You know, even I am impressionable. I admit that it has been (and will be) my long standing attitude to never ever consider anyone superior to myself. Of course I have been proven wrong a million times over, and in the process I discovered that I am no good; it’s just sheer audacity and tendency to bluster, nothing else. But that attitude helps me a lot to survive in this stiffly competitive world. Having said there, there are people out there who are superior to me and will remain for a long, long time to come.
So though I am completely sarcastic about what other people advice me to read (a trait that has helped me time and again to stay away from stupid time wasting, money crunching sorry-excuse-of-a-novel), I found that I have been right in acting upon an advice given by my one of the teachers- a Mr. Chandrashekhar to read all books written by Arthur Hailey.
Though, of course I hadn’t immediately gone shopping, but the way my teacher had been teaching, I got a feeling that any book recommended by this guy must exude merit. So after few days of pondering over, with my pocket sufficiently filled- I went hunting.
Obviously, being a miser that I am, I won’t go straight away to Crossword to buy my books. I went to the second-hand book store. And I asked the store-keeper to get me any book written by Arthur Hailey.
It took him some time as he skimmed through those dog-marked, oxidized and brown paged books. But after some time he did manage to fish out a green jacketed book called ‘The Money-changers’ written by Arthur Hailey.
It was an awesome novel. I totally loved it. Though of course, I wasn’t initially interested in the life of the Bankers, that this book so revolved around- mostly due to my not being able to make head or tail out of the financial world. But gradually, as I paced forward along with the plot, I found my interest being pricked. Just as it claims, it was a helluva ride to have a sneak-peek ‘behind the dignified bronze boors of a major U.S. Bank’.
If you have read my earlier book reviews, you might have found that I engage more in circumlocution than going straight to the point. ‘What’s exactly is the content of the story? Is it worth the money? No one is interested in the stupid bullshit about how you bought this book from a second hand store.’
The truth is the only way that I deem a book worth reading is my not being able to stop reading it!! So even if the book has got no critical acclaim (not the case here!), if I like reading it further, I would screw the criticism that it has received and plod on reading it. That is the only point on which I judge books. So you may find me terming some ‘high-browed’ book yawn-worthy if I am not willing to read it further. So it’s totally a subjective opinion.
So you see, in order to make my review one computer page long, I engage you to read my garrulous banter.
And basically I am not writing a thesis on this book- so you won’t find me reviewing it chapter wise. To tell the story in simple terms- Alex Vandervoort is a good banker, stay with him till the last!!!!!!
Job done, story described.
You see, the basic fun in reading a book is to read it, and not to read too much about it before starting to read it!!
The job of a book reviewer is to tell you whether the book is worth your money. Subjective though my opinion is, I tell you this book is worth every paisa and penny that it costs.
Of course Arthur Hailey doesn’t need my review. The guy is already famous, though I came to know him only recently. So you may say there is no need for me to promote an author whose merit you have already gauged.
But for me, he was new. So if you have heard his name for the first time- I would, just as my teacher did, advise you to blindly buy this book and immerse yourself in reading it.
Alienman 