The day started pretty late than usual because of long night. I was engrossed reading Franny and Zooey. I finally got a chance to finish this book which I bought way back in Feb'10. The book is a story about Grass family, but more importantly siblings Franny and Zooey and their conversation regarding the basic nature of their behavior and conflicting conviction towards god. Franny, the sister, found two books titled " The way of a pilgrim" and its sequel " The pilgrim continues his way" from his deceased brother's, Seymore Grass, bookshelf. The book basically is a story of a russian peasant's journey to discover the meaning of incessant pray as mentioned in bible. Eventually, the peasant finds a mystical saint who teaches him to pray continuously. It starts with reciting "Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me" and eventually the prayer becomes self active, it becomes a part of heartbeat. Once the peasant learnt the way to pray, he traveled around to teach everyone. This book had a profound effect on Franny and she started following this method of praying and used as a refuge to get away from all the negativities of life like, her unreasonable anger against people, disinterest in things that she loved the most. Rather than helping her, the book took a toll on her. The later half of the book is basically an honest conversation between Zooey and Franny wherein Zooey tries to mention the fact that knowing god is the most important thing before praying for him. The conversation is surely open for interpretation and in short its an interesting read. I truely believe in higher power however at the same time I am against the idea of religion. I always believe that people should be given choice to practice whichever religion they want as long as it doesn't affect the mass in general.
Anyways, I also watched oscar winning "One flew over cuckoo's nest". A very sad and heart wrenching story of McMurphy and his aspiration to make mental institute patients realize the importance of outside world eventually perishing at the end. It's a crass reality to find that he couldn't succeed. This is a story which can be applied in any political scenario in the world history. An inspiring leader trying to rally people around against the tyrant. Jack Nicholson gave stellar performance as a carefree lunatic who injects his lively nature and zeal for life into the crowd of complacent unknowns who are trying to find solace and comfort behind the closed walls of institute. I wouldn't say the movie was better than the book however it was as close as it could be, retaining the feel at its entirety.
Here's a line from the movie-
McMurphy: What are you doin' here? You oughta be out in a convertible bird-doggin' chicks and bangin' beaver.
Adeos!!
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