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Margie Vieira’s outstanding novel The Hidden Puzzle: I could nor read beyond Chapter Three for emotions.
P. S. Remesh Chandran
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
Article Title Image By .... Graphics: Adobe SP.
Margie Vieira’s outstanding novel The Hidden Puzzle: I could nor read beyond Chapter Three for emotions.
P. S. Remesh Chandran
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
Article Title Image By .... Graphics: Adobe SP.
Knowing an author is a hindrance to understanding, let alone judge the writings of an author, as Matthew Arnold wrote in his Essays in Criticism. Knowing the author, he notes, is a fallacy into which a critic may fall while assessing the work but I don’t think it is a rule always true in its true sense. It certainly is not a hindrance to enjoying the work, provided familiarity with the author does not breed jealousy. This here is not criticism or review of my friend and author Margie Vieira’s work but a chronicle of thoughts and feelings emanating from enjoyment while reading. I do know the author Margie Vieira in person but only online: she is a dear friend. In spite of this fragile familiarity I enjoyed the work. Read that poem Lover by Rupert Brooke which is the only comparison with this work, depicting everything lovable and fine in nature.
The following are thoughts I had while reading the book.
Chapter 01:
California is known as a land of sunshine and good climate. It is believed something originating from there must be vibrant.
When I was a child, I had many questions in my mind about children; they all still remain a mystery to me, even in my grown up years. Why do babies hold their palms as fists? Did they bring something interesting from the land where they came from and are hiding it there inside those tiny fists? I even remember opening my niece’s palms to see what is in there out of my curiosity. Why are their faces, necks, legs, hands, stomachs, shoulders and feet all such radiant? Why do babies always smell fresh of Pears and Johnson soap and Yardley and Cuticura powder or even exotic without them? Why are they always soft to touch and warm to hold? Why is it, calm exists in a sleeping child as well as in a sitting cat? Why is it, it is not at all tiresome to sit looking at a child sleeping or not for hours? These were the thoughts which were formed in my mind through years which I never thought would visit me all together all of a sudden but they were the ones which rushed past me in one full swing when I read the beginning of a book by the Californian author Margie Vieira. It was ‘The Hidden Puzzle’ by her. I never thought thoughts about children could such ardently be brought out in text by someone for others to read. It was refreshing, nascent.
I remember someone saying once the last image he wants to take away with him when he is leaving the world is the face of a child looking at him through its innocent eyes. In later years I too began to understand this and think there is nothing better to see before you leave the world, your last glimpse of the world.
I remember someone saying once the last image he wants to take away with him when he is leaving the world is the face of a child looking at him through its innocent eyes. In later years I too began to understand this and think there is nothing better to see before you leave the world, your last glimpse of the world.
Chapter 02
How will I read a book if it overwhelms me constantly with emotions?
The problem with this book is it provokes a flow of thoughts and memories with every line, paragraph and chapter; the reading eventually becomes slow. It arouses memories of holding children, making them walk, bathing them and drying them, spoon-feeding them, walking holding them on shoulders to make them sleep, putting them to bed and watching them sleeping. Being an unmarried man with no wife and children, even I have such memories- I had a niece. But a woman who has had children will of course have a million times more memories to laugh about and weep on while reading this book. My wonted authors are Alistair McLean, Robert Ludlum, Robin Cook, Frederick Forsythe, John Grisham and the like whose books I can read continuously without a break, even while envisioning the action as colourful movies in my mind. But that is not possible with this book. We have to have time to laugh and weep and forget the book for a while for wallowing in one’s own memories which the book triggers. And a stream of thoughts too, arising while reading the book! Even these lines which I write here are such thoughts of mine which arose while I was reading the book. I never expected something like that to happen with a novel.
How will it be like, if the child lies sleeping in between mommy and daddy in their bed? How will it be, if she lies in a curving position, resting her tiny legs over her daddy’s chest and her little head resting over her mommy’s breast? She likes it, and so must we. Putting her in another bed, in another room, deprives her of many intimate and precious moments with mommy and daddy, especially the security and safety it offers her young mind, saving her from bad dreams and fighting unsavory situations in her mind, alone. Asians know this and they wisely allow their children to sleep with them in their beds, in their rooms, till they attain adolescence. But the Europeans, Americans and British put their babies in their cradles in their own nursery rooms from as early as their birth. Though this accounts for these children’s reserve, independence and self- reliance in later years, it also accounts for their backwardness in gregariousness, collectiveness and oneness with others in later years. I am not a person to tell if it is right or wrong but I certainly can see the respect, intimacy and care Asian children show to their parents in their old age. Compared to Asia, how many European families have old parents living with them under one roof?
To tell the truth, I was not powerful enough to read beyond Chapter 03 for emotions, some of them hitherto unknown to me. This write up of ruminations was intended to continue as I read Chapters to the last one but I could not.
How will it be like, if the child lies sleeping in between mommy and daddy in their bed? How will it be, if she lies in a curving position, resting her tiny legs over her daddy’s chest and her little head resting over her mommy’s breast? She likes it, and so must we. Putting her in another bed, in another room, deprives her of many intimate and precious moments with mommy and daddy, especially the security and safety it offers her young mind, saving her from bad dreams and fighting unsavory situations in her mind, alone. Asians know this and they wisely allow their children to sleep with them in their beds, in their rooms, till they attain adolescence. But the Europeans, Americans and British put their babies in their cradles in their own nursery rooms from as early as their birth. Though this accounts for these children’s reserve, independence and self- reliance in later years, it also accounts for their backwardness in gregariousness, collectiveness and oneness with others in later years. I am not a person to tell if it is right or wrong but I certainly can see the respect, intimacy and care Asian children show to their parents in their old age. Compared to Asia, how many European families have old parents living with them under one roof?
