Song of Kali (Gateway Essentials)

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It was built on a swamp," I said, still irritated. I wasn't used to hearing this kind of garbage from Abe. It was like having your reliable old plumber suddenly break into a discourse on astrology. "And we'll be going there during the monsoon season, which isn't the most pleasant time of the year, I guess. But I don't think—" This book, just, no! Whoever thinks they're getting a cultural lesson about India, please, stop. Whoever thinks this is a good horror book, either I'm not so easily scared or... I don't even know how to finish that sentence. If you're scared by third world countries, brown people, or clumsily vague supernatural conspiracy theories then this is your kind of horror. Everyone he encounters behaves strangely, and the closer he gets to the truth the darker and stranger things become. The fact that he decided to bring his wife and six month-old child in tow certainly doesn't help matters. Dark forces appear to be at play and Robert and his family are set for a hellish time in the days to come as events begin to spiral out of control. We're going," I said. "The reservations have been made. We've had our shots. The only question now is whether you want to see Das's stuff if it is Das and if I can secure publication rights. What do you say, Abe?"

What makes this an interesting story is that, even after reading it, I am not sure if the events were supernatural or a culmination of events that made it seem so. The rather nebulous ending didn't really do it for me.

A poisonous atmosphere," I said. It nettled me to be quizzed. "As from a swamp. Or any noxious influence. Probably comes from the Greek miainein, meaning ‘to pollute.'" La novela narra la historia de Robert qué es contratado para ir a la ciudad de Calcuta en busca de un famoso poeta indio, viaje que realiza junto a su esposa y recién nacida hija, y en el que también descubrirá una serie de macabros sucesos en torno al culto a la diosa kali que cambiarán su vida y la de su familia para siempre. But any review of this book would be incomplete without a mention of how the author paints the landscape of 1970's Calcutta, which is a character in itself. Simmons spent a few days there to research the place and it shows in his vivid descriptions. He's certainly not there to portray a beautiful picture of India, this is a horror novel after all, and I was fully immersed in the evil underbelly of this important city. Its bleak and nasty and fits the tone of the story perfectly. I'm pretty sure he hasn't endeared himself to the Indian tourist board. I thought Das's work was lyrical and sentimental. Sort of the way you described Tagore's stuff in your article."

Abe had a point. Not many people had heard of Robert C. Luczak in 1977, despite the fact that Winter Spirits had received half a column of review in the Times. Still, I hoped that what people—especially the few hundred people who counted— had heard was promising. " Harper's thought of me because of that piece I did in Voices last year," I said. "You know, the one on Bengali poetry. You said I spent too much time on Rabindranath Tagore." Ya para el final la novela pareciera que volverá a remontar con una oscura búsqueda de venganza que podría aclarar las dudas y cabos sueltos que hasta ese punto nos han hecho seguir leyendo... pero no, el autor decide finalmente que su protagonista regrese a casa dejándonos con toda la interrogante de qué era lo que se ocultaba tras todo el asunto en torno a Kali. Dan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years—2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York—one year as a specially trained BOCES "resource teacher" and another as a sixth-grade teacher—and 14 years in Colorado.He was. He is. Not sentimental but optimistic." It was the same phrase I'd used many times to defend Tagore. Hell, it was the same phrase I'd used to defend my own work. Similarly, the war on terror is scary but the opponents are gangsters not the corporatised mass murdering bureaucrats of competing ideologies. Gangsters, despite Simmons' hero's experience, are very bad but not capable (or are they?) of destroying the world. Maybe that is the one doubt that nags at us tweenty five or so years on - that maybe gangsters, terrorists and insurgents can bring the Kali Yuga to pass. That's the fragment of a new poem that Das is supposed to have written within the past couple of years." No, Sanskrit and Bengali, mostly. Here's the English translation." I handed over the other photocopy. There is also an undercurrent of despair at the Holocaust and nuclear destruction that somehow has also become attenuated - Rwanda and Srebenica have not normalised the horrors of the 1940s but, as the survivors of older horrors die of natural causes, modern small genocides seem more managable to liberals - if only the UN could get its act together. Such massacres are no longer placed in that category of all-encompassing global existential evil that excites hopelessness - like Calcutta does to Simmons' narrator.

urn:lcp:songofkali00simm:lcpdf:6652b94e-6c35-437a-9590-70c9f0ff5fc6 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier songofkali00simm Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t2p56b60c Isbn 0812515927 Robert Luczak is sent by the American literary magazine Other Voices, where he works as an editor, to Calcutta to locate poetry alleged to have been recently authored by a legendary poet, M. Das. The literary world considers this development newsworthy because Das disappeared and is presumed to have died eight years ago. Robert's Indian wife, Amrita, and their infant child, Victoria, accompany him on his assignment. Kali is in Hindu Mythology a manifestation of uncontrolled feminine power. She is rage,lust,power,battle fury, primeval intellect, bestial instincts,benediction, omnipotence and a lot many other traits rolled into one. The cults that follow her are said to be violent in nature to appease this dark side of the divine female. Simmons capitalizes on this and takes imagination to a higher level when he calls Kali an undoubtedly evil entity with a ruthless cult behind her. Song of Kali is one of the best horror novels I have come across with the focus kept solely on one of India's dark myths. Contrary to my usual taste, there is quite a scattering of the visceral throughout the events which serves mostly to heighten the ambiance. Whispers can still be heard, though, of the "Song of Kali", the condition of humanity dominated by hatred and violence, perfectly embodied, in the mind of the narrator, by the squalor and chaos of Calcutta. Song of Kali" was a very interesting book. Set in the late 1970s Calcutta, it is a horror story centered around the Hindu goddess Kali.Song of Kali took me by surprise. And it shouldn't as I know how talented an author Dan Simmons is. This is old school horror written by an author with real literary talent. What a debut!

Whatever. How does Amrita feel about you going off and deserting her and the kid? How old's the baby, anyway? Couple months?" La pluma de Simmons aquí, al igual que en la mayoría de sus novelas, es magnífica, haciendo soberbias descripciones de la ciudad de Calcuta al punto que te sientes capaz de oler, sentir, ver y escuchar lo mismo que el protagonista. Sin mencionar que también hay partes de la primera mitad que te mantienen bastante enganchado y te invitan a descubrir que se oculta tras el misterioso culto a Kali y el turbio destino del poeta. Para iniciar he de decir que me encanta el estilo de Simmons, amé Hyperion, sin embargo, la trama de ésta novela deja mucho que desear.Though this specific view might have been quite representative of a Westerner's impression of Calcutta at that point in time, I do feel that Mr Simmons could have added a few of the more positive aspects of Hindu culture to balance out the negative aspects that are represented especially by for instance the Kali cults that feature in this narrative.