Series Review: Foundation by Isaac Asimov

My first tryst with Asimov’s work was back in school and the only thing I remember from that story was “consider all the view points before taking a decision” and that stuck to me ever since. Years later a benevolent friend lent me the first part of the original trilogy – Foundation. Back then I knew neither it was a trilogy nor it won the one-time Hugo best all time series awards ahead of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Though the book was good, I had trouble imagining the world and I felt that the book lacked a proper context. Who’s the old man Hari Seldon? What’s all this about council? Why does his apparition visit after 50 yrs? What exactly is this psycho thingy? (editor note: psychohistory). Questions for which I didn't really get satisfactory answers – which made the experience not as pleasant as it deserved.

Asimov started the original trilogy when he was 21 and finished it around 8 yrs later. It was initially published as a series of short stories in one of the science magazines in the '50s and the books were released only a bit later. The original trilogy was supposed to deal with 1000 yrs of psychohistory that Hari Seldon developed but the books encompassed only 300 yrs of that. As the series seemed to lack a finish, (and after strong persuasion from several readers), Asimov wrote a sequel in 1983, which won another Hugo award to no one's surprise. He "finished" the series with a 5th book in late 80s and that seemed to be, err, that. But for Epsilon-Minus Semi-Morons (readers of Brave New World will get the reference) like me, the first book still lacked context as it talks nothing about development of psychohistory by Seldon. So he wrote two more prequels for the intellectually challenged (yours truly) and that made it a heptalogy.

*minor spoilers ahead*

1. Prelude to the Foundation: (prequel #1)
This book actually deals with Hari Seldon's early life (err, if 30+ is early) and how he became a psychohistorian. It’s several thousand years since the First Galactic Empire was in place with the imperial seat at Trantor. During the reign of Cleon I, a 32-yr old mathematician named Hari Seldon from a distant world Helicon visits Trantor to attend Decennial Mathematics Convention. His theory that the future behavior of a sufficiently large number of people can be predicted using mathematical formulae attracts the attention of the Emperor and his (supposedly evil) First Minister Eto Demerzel. Hoping to take advantage of this theory, Cleon meets Hari Seldon and asks him to tell the people that his psychohistory predicts a peaceful reign under Cleon. Hari refuses saying that his is still a theory and the mathematical formulae weren't really designed yet. Hari meets someone called Chetter Hummin, who warns Hari about Eto Demerzel and takes him away to Streeling University because the Imperial Forces (who can coerce Seldon) do not enter educational institutions. There he meets a historian called Dors Venabili, who becomes his guardian.

Though Hari Seldon is skeptic about developing psychohistory – it takes more than one’s lifetime to come up with all the equations – he works towards the initial development of the said science. He has to find the customs of early history and apply his budding formulae and see if they predict the current situation. (The present is known and if the past can be retrieved, the formulae can be verified by checking if they predict the present from the past – sound logic there). During this course, he meets his future adopted son Raych as well as his future project assistant Yugo Amaryl at Dahl sector and later visits Mycogen, where people hold dearly to their old traditions. Mycogen presents a fascinating argument regarding women’s place in society and the class divide between religious leaders and others. Class divide is evident even in Dahl sector between "normal public" and Billibotton-ers (thugs) and workers of heat sinks.

2. Forward the Foundation: (prequel #2)
So Hari Seldon is hopping from sector to sector on Trantor trying to find historical information, gets into dangerous situations where he's saved by Dors Venabili – who seems to have inhuman power – and manages to somehow survive Mycogen's Sunmaster 14 thanks to Chetter Hummin. Eto Demerzel resigns as First Minister (disappears?) and Seldon is chosen as the next one by the Emperor Cleon. This book has only 4 chapters I believe, each dealing with a specific character and the slow progress of psychohistory – Cleon I, Dors Venabili, Rayach, Wanda Seldon (daughter of Rayach). Yugo Amaryl works himself to death (let that be a lesson to all the workaholics). Hari Seldon gets old and sets up two Foundations – both on the opposite sides of the galaxy – to continue the work.

Though they’re not part of the original trilogy, these two prequels setup the context for what psychohistory is all about and why two Foundations were setup.

*minor spoilers end *

3, 4, 5 – Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation (the trilogy) –
So a Foundation is setup on the distant planet of Terminus which has all the super genius physicists. Hari Seldon (his image) visits them during the times of crises – the dude predicted the crisis situations using his formulae, remember – and tells the people that with careful planning, only one solution exists to prevent each crisis and that is the path they must take. If there's one flaw in psychohistory, it is that a single individual can create chaos to the theory by going against the prediction. That is why he had to ensure that only one solution exists to each problem and that solution is what was included in psychohistorical analysis to predict the further events.

So what happens when a single individual goes against the norm? What if he's all too powerful for the super genius physicists of the Foundation? Can a Foundation be *holds breath* defeated? These form the basis of Foundation and Empire. And what of this Second Foundation anyways? It was supposed to be setup along with Foundation at the opposite end of the galaxy. Though everyone’s heard of Foundation, nobody – including Foundation members – have any clue what this Second Foundation is and where it is setup. Once they find out about Second Foundation, what are they gonna do about it?

6, 7 – Foundation’s Edge, Foundation and Earth (sequels) –
6th book is where the Asimov’s genius ends. The final one is a tad boring, tedious and a big part of it is really unnecessary. But we get some very interesting conversations between Janov Pelorat (historian) and Golan Trevize (Foundation councilman, space pilot). They provide a very interesting argument throughout the books about individualism vs collectivism. And we visit some weird worlds during the hunt for the red* earth (ha!).


Overall, a very satisfying read. Intelligent people can read the trilogy and be content. Those who really want the context of the trilogy’s start can read the prequels (they are very well written) too. Those who are adamant to finish all 7 or who want to read a bit more on the individual vs collective (collectief – as us Dutch say) can read the sequels. Asimov’s a genius, I’m planning to pick up his Robot series sometime before I die.


* - original Earth was supposed to be destroyed due to too much radio activity.

Le Carré vs Fleming

I read the following books by the two authors, frequently called the masters of spy novels.

John Le Carré:
A Murder of Quality, The Looking Glass War, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, A Small Town in Germany

Ian Fleming:
Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker and another book, the name of which I didn't even bother to remember.


Le Carré:-
Murder of Quality is a bit like Agatha Christie. There's no spying stuff involved, though it has George Smiley as the detective. Quiet village town, someone gets violently killed, Smiley is there by chance and he has to investigate the murder. Includes both Hercule "little grey cells" Poirot and Miss "family and stuff, emotions, little village people" Marple type case solving. A decent read for a debut novel.

The Looking Glass War is about two different government agencies against each other and it has so many details about training a spy to go beyond enemy lines. You feel sorry for the one chosen to be the spy, hate the cunning plots of higher ops, despair at how selfish some can be and pray that somehow everything is okay in the end.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold may possibly be the best spy novel ever. The way the plot twists and turns is incredible. It mixes good writing with great bit of drama. The final few chapters are worth reading several times (and that’s not because you didn’t understand them first).

I watched the movie Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy a few years ago but thankfully I forgot what happens in the end. It is possibly one of the most complex spy novels. It involves a lot of threads, there are moles, double agents, a possibly fake triple agent who may not be fake and one person (with help from a couple of trustworthy colleagues) to identify the mystery mole who brought down Control, the head of Circus. I'd usually recommend this for others but this needs very very slow reading as the plot gets confusing quite a number of times. Better to read the book mentioned above and fall in love with Carré's style first, before taking up the huge project of reading Tinker Tailor..

Fleming:-
So what happens in Fleming novels is,
Some Communist power (East Germany, Russia, Cuba, etc) is hatching a plot that can cause severe damage to Britain/US (or there's an independent agency/agent who developed the world's most destructive device). Bond is paged and he goes to the respective location. There's a bludy beautiful blonde ready to fall into his arms, who may either be villain's subordinate or villain's prisoner or even Bond's fellow agent. The villain doesn't like his presence, comes close to killing him and our Bond is left with nothing but socks on him. He somehow escapes the villain, plots revenge, makes elaborate plans, gets super cool gadget stuff from M/Q and beats the villain to a pulp in the end.

Throw in a few romantic scenes, terrible writing, long descriptions of bland stuff, few possibly supernatural stuff, few unrealistic gadgets, lady-how-can-you-fall-so-easily-for-anyone incidents and a bit of racist/chauvinist/misogynist stuff.

For a long while, I compared Fleming's Bond to Christie's Poirot before trying to form a concrete negative opinion – I mean, they are a bit similar if you look at it in a way. Bond wins in the end, Poirot solves every case. I can appreciate the way Poirot solves a case so I must be able to appreciate the way Bond works to achieve something though we all know how the two sets of novels are going to end. But I just can't take any Bond stuff. It rarely is about spying and is too much of super hero stuff. You're not cool, man. Only Sean Connery made you cool. (but then only one cooler than Sean Connery is Morgan Freeman, who we all know is God)

Novels of Carré are about spying, which instantly makes him a better spy novel author compared to Fleming. Coz Fleming’s novels are mostly about super cool hero who can never die in the end and wins easily whatever may happen through the course. Sorry Fleming, you can't hold a candle to Le Carré. Not my cup of tea, no sir. Shaken, not stirred – fuck me sideways.


