‘The Dark Side of Light’ by Sanil Sachar | Book Review

There’s a reason why Anakin Skywalker so easily surrendered to the dark side – it appealed to him more. I can’t stop making this unwanted Star Wars reference here, but having read this book and having liked it even (in a way), I think it’s pretty clear that I’m attracted to the more darker versions of mundane human thoughts. Now this in no way implies I’m a negative being, but it may label me as a critic of life, and I’m fine with that.

Sanil Sachar’s book has varying shades of white, black and grey. Also it’s quite an accomplishment in the way it has been written. If I do generalize, there’s an opening poem that sets a grim tempo, and following that is a story that hangs in the very environment the poem helped create. As if to fluctuate the tempo, Sanil adds another poem after the story, which helps set the same mood as earlier or at some places totally alters the setting.

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If you believe you ever had a dark thought, this book essentially is a post-mortem report of that thought compiled in lyrical brilliance, and you can identify each and every dissected item with some occurrence in your own life. I personally associated a lot with a poetic piece called Back To The Past, which is basically a person’s yearning to forget his present and go back to a carefree childhood, back to the times when pretence was actually fun. Now such pieces are so reflective that I went through them over and over again, and every time a mental PPT ran through the mind

Luckily for me I’ve come across a few young people who are very wise for their age, but Sanil may be among those rare gems who could even translate his thoughts into reader-friendly sentences. And the styles he’s employed at plotting – stories, poems, even scripts – only go on to show his mastery over the art. His writing is very simple, no fancy words thrown unnecessarily, no misplaced jargons, and still there are a few pieces open to interpretation. It’s very important for an author to write in such a way that readers can easily build up the settings in their mind, and this book helps you visualize the settings and expressions in all clarity. If you love studying human nature, I’d strongly recommend you pick this off the shelf.

Overall Rating: 4/5

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