Magnetic Poetry

Well, my dears, I'm going to love you and leave you for a few days. We're driving across to Cherating for a dose of sun sea sand. I am currently deliberating about which books to take, and hoping there will still be room in my bag for a change of clothes.

Here's something fun to keep you entertained while I'm away. (Like the teacher I once was, I set you homework.)

Have you heard of Magnetic Poetry? These are kits of magnetic words you can arrange into pleasing poetic combinations on the front of your fridge, or on any other metallic surface. (If you're interested, here's how magnetic poetry began.)

My friend Diane knowing my fondness for both moggies and verse bought me the Cat Lover kit some time back, and I used to have not-terribly-wonderful odes to my furry friends on the fridge door. I took them down when I got fed up of words falling into the egg tray and of fishing them out of the yoghurt.

But the internet makes all things easier. The company that produces the kits has a fun website where you can play with sets of words and make your own poetry.

And that's your task! Select any kit you like, make a poem and post it ... either on your blog or in the comments here.

Try not to miss me too much!

Buyers of Books

Daphne Lee comes up with another very nice book related article in StarMag. How do the big bookshops actually select their stock? She interviews the buyers of Kinokuniya and MPH. (What a nice job! Need any help?)

Ramji Rabi of MPH (a very personable young man who did my creative writing course last year and pictured left with Yvonne Chau) says:

Malaysian authors like Tash Aw (author of the The Harmony Silk Factory) tend to be popular in all the stores. And Devika Bai (The Flight of the Swans) is especially popular in Johor Baru because that was where she lived.

He goes on to say that Malay romance novels are also extremely popular, along with religious books. Malaysians seem to be paying increasing attention to literary award winners. The most popular of which have been Life of Pi by Yann Martel and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

I was happy to see this letter by Julianne Leow from Penang. Yes, we do need more books reviews. I'd go further. We desperately need a proper literary supplement in at least one of the Sunday papers! Bookstores can sponsor articles, and Daphne can be editor-in-chief.

Blogwash? Hogwash!

The Malay Mail decided to stoke debate about blogs with a front page page splash in the weekend edition.

They apparently carried out a survey of 100 people, though how they selected their sample we are not told. Were the respondents bloggers? Do they regularly read blogs? (If you're going to fling around statistics and influence public opinion, you needs to be accountable for the way you collate statistics!)

Anyway, apparently (shock horror):

66 per cent of the 100 respondents interviewed questioning the credibility of blogs as a source of information ... 57 per cent of the respondents wanted bloggers to be made accountable by imposing certain regulations to deter irresponsible bloggers from posting sensitive, inaccurate and false information.

It goes on:

Those who called for bloggers to be monitored said blogs should only be used to share useful information, and not be an avenue to post exaggerated articles, or a place to blow your own trumpet.

What I think the survey does illustrate is the general ignorance on the part of those interviewed as to what blogs are and how they work. Just useful information? How dull! Some of my favourite blogs are the personal ones where there is a real sense of the voice of the writer. Like you, I read all sorts of blogs for all sorts of reasons - but most of all to be entertained by good writing, to catch up with my friends, to share opinions and enjoy a good discussion on matters close to my heart. (Things bookish and writerly most of all.)

Not a place to blow your own trumpet? Not a place to post exaggerated articles? Why the hell not? A blog is an entirely personal space. And just as we take with a pinch of salt the nonsense our friends come up with in the coffee shop, or the bullshit talked by that fella leaning on the bar in the pub, so we need to assess for ourselves the validity of what we read - be it in the local press or online.

Malaysians I think in one sense are already pretty good readers: they've had to learn to read between, behind, through the lines of articles in the local newspapers to find out what is really happening in the country: they just need to apply the same skills to reading blogs!

Sure, there are of course the loony intolerant extremist voices out there. Reading some has had me shaking with anger. But I'd rather know what these people are thinking and how they argue, than not know. And I would defend their right to express their opinions.

Anyway, you can have your say on the topic at mmnews@nstp.com.my

I just hope the Malay Mail throws its weight behind bloggers, rather than just sensationalising the issue. After all, it's been happy to report what bloggers are saying on various issues (thanks Amir!) as a way of accessing the vox populi hasn't it?

Akan Datang from British Council

Sunitha of British Council has been in touch to say that performance poet Francesca Beard will be back in September to perform her show Chinese Whispers in its entirety, and to run a workshop to train performance poets locally.

There will also be a second round of Wayang Kata style entertainment in November, and plans are also afoot to build links with poets from Singapore.

Watch this space, as they say!