This is possibly the greatest rant of the year. After reading it, I was mumbling to myself: Carmen, let us marry and be angry together.

Adios US: Man Utd 3-1 Liverpool

United XI: De Gea; Jones, Smalling, Evans; Valencia, Herrera, Fletcher, Young; Mata; Rooney, Hernandez.

Van Gaal said before the game that a lot of players would get 90 mins as it's the final match of the tour. Welbeck's unfortunate injury vs Madrid on Saturday meant he didn't start as a precaution. I was eagerly anticipating Sterling vs Valencia as they had a bit of fracas the last time they met (Eng vs Ecu). Liverpool kicked off and they passed amongst themselves for first 2 mins with Utd forwards not pressing them. This was the first shock of the match for me – we have pressed every team so far high up the pitch which led to several chances for us in the previous games. But in this game, especially against Skrtl and Sakho, who are known to panic under pressure, we have not pressed them at all. Only reason I can think of is that we didn't want to get caught high up the pitch when a long ball from them can see Liverpool going on counter through Sterling. Bale caused problems a couple of times like that in the prev game. First chance of the match was through Young on the left wing when he beat Kelly and crossed into the box only for Hernandez to hit the ball away from goal from 5 yards (bonkers, I know!). Sakho (or Skrtl?) cleared the ball before it reached Rooney 3 yards from goal. Valencia felt something in his leg and left the pitch before 10th min. Young moved to right and Shaw came on the left. (Van Gaal said later that he advised his players before the game to come off the pitch if they think they're injured as he didn't want the players to carry on playing with injuries especially after playing only 2 days ago in a high pressure game vs Madrid).

After that, the match was mostly played between the two boxes as both sides rarely caused any trouble inside the penalty area. But one Sterling's run into the Utd box saw Jones lunge wildly and foul him. Gerrard took the penalty, De Gea dived to the wrong side and Liverpool were up 1-0 after 14 mins. It was interesting to see Utd's response as we led in almost every game and were untroubled for most of the tour. And what did we do? We panicked. Fletcher forgot how to pass. Evans, the most reliable passer of our defence, was struggling with passes. There was one moment when Evans was under no pressure initially after receiving the pass from De Gea but he dawdled on the ball for far too long, a Liverpool forward ran to press him and Evans misplaced a 3 yard pass to Smalling who was standing right next to him. Reminded me of Rio in his final years. We defended well on the wings but when players kept running through the middle, we lost our shape and composure easily. Shaw barely broke a sweat while I felt Young could have helped Jones more on the right side. The thing with 3-5-2 is, when Sterling-Lambert-Coutinho (drifting wide) are pressing high up the pitch, then all 3 CBs are occupied and if any one attacker can beat his marker, he'll have a free run towards goal. It happened a few times with Sterling-Jones in this game and Bale-M.Keane in the Madrid game. So we’ll have to tell our wing backs when to attack and when to fall back in defense. Of course the system is new for everyone and Young never even played in defense before so I'm willing to excuse this for now.

Van Gaal replaced Fletcher with Cleverley and Evans with Blackett at HT. So your team is kinda struggling in defense and what do you do? Replace the sole DM with a CM and replace the most experienced CB with the youngest CB on the tour. But hey, it's Van Gaal – he doesn't care for reputation or experience. There were a couple of iffy moments for our defense when Sterling's shot deflected off Smalling (good block though) and missed the net while a Coutinho's shot was well saved by De Gea to his low left. And a weak pass from Herrera saw Gerrard win the ball in our half and pass it to Lambert who shot very weakly straight to De Gea. Our keeper could have gone out for roasted peanuts and still come back on to the pitch to save that shot. We slowly started coming back into the match. In the 55th min, Herrera escaped 3 markers in midfield and passed the ball to Hernandez to the right edge of the box. Hernandez drifted to his right and crossed the ball to Rooney who was running away from the goal to escape Skrtl and still put the ball into the net using his left foot. A brilliant goal that was! Within couple of mins, Cleverley played a cross field ball to Shaw (who was awesome) and his pass found Mata on the edge of the box. Mata's shot took a deflection off Sakho and wrong footed Mignolet before hitting the net. Within couple of mins we went from 1-0 down to 2-1 up. Except for the penalty, our chances were kinda similar – Sterling shot deflected out, Mata shot deflected in; Rooney shot into the goal, Coutinho shot saved by De Gea.

Rodgers replaced the assistant referee Gerrard (dafuq is wrong with this guy? We went on a counter attack once in the first half with Mata chasing the ball, Gerrard was in front of him and without any contact just fell to the floor and grabbed the ball. Ref gave us free kick for handling the ball. Bizarre player this Stevie Me) with Lucas. Emre Can and Ibe also came on. And we got a bizarre goal when Ashley Young beat Glen Johnson on that wing and gave a high cross which hit the bar and came back into play for Rooney to slot into the goal in 65th min. Ref initially awarded us the goal but after consulting the linesman, he called for a goal kick. Right call that was, as the ball hit the stanchion outside the pitch and then came back in. Would have been lovely to see the Scouse tears :D. During all this good phase for us, there's one thing common – our forwards were pressing high so Liverpool defenders panicked and kept hitting the ball outside the pitch (throw ins for us) or hitting the ball in random directions only for Utd players to receive those passes. So anyway, we kinda controlled the game since then and then we replaced Herrera with Lingard. This diminutive player was good for us in last preseason playing as winger and striker. He was good vs Madrid as right wingback and now he was coming on to play in a two-man midfield partnering Cleverley. I was scared at that, we were only 2-1 up! But we never looked out of control and Liverpool barely threatened us since our first goal. It's like all their energy was spent in high pressing during the first hour and they could barely walk after that. Lot of subs also didn't help them. We replaced Mata with Kagawa and Hernandez with Nani.

Special praise to Shaw, who never looked in trouble throughout the game even though his senior partner Evans looked piss scared in possession during the first half. And once Blackett came on, Liverpool barely got anything from that side as Blackett was very composed in possession, harried the Liverpool players in his range and connected well with Smalling (CB next to him), De Gea and Shaw on that side. There was one run from Ibe starting from that side of the pitch and our defenders calmly blocked his passage and ushered him into crowded center where Smalling, Jones and Herrera were present to deal with any danger. Oh also there was another run from Ibe (I think) into the box when Blackett did the very opposite of Jones and calmly blocked the player forcing Ibe to take a Valencia-style shot to the defender’s shin from close range. The ball harmlessly went out for our goal kick. So Liverpool were barely getting anything in attack, our defense looked good and my nerves were settled. In the final mins of normal time, Young went on a run on his right wing, easily beat his marker Glen Johnson (who was unsurprisingly crap) and crossed into the box right to the feet of Kagawa whose iffy touch let the ball run behind him but at that exact position was Lingard making his run from midfield (can you imagine a Utd midfielder making runs into the box to finish off the chances? :o) and his thunderous (hehe) shot went low to Mignolet's left and hit the net. 16th goal of the preseason from Utd in 5 games. We easily saw out the remaining time and won the ICC trophy. Nice to see Luke Shaw winning his first trophy beating his former club Southampton :p

Some last min additions as I can't bother to put them in those paragraphs:
- Sterling and Coutinho were good for Liverpool. Lambert was barely involved.
- Only advantage Hernandez has is that he's extremely clinical. So it's frustrating to see him missing simple chances (2 vs Madrid, 1 vs Liverpool). We can't afford that in competitive games when creating chances would be at a premium.
- Sterling dived more in one game than Young did in entire tour. Makes me laugh so hard!
- Shaw improved a lot after his first two games and did well vs Inter, Madrid and Liverpool. The special fitness program helped him to play well in both defense and attack throughout the game.
- Nani – Heaven know how much I love this guy. But he barely looked interested throughout the tour. Even Zaha performed more than Nani. Van Gaal wants his players to give their all but Nani was half arsed throughout. I fear he'll be sent away from Utd and I cannot even say that it's unfair.
- Rooney won the player of the tournament and Van Gaal said Rooney was the best player as he provided lots of goals and assists. Van Gaal also said that our defenders also did well throughout the tour and that any of them could also have won player of the tournament.
- 5 games, 16 scored, 4 conceded (3 penalties, 1 from 65 yards). Barely any similarities with the clusterfuck of last season’s tour where we ended with 2 wins out of 6 and then proceeded to lose to Sevilla at Old Trafford.

Thus endeth the US tour.

LA Galaxy 0-7 Manchester United: The Chosen Van cometh

As a follower of Ajax and Netherlands, I'm familiar with Louis Van Gaal and how well he's done in his career. He was a breath of fresh air after the disastrous end to Bert van Marwijk era, with Netherlands losing all three group games in Euro 2012 for the first time in their history, Van Gaal came in, gave a clean slate to everyone, brought a lot of young players into the side, focused a lot on possession play amid pressure and got Netherlands playing good football again.

