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| Sunday, 23 February 2003 |
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by Farah Macan Markar First of all, let me wish you a warm sunday morning (though a cold one would do as these days are so hot). Today I have cooked up a concoction of Dhal, James, Ministry, Saunders, Crace and Sheldon, all unearthed from "Peter's" where they had been hiding down D.R.Wijewardena Mawatha, which is somewhere around Colombo 10. Want to know what I'm talking about? Take a look at the menu. The Menu today World Cup Special 1. Roald Dhal Having won the toss and deciding to bat R.D. steps out to bat with his very own "Tales of the Unexpected".-Taken from "Kiss Kiss" and "Someone like you", this selection of short stories from the master of the macabre, contains some of his finest, most bitterly funny creations. Here are sixteen tales, each with a startling twist. Take, for example, the horrific tales of risk-takers such as the man who wagers his daughter's hand in marriage to a wine connoisseur, or the traveller who throws himself overboard a cruise liner in order to win a bet. Here too is the understated cruelty of Edward the Conqueror, in which a mysterious cat seems to threaten domestic life, or the innocuous-seeming Landlady whose guests stay for longer than they intend. Not forgetting the satisfyingly shocking tales of revenge, such as "Nunc Dimittis" or "Lamb to the slaughter". Each story simply tingles with chilling surprises and each is perfectly constructed, sophisticated black humour at its very best. 2. P. D. James Batting alongside Dhal, having to quicken the game up, James goes for a more bloody bat with Dalgliesh in "Cover her face". St Cedd's church fete had been held in the grounds of Martingale for generations. As if organizing stalls and presiding over luncheon, the bishop and the tea-tent were not enough for Mrs. Maxie, later that mellow July afternoon her son Stephen sprang the news of his engagement. By morning, Sally Jupp, her new parlourmaid-unmarried mother and minor village scandal-was dead. Investigating murder at the Elizabethan manor house, Detective Chief-Inspector Adam Dalgliesh is intrigued to find more than one fiancee among the suspects-such are the complicated passions beneath the calm surface of English village life... 3. Rohinton Mistry Slowing things down, next we have "Such a long journey" by R. Mistry. "The first light of morning barely illuminated the sky as Gustard Noble faced eastward to offer his orisons to Ahura Mazda. The hour was approaching six, and up in the compound's solitary tree the sparrows began to call. Gustard listened to their chirping every morning while reciting his Kusti prayers. There was something reassuring about it. Always, the sparrows were the first; the cawing of crows came later..." Thus starts "Such a long journney a novel set in Bombay against the backdrop of war in the Indian subcontinent and the birth of Bangladesh, telling the story of the peculiar way in which the conflict impinges on the lives of Gustard Noble, an ordinary man and his family. 4. Kate Saunders Saunders walks into the pitch next with a groovy kind of innings called "The Marrying Game". They set out to marry for money... but ended up falling in love. With a batty mother, a crumbling house and no education to speak of, the four Hasty girls aren't best equipped for the modern world. And when the death of their charming but useless father leaves them nothing but mountains of debt, drastic action is called for. Luckily the eldest, Rufa-already expert at making ends meet-has a Plan. If their sole inheritance is their ravishing good looks then she and her sisters must out all thoughts of love out of their minds and marry money. And so, with her outrageously sexy sister Nancy, she sets off to blaze a trail through London society... The Marrying Game has Begun. 5. Jim Crace Being a wicket-keeper batsman Crace comes along next in a unique infectuous style of his own-"Quarantine" Hell is other people. Two thousand years ago four travellers enter the Judean desert to fast and pray for their lost souls. In the blistering heat and barren rocks they encounter the evil merchant Musa-madman, sadist, rapist, even a Satan-who holds them in his tyrannical power. Yet there is also another, a faint figure in the distance, fasting for forty days, a Galilean who they say has the power to work miracles...Here, trapped in the wilderness, their terrifying battle for survival begins... 6. Sidney Sheldon "The Doomsday Conspiracy" it is as Sheldon comes onto the crease smashing the ball high up, not to the boudary, but to the sky. Down it comes again now, zooming to the ground. There's someone running behind it. Will it be caught or not? Operation Doomsday...Activate... Commander Robert Bellamy of US Naval Intelligent is dispatched on a top secret mission. A weather balloon carrying sensitive military information has crashed in Switzerland. Bellamy must locate the ten witnesses to the incident so that they can be sworn to secrecy. But as he conducts his search Bellamy begins to suspect that he, too, is being hunted, and by an unknown lethal force... that what he was told about the balloon is only part of an almost unbelievable happening... From Washington to Zurich, Rome and Paris, the story unfolds to reveal Bellamy's past-why the woman he loves the most cannot return his love. Why his friends become his deadly enemies, and why the world must never learn the incredible secret hidden on the Swiss Alps... |
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