The Word : Karan Mahajan : 20.Dec.08

KARAN MAHAJAN
Author

A book that means a lot to you?
I loved The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick so much that it became my fate: like Ruth Puttermesser, I too work for the New York City bureaucracy and have lived among other people’s things in borough after borough. All I lack now is a wish-granting golem that’ll make me Mayor of New York, and a prosestyle so brilliant it glistens on the page like hell-frozen fire.

Your favourite genre?
ALL-CAPS EMAILS.

Your favourite character?
Gould, the eponymous character from Stephen Dixon’s Gould, for stupidly explaining himself at great length and speaking in run-on page-size sentences.

How many books do you own?
I’m going to ballpark it at 400+.

An underrated book? And why?
The Suffrage of Elvira by VS Naipaul. Brilliantly titled, written rapidly, and sandwiched chronologically between The Mystic Masseur and Miguel Street, this book has been nearly forgotten. But as a racial and political satire it is far riskier and biting than the other comedies; it carries within it a real sourness about the communal infighting that consumed Trinidadian politics.

An overrated book? And why?
Money by Martin Amis. We’re told to read him for the prose, but he seems like a ‘burra sahib’ trying to rap.

The book you bought last?
Remainder by Tom McCarthy.

Last book read?
Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel.

A book you wish you had written?
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust, because that would mean I’d have read it and led a largely olfactory life.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amazon Edit review on Cynthia Ozick's ' The Puttermessers Papers' is here.

Amazon.com Review
Fans of Cynthia Ozick are likely already familiar with Ruth Puttermesser, whose highly educated, unlucky-in-love but rather mystical existence as a Jewish woman in New York City has been chronicled in previously published stories appearing occasionally through the years. The Puttermesser Papers collects the old stories, along with several new ones, combined to create a funny and surreal picaresque narrative, touching upon Puttermesser's job at a blueblood law firm, her creation and intellectual sparring with the golem she makes out of soil from her flowerpots, her term as mayor of New York, her own death by murder, and beyond. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Veteran novelist and essayist Ozick continues to impress with this episodic, highly imaginative, humorous exploration of the disappointed life of brilliant Jewish lawyer and scholar, Ruth Puttermesser. In her thirties, Ruth found her early success in law school quickly turning to failure as she descended through the Kafkaesque bureaucracy of New York City government. In her forties, she unwittingly creates a golem?an artificial human being derived from Hebrew folklore?who gets Ruth elected mayor of New York but soon destroys the Eden it helped create. In her fifties, Ruth finally finds a soul mate in flamboyant artist Rupert. But as soon as they get married, Rupert leaves. A master stylist with a powerful command of the English language, Ozick has created a revealing portrait of a complex woman, as well as a dark satire of government bureaucracy. Essential for literary collections and highly recommended for general collections.
-?Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L.,Ohio

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Link for readers reviews is here :

http://www.amazon.com/Puttermesser-Papers-Novel-Cynthia-Ozick/dp/0679777393/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231608881&sr=1-1