Despite getting drawn into a difficult group for the World Cup, Van Gaal took Netherlands to a surprise 3rd place with memorable victories like 5-1 over Spain and 3-0 over Brazil. So I was looking forward to how he'd do at Manchester United, where he became the first foreign manager (well there's Frank O'Farrell from Ireland) in their history. So how was the first game under him?

Match summary is split into two parts as Utd played two different teams pre and post HT (Fletcher changed position and only Herrera played for 90 mins in a single position)

First half:
Utd started in a 3-4-1-2 formation, similar to how Dutch played in the World Cup. Starting XI: De Gea; Smalling, Jones, Evans; Valencia, Herrera, Fletcher, Shaw; Mata; Rooney, Welbeck.

Last time I remember Utd playing a 3-man defence, we got murdered 3-0 at Cottage. Our famous back three from that game: Ritchie De Laet, Michael Carrick, Darren Fletcher. Thankfully, today’s back three actually had 3 CBs. From the first 10 mins, it was evident that the players are new to the formation/system and as Van Gaal commented post game, 10 players used today weren't even training with the club last week. Mata and Herrera started brightly and Fletcher was trying to keep up with the speed of their play. Shaw did not know what to do when there's no one in front of him to overlap with. Valencia is Valencia (no left foot, miscontrolled an easy pass once). Herrera had a shot from outside the box tipped over by the LA keeper. Welbeck shot straight to the keeper a few mins later after good build up play. LvG advised Welbeck in the pre-match training to go for the corners of the goal and Welbeck must have recollected the advice a short while later when Mata's pass found him 25 yards in front of the goal. Hit a powerful shot towards the corner of the goal which went in off the post right of the keeper. Fletcher slowly started growing into the game, Jones played as a sweeper and did a fine last man tackle on Robbie Keane and Shaw kept the left side tight (very rare for Utd).

Rooney stayed strictly up top instead of running around and defending at left back (which he does around 3 times a game). Welbeck was the one who sometimes ventured deep into the Utd half to tackle/intercept and put pressure on the LA players. 2nd goal came from a penalty after Valencia’s cross hit someone's arm. Pretty good penalty from Rooney, into the left corner of the keeper. And the 3rd one was simply terrible defending. Welbeck's cross (on the ground) into the LA box was missed by their sole defender who magically found an invisible bar of soap (it couldn't be seen on tv) and though Rooney's lob was initially saved by the keeper, Rooney was there to slot in the rebound. Good half of football – comfortable in possession, quick passing, lot of inter play, limited chances to opposition.

Second half:
Same formation, different players. Playing XI: Lindegaard; M. Keane, Fletcher, Blackett; Rafael, Cleverley, Kagawa, Reece James (hence to be referred to as Ricardo Hamez); Herrera; Nani, Young.

Nice of Van Gaal to switch to false Nani formation (credit to someone else on the internet) to further confuse the poor LA defenders. He probably forgot to tell Rafael it's a friendly. Rafael went into blood-and-thunder challenges every 2 mins. Him and Jones – they find every possible way in every single game – regardless of the competition, regardless of the opposition – to get injured. It wouldn't be a Utd game if there weren't many players playing out of their natural positions. More than tinkering, I think Van Gaal wanted to see how players adapt to certain positions he thinks are more suitable (the famous examples of converting Schweinsteiger from winger to midfielder, Alaba from midfielder to left back). So Kagawa played deeper than Herrera – I wonder what the @evilkagawa made of that. 20-yr old Hamez (:p) can play as CB and LB – he was deployed as LWB. Blackett who I remember from his youth days as a left back – played as CB, Fletcher moved from midfield to defence, taking on the role of a sweeper. What was interesting to see is that the team mostly moved as a whole. So there was hardly too much vacant space between defence and midfield as well as midfield and attack. Herrera did a box-to-box role with him tackling the opposition in front of Utd's box and then popping up at the edge of Nani's crosses in LA's box.

Fletcher is too weak to aerially challenge players but he did well. Had plenty of help from Michael Keane who's a very good defender. Hamez took to his new role well but Blackett struggled as 3rd CB. Cleverley and Kagawa are good ball players but they're not really favorites to win personal duels. So LA had decent openings in their midfield and the match was mostly even between the sides till 70th min. Hamez got his first goal during this period and if I remember right, the sequence was like this – Keane shrugged off 3 LA players and passed it forward to Herrera who was near halfway line, Herrera carried the ball and released a pass to Young on the right, whose cross across the box (on the ground) found Hamez making a run into the area from LWB position and Hamez sidefoot-ed the ball into the net for the 4th goal. Herrera went rogue for final 10 mins when he kept playing through balls like on play station. Must have played more through balls in one game than our entire midfield did for the whole of last season. His through ball in the 84th min found Young and whose shot was saved by the onrushing LA keeper but Hamez was there to put the rebound into the net (looked like a beautiful shot tbf). Another through ball released Young again and when keeper went into Neuer mode rushing outside his box, Young somehow kept the ball and shot into the empty net ahead of two defenders running back to cover the goal. Another through ball from Herrera saw Young beat the LA keeper (who stayed in the box this time) again with a powerful shot. In between all this, there was a swift counter attack by Utd where Nani avoided 4 LA defenders trying to stop him and released Kagawa on the left but Kagawa's shot from the left of the box didn't have enough curl to go into the goal.

After starting the last season with a loss to Singha All Stars XI (I hope that was the name of our first opponents), it feels nice to start with a 7-0 win this time. Not reading too much into the performance but the playing style, tactics and the way players adapted is very good to see. Didn't conceded too many chances to the opposition, controlled the midfield and created loads of chances – can't ask for much.

Most of the players ranged between okay and very well. Cleverley-Kagawa axis needs more time and especially a lot of help from up front (if it's Herrera, it's good; if it's Mata, then not so much helpful). Not pining for world class players to join the club because to be honest, Van Gaal made Ron Vlaar look world class out there. So it'd be nice to see players + tactics instead of relying too much on world class players to pull us out of trouble frequently (of course it's nice to have awesome players to save your arse when the tactics don't work but I'd be happy if there's not too much reliance)

PS
Smalling is a very good defender when he actually plays as a CB. Strictly decent passing skills but he can tackle well and has tremendous pace to handle a lot of strikers. When he plays on the right, he can't seem to trap a bag of cement but when he plays in center he does okay. Only problem is his propensity to get rid of the ball quickly by hoofing it up field but he didn't really do that today. Underrated defender, a bit like, ermm, Cahill? (and Smalling is more injury prone. You can't play in Utd defense if you're not injury prone. Except the humanmachinoid Evra of course)

Bundesliga Match Day 25: 2013-14

The Borussia derby
'gladbach haven't won in Dortmund since 1998. They were on course for challenging for 4th CL spot till a few weeks ago when Schalke suddenly decided to consistently win instead of throwing away their challenge. The first half was similar to the previous game where Freiburg prevented Dortmund from mounting any serious attacks. Though Lewandowski returned to the side, Mikhi, Kuba and Reus are still unavailable. Hofmann played in the hole with Aubameyang and Großkreutz on wings. In addition to stopping the Dortmund attacks, what 'gladbach did better than Freiburg was to go on counter attacks. The combination between Kruse, Raffael and Herrmann was really good. Raffael ran with the ball in the first half and was slightly lucky that the ball bounced back into his running path after a couple of tackles, gave it to Herrmann and moved into the box to get the return. Herrmann's cross found Raffael 6 yards from goal but Raffael's first touch was so bad that the ball went into the goal when he only wanted to take an extra touch before taking the shot. 1-0 to 'gladbach. Hummels went on one amazing run after intercepting the ball at halfway line and could have scored if not for a last ditch tackle. After another attack, Aubameyang hit the bar with a powerful angled drive. But the next goal was scored by 'gladbach when Max Kruse dummied twice to beat Piszczek and Weidenfeller to score the 2nd. Gif here: http://giant.gfycat.com/ImperturbableDependableBarasinga.gif

2nd half was fairly unadventurous till around 68' or so when Nordveit got sent off for 2 yellows within a minute. His first was when he kicked the ball away after ref's whistle. It wasn't even that bad and it happens routinely in almost every game but I haven't seen ref give yellow for such things in a while [may you spend a night in room full of black adders if you reference RvP's sending off at Camp Nou]. His 2nd was for a 50-50 foul and after being down to 10 men, it was mostly 'gladbach defence vs Dortmund attack. Jojic, the man with the golden leg, reduced the deficit when his shot took a critical deflection off 'gladbach player and wrong footed ter Stegen. Jojic scored another around 88th min but ref called a foul on Lewandowski for hitting ter Stegen in the face with his arm (right call too). Klopp got sent off when ref whistled for 'gladbach throw in when he felt it should have been Dortmund's (looked like 'gladbach throw in to me). 'gladbach held on for a famous victory in Signal Iduna Park.