Related Posts

Troubagangers Wayang Kata (30/3/06)
Francesca and the Troubagangers (6/4/06)

From Majapahit to Silverfish

Ooops, nearly missed this one. Farish A noor will be appearing at Silverfish today at 6p.m. to launch his latest book From Majapahit to Putrajaya. Give the bookshop a call if you'd like to attend as places are limited.

I love reading Farish - he writes so eloquenty and is for sure one of Malaysia's best thinkers (I often feel like cheering when I read his pieces.)

I won't be there myself because I'm being tour guide to a gaggle of very unruly sightseers. The Malaysian Tourist board should be very proud of me.

An Eating Course?

Last night the final session of my creative writing course at MPH 1 Utama a. I took my sister, Tess along. After all, when I go back to Britain, I want to find out about her life and follow her to work (she provides counselling for families with kids with ADHD and other behavioural problems). Bibi, Ted, Martini and Jerusha brought along their writing for discussion and had some very powerful pieces between them. Philip was in an earlier group but had missed his "graduation" so I was happy he could drop by and get to know some new writing buddies.

Tess, has formed the impression (probably quite rightly!) that Malaysians are totally food obsessed. It was Bibi's birthday and she totally surprised by having husband Ammar turn up bearing a ton of delicious food from a friend's restaurant in Taman Tun. (The tomato soup was especially good!)


A most enjoyable evening altogether.

Hot Weather Words

Our poetry blog
features the perfect haiku
for hot afternoons!

Summer Stories

The internet serves the short story well! Listen to new stories by Hari Kunzru and others, recorded at the Port Eliot Litfest. (For sure the most fun and unstuffy festival of them all, with authors being encouraged to do something other than read from their work. Last year, Hari made cocktails. This year he's "performing".)

The Guardian also recently featured a Summer Reading Special with great short stories from Colm Toibin, William Trevor and William Boyd among others.

I also came across a fabulous collection of short stories read by their authors at Comma Press who aim to create a growing archive of spoken word downloads.

All good stuff and free.

This technophobe is tempted to get an MP3 player or something. (Am I the only person without one?)

Naughty Nirpal

Jessica and Sarab, members of my reading group were both thrilled to bits to have found a novel by a Sikh writer sitting on the counter in Times. "See," said Jessica "he's even a Dhaliwal, like me."

I wonder how these two got on with Tourism by Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal, a book I first wrote about back in June?

I actually enjoyed it very much indeed!

The protagonist, "Puppy" is the kind of guy your mum probably warned you against, if you're a girl. He drifts without ambition or direction, wringing out every possible drop of hedonism he can from life. He's a total user and freeloader: he sponges off his rather thick model girlfriend - sharing her apartment because he can't think where else he might live if he left. He takes handouts from his mum who struggled to bring him up single-handedly - even though he feels too ashamed of her to spend any time in her company. And he's pretty much without conscience when he betrays a friend. (Although we do see a softer side to his nature when he visits a friend's dying mum in hospital ... and he apparently loves dogs, which I guess is a major saving grace.) He's as detached as a tourist, watching from a distance until he falls for Sarupa, rich, beautiful and intelligent ... and seemingly unobtainable. (I reckon they really do deserve each other after Sarupa's treatment of Shamir.)

Whilst I can't say I actually liked Puppy, I had a certain amount of sympathy for him, and found his observations of multicultural Britain refreshing in this age of political correctness. Puppy is an equal opportunity bastard and has strong opinions about just about every London community, including his own, and not all of them complimentary. A lot of it rings true, though, I have to say. (Could ever race be written about so frankly in Malaysia without stoking a hornet's nest?)

The writing has a terrific energy, and I really admire the way the author can draw convincing characters with such economy, even in the smallest walk-on parts. I look forward to the next novel from this young writer.

Be warned, though, there's an awful lot of bonking in this novel: the sex scenes are written in full technicolour detail ... and the camera doesn't pull away.

Readings Resume

We've been missing the monthly readings at Sek Sen's place which give local fiction writers and poets a chance to put their work before an audience.

Bernice called me yesterday to say that she hasn't been able to organise anything because her mum is seriously ill, so asked me if I could take over for the moment. So expect news soon of next month's event and keep Saturday 26th August free ...

Elsewhere Things

Singularly uninspired this morning. Have been trying to get my messy house into some kind of order before my sister and her tribe arrive today, cleaning corners that haven't been touched for ages - probably not since her last visit! Hanging curtains is not my occupation of choice and has cut severly into my reading time, though I'm carrying around The Ghostwriter by Philip Roth, and reading Robert Lowell's poetry in bed and Julia Cameron's Letters to a Young Artist in the loo (the chapters are so short, I don't think I run the risk of piles, Visitor!)

