Going back in time

Sometimes books can work as time machines, transporting us back to when we first read them

The other day, while rummaging through my book shelves, I came across a battered copy of the collected plays of William Congreve. I hadn’t read the restoration playwright since my days studying English literature in Loreto College Calcutta a million years ago. But I fixed myself a cup of coffee and settled down to re-read one of my favourite plays, The Way Of The World. 

And before I knew it, I had gone down the rabbit hole of time, and was once again that gawky little teenager sitting in a classroom, discovering worlds that I never knew existed. I could feel that same summer sun warming my back; I could hear the muttered sighs of my classmates who didn’t have a yen for plays; and I could hear the sonorous tones of my professor giving us the historical significance of the Restoration period in English history. 

That’s when it struck me. We don’t just re-read books because we enjoy the books themselves (though that, of course, is a big part of it). We go back to old favourites because they take us back to the times in our lives when we first discovered them. 

Some years ago, for instance, a close friend of mine gave me a copy of Black Beauty by Anna Sewell as a joke present for my birthday because she had heard me say it was my favourite book as a child. We both giggled over the gift and I placed it on my bookshelf without giving it much further thought. But then, a week later, in a fit of nostalgia, I picked it up on a slow afternoon and began reading. And in a matter of minutes I was once again that little child who was mesmerised by the world evoked in the book, laughing with childlike pleasure and then crying with the intensity that only young children are capable of. 

I feel the same nostalgia when I pick up some of my battered copies of Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers series. No matter where in the world I am, I am immediately transported back to the shady verandah of my childhood home in Calcutta, sitting in a wicker chair, absentmindedly munching my way through a packet of biscuits even as my mother berates me from the kitchen, reminding me that lunch with be ready soon. 

Whenever I pick up a Georgette Heyer, I can see my sister’s disapproving face because she thought I was far too young to be reading her romance novels. When I leaf through a thriller by Alistair Maclean I remember my brother who introduced me to him when I was a teenager. When I delve into the plays of George Bernard Shaw, it is the face of my father — who was his absolute devotee — that swims in front of my eyes. And reading any historical novel brings back memories of my grandfather, whose favourite genre this was. 

Books may transport you into another world - as indeed they do. But they do something even more important. They transport you back into another part of your life — one that you have left far behind. And that can sometimes be the most precious gift of all. 

Screen time

There’s nothing quite as fun as seeing a beloved book series make the transition to television

For the longest time ever, I have wondered why Daniel Silva’s creation, the Israeli spy, Gabriel Allon, does not get the James Bond (or even the Jason Bourne) treatment. For those who have not read Silva’s series of spy novels, Allon is a marvelous creation, art restorer by day and assassin by night (and sometimes the other way around), with a personal tragedy in his past life that haunts him to this day, even though a second marriage to a gorgeous Italian woman and a new family has eased his pain somewhat.

Allon always seemed like a character made for the movies to me. But, it turns out that he is destined to make his mark on the small screen, with MGM Television having acquired the rights to the collection of Silva’s Allon novels. So, Gabriel Allon will be arriving on a TV screen somewhere near you nearly 18 years after he first came to life in The Kill Artist (published in 2000) and I, for one, can’t wait.

As if this news wasn’t enough to send me into ecstasies, it turns out that another of my favourite novelists is having her works turned into a television show as well. Production on Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend – the first book of her Neapolitan quarter – is underway in Caserta, Italy. The book will be turned into an eight-episode TV series set in Naples, telling the story of Lenu (Elena Greco) and Lila (Raffaella Cerullo), the two girls who find each other in childhood and go on to have a life-long friendship with its share of ups and downs. (And the best part is that the series – produced by HBO in collaboration with Rai Fiction – will have the characters speaking Italian, which will give it a certain verisimilitude that wouldn’t have been possible with an Italian cast spewing heavily-accented English.)

But no sooner had I finished celebrating all this good news than my inner Greedy Gretel got going. And now, I can’t stop fantasizing about some of my other much-loved book series being adapted for television, allowing me a glimpse of my favourite characters on the small screen.

Here’s just a small sampling of some of my fantasy TV series.

Donna Leon’s murder mysteries

Set in Venice, this series revolves around the career and life of one of the most engaging private detectives of modern fiction. Commissario Guido Brunetti is not your average tortured detective, smoking and drinking too much as he tries to cope with challenging cases and a dysfunctional family. No, that kind of clichéd writing is not for Leon. Her detective is a family man who walks home to lunch everyday to feast on the three-course meals served up by his intelligent and feisty wife, Paola, so that he can enjoy the company of his two children, Raffi and Chiara.

The crimes themselves are interesting enough but the real star of the series is the city of the Venice itself. You can almost smell the dank scents rising from the canali and calli of the city, see the winding streets that lead to the waters of the Grand Canal and the laguna, and marvel at the architecture of the beautiful buildings that keep Brunetti company as he walks to and back from work.

Strangely enough, only a German production house had filmed some of the stories though the series hasn’t been distributed widely. It’s time someone in the English-speaking world stepped up and gave us Venice and Brunetti in all their glory.

Georgette Heyer’s Regency Romances

Regular readers of this column will know what a dedicated fan of Heyer’s romances I am. So, it would be no exaggeration to say that I have spent the last two decades of my life waiting for someone to make a TV series based on her Regency novels. But much to my disappointment, while every ‘period’ work from Poldark to Howard’s End is regaling TV audiences across the world, nobody seems willing to give Heyer a shot.

It’s a baffling state of affairs. These are ready-made storylines, incredibly well-plotted, laced with humour and wit, and almost cinematic is their treatment. The characters are very well-drawn as well, both the dashing heroes and the sparkling, willful heroines who are no shrinking violets. And yet, nobody seems to have thought of bringing the lovely Arabella, the masterful Frederica or the amazing Grand Sophy to life.

Well, the first one who does will have a bonafide hit on his or her hands. Meanwhile, I live in hope.

Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers series

These were my absolute favourite books growing up. I would devour them late into the night, reading by the light of a torch that I had smuggled into my bed. And then, when I finally fell asleep I would dream of midnight feasts, night-time swims, classroom pranks, and so much more, waking up even more determined than ever to go to boarding school.

Well, that never happened. So, I guess the next-best thing – now that I am all grown up – would be to be transported to the world of Mallory Towers via my TV screen. Strangely enough, while the Famous Five and Noddy have had their stints on television, Darrell Rivers and her friends at boarding school have never managed to make that transition.

And that’s a pity, if you ask me. It’s time a new generation of children was introduced to the antics of this group of girls: the sensible but hot-tempered Darrell, her best friend Sally Hope, the spoilt little brat Gwendoline Lacey and the resident joker Alicia Johns. And what better way to do that for this non-reading generation than through the medium of television?