Cosy Up Into the Beautiful World of Some Fine Writers this Sweater Season

- By Vedatrayee Chakraborty

As the darkness grows, the cold weather surrounds us and the bright summer days sink from sight, we 
slowly realise that the winter that had been lurking all this while in the veil of autumn, has finally crept
in. Personally, I hate winter for it's own privations. But, this is also the time of the year when we look 
back at our long and frolicsome summer, when we light the fire, hunker down on the armchair with a 
flowery blanket and open a book. Winter, they say, is the night time of the seasons. It makes us realise 
our capricious existence and how indolent we are to make a mockery of it’s beauty. Books make us 
better human beings. So when is a more precarious time of the year than this one to grab a book, while 
sipping a cup of coffee, and to become someone better in this seclusion?

So, here’s a list of a few writers to read and revere this winter.

Charles Dickens

Writers like Jane Austen and Charles Dickens make such times bearable to those of us who think of

winter as some kind of apocalypse! Dickens is solely responsible for not only inculcating a humanitarian

outlook towards the hardships of the working class ( specially in the materialistic epoch of

industrialization) but also for cultivating a penchant for the winter season. Most of his works are not

only hymns to frost, but they actually turn winter into a very heavy weather, marked by the tragedy of

those whose lives are dictated by a wretched faith and the satire of the Victorian Yuletide season.

Always showing winter as destructive, unfortunate and cold – hearted , we are introduced to the

character of Ebenezer Scrooge, a human being who embodies the season in his work ‘The Christmas

Carol'. In the words of Dickens – “ No warmth could warm, no wintery weather chill him. ” Curl up with

your version of Oliver Twist Or David Copperfield and enjoy the frost!

Leo Tolstoy

Whenever we think of Russia, what comes to our minds? The Tsars, Revolution, Lenin, Stalin, USSR,

Putin but essentially cold weather and Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy's works have always commingled a cold and

stiff winter with a cold and stiff Russia. Be it the elegant balls, freezed trains, destitute workers waiting

for the end of the ‘ old order ‘ , deceit and betrayal or just a contrast of experiences, Anna Karenina will

leave you baffled, flummoxed and uncertain. Winds will gush out of the pages of Master and Man , an evocative tour de force with a cold weather resonance. And yes, I was about to say War and Peace
and others.

Satyajit Ray
Remember those wintery afternoons when we, after giving our class tests or final exams , our feet, still 
cold as ice even after wearing socks for several long hours , finished lunch and jumped into the bed with 
our favourite Professor Shanku or Feluda ? Our holiday trips to Haflong, Shillong or Darjeeling were all 
about reading short stories by Ray during those long train journeys. Gen-Z will perhaps never get to feel 
that great time when there were no fake Instagram Stories and we were actually living the best life. I 
know that as a Bengali, the written works of the auteur director are barely known and cherished outside 
our community but, nevertheless, people can still read his translations. Ray will always remain in our 
hearts as the maker of Feluda, the great detective sleuth as much as an Academy award-winning 
filmmaker. He really made our winters sweet , like the warm and sweet sun of many wintery mornings. 
Azar Nafisi
Azar Nafisi's book Reading Lolita in Tehran is a well known book among literary circles. It’s a lesser 
known book but it is indeed a great winter read. The book is set during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. 
The title uses Vladimir Nabokov’s novel as a metaphor , though not allegorical, to draw the contrast 
to draw parallels between “ victim and jailer ” . This book gives one of the most moving accounts of 
the Islamic Republic of Iran, portraying it both as a victim and a jailer. It also has one of the reliable 
accounts on the politics of Iran – the Shah’s regime and the subsequent rise of Ayatollah Khomeini. But what gives life to this book is the Nafisi’s relentless efforts to understand the works of Western 
writers like Henry James, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jane Austen. Her book is divided into four parts –
Lolita , Gatsby, James and Austen . All the four parts somewhat resemble the titles assigned to them. 
Nafisi again created a stir in 2014 about her new book, The Republic of Imagination : America in 
Three Books . Read Azar Nafisi if you want to read something offbeat this winter. I can assure , you
will not regret it. The final words that will always stay with you are – “ I left Iran. Iran didn’t leave 
me. ”

Ruskin Bond
If Kālidāsa rings monsoons to you, then Ruskin Bond must ring summer . Known as the ‘beloved' writer 
of India, Ruskin Bond has entertained young and old generations equally through the young inquisitive 
boy called Rusty and his camaraderie with his father, his secluded life full of books while staying with his 
mother, the wild adventures with Grandpa, the whistling school boy, Bond's sudden interaction with the 
ghost of Rudyard Kipling in London, love-at-first-sight at Deoli, a small meeting with a long lost love at 
Shamli as time stops there , and finally an aged Bond living a cloistered life in the hills, occasionally peeping out of the oaks and pines to sign a few books, attend a few book release functions in the metros 
and thus, loving India. But through all these things, we get to see the growing trees of Dehra, the lilting 
leaves of Landour, Mussoorie, Delhi changing and London, being the same as it was some 70 years back. 
For someone who always felt like 'a mixed-up colonial castaway , an accident of history' the hills of India 
provided refuge, acceptance, and beauty. Beauty, after all, is what drives him as an author as beauty 
interested him more than anything else. And as flagrant as it seems, his novels and stories thrive 
because of the beauty that lives around us. 
In a world where winter itself is under threat due to global warming, may these great authors provide 
you with the magic that you truly need to live on this blessed planet. And so, while the Christmas carols 
are sung, while we welcome a new year with hopes of an end to the pandemic and the cuckoo comes 
out, as Lewis Carroll put it – “ Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again. ” 
Happy Reading !!!