The revenge of the München
Bayern München were on 49 game unbeaten streak in Bundesliga. After Dortmund's loss, they had a chance to increase the lead to 23 pts over 2nd placed side. Last time they lost was against Bayer Leverkusen. Last time they scored less than 2 goals in a game was at Bay Arena this season (before Arsenal managed the same at Allianz last week). So München had every right to consider the game as important and go for a win. What they did though, was put players like Thiago, Lahm, Ribery, Alaba, Martinez on bench. It was Rafinha-Van Buyten-Boateng-Contento back line with Schweini-Kroos double pivot. Götze-Müller-Robben played behind lone striker Mandzukic. As expected München had a majority of the possession but they had no meaningful chances. Except for Kießling, Bayer defended with 10 men and München found it difficult to play from either through the center or deliver from wing. Kroos almost always stays outside the box. Schweini didn't have enough space to make runs. Götze and Robben are too short to cause havoc in the box. So it was mostly Müller and Mandzukic in the box whenever the crosses came in. Easily dealt by the Bayer defence.

Bayer could have easily taken the lead when Heung-Min Son inexplicable missed the target from 8 yards after a great counter attack. Kießling could have scored when he was one-on-one with Neuer with no defender in sight when linesman wrongly flagged him for offside. In both the cases it was Boateng playing the wrong line. But with their first meaningful shot on target, Mandzukic rose above everyone to head past Leno from a Schweini cross. After half time, München quickly increased their lead after a glorious free kick from Schweinsteiger. As the inverted wingers plan was not working out, Pep switched Robben and Götze at HT and I think the free kick came on left wing after Robben got fouled. Rolfes almost scored a golazo when his 40-yard shot was brilliantly saved by Neuer. Ribery came on for Robben, Kroos got replaced by Thiago and Shaqiri came on for Mandzukic so that Götze moved central finally and Shaqiri went to wing. Shaqiri had a good chance to score but missed in the end. There were some nice saves from Leno as well and Kießling inevitably scored in injury time but that was not enough to stop München going 50 not out, overtaking both Arsenal and Juventus in the process.

Pep has been trying the 4-2-3-1 formation ever since the winter break and I think the change came about after they were beaten 3-0 by Salzburg when the home side took full advantage of Pep's single pivot 4-1-4-1 formation. It looks like only Lahm is suited to play the single pivot and everyone else (Thiago, Kroos, Schweini, Martinez) need someone along side them to excel. The double pivot formation with two very wide players (Robbery) creates very less chances though. Götze is also suffering as a result as he's forced to play too wide while he usually thrives in center. He was amazing for Dortmund when he was exchanging places constantly with Reus. Götze can do well as a wide player if he can go on counter attacks, thereby taking advantage of his pace. But if you ask him to play wide in a game you enjoy 75%+ possession, he is going to struggle.

If both München and Dortmund win next week, then the gap would still be 23 pts with 8 games left. If Dortmund drop points, München can win the title with 2 months to spare. They currently have 71 pts and have scored 74 goals in 25 games. Already into DFB Pokal semis and CL quarters. Been great so far.


PS
Hoffenheim took 2-0 lead and then Mainz stormed back to win 4-2 with 3 goals in 7 mins and move up to 5th place now. Favre with 'gladbach and Tuchel with Mainz have done amazing job so far. Hunter is back for the crucial period and his goal helped Schalke win on Friday night at Augsburg.

Some top saves last weekend from ter Stegen, Neuer, De Gea and Cillesen

Arsenal 0-2 Bayern München

Just consolidating a few thoughts I had post game.
Just consolidating a few thoughts I had post game.

Apart from the two goals, München hit the post with a penalty, they should have got another penalty, Kroos hit the post in the end, a brilliant pass from Kroos over the defence to Robben saw Fabianski make a finger tip save, there was one cross from right which was missed by at least 3 players.. It wasn't just passing for the sake of passing.

What's disappointing was Arsenal not following the textbook plan of playing 10 vs 11. After the red card, they had only one chance to score which was Koscielny through Özil's free kick. Apart from that, there was no plan of stretching the München defence or shredding them with pace. Completed just 3 passes in attacking third compared to München's 242. Just 3 passes over 50 mins is mind blowingly low!

München can play through center, they can use crosses [I was kinda chuckling to see them try to beat BFG with crosses :D] and they can counter attack. Even when they were 1-0 up in an away tie, even though Pep has previously never won at Emirates, they still kept attacking in final 10 mins. Very rare for teams to do that as they could easily be caught on the counter and see the score become 1-1.

After the red card, the formation was a lopsided 4-4-1. Ozil on left and Ox on right with Sanogo keeping the CBs busy. Ox didn't get much chance in attack but he helped Sagna in defending, though München didn't really attack on that side much. Özil left Monreal on his own.

Despite some criticism, I think Sanogo more than held his own well. He constantly troubled Boateng while Ox was burning Alaba and Dante was dragged out of position several times to his left. You have to remember that Lahm has been a constant presence in midfield this season and even when Lahm wasn't there, it was usually Schweinsteiger. Martinez was not used as DM much this season and no wonder Arsenal had fun in the attacking half as their fluid attack was confusing München players. München slowly started taking control around 15 mins though. After the red card, Pep did the right thing to move Martinez to defence and bring Lahm as CM. As someone said, Lahm is the gold medalist in decathlon of footballers. Kroos had 147/152 passes :o. Alaba was helped by Götze/Thiago while Robben and Rafinha were taking Monreal for a ride. I can understand Arsenal wanting to keep it compact in the center (and hence Monreal staying inside) but Kroos kept hitting cross field passes to the right towards Robben and Monreal had to be dragged out of position coz Özil was doing nothing to help him. Even if Monreal covers Robben, then there's Rafinha who was unstopped. And to pile on the misery, even Lahm kept drifting to right. I was waiting for Arsenal to win the ball and go on counters through Ox on the other wing but Pep did his homework well. Ox was totally isolated on his side as München kept playing on the other side. With no offensive threat to take care of, Alaba was so deep in Arsenal's half. Was surprised to see Ox get subbed for Rosicky. I don't think he was that tired and he was still a great outlet on that side for the counters. I can't understand Özil's non-substitution twice!

Non-Arsenal fans try to watch the 2nd half of the game where you can appreciate the runs of München players in Arsenal's area when Kroos-Lahm were playing right wing passes to Robben/Rafinha. München constantly probed for an opening with several players dragging Arsenal defenders around. Pizzaro did the same for Müller's goal and even before that there was one header from Müller (who ghosted past as usual) which hit the standing leg of BFG and went for a corner.

PS
1. Felt weird to see Götze and Thiago play on the wing during some moments in the game. What's weirder was seeing Thiago/Kroos occasionally take the ball from CBs with Lahm ahead of them both in midfield :o
2. As soon as Müller came on, I knew he'd score a goal like that. He just ghosts past everyone in almost every single game.
3. Was shocked to see Cazorla sacrificed. If anything I thought Özil would be gone as I felt Cazorla would contribute better to Arsenal [especially in a 10 vs 11 when Arsenal are expected to increase their work load] than Özil.
4. For Özil's penalty call, he was slightly offside. Should have made his fortune count. It was like a tribute to Utd vs Sunderland game =))
5. It would be a travesty if Kroos isn't a starter for Germany in the WC [I noticed Löw in the stands]. A true world class CM who reminds me a lot of Modric [been following Kroos since his loan at Leverkusen]
6. 3 yrs ago, Robben would have mentally disintegrated when Wenger made a 'you dived' gesture to him at the side lines. Improved his mental aspect a lot under Heynckes. Thanks, Jupp!

Match Review: Feyenoord 1-2 Ajax

Now then, Ajax entered Rotterdam winless against top half sides in away games this season. They haven't won away at Feyenoord since 2010. Frank de Boer's first visit ended in a superb 4-2 victory for the Rotterdammers after Man City's on-loan striker Guidetti scored a hat-trick. My first Der Klassieker at Rotterdam was last season when Pellè's 90th min goal gave Feyenoord a 2-2 draw.

But in contrast, Ajax were on a good run of form coming in to this game, having stayed unbeaten in Eredivisie since Nov 2013. March is when Ajax under Frank de Boer go up a notch - they only lost 1 game in the spring time [March-May] in last 4 yrs. Ajax were also on 3 match winning streak vs Feyenoord, with the recent 3-1 win coming in KNVB Cup quarter finals.

Daley Blind move to LB and Poulsen started as DM in center along with Klaassen and Serero. Feyenoord started the match aggressively in front of their own fans - no away supporters are allowed in the matches between these two sides. There were very few chances created by either side in the game. Apart from the goals scored, there was one header by Immers straight to Cillesen while Siem de Jong replied in kind with a header [very similar to the one Pelle scored] straight to Mulder. Some points I noted elsewhere:

- Joel Veltman has to learn the art of defending. He reminds me a lot of Pique and I want him to become a Vertonghen - someone who can pass well but can also defend well [my fav EPL defender last season]. Veltman has let Pelle win the ball several times which would have given a heart attack if I were watching the match live.

