line here is that it is okay to enjoy simpler stories like Segal’s Love Story. Even if you don’t agree on its little merit, the very fact that it might mean something to even a single person out there is reason enough for it to exist.

To wrap up, I do not feel that Love Story’s imperfections diminish its value; rather, they highlight the beauty of an earnest, emotional narrative. The novel’s ability to draw out deep feelings of love, loss, and nostalgia is what makes the novel enduring and worth reading. While it may not meet the standards of high literary art, it remains a powerful piece of storytelling that has touched the hearts of millions, and mine.

Genres: Children’s Fiction, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Ethics

Yesterday I finished reading How Do You Live by Genzaburo Yoshino as translated by Bruno Navasky. I had been a reading slump for a couple months now, but reading this novel has re-invigorated my interest for reading and learning. It would not be an understatement if I said that I read this with the eagerness of a child listening to a bedtime story. This is more of a reflection on me as a reader than the book itself, though. I like immersing myself completely in whatever I read. It will not then be surprising that I intend to share my reflections here in the same manner the book shares its characters ruminations.

The novel was published in the original Japanese way back in 1937, and Navasky’s 2021 translation is supposedly based on this original. Why is this important? Given the very complicated time period this book was published in—with its mix of culturalism, imperialism, and militarism—it is important to note that changes have been made to the novel over many decades to suit the very dynamic socio-cultural and political landscape of post-war Japan. I definitely took note of a couple themes which may have been censored or rewritten at some point by central authorities, such as the conversations on class and privilege, capitalism and consumerism, philosophical notions such as good and evil, ideas about society and culture that are very rooted in modern day sociology and political theory, among many things. The author clearly takes a very liberal arts approach to children’s ethics, but this becomes unsurprising when one realizes that the novel was actually part of an ethics series meant to introduce more progressive ideas, especially the importance of the humanities, to younger children.

Coming to the novel itself, I must admit, when I first started reading it, perhaps when I was a chapter or two into the novel, I was not very impressed. Hindsight tells me that I was not really in the space for reading, and that made me unnecessarily harsh with my comments. But taking my time to read it over many weeks and days and nights has helped me read much more closely; once I abandoned the need to zoom through a book and get the most out of it in as quickly as possible, I found myself actually enjoying the introspection, wonder, and interest with which I naturally began approaching the novel. Now what does this mean, to read a book and enjoy it? I have thoughts about this obviously, and I intend to share in a post aptly titled “How Do You Read?” Sometimes I crack myself up.

As with almost any piece of writing, the novel clearly takes a stand. Here the book seems to take a moral position on how a ‘heroic’ or extraordinary human being should behave, and how we as human beings should emulate these extraordinary people as closely as we can. Of course, a couple years ago, I would have totally glossed over this thought—most of us have been conditioned emulate excellence as early as kindergarten. But I’m not so sure how I feel about these things right now. Is there any such static idea of goodness or excellence that we can teach a whole generation? Is the idea of finding balance between consumption and providing value timeless advice? What even is excellence? What is good? What makes a good life? It is so very interesting to me how unambiguously it speaks of the qualities one should imbibe, including finding strength within as opposed to giving in to human weakness, while also unequivocally speaking of the need to think and decide things for oneself. But I think that may have been part of the point. The book did make me question and think about a bunch of things when I engaged with it with interest. And of course, the ultimate message seems to be about building one’s thinking and reflecting skills, to keep asking questions, and of course, to keep learning.

It was very interesting for me to peer into some of the most basic questions of the various liberal arts disciplines through a Japanese cultural lens. There is a strictness with which various moral notions are put across that is distinctly very different in tone from the individualism of the West. And I am not if this was somehow connected, but I could not think of any of the more plainly stated advice, such as those that concerned discipline, will, hardwork, humility, and respect, as anything more than cultural markers that are put across without much scrutiny. There is also a very strong emphasis on the idea of “humanity” and contributing to the advancement and progress of civilization. It recognizes how each person is but a single drop in the confluence of civilization and culture, all the while encouraging people to be useful, or rather provide more in value than what you consume. You can tell there is a strong appreciation for community, connection, and collaboration, and it is beautifully explained in tandem with the concept of globalization and the historical exchange of ideas and things associated with it. All of this and the many other interesting thoughts put across in the book are very in line, you might notice, with the various liberal arts disciplines, not limited to political theory, economics, sociology, and even basic psychology.

On the whole, I do feel this is an easy introduction to a very liberal arts-y way of thinking. It is cleverly written in a way, in spite of how old it is, that is neither cliche nor repetitive. Anyone with a curious mind, and not just young adults, might find some of the basic questions of ethics and philosophy posed here to be an interesting thing to explore. And I must mention how simply this is written. No frills, no ornamentation. This is just a novel that captures a small part of one Copper’s life and his learnings. For those of you who appreciate this kind of honesty in writing, Navasky has done a brilliant job of it.

Bottom line: if you’re interested in reinvigorating your moral and philosophical side, this might be a cute read. This is a slow-paced children’s novel that might help you get out of a learning or reading slump in the way it has for me.

Let me know if you end up reading it! You can find text me here: @zenreads

Until we meet again,

Happy reading, and take care!

Love, Zen.