Must also give up drinking Tesco's ground coffee which tastes great but is keeping me awake for hours, heart palpitiating like mad. This morning I feel like a zombie and will probably only come awake once I've had another cup of Tesco's coffee ... (Balzac died of caffeine poisoning so I'm in good company!)

(It didn't help matters that I went to pick up the mob at the airport - only to find I was there a whole day early. Attention deficit disorder!)

So while I cast around for something more exciting to blog - here are some of my favourite posts from elsewhere

Glenda Larke wrestles with the question of image and the author photo :

I look like the "before" shot for someone going on an Oprah makeover show for really desperate housewives. So how the hell is any photo of me going to help sell my books?

before plumping for a more casual look that resembles the Glenda we know and love. (I symapathise - I hate photos of me and the best look I might plump for is ... intereresting.) Worth reading too are her rants about the haze and the Malaysian culture of indifference to breaking the law. And of course her continuing articles about getting published.

Starlight made me go out and buy the Summer reading issue of O magazine (Oprah's venture), and I'm so glad I did because there are a number of very good articles on reading. I'm saving it to read on the beach in a few day's time (gotta do the whole tourist bit, right?). Starlight's really started something with her short-shorts challenge with several people posting on their blogs and others posting her blog. Among those to have posted so far are John Ling and Jerusha. I will get round to writing a short-short soon - promise. (On a beach, where there are no more curtains to hang!)

Our Ted, of course has a lot of interesting stuff. His post about what I said the other night in my writing class about reading 1,000 books seems to have touched a raw nerve and sparked a lot of discussion about "the bloke in bangsar". My take is love him or hate him (and I have very mixed feelings) he's still done more for the local lit scene than any other individual.

Ted also put up the pictures of the Hadiah Sastera Kumpulan Utusan (Utusan Group Literature Prize) award-giving ceremony which Cean (far left) sent to both of us. Here are the prize-winners for the Novel Remaja Bahasa Inggeris (English Young Adult Novel) category. (First prize winner Chin Han is seated far right and Su Ann, second-prize winner, is in the centre.) The novels are being published around September. Congrats again!

I loved Lydia's reworking of a fairytale for hopeless bookaholics!

And I can't help it, The Malay Male makes me laugh more than anyone else. I enjoyed reading about the highlights of his career with the tacky tabloid (before it became the waste of newsprint it is now after its new look).

There's so much good writing on the blogs. But not on this one today. Please enjoy your elsewhere trips while I recover.

Shashi on Toast

I wrote this (elsewhere) back at the time of Shashi Tharoor's last visit to Silverfish and thought I'd stick it in here as a little trailer to his second visit:

Margaret Atwood writes in Negotiating With The Dead:

... There's an epigram tacked to my office bulletin board, pinched from a magazine - "Wanting to meet an an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet an author because you like pate."

Well, meeting an author is precisely what I did yesterday. A coup for Raman who managed to get Indian writer Shashi Tharoor to come along and read from his books and do a short q&a afterwards. This guy is immensely popular in India, particularly for The Great Indian Novel which parodies the Mahabarata and is a hilarious send-up of modern Indian history. Nice looking guy, looking much much younger than his 48 years (how dare he be younger than me and have written so much!) with a fringe of hair he kept flicking self-consciously out of his eyes, and strange, pale eyes. (In other words, the duck was quite tasty, never mind the pate.) He read beautifully, putting on all the different voices: the British resident and the Gandhi-like character who leads the great crowd in the mango march (as opposed of course to the salt-march which was the beginning of the end for the British in India.) Even when you're an adult you enjoy being read to!

And it's quite inspiring that he mananges to write so much, despite the day job: he's actually Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information for the UN, and just happened to be in town for a conference on the role of the media.

He signed a copy of his book for me. I signed a copy of "my" book for him. We snapped a photo together in which we're both laughing like hyenas. (And no, you're not seeing it.)

Shashi is reading at Silverfish again 6.30 tomorrow evening (Tuesday 25th). He's really good value, so try to make it.

Update:

I can't make it to the reading! Gotta go to the airport tonight. So sorry that your reporter-on-the-spot has to let you down but I hope someone else can go along and blog it.

Another Update

Deepika Shetty of Channel News Asia writes about Shashi Tharoor's bid for top UN post here.