- Kishna got his first start for Ajax and provided the assist for Sigthorsson's first goal. Glorious change of pace to go past Bruno Martins-Indi and deliver the cross.

- This match was part of three epic clashes between former legendary players last weekend. Simeone vs Ancellotti and Seedorf vs Conte are the others.

- When Blind moved to LB, the midfield has lost a bit of control. Feels weird to say this but Blind at DM was working so well at Ajax. After Duarte came on, he was exchanging the LB-DM slots with Blind occasionally. This worked well vs AZ, failed spectacularly vs Red Bull Salzburg and did decently well vs Feyenoord. I think Blind/Duarte will need more time to develop an understanding for the exchanges.

- Bojan is one of the most technical players I have ever seen. If only he was more clinical. He had a glorious volley from edge of the box blocked on the line vs Feyenoord. Last I checked, he tweeted saying he'll be back soon from injury. [Got subbed off after 35 mins vs Feyenoord]

- Not all players go out on to the pitch to injure opponents but players do kick out occasionally. Not to injure anyone maybe, but usually out of frustration or as an act of retribution. Pelle intentionally elbowed Veltman twice in the face as he felt that referee didn't award him a foul previously. Clasie kicked out at Poulsen as he felt referee didn't previously award a foul when Poulsen and Immers went for the ball and Poulsen was late to the challenge [obviously, Poulsen is ancient]. te Vrete went so late into Cillesen that his goal kick was already across halfway line in the air. Players do it sometimes, yes. Depends on what kind of a ref you get. I prefer the teams to respond to the kicking in kind. I like Bergkamp for this.

- Poulsen gave a 20 yard through ball with his left foot. That is all.

- Pelle has been stripped off the captaincy for his recent transgressions and Clasie will now be the new Feyenoord captain.

- Ronald Koeman is no longer the Feyenoord coach

Ajax now have an 8-pt lead over 2nd placed Twente [who could only manage a draw in their game] and considering Ajax's unusually good form during the run-in mixed with easier set of fixtures [6 of their 8 games are against bottom half sides], Frank de Boer can become the first Ajax coach to win four Eredivisie titles in a row.

Stats courtesy Opta Johan and this.

Match Review: Ajax 4-0 AZ

It's always AZ Alkmaar, isn't it? Seems like almost every game against them is a memorable one. Ajax won a gritty 3-2 game in Alkmaar last season. AZ took revenge by winning 3-0 in Amsterdam in Dutch Cup semis which they followed up by beating PSV in finals. Ajax beat them 3-2 in Dutch Super Cup this season. Then AZ took revenge by beating Ajax 3-2 in Alkmaar in the first league game. But they don't have Verbeek anymore. Around Christmas, AZ were in terrible form losing 6 games in a row but under Dick Advocaat they picked up their performances. They won 5 of their last 8 before visiting Amsterdam on 23rd Feb.

Ajax were coming off what was arguably De Boer's worst loss as Ajax's manager [not the scoreline but the performance]. Red Bull Salzburg won all 6 of their Europa League group games and there's also the small matter of beating Pep's Bayern München 3-0 in a winter friendly last month. And they showed why they should be taken seriously in this year's competition. They pressed Ajax relentlessly, broke all the attacks before they even started and took 3-0 lead after 35 mins, the 3rd one a glorious goal from near halfway line by Soriano. Yet another year, Ajax are doomed in EL. After such a performance, the side needed to bounce back and they did in a glorious style.

With Serero and Boilesen injured, the usual midfield of Klaassen-Blind-Serero, which never got beaten in Eredivisie so far was replaced with Klaassen-Poulsen-Duarte. Ajax were brilliant in the first half and could have scored 8 if not for AZ's keeper Boer and some tame finishing. Once again, Bojan was good without scoring goal. Siem de Jong opened the scoring and Ajax were never troubled.


And like many of Kafka's stories, this ends here abruptly. 

Book Review: Stillness and Speed

It's a pity that when I started following Man Utd/Netherlands, Dennis Bergkamp was playing for neither. He was an Arsenal legend already by then and had retired for Oranje post-Euro 2000. When his auto biography was released last year, there was clamor for the copies from the Arsenal fans. He was the first super star signing for Arsenal in Premier League era (and I think it was PL record transfer as well with 7m back in 1995) and everyone was interested in what he was going to say. I wasn't one of them. For someone who is Dutch, he is one of the most boring persons in interviews. It doesn't mean that he isn't articulate, you only have to read his interview with David Winner regarding that goal he scored in 1998 World Cup against Argentina. [It's in one of the Blizzard editions]. It's just that he prefers to be away from the limelight and get on with his work – just like his playing style. He was never a super star off the pitch. But on the pitch, there were few who were better. I already read David Winner's Brilliant Orange: Neurotic Genius of Dutch Football and it instantly made to my "best books ever" shelf. So, when I learnt that Bergkamp bio was written with the help of David Winner and I fortuitously got my hands on this copy just as I finished Metamorphosis & other stories, I decided to give it a go. And what a decision it was. One of those few I'm proud of. What followed was one of the most amazing stories and I didn't sleep till I finished.

An extensive story of Bergkamp is available in the Dutch edition and as Winner says, the English edition only covers one-third of it. But it's still a good one. (Auto)biographies of footballers only click when the said players are among the colorful characters on and off the pitch. Neville's and Scholes' books were routine and I already knew most of what they said in their books. Cantona's [written by Arsenal fan Philippe Auclair] and Keane's however – brilliant! Bergkamp's bio certainly ranks among those. #AjaxBias

The book starts predictably with Bergkamp's childhood and there were continuous attempts by Winner to understand the foundations of Bergkamp's genius. What did he do differently in the childhood? Was he always a step ahead of others – not in terms of skill but in terms of vision? How did the gymnastics background of his mother help him? How did the football enthusiasm from his brothers help him and so on. Is it necessary for the kids to be underprivileged for them to really show 'hunger' in football? [Kaka certainly dispels that myth]

Bergkamp was lucky that he got into Ajax side when they were on the edge of their 80s revolution with Amsterdam's favorite son – Johan Cruyff – in charge. To begin your professional career under Johan Cruyff, surrounded with legends like Van Basten and Rijkaard has to be a dream start for every Amsterdam kid. His initial years show how he was taught not just skill but also temperament and patience by Cruyff. Bergkamp had a dip after Cruyff left to Barça and Van Basten-Rijkaard went to Milan as Leo Beenhakker didn't really rate him. Those were certainly the dark days after Cruyff's departure as Ajax went through several managers [9 in 4 yrs I think]. PSV kept winning under Guus Hiddink. But once Van Gaal took over, the glory days returned again. Bergkamp provides an interesting comparison between Cruyff's and Van Gaal's methods. They both play 4-3-3. They both want attacking football but the way they go about the players is different. While Cruyff wants players to be individualistic in a system, Van Gaal prefers the system to the ultimate zenith. Every player must adhere to the system.

And then, Bergkamp moves to Inter Milan, of all the places. I mean, AC Milan already had the Dutch trio of Van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard and with continuous injuries to Van Basten, Bergkamp would have been the main man at Milan under Capello. But it was a bad choice to move to Inter. Those two years at Inter are usually brushed away in the history books. The world (certainly the one I live in) knows about Bergkamp's Ajax years and Arsenal years. The Inter ones, not many know. This book has a huge chapter on his time at Inter Milan and what actually went wrong. We don't just hear Bergkamp's views, David Winner takes the pains to interview Inter players/officials back then like Osvaldo Bagnoli, Giuseppe Bergomi and Riccardo Ferri and to get their points as well. So it's a balanced presentation of both sides of the argument. Milan is also where Bergkamp's fear of flying started and still continues.

After two futile years in Italy, Bergkamp moved to Arsenal under Bruce Rioch. I didn't know Bruce was so loved at Arsenal. Bergkamp certainly talks as if Bruce would have continued for a long time if not for the arrival of a genius Frenchman named Arsene Wenger. Bruce only got into the job after George Graham had to be sacked for taking illegal payments. Oh also, I didn't know Bergkamp met Ian Wright [another Arsenal legend] accidentally at a gas station in South London on his first day! If I had read this 10 yrs ago, I’d have gone 'awww'. But thankfully, people grow up eh. And I already knew the part about Wenger bringing professionals to the club to take care of players' diet.

Bergkamp spent 11 yrs at Arsenal but the book doesn't talk a lot about his Arsenal years. We get several interviews from players like Vieira and Henry about what they thought of Bergkamp. His dressing room jokes (Martin Keown certainly ended up the wrong side of those), his professionalism off the pitch ("beer before match day? Holy!"), his professionalism during training sessions and of course a lengthy interview about his Newcastle goal. David Winner constantly probes about Bergkamp's vision – how he sees the runs of players like Overmars, Vieira, Ljunberg, etc – with his back to them. Part of it is training and part of it is vision. I mean, Bergkamp knows where people make runs without even seeing them. So cool! I liked the anecdote from Vieira: he explains the roles of everyone in the team and finishes the statement with "and I'm the one who gets sent off". Certainly made me chuckle.