To tell the truth, I was not powerful enough to read beyond Chapter 03 for emotions, some of them hitherto unknown to me. This write up of ruminations was intended to continue as I read Chapters to the last one but I could not.
Seeing Again: Through the Eyes of a Child by Margie Vieira.
Soft Cover - 6x9 - 310 pages - $16.95 (Price may change with publishers).
Letting go of Goodbye, When Shadows Fade and Blind Focus are her available other books.
Follow the links below to learn more about Margie Vieira and her books:
1. http://sbprabooks.com/margievieira/
Seeing Again: Through the Eyes of a Child by Margie Vieira.
2. http://portuguese-american-journal.com/margie-vieira-from-dairy-farmer-to-novelist-interview/
Margie Vieira: From Dairy Farmer to Novelist – Interview.
Written by this author around 06 August 2015 and published on her article in Linked-In Pulse, When Will A Writer Be First In Line?
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-writer-first-line-margie-vieira
2. Every profession has obstacles and hardships to endure. The writer's has the most, and his' must have too, for his creations are going to pass through centuries, influencing people everywhere. As Margie said, and writers everywhere feel, publishers and agents create difficulties for writers but writers have the unique opportunity to take it as a challenge and endure intense rigors till the opposition ceases, rewarded by the fact that the end product would be a universal master piece. It is not that publishers and agents exert pressure and create difficulties to take things to this end situation but the writer can make use of this opposition to refine the style of her writing and enrich the content through imagination and knowledge, creating finally a master piece. Margie Vieira can do this, gauging from her literary and linguistic proficiency. But from my experience with interacting with her in Linked-In Literature Groups, she is persistent if need be but a bit lazy, which does not fit most international writers. Certainly the prose has not ceased to matter and it never will be. The delights of prose shall, and can, never be replaced with anything else. And regarding monetary gains from books, I think writers like Margie Vieira never care for it.
1. Margie Vieira is an international writer of very good caliber and vision and she has very good imagination too. In fact, regarding poems from my contemporary age, I read only hers, for they are worth reading and enjoying. I have long observed that, had she revised and re-worked her poems till more metrical perfection becomes impossible, they would have become more appealing and satisfying to people like me who like metrical perfection in poems more than many others. I know such adherence to form is not appreciated by many people nowadays but I can imagine the wonder those poems like Margie’s would create with more adherence to form. In many public discussions Margie and I have had, I have amiably disagreed with her in this matter, but I still like to read and enjoy her poems for two reasons: for one, they are superb in poetic conceptions and they are simple. And two, I love recasting them into somewhat metrical perfection for my private singing, which I found to be very easy by repositioning a few words here and there, which I am sure she also could have done. As it was very easy for me to do, I wondered why she herself did not do this and landed on the assumption that she must be lazy. Capitalization is a key factor for me to enjoy a work of literature and I think it is important to many other conventional people like me too. When I say this, I am well aware of times changing, simplification going on in many unexpected fields and capitalization is altogether departing from most international literature. But it is still anathema to me. We do not expect anything such good from worthless poets of the modern day age whose works fill the book shop racks and after whom prominent publishers run, but we do expect such time-consuming, patient and rewarding labour from writers like Margie Vieira. I am Ms. Margie’s friend and that’s why I must be frank; only friends can say what others will hesitate to say. So long as her works satisfy people like me reading them from continents across oceans, and wish for more, I think her readers like us have the right to suggest what we wish, irrespective of what book publishers prefer.
Written in ….. after reading Margie Vieira’s book Through the Eyes of a Child and first published on 18 November 2025.
1. Margie Vieira is an international writer of very good caliber and vision and she has very good imagination too. In fact, regarding poems from my contemporary age, I read only hers, for they are worth reading and enjoying. I have long observed that, had she revised and re-worked her poems till more metrical perfection becomes impossible, they would have become more appealing and satisfying to people like me who like metrical perfection in poems more than many others. I know such adherence to form is not appreciated by many people nowadays but I can imagine the wonder those poems like Margie’s would create with more adherence to form. In many public discussions Margie and I have had, I have amiably disagreed with her in this matter, but I still like to read and enjoy her poems for two reasons: for one, they are superb in poetic conceptions and they are simple. And two, I love recasting them into somewhat metrical perfection for my private singing, which I found to be very easy by repositioning a few words here and there, which I am sure she also could have done. As it was very easy for me to do, I wondered why she herself did not do this and landed on the assumption that she must be lazy. Capitalization is a key factor for me to enjoy a work of literature and I think it is important to many other conventional people like me too. When I say this, I am well aware of times changing, simplification going on in many unexpected fields and capitalization is altogether departing from most international literature. But it is still anathema to me. We do not expect anything such good from worthless poets of the modern day age whose works fill the book shop racks and after whom prominent publishers run, but we do expect such time-consuming, patient and rewarding labour from writers like Margie Vieira. I am Ms. Margie’s friend and that’s why I must be frank; only friends can say what others will hesitate to say. So long as her works satisfy people like me reading them from continents across oceans, and wish for more, I think her readers like us have the right to suggest what we wish, irrespective of what book publishers prefer.
Written in ….. after reading Margie Vieira’s book Through the Eyes of a Child and first published on 18 November 2025.
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