Reading - At Your Convenience

Reading in the toilet has a long and honourable history, author Henry Alford reveals in the New York Times in a piece aptly entitled Chamber Plots.:

In the mid-18th century, Lord Chesterfield wrote that he knew “a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the call of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house; but gradually went through all the Latin poets, in those moments.” ... Most scholars contend that bathroom reading is largely a modern pursuit: the chamber pots and outhouses in use prior to the 1920’s and 30’s were not ideal for perusing texts. Yet Roman baths contained libraries wherein one could pore over scrolls, and “The Life of St. Gregory” (1296-1359) recommends the isolated retreat of the medieval fortress toilet — located high up in towers, close to heaven, so as to offset the perceived baseness of the act being committed — as a place for uninterrupted reading. “The Old Farmer’s Almanac,” whose pages were often ripped out by people in outhouses and put to practical use, has always come with a hole in its upper left-hand corner for easy hanging. A collection of summaries of literary works published in 1991 as “Compact Classics” fared poorly in the marketplace until it was renamed “The Great American Bathroom Book,” whereupon its first volume sold a million copies. Indeed, so profitable is this publishing niche that you can now buy waterproof books and books shaped like toilets. And, as George Costanza said on “Seinfeld” when he was forced to buy a book he had taken into a bookstore bathroom, “I got news for you — if it wasn’t for the toilet, there would be no books.”

Alford says that when he redecorated his bathroom recently, he put 42 books on top of the toilet tank ... for aesthetic purposes.

I admire those folks, unfortunately few and far between, who have a library in their loo. I loved staying with my friends Jean and Barry in Plymouth because every room was full of books - including the smallest rooms which were equipped with bookshelves and magazine racks. The his and hers bathroom had a slightly different selection, and I think I enjoyed all the puzzle and crossword books in his best.

I'm a bathroom reader, but generally have only magazines in there. (Colour supplements from the British Sunday papers are best. I've asked my sister to bring me a stack even though I can read the same stuff online.) Sometimes poetry or short short fiction.

So now it's your turn. What's your bathroom reading material?

(Above right, a booklovers dream loo. Or should we call it a bibliobog?)

Fear and Loathing in Kuala Lumpur

Waxing philosophical here and on my soapbox.

Moral values.
Positive moral values.
To turn kids into model Malaysian citizens.

When I was teaching teachers here (in my previous life when I was a respectable upholder of societal norms) I was supposed to check my students' lesson plans for the inclusion of "moral values" and make sure that they were slipped into the lessons at the approriate point. Moral value included? Tick the box.

Literature lessons too, of course, were supposed to have a moral message for the kids. Texts were supposed to be morally uplifting. Every ounce of moral message was supposed to be wrung out from the words and soaked up by the kids' souls.

"What's the moral value for today, class?" "Tolerancepatiencepatriotismcleanlinesshelpfulness".

It seems to me that a whole generation got hung up on that literature-has-to-equal-morality gig.

Which is terribly sad, because heavily laboured morality turns most kids off.

And, (shock horror!) literature at its best is deliciously delightfully wonderfully subversive.

And if we become better people because of reading, it is not because a text has preached at us, but because we've learned how it feels to step inside someone else's head and life.

Related Posts

Matric Blues (24/5/06)
Malaysian Anti-Semitism (11/6/05)
To His Coy Mistress (24/4/06)

Big Bookshop Warehouse Sale

The amazingness of recent warehouse book sales ... flummoxes me.

As a bookaholic I love my book bargains, and in the past few months I've had happy experiences with MPH, Times, and Payless warehouse sales and come away from each of them with bags and bags of great books at knockdown prices and feeling a euphoric high. Nothing but nothing beats finding a bargain copy of a book you really want!

But I can't help wondering what happening. Are books from overseas being dumped on the Malaysian market? Is there such a phenomena as "book dumping"?

You can understand a chain like MPH needing the occasional warehouse sale, because it costs money to store stock that isn't moving. Shelf space costs. It's sell cheap or pulp the stock to make way for more.

But it seems that cheap and excellent books are pouring in from elsewhere. Times was apparently bringing in cut price books from Singapore. The books in the Payless warehouse sale were second-hand copies from America.

And now here's another warehouse sale which has an incredible selection of books. I learned about it from Sympozium and decided to stop by at Atria this morning, not expecting very much. I mean how high does The Big Bookshop rank on any booklovers list of favourites? (The shop itself is on the top floor of Atria, sells a range of stationery but is pretty uninspiring.)

I was totally gobsmacked by what I found and don't even dare to tell you what I spent. (Okay, we don't have to eat next week.) I took a photo of my haul to show you and there are many more besides.

These are some of the best finds:

I picked up hardback copies of books on the Booker shortlist: Coetzee's Slow Man and Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown. (Julian Barnes Arthur and George with its beautiful cloth cover is there for less than a quarter of what I paid a few months back!)

