E1-1984 | E2- The Handmaid’s Tale | E3- The Silent Patient
This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill.
The fourth episode of PTG is really dropping in two-and-a-half months since the last one. It’s really happening. I’m dissecting another modern classic this early after the psycho-hell of episode 3. I reckon you’ll see pigs when you look straight out of your windows today.
Now stop being surprised and guess today’s book (if you’re clever you’ll notice I’ve already given out a clue).
E1- 1984 | E2- The Handmaid’s Tale
Hello and welcome back to the series which is updated once in six months, where I look at the world through the ideas in a popular book that most of us only pretend to have read. And I subject you to the essays I would’ve written had I been an English Literature major. (Not to brag but y’all gave me an A+ the last two times so I guess I could replace ‘subject’ with ‘treat’ *wink*).
Guess which book we’re doing today. It can’t really be called a modern classic, but it’s not Paradise Lost-old either. You’ll be able to guess; I’ll give you two words: psychology and quiet.
Sehdev was almost there. After crossing out his calculations and diagrams more times than he’d care to admit, it seemed this time he was finally going to get it right. Oh yes, here it was, Jupiter in the sixth house—
“What the fuck?!” Nakul’s sudden exclamation made him jump almost ten feet into the air. His focus was broken, and now he’d have to this alignment all over again. Damn his idiot brother to Paatala.
He turned around to yell some obscenities at him but had barely opened his mouth when Nakul started his little rant, his angry chiselled face lit by his phone’s blue light.
“Again? Arjun gets more likes again? Look at all these thirsty people in the comments. ‘Ooh, all that blood and sweat only makes you hotter. I’d take a blow from the Brahmastra just to—‘ “ Nakul was reciting in a mockingly shrill voice before he stopped, apparently disgusted by whatever came next.
Neither am I dead, nor is this series.
Hello and welcome to the second episode of Prose-tinted glasses. If you have no idea what the hell is going on here or need a refresher, head on over to the pilot episode where I introduce you to this new venture of mine and talk about Orwell’s 1984. Seriously, do it. It’ll save you from my wrath by preventing you from calling it a book-review series.
I’m assuming you’re now familiar with the previous episode. So, in keeping with our theme of Books we all Pretend we’ve Read, the book for today is The Handmaid’s Tale.
*cue theme music*
I know, I know. It has over seventy thousand reviews on Goodreads, who knows how many more articles, entire research papers, and a whole TV show. But will any of that deter me from writing about it? Did any of that compel me to read at least one article about it? Did I watch the show?
Nah.
I call it being authentic. Continue reading
HALLO FRANDOS I’M BACK.
(Shit Tanushka you’re growing on me.)
So my exams are over and I finally have the time to start a new venture. This new venture is a new series, called, as you see in the title, Prose-tinted Glasses.
Now, anyone who knows me knows that writing book reviews isn’t my thing, and this isn’t going to be about book reviews either. The episodes- let’s call them that- will be written while I’m reading a particular book, and will be posted when I’ve finished reading. They’ll basically be my nightly mental ramblings about the things explored in the book (because why should I lose sleep alone) and how I feel they connect to things outside the book. You can think of them as those post-book English class essays, but you’ll soon see they’re not really that. If you want book reviews, this series is not for you.
The featured image is a quick colour pencil drawing which I made at 11 in the night while my mom was yelling at me to go to sleep. And yes, this will be the featured image for all the episodes. It’s a series, after all.
Hopefully I’ll post an episode once a month, but it’s not a rigid schedule- nothing is ever rigid over here- and there might, or more appropriately, will be episode-less months. The theme for the first season (yes, there might be more seasons. It’s a whole thing.) is Books we all Pretend we’ve Read.
Now, I have already read some of these- not a complete ignoramus, thankfully- and they won’t be included in this series (they’re The Hobbit and The Alchemist, if you’re wondering). Nor are the books in this image the only ones which will be included.
With the intro out of the way, let’s get into the episode.
Where I do an episode-by-episode review of Stranger Things season 3.
Episode 8, ‘The Battle of Starcourt’: Oh. My. God. What a finale.
It begins with a grisly ad-hoc surgery of Eleven’s leg to remove the demo-parasite, which meets its end under Hopper’s boot. Call me immature, but the gang-reunion was a hoot-worthy moment.
But they soon break up into their original components- Dustin, Steve, Robin and Erica as the ‘Scoops Troop’, Hopper, Joyce and Murray as the ‘Bald Eagle’, and the rest of them as the ‘Griswold Family’.
Where I do an episode-by-episode review of Stranger Things season 3.
Episode 7, ‘The Bite’: This episode was a blast. It was the most action-packed episode until now.
There were a couple of hoot-worthy moments in the episode, both of them courtesy of our dear Eleven- her fight with the Demogorgon in the cabin in the woods and her saving Dustin and gang from the Russians at the mall.
Her pulsing wound has made me worried, though- is it gonna give birth to a monster who’s resistant to El’s powers? That would suck very, very hard.
Where I do an episode-by-episode review of Stranger Things season 3.
Because I’ve been AWOL for the past 3 days, I’m posting two episodes today so as to finish it up on time. Such a disciplined person I am.
Episode 6, ‘E Pluribus Unum’: After wrapping up Nancy, Jonathan and the kids’ encounter with the monster at the hospital (where El kicks some serious ass), the episode begins with the show’s best team- Dustin, Steve, Robin and Erica. Steve and Robin get captured and send the kids to get help. It’s quite courageous of Steve to not yield to the Russians even after being beaten to a pulp. And we get to know that Erica, contrary to her claims, is also a nerd, which was fun to watch.
Where I do an episode-by-episode review of Stranger Things season 3.
Episode 5, ‘The Flayed’: Steve finally wins a fight. And that too against a Russian guard- hooray for him!
The Scoops gang discovers the Russians’ plans for opening the Gate after getting out of the elevator with a last-minute-placed glass vial full of green acid. But we still don’t know what they’re doing it for- I hope the show gives those answers at the end.
Nancy, Jonathan and the kids’ plan to release Mrs Driscoll from the hospital to find out where the Mind Flayer was building his army was a clever one and their encounter with the flayed at the hospital was fast-paced, tense and a good edge-of-the-seat ten or fifteen minutes. Though I have to say, those people from Nancy’s office liquefying and merging into the bigger monster was one of the most disgusting scenes ever.
Also, I didn’t expect Mike not to know the meaning of ‘extending the olive branch’. What kind of a nerd is he?
On the Hopper front, it was a humorous time with the adorable Russian scientist Alexei. I thoroughly enjoyed Joyce’s attempts to communicate with him and Hopper’s frustration at it. And Murray, the show’s official shipper, is back! After leading to Nanathan (that’s their ship name, right?) in season 2, I had no doubts he’d point out Jopper (?) in season 3.
Where I do an episode-by-episode review of Stranger Things Season 3.
Episode 4, The Sauna Test: In this episode, we have a new character joining Dustin, Steve and Robin’s gang- ‘You can’t spell America without Erica’ Erica, who’s Lucas’s little sister and always looking to grab free ice-cream. As the gang looks at the blueprints of the mall, they realise that there’s only one way to the Russians’ storage facility, and that’s through the air ducts. Not even Dustin is small enough to fit in, so they have to rope in Erica and promise her free ice-cream for life in return. Erica is a colourful character, and she surely spices things up.
Charlie and the cerebration factory 