Sometimes Fate is like a Small Sandstorm

Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."

— Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore) 

This has  also been used in the scintillating trailer of Innaritu's forthcoming  movie 'Biutiful'.Javier Bardem's power packed role in this movie has already fetched him the best actor at Cannes

Mario Vargas Llosa : Peruvian Humour Unveiled

I just finished Mario Vargas Llosa's 'Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter'. It was a rambling piece of work. A novel which had a innovative narrative technique with eclectic array of soap opera like short stories without a clear end. The main story which is a sort of  semi autobiographical  is about the love affair between Mario with his 'distant' Aunt (Julia) who is 14 years older to him. There is no second distinct story rather we find dozens of different soap opera style fascinating stories. These amusing stories are manufactured by a cranky somewhat brilliant scriptwriter named Pedro Camacho. This  Bolivian scriptwriter's piquant radio plays is the unique part of the novel . The novel alternates between  Mario's real life narrative and Camacho's soap opera plays.  Camacho's intriguing different short stories are quite fascinating like a superb soap opera but at the end of the novel the stories get jumbled up and intertwined in the most absurd ways and in most cases leading to the  sudden annihilation of many characters due to some natural catastrophe. 

The sharp funny moments that dominate the narrative makes the novel quite a real fun to read. This would be one of the most funniest fascinating novels that I have read. The others like this which would come to my mind are Kundera's ' TheLast Waltz' ;V S Naipaul's 'The House of Mr. Biswas' and definitely Marquez's 'Hundred Years of Solitude' and also Rushdie's 'Midnights Children'. In terms of humour I think it stands among these masterpieces.