And if you are interested in learning about poetry or writing it - as Sympozium pointed out The Ode Less Travelled is a real treasure. (I bought both book and CDs).

I bought novels I've long wanted: highly acclaimed stuff like The Colour by Rose Tremain, Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth, Sebastian Faulks Human Traces, Remembering Babylon by David Malouf which won the IMPAC Dublin prize in 1996. I also found copies of The Ballad of Desmond Kale by Roger McDonald heaped high: this novel won the Miles Franklin Award less than a month ago and I wrote an entry pondering why I hadn't seen it in the bookshops.

I found hardback copies of Peter Ackroyd's biographies of Shakespeare and Turner, and a biography of photographer Diane Arbus which I had long coveted. Also Chuck Palahniuk's collection of essays Non-Fiction, writing guru Julia Cameron's Letters to a Young Artist, and the note books of an Australian writer called Murray Bail.

Now then, where are these books coming from and why are they here? Why are such recent and important titles among them?

The Big Bookshop has stores in Singapore, so there is surely a south of the border connection there too, as there is with Times. But it can't be a coincidence that so many of the books are by Australian writers. (Peter Carey's novels are heaped high in Aussie editions, including My Life as a Fake which is set in Malaysia.)

I wonder what will happen to these books if they are unsold. (Don't pulp them!!!!)
I wonder what the fallout from the flood of cheap books will be. (Good fallout - obvious. Bad fallout, the effect on established bookshops.)

Meanwhile - hey, I'm in bookish heaven. And may visit Atria again since new stock will be coming in.

The sale ends on 31st July.

Cusk All Folded Up

Finished Rachel Cusk's Booker-longlisted In the Fold a few days back. It was a pretty curious read and I'm still working out whether I actually enjoyed it or not ...

Here's the plot which, having tried to distill it down for you, seems both convoluted ... and not terribly fascinating (you can skip the next bit if you want) :

When Michael is invited by his friend and fellow student to attend his sister's 18th birthday party, he quickly falls in love with the eccentric and bohemian Hanbury family of Egypt Hill, a wonderful old house and large sheepfarm in Devon.

We're never told much about Michael's background, but can only surmise that it must have been pretty dull for him to have been so easily seduced by this apparently chaotic and Bohemian extended family.

We then skip a decade or two. Michael is an established lawyer and has married into a family which shares many similarities with the Hanbury's: the Alexanders are wealthy, aristocratic and unconventional. But his relationship with his wife Rebecca is uneasy: she seems to be going through a crisis after the birth of their son, Hamish. When the balcony of their Georgian townhouse in Bath falls and almost kills him, it is clearly symbolic of the state of their marriage.

Then Adam gets in touch. His father is in hospital having a prostate operation. It's the lambing season and Adam could use another pair of hands. Michael decides to use the opportunity to take a break from his marriage, and carts the non-communicative Hamish along with him.

Egypt is little changed, although ugly modern development encroaches on the hill and has swallowed up much of the town. The Hanburys don't improve with reaquaintance: Michael witnesses the family bickerings and machinations, and in a climactic scene in the farm's kitchen, the disclosure of ugly secrets buried for decades.

Phew!

So if plot isn't the point of the novel, what is? Cusk's great strength here is in careful social observation and fine detailing, and In the Fold is an extremely interesting comedy of manners. Michael is a strangely inert central character which makes him the perfect observer of the drama unfolding at Egypt ... and also in his own home. The characters are very well drawn and most quite stunning in their awfulness.

There's a lot of dialogue - in fact in many of the scenes nothing happens but talk, so that it felt, at times like reading a playscript. But the conversations are so totally revealing of the characters, brilliantly observed and often very funny.

But maybe I wasn't concentrating hard enough because I kept getting confused about who was who in the Hanbury clan (there's a large cast of minor characters) and had to flip back the pages. Annoying!

Cusk's writing is delightfully witty and I was much amused by her descriptions. Here she's describing Michael's son:

Hamish was a big, peculiar baby with flowing blonde hair and the prominent features of a general or a politician. He seemed to relish pointing out the obvious, and treated everything as a joke: in this way he was identifiably male, though in spite of his size and virile countenace there was something effeminate about him. He was like a big, exuberant, bad mannered amphibian, or a laughing androgenous cleric. The spectacle of Rebecca looking after him suggested that of a teenaged girl entertaining her first, unruly boyfriend in the family home.

Honestly, I love writing like this.

Hmmm. I think on balance that I did enjoy the book.

Would I recommend it? For sure, if you enjoy literary fiction of the Bookerish kind. Not otherwise.