Everyone knows the Dutch imploded in Euro 1996. But this is the first book where I read about what exactly happened there. Was it actually internal racism at Ajax/Oranje or was it because of misunderstood racism? I certainly can't cover all that in this review, the book explains it better. And of course, everyone knows the Dutch were the best side in 1998 WC and 2000 Euro but they ended up losing in semis. What's interesting is Henry's comments about France dressing room during those two tournaments – they thought they were fked if they had to face Dutch in finals and Henry still doesn't understand how France avoided them both times. Have to thank their lucky stars.

Four (!) other major points which bring new light to certain matters

1. Tony Adams asking the Arsenal board about assurances regarding the club's ambition during the start of Wenger era. If you keep your football fan brain (which is filled with lot of prejudice) aside and think logically – the sport is a profession for most players. And for a player like Tony Adams who spent all his career at Arsenal, it was understandable to ask where the club is going I suppose. I mean, fans do that all the time during the good years. Think of them during the bad times! At that time, the 1991 league winners side was long gone. George Graham is gone. Bruce Rioch is gone in short time. There comes a Frenchman with his own ideas (radical, at that time). So the players had every right to check with the board. 

Now bring back the football brain and see how much a few players are abused just because of this reason. Nobody can say that Tony Adams is not a legend. Heck, he is probably one of the three finest players in Arsenal history. And if a player like that can ask for assurances over club's ambitions, I guess a few players from current era can be cut some slack. Also, Bergkamp had disagreements with Wenger about the way he was handled in final years. While Bergkamp obviously wanted to play all the time, Wenger had to see that Arsenal get the best out of Bergkamp and how he's going to make the team better. When David Winner asks if there was a 'fight', Bergkamp denies it immediately. Just two professionals who wanted to stick to their points. Who woulda thunk eh? :)


2. Bergkamp about ‘diving’: In his opinion, it is acceptable if a player exaggerates contact to show the ref that he got fouled. But how much contact is necessary for the player to fall? Should a small nudge enough to imbalance a player's run be considered a foul? After several questions by David Winner, Bergkamp finally agrees that the decision eventually comes under a player's own moral judgment. It is interesting that he says that this attitude comes from his playing time at Inter Milan. The Italian matches back then had five defensive players vs two opposition attackers and the defenders did a lot of sneaky and underhanded fouling unseen by referees. Also, since the players rarely had chances to score (every team playing Catenaccio), they were forced to win free kicks or penalties whenever they can to get the elusive goal. We can sit here and pass moral judgment like we've always done, but it's an interesting perspective, nonetheless.



3. Ajax revolution 2010 aka Cruyff vs Van Gaal: Lot of new details. Once again after a lean period where Cruyff thought that the club lacked proper direction and was being meddled with board people unrelated to football, he wanted to bring a change. He had support from ex-players, the fans and the media. Then Van Gaal came into the picture and stood as Cruyff's opponent in the war. Despite saying how much it hurts to do it, Cruyff went to the court against the club and eventually won. After that bitter struggle, Ajax are back in safe hands with Frank de Boer, Dennis Bergkamp, Jaap Stam, Marc Overmars, Edwin van der Sar, etc in higher roles at the club.



4. The Ajax way: After taking over responsibilities as one of the coaches at Ajax, Dennis Bergkamp explains the Ajax way of training. How they went back to the Cruyffian ideals and started teaching the players to be individualistic and provided them confidence to take their own decisions depending on the game. I mean, nobody can practice everything in training. Bergkamp would have practiced a lot regarding taking high balls into his stride but he did not and could not practice a 50 yard pass over his shoulder to control with one touch and hit into the goal with the outside of his foot. It all depended on where the ball fell after his touch and where Ayala moved in 1998. Similar is the Newcastle goal. The skill to take those touches can be taught, but the players have to decide themselves that they have to take that touch and then decide what to do after it depending on the match situation. 

Also, it seems accepted by Bergkamp and others in the club that Ajax train players not only that they become good but also that they eventually leave and earn money to the club. It is a continuous production cycle - players are trained in skills and technique, they play for at least five years with Ajax, win trophies and then leave to bigger clubs around Europe earning money for Ajax, which is again invested in the training of young players. This is an economic eventuality and the current reality. I've debated this with other fans but it finally came from Bergkamp so I guess it can be taken as an official statement.

The book ends with a collection of some colorful photos from Bergkamp's playing career. Worth printing each one!

I read the book on Saturday and when I watched Ajax vs Heerenveen on Sunday, with Frank de Boer and Dennis Bergkamp on Ajax bench, Marco van Basten on Heerenveen's bench, Van der Sar along with Johan Cruyff and Michel Platini in the stands, it made me all warm and fuzzy.


Dennis Bergkamp - great pro, unbelievable player and one of the modern greats!

Book Review: Metamorphosis and other stories - Part I

Ever since I came across the term Kafkaesque, I've always wanted to read his books in German to fully understand the Kafka style. I believe the little nuances are possibly lost in translations. But since I couldn't get anywhere near to learning enough German to understand Kafka, I had to do with the English translations in the end. The first one I ever read was Amerika but the ending of that book proved confusing. Realized only a bit later that manuscripts for the final 5 chapters of that book were lost. Metamorphosis is one of the highly rated stories of Franz Kafka and my next book of his contained Metamorphosis and 5 other stories. A brief review of each story below

1. Metamorphosis:

A traveling salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up one day to see himself turn into a beetle. The foreword for the book mentioned that it is possibly Samsa's dream and he'd have avoided all the troubles if only he realized that it was "only a dream". But the first page of the story is contrary to that opinion. This is how the line goes:

What happened to me? he thought. This is no dream.

So I just went with the assumption that Samsa's metamorphosis from a human to beetle is completely real [however dystopian that sounds]. Samsa's family consists of his two parents and a 17-yr old sister Grete. Samsa used to work as a clerk but ever since his father's business collapsed (5 yrs before the story starts), he's forced to earn extra income to repay the debts. As a traveling salesman, he very rarely works from his office and spends most of his time traveling on the purpose of business. He wakes up one day and realizes that he is no longer human and in fact turned into a beetle with great many little legs. His first thought is that he missed his early morning train and while he was wondering how to make up for the lost time and hoping that no one at office would realize his delay, chief clerk from office visits him. Gregor refuses to open his door and his family fear the worst – Gregor, the sole breadwinner losing his job – while the chief clerk assumes that Gregor is simply not turning up for work and in cases like these, his only option is to terminate Gregor from work. While the family, who themselves are spellbound as to why Gregor is refusing to open the door, try to convince the chief clerk that Gregor is unwell and that is the only reason for him not opening the door. When Gregor finally relents and comes out, the chief clerk runs away looking at him. The family are shocked to see their son turn into a beetle. His father forces him back to his room and decides to shun him.

Samsa's mother and sister hope that Gregor's is a temporary illness and he would be back to normal in due course. The family never visit him except Grete bringing him food at meal times. Gregor could listen to what the family is talking and learns that his father joined as a bank messenger, his mother took up stitching while Grete starts learning French and joins as a salesgirl to earn money in the absence of any income from Gregor. To avoid discomfort to Grete, Gregor starts to hide under a sofa in his room whenever Grete brings him food. But the sofa is too small to completely cover him and Gregor, who slowly learns how to work his legs and live as a beetle, struggles for 4 hours to finally cover his visible back under the sofa with a sheet. Gregor even begins to crawl all around his room as a beetle and noticing this, Grete decides to remove all the furniture to let him roam uninhibited. Since she is too frail to do this, she takes the help of the mother to push the furniture. The mother feels that removing all the furniture would make Gregor feel that the family is resigned to losing him and believe he'd never become a normal human again. Her words bring new doubts in Gregor's head. Is he now a human or a beetle? Would he like the furniture in his room to be present exactly how he is used to it, so that he can one day become human again and continue living like he was, forgetting the "little episode". Or would he like to have a completely empty room so that he can crawl around like a beetle without any obstacles? But Grete convinces her mother that keeping the room empty would be beneficial to Gregor. When the two women remove a chest of drawers, Gregor comes out from under the sofa and hangs on to a picture on the wall, which he doesn't like to be removed. When the women see him, Gregor's mother has an attack of asthma and had to be taken to another room to breathe freely. Gregor decides to comfort her saying that everything is normal and comes out of his room. Just then, Gregor's father returns from work and thinking that Gregor is attacking the women, decides to send him back to his room and in that means, injures Gregor by throwing an apple on to his back.

Gregor's family, unable to cope with their cost of living, decides to let out a room to three young men, from whom Gregor is hidden. One day, after the meals, the young men listen to Grete playing violin in another room and initially show an interest to listen to her. Once Grete starts playing in the living room, they shun her and this angers Gregor. So Gregor comes out of his room and when the three men look at him, serve a notice to Gregor's family that they would be leaving and instead of paying the rent they owe, they decide to sue for damages. Gregor's family decide that it is too long a chance for Gregor to turn into human now and to avoid all the troubles they are facing, decide to leave him. But before that, their workmaid (?) kills Gregor and the family leave the house.

