Timshel..

Timshel.. Thou mayest. You may.

I chanced upon a gem of a book last month. Though, in my search for my next read, I did fall into a trap. I started reading this very catchy-titled book "The Paper Princess"(Part 1 of a trilogy). It turned out to be shallow and flimsy. It was an all-too-good-to-be-true story of a girl in her teens who was raised by a single mom (who was a stripper). The girl has now lost her mom and is surviving in this harsh world all by herself by studying hard during the day and working as a stripper herself at night to get through life. One day, there appears a man in her life, more than twice her age, who presents himself as her run-away father's bestie and who, also, turns out to be a business tycoon with nothing less than a whole airlines company under his belt! The run-away father, just before dying, found out that he has a daughter out of some flaky one-night-stand he had back in his 20-somethings, which he probably doesn't even remember now, but which still fills him with a deep-rooted guilt and an unmatched pang of desire for his only daughter so much so that he bequeathes everything he owns to her!

Now that the bestie is dead, this other billionaire is bent on seeing his friend's wish through and vows to take this girl under his umbrella despite numerous protests and threats by his five sons who are no less than Greek Gods and easily the most sought after boys in that town where only the rich reside. The girl, immediately feeling out of place, sets out to be hard as stone and weather all these storms, which are nothing compared to the dungeon she's come from. Obviously the girl has steel-strength and after a few initial hiccups works her way into everybody's hearts and also wins over the handsomest of the five sons (obviously again!) and thereby ensues a thunderous romance between the two. Here the books takes an erotic turn and I'm left wondering whether I'm reading porn! The romance doesn't come without its complications though.
...And here the author leaves us with a promise of a sequel!

I didn't lose another minute before I removed the other two books of this trilogy from my want-to-read list and awarded a much-deserved one star to The Paper Princess.

By now I was hungry to cleanse my mind off the nonsense I had put it through. And as some kind of a reward, my gut zeroed in on East of Eden as my next read.

East of Eden is a page-turner right from the start. It's like a gentle river that flows on and on while you sit there by the river-side lost in the rhythm of its waves. It's a story of two families, each with its own nuances and experiences. All the characters have been carefully developed into individual beings. You'd find yourself rooting for one, feeling resentful for another; feeling kindly towards one, while feeling indifferent towards the other! You develop an understanding with every character as you move along with the story.

This book doesn't set out to be an epic or anything like that. It's a straightforward story of mere-mortals. It's as colorless as life can be, yet it clings to you for the very reason. It develops the characters just to make you watch them die without any remarkable events in their lives or without them having done anything to leave a mark on you. But they were there, an integral part of the story and you came to understand their deepest fears and emotions. And when they die so uneventfully, you accept it with the kind of understanding that you have when someone passes in real life. That perhaps this was the way it was supposed to be. It can't be questioned. It can just be absorbed.

What I took from the book isn't very new a concept. The book just provides a clearer perspective on that concept through the characters you find yourself investing in. Every person has two sides to him/her - one is evil, the other is good. Timshel, a Hebrew word, meaning it's an individual's choice and only his choice to choose one out of the two. And that's the only thing that defines a person's whole life. One simple word and a whole lot of meaning!

What also came out prominently in the book was that the characters with shades of both - the black & the white - seemed real and relatable. Ones who were either too consumed by the dark or even the ones who were way beyond any sins or evils didn't really lead fuller lives. Bringing the reader back to the point that the choice that each one of us has, even though it might lead to some disastrous turns, would also be the one to add the flavour to our lives that'd make it fuller and perhaps a little more liveable.

With that, I rewarded the book with five glittering stars on goodreads! I'm already en route my next book, which to my great delight is turning out to be a treat. It's called 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' and so far looks very promising as far as the depth in the story goes.

Before I end this post, I'd like to end it with a line I chanced upon while reading East of Eden, one which left me fumbling for an apt reaction to this genius of a thinker:

"Every little boy thinks he invented sin. Virtue we think we learn, because we are told about it. But sin is out own designing."

Until then, folks!

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