Great Expectations

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle of the Sherlock Holmes fame is an acclaimed writer. His command over the language is as commendable as is his scientific insight and approach to the subject he handles. (He was a real medical practitioner by profession)

After reading 3 of his works on different subjects
1. Sherlock Holmes (detective stories)
2. The Lost World (About an expedition into the world of dinosaurs; maybe preamble to Jurassic park)
3. The Maracot Deep (About an expedition to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean)

its mostly that , the protagonist of his stories is usually a highly intelligent, slightly crazy man whos extremely passionate about his work and nothing else in life. He breathes, eats, sleeps only his work. And usually there are hardly any women characters (read distractions) in there.

Now the first two works are superb and ardent followers of Doyle are crazy about them.
Naturally, when one day I saw the "The Maracot Deep" in a "raddi" shop (dont know what they call a raddi shop in English ? :) ), i picked it up w/o 2nd thoughts.

What followed was a total let down followed by a riot of laughter in the end.(Not out of fun but out of the Marathi principle that: "Ati zala ani hasu ala")
The book is so fantastic and chimerical and unrealistic and crazy that I suspected if the author was Doyle after all. No wonder it was quite unheard of. The horses of imagination have galloped in such arbit and varied directions that you end up laughing.

Same happened with Priyadarshan's movie "Malamaal weekly". After watching Hera-Pheri, Hungama, Hulchul our expectations had soared but the movie left us soured.

And of course it is wrong to expect only bestsellers and blockbusters from authors and movie-men.
But surely it wont hurt spending a little time on reviews and no wonder review sites are so popular and should not be disregarded. :)