I'm not sure whether Kafka intended it, but there is an underlying theme of family bonding in the story. The family are scared of him and shun him initially, but Gregor's mother and Grete hope that he would be back to normal. Only that can explain why Grete keeps feeding him regularly. Though Gregor's father has an irrational hatred towards Gregor after he turned into a beetle, he relents to the pressure and lets Gregor stay in the house, but confined to his room. When the father hurts Gregor, the mother stops her husband from causing any further hurt and we see the maternal love for her son. He may be a beetle, but he's still her son. Grete was loved by Gregor and Gregor has saved money so that he could send Grete to Conservatorium for her to learn violin professionally. Grete does not show any compassion or love towards Gregor ever since he turned into a beetle. We only see Gregor's love towards Grete and not the other way. Even when Grete brings him food, it is not sure whether she thinks it's her duty to do so or if there’s any other motive. In the end, Grete feels he's too much trouble and it's pointless to hope that Gregor would be back to normal. She finally agrees with her father that it is better to get rid of him to save all the troubles. Once the family lets one of their rooms, all the unwanted stuff is thrown into Gregor's room showing their lack of empathy. Well, it's called empathy if they feel that Gregor is still human. What would be the word if they converted it into a store room if they thought he's only a beetle? Just imagine what one would call a bunch of people if they threw all the discarded stuff into their cowshed.

And then Gregor – what does he think he is? A human or a beetle? His thoughts venture both ways. When Grete brings him food, he doesn't like any parts which are considered fit for human consumption. When he was a normal human, he hated milk but after turning into a beetle, he seemed to like it. When he listened to the family's discussions in the living room, he thought of telling them that it's only a temporary phenomenon, that he'd be back to supporting them. He wanted to tell the plans of repaying father's debt and sending Grete to Conservatorium. When Grete and her mother discuss about whether to remove furniture in Gregor's room, his thoughts keep changing. He wanted free space to crawl around freely like a beetle, but he also clung on to a picture on the wall he really liked. Finally, is it really a dream or is the metamorphosis real? Going back to the opening line I mentioned, when Gregor thinks "this is no dream", is he thinking inside his dream? The ending of the story doesn't mention whether Samsa wakes up from his dream after getting killed. [That's what happens as per Nolan’s Inception right?]

2. The Great Wall of China

Compared to Metamorphosis, this is a really short story not more than 20 pages. The Great Wall of China is built on the northern border of the country to stop attacks from the evil outsiders lying beyond. The Wall is not built continuously (space; not time) but is built is several pockets. The story is written in the view point of someone from south east of the country. The southerners didn't have to bother with the attacks on the northern side of the country. Even if there were attacks, it would take too much time and effort for the outsiders to cross the vast lands and launch attack on the southerners. So, what keeps the southerners from joining the mission to build the wall, leaving their ailing parents, loving wives and tender children to travel far across the land and work in the north? Why is the wall built in several pockets all over the north instead of doing it over continuous stretch? (again, it's space; not time)

Considering that it takes five years to build a five hundred yard stretch and the whole northern border stretches over thousands of miles, how are the engineers motivated to work on the mission? Surely, it is not a project to be completed in one's lifetime. All the questions are credibly answered by the narrator. There is also an interesting discussion of whether the loyalty of people is to the Emperor or the Empire. The southerners never see the Emperor. They are hardly kept in touch with what is happening in the Emperor's hall. Even if the Emperor sends emissaries and messengers to relay the news, the news would have become obsolete by the time they reached the far borders of the Empire. So, how does the Emperor manage unwavering loyalty? Or are the people from the southern borders show apathy towards Emperor's doings? It's a nice little story.

3. Investigations of a Dog

The story is written completely in the view point of an adult dog. For this dog, every other living thing is a type of dog. People playing music? Dog musicians. Birds in the air? Hovering dogs. Animal kingdom? No, there's only dogdom. Some of the paragraphs stretch over a few pages (no paragraph break for 4 pages!) and this style is perhaps borrowed from Fyodor Dostoevsky. I might well be wrong regarding that. The story encompasses all the thoughts of the dog ranging on various topics. From the complete surprise at other dogs (actually, people) not caring for its questions or views to the utter reproach at the way dogs (people) walk on hind legs or leave the comfort of the earth to hover in the air (birds). If the dogs are continuously hovering in the air, how do they propagate with such feeble bodies? What makes the dogs take to the air? Is it some technical accomplishment? No, both propagation and voluntary transition for them to become hovering dogs are unthinkable.

The story also has a status-worthy line: [in the context of the dog learning about the world on its own]

Premature independence is inimical to systematic learning.

A couple of interesting thoughts from dog’s pov:

- 'Whence does the earth procure this food?' The dog sees that food is produced from the earth. But how does the earth produce it? There is of course a scientific method. The food is in two parts – the ground food and the food from the sky (rain). One follows the other. And how is the food from sky produced? Frequently by the incantation, music and dance of other dogs (people). Is the food from sky (rain) fit for consumption? No. Then why not focus on the food from the earth? Is it enough to produce food if the dog digs a hole into the ground, puts its nose in it and performs incantation and music? This is merely not so. The food from the sky is required as well. But why?

- There is a surprise and marvel at the way the knowledge has increased through the ages. But this is not actually praiseworthy. The increase of knowledge is similar to how one starts young and grows old – a natural and ugly process, but nothing to be marveled at. It is not as if the older generations are worse than us. Or that they are better because they are younger than us. Merely a natural progression from one state to another without any need for extrinsic intervention (for the lack of a better phrase)

It's a very interesting story with dog's perspective on various worldly things it encounters.

As the foreword mentions, Kafka's style is similar to Walser's – a story doesn't actually need to have a story. It can be a collection of thoughts, however mundane or extraordinary. It can range from a few words to several pages. There doesn't need to be a "proper" conclusion. Do the thoughts always end in a meaningful way? Similarly, a story can start at a random place and end abruptly. People who try to look for a theme or a story in Kafka's stories are evidently disappointed (or confused). A story can just be a linguistic experiment. I think I've finally started to understand the Kafkaesque style. I cannot imagine any other author to write stories with such varied view points. It is known that the author/writer has to enter a character's mind while narrating the character's views. In the first story, Kafka has to show us the views of a beetle. In the second, he is an engineer/builder working on the Great Wall of China. In the third, Kafka looks at various things (people, birds, rain, food, neighbors, scientific process, ageing, propagation of knowledge through centuries) through the eyes of a dog.

What a marvelous writer!

Part II (review of 3 other short stories) will be written later in a separate post. Give yourself a Seven pointed star if you reach this point.

Book Review: Leave it to Psmith by PG Wodehouse

Though this comes under the Psmith series which I reviewed in another blog, I would like to consider it as a standalone book. For one - this book doesn't contain his constant companion Mike Jackson (except a mention once) and two - this is actually quite funny.

When I picked this, I only knew that there's some guy called PG Wodehouse who wrote humor. I had no idea about the other books in Psmith series and never even heard about Blandings Castle series. Something Fresh was the first Wodehouse book I read (which happens to be the first one under Blandings Castle series) and I loved it so much that I bought this one and this didn't disappoint.

Psmith is a jolly young lad who hates working in his uncle's fish business and wants some change in his life. Earl of Emsworth's sister Lady Constance is married to poor (not literally) bugger Joseph Keeble who is unable to help his poor (literally) daughter Phyllis Jackson with money as he is too intimidated by his wife. Along with Lord Emsworth's son Freddie Threepwood, Joe Keeble hatches a plan to steal his wife's 20 grand worth diamond necklace, sell it in the market and provide the required money to Phyllis. His clever plan also includes buying another necklace for Lady Constance which will help to further her love for him. But Comrade Threepwood gets cold feet in the final minute and decides to hire external help. Lo and behold, what does he see in that day's edition of Morning Globe? An advertisement which reads:

LEAVE IT TO PSMITH!

Psmith Will Help You

Psmith Is Ready For Anything

DO YOU WANT

Someone To Manage Your Affairs?

Someone To Handle Your Business?

Someone To Take The Dog For A Run?

Someone To Assassinate Your Aunt?

PSMITH WILL DO IT

CRIME NOT OBJECTED TO

Whatever Job You Have To Offer

(Provided It Has Nothing To Do With Fish)

LEAVE IT TO PSMITH!

Address Applications To ‘R. Psmith, Box 365’

LEAVE IT TO PSMITH!

