Books: Bluest Eye, Master Key System & Matilda

I’m back after a mini-break (much-needed one!) and I have to share something the books that I finished reading.

1. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

I don’t know why I chose this book over Alice Walker’s famous novel ‘The Color Purple’. Maybe the theme appealed to me, maybe I wanted to read something more personal, I don’t know. But I’m glad I picked up this book. I think it would be an understatement to say that this is the most disturbing book that I have ever read in my life. To give you an idea, this book has child sexual abuse, incestuous rape etc. And it is just not easy to get through it. But in the end, it’s worth it because Morrison writes BRILLIANTLY. She kills you. She questions you. She shakes up your belief system. In a way, you feel as if your mind and soul are naked, because Morrison’s writing is just….I don’t have words for it. She tells you the story of a little black girl who wants blue eyes, so that people love her. She feels ugly because society tells her that black people are ugly. It’s heartbreaking because we all feel this way. Especially girls.  One quote that I HAD to share:

We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we has a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used–to silence our own nightmares. And she let us, and thereby deserved our contempt. We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength.

And fantasy it was, for we were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave, and hid like thieves from life. We substituted good grammar for intellect; we switched habits to simulate maturity; we rearranged lies and called it truth, seeing in the new pattern of an old idea the Revelation and the Word.

2. Master Key System by Charles F Haanel

In this book, the author claims that everything that happens to us (good or bad), happens because of what we think. In a way, everything is mind. While I do agree with most things that he says, I also believe that you cannot think whatever you want to think. For example: There is this famous thought experiment of pink elephants. If someone asks you to not think about pink elephants, most probably, you WILL think about Pink Elephants. Because mind doesn’t understand “DON’T.’ However, I’m glad that Haanel doesn’t believe in magical thinking. He acknowledges that one cannot think good things, always. And that’s why he has tons of exercises. Some of them are good and some of them are boring.

3. Matilda by Roald Dahl

Need I say anything about this beautiful book? Roald Dahl doesn’t look down upon children. He doesn’t spoon feed you. His writing is just so lovable. ‘Matilda’ is a story of a girl, who is neglected by her parents. She is genius who reads Charles Dickens and other classic writers at the age of four. And it’s not some adult who taught her to read, she learned it by herself. The lonely little girl finally finds an understanding and compassionate teacher named Miss Honey and their friendship changes their lives forever. Please don’t miss out on this book because of the ‘Children’s Book’ tag. JUST READ IT.