Book Review: a mirrored life

I happen to read A Mirrored Life by Rabisankar Bal as third book of this year. Given that I have the goal of reading just twelve books this year due to reasons of time management for other tasks – I am more than safe to pick the books that will not stuck me and let my goal be completed at the end of this year.

Whenever I don’t have the philosophical flow of words in my mind about any book, I try to be technical in the book review; pointing out the goods-and-bads of the book that might help the other readers to choose that book.

The book revolves around multiple characters including Rumi, Shams, Hussam, Sultan from an era & Ibne-e-batuta from some other. so actually I’m really confused about how the author unveiled the story (if you can call it a story). To me, its like some one has compiled a lot of events in a single story but failed to display the connection.

So the things that kicked out the book out of the list of my recommendations:

Repetitiveness. One thing I hate most in a book is the unnecessary addition of words and phrases. Explanations that could easily be avoided to keep the interest of story. By the end of the story, I was loathing the immense use of a repetitive phrase throughout the story, that is: let me tell you a story.

Another example of repetitiveness includes the same account of Ibn Arabi and Maulana Rumi being the icons of Sufism with different paths of love and knowledge, respectively. If I’m not wrong this fact was acknowledged thrice in the book when it can easily be replaced with some another.

& da lack of a story plot.

A mirrored life by Rabisankar Bal could have been much better if the author have tried to narrate it through a genuine plot. The random description of the main characters of story here and there disturbed me and due to that all I wanted to do was – finish the book as soon as possible.

but still there were couple of phrases that clicked me on the first glance.