Eve Halliday is a friend of Phyllis Jackson and is called over by Lord Emsworth to catalogue his library. Meanwhile Lord Emsworth travels to London to meet this poet fella called Ralston McTodd who is invited over by Lady Constance (oh she always has this craving to invite high poets from society to Blandings Castle to the much annoyance of everyone in the house). In a typical Wodehouse fashion, we see accidental meetings between Eve and Psmith (what happens when a carefree little bugger chances upon seeing a blast of radiance like Eve?), Lord Emsworth and Psmith, Psmith and this McTodd guy. Oh wait, there's one more coincidence – Ralston McTodd is married to Cynthia, another school friend of Phyllis and Eve. While of course this Psmith is a good friend of Phyllis through her husband Mike. With a lot of people invited to Blandings Castle who have their own reason to steal the necklace, Lord Emsworth's butler The Efficient Baxter has his hands full. So, what happens in the end? Who will get the necklace? And HOW do they go about it?

I mentioned previously that it gets tiring when Psmith goes on one of his lengthy lectures throwing in a few witty remarks in between confusing the listeners whether he was sarcastic or genuinely simple. I realized it is a thin line between boredom and entertainment. Whereas Psmith is slightly irritating and mostly boring in first three books, he is jovial and funny in this one. It is possibly because of the presence of Eve Halliday, who brings out the best in him. The book is also lot more fun due to the presence of regular Blandings Castle members like Lord Emsworth and Freddie Threepwood. This book is supposed to be the 2nd one in Blandings Castle series and the final one in Psmith series. But it doesn't matter whether you're planning to read other works in the series. This book doesn't require a back story and Psmith character is not continued after this one. 

Must read!

Series review: Psmith by PG Wodehouse

Jeeves & Wooster and Blandings Castle may be the most popular (and widely loved) series written by PG Wodehouse but little is known about his Psmith series. It contains four books and I reviewed the final one – Leave it to Psmith – separately. I realized only a long time later that it was part of a series and proceeded to finish the remaining ones. I regret very few decisions in my life and this is certainly one of those.

The series starts with Mike and Psmith, a story about two chums from school. An extensive detail into Mike’s initial life was first written in Mike but I didn’t read that due to two reasons – a) It is not part of Psmith series, b) it contains too much cricket.

So the first one – Mike and Psmith.

Mike – full name Michael Jackson – is one of the prominent cricketers for one of the prominent cricket teams in England – Wrykyn schoolboys – but due to his faltering grades, his father Mr. Jackson removes him from Wrykyn and sends him off to Sedleigh. Mike is initially angry with the decision as he was really growing as a cricketer at Wrykyn, where he was destined to be as good as his brother. What irritates him more is that Sedleigh is one of the minor village schools without a proper cricket team and doesn’t even have a sporting team worthy of mention. But he cannot go against his father’s decision and travels to Sedleigh cursing every minute of the journey. After he meets his guide at Sedleigh and goes to his assigned quarters, he meets another fellow already present, who happens to be Rupert Psmith (or Ronald Eustace Psmith) from Shropshire, a neighboring town of Mike’s. To distinguish from other Smiths, he calls himself as Psmith and only came to Sedleigh after getting kicked out of Eton. Even in school, Psmith wears a monocle while delivering what he considers as knowledgeable speech and is usually witty. Psmith has confidence in his abilities bordering on arrogance and never a follower of hard work, he makes others do most of his dirty work. Starting with “stealing” someone else’s study, the book details the adventures of Mike and Psmith at Sedleigh school. It is mostly a book about school with bits about cricket occasionally thrown in. Not a bad book per se but there’s no hallmark Wodehouse wit in this.

Second one – Psmith in the city.

Psmith’s father, Mr. Smith has a curious habit of developing and changing his interests in varied fields at the drop of a hat. After suggesting at least 3 different fields for Psmith to choose after his schooling at Sedleigh, he finally wishes that his son go to the London to work for one of the banks after meeting a banker at his house. Mike, who was at Psmith’s house for the summer as a visitor, meets this banker fellow Mr. Bickersdyke but never notices anything interesting. Due to unfortunate coincidence, Mike’s father Mr. Jackson loses a considerable sum of money and since he can’t afford Mike’s college, wishes that Mike go to the city and earn his living. Mike and Psmith happen to join the same bank in London where Mr. Bickersdyke works and both are put into the Postage department. Psmith learns that the head of the Postage department Mr. Rossiter is a Manc with allegiance to Manchester United, he gains the friendship of his department head by merely following the news about Manchester United in weekend papers. After getting Mr. Rossiter on his side, Psmith endeavors to befriend Mr. Bickersdyke as well but all his efforts prove fruitless. Psmith even joins the same club as Mr. Bickersdyke so he could continue his attempts at getting friendly outside office hours but Mr. Bickersdyke is not impressed.

Mike moves to Cash department and after learning that Psmith has some Socialist tendencies (Psmith refers to everyone as Comrade XYZ), the department head Mr. Bannister invites both of them to a speech he gives on Sundays. At Mr. Bannister’s place, Mike and Psmith learn an old secret about Mr. Bickersdyke. Try whatever he might, Mr. Bickersdyke is unable to dismiss both of them as he is answerable to the staff dismissals and if he removes them without a reason, then charges of libel can be brought against him. Mr. Bickersdyke gets his chance finally when a cheque encashed for 100 pounds by Mr. Bannister turns out to be forged and Mike steps in to confess he cashed the cheque to save Mr. Bannister. This is when Psmith uses the secret information to persuade Mr. Bickersdyke to cancel the dismissal orders of his friend Mike. When Mike’s brother calls him one morning and says that his cricket team is out of reserves and needs one person to fill in within half an hour’s notice, Mike jumps at the chance to play at Lord’s and leaves office. As Mike leaves office during work hours, Mr. Bickersdyke rubs his hands in glee and waits for him to convey his dismissal orders. Meanwhile, Psmith meets his father and takes him to Lord’s in the evening to watch the final few mins of Mike’s innings where Mike eventually gets out after hitting 148. After convincing Mr. Smith about Mike’s batting capabilities, Mr. Smith agrees to take Mike as one of his assistant accountants (I think) at Shropshire where Mike can continue his cricket during off hours. But to work as an accountant, Mike needs to complete his college and Mr. Smith agrees to send both Psmith and Mike to Cambridge for their college. Just when Mr. Bickersdyke readies himself to give out dismissal orders, Psmith tells him that they are resigning from their positions in the bank leaving no chance of smug vengeance to Mr. Bickersdyke.

Third one – Psmith, journalist.

When this was initially written, it had a lot of words with racist connotations. They republished it in US later with a lot of changes (Psmith gets replaced by similar character called Smith) but the Gutenberg edition I read (hyperlinked above) was presumably the older one. Mike travels to US on a cricketing tour and Psmith joins him in the journey. As Mike is busy going around the country with his cricket team, Psmith is forced to stay in New York trying to pass his time. He has a chance meeting with Billy Windsor, the acting editor of a household magazine called Cosy Moments.Psmith learns that the editor Mr. Wilberfloss is out somewhere in the country advised by doctors to rest for 10 weeks so that he can recuperate from stress related illness. Psmith realizes that this is his chance to find some entertainment and convinces Mr. Windsor to take him as a sub-editor without any salary. They meet Bat Jarvis, the head of the largest New York gang Groome Street at a chance meeting. In an attempt at complete makeover of the magazine, Windsor and Psmith remove all the previous contributing staff and take on new ones to make Cosy Moments deliver the red-hot stuff instead of the bland household articles. During their attempts to cover the most happening stuff, they run into the notorious New York gangs but with the aid of Bat Jarvis and a boxer called Kid Brady they take upon, they are able to eventually win through. Once Wilberfloss is back, Psmith quietly convinces him to retake the older staff and moves to England with Mike, who happens to return to New York from his cricket tour at the same time.

The first two books are passable and though the 2^nd one deals with their lives in the city, it is still essentially a “school” story. But the 3^rd one is possibly my least favorite book of all time. Despite the hectic work schedule, I took ages to finish it as I found my interest to be rock bottom. Leaving aside the racist words which did not affect my heart to great extent, the theme of the story and the narrative is cumbersome. If someone tells you that this was written by PG Wodehouse, you’d think the other fellow was either lying or is a raving lunatic. With every line I read I hoped the book to end and at one stage even thought of Dorothy Parker’s famous lines, but just coz of having a rule to never leave books in the middle of a story, I had to push myself to my absolute limits and finish the book. I might be hurting Wodehouse fans (which includes me) if I call this one horrible but I struggle to describe it in better words. Where the 4^th one is funny, the first 3 are bland and sometimes venture beyond the point of boring. They are like the Boring River flowing at the bottom of Boring Hills on the borders of the Boringville town. They do not have any characteristic Wodehouse humor, no lines worth remembering and certainly no funny moments I’d be chuckling about two months from now. I’d do a character study of Psmith too but the Psmith in the first 3 books is different from the one in the 4^th book. Whereas a twenty yr old school dropout with limited vocabulary and single digit IQ uses ten words to describe a situation, Psmith puts on his monocle, delves deep into his mind and recites two pages worthy of content. It’s good when it’s funny (like the 4^th one) but when it’s boring, you’d want to strangle the life out of him.

So there goes the review. Whoever is patient enough to reach this point, credit yourself with four stars – the series certainly doesn’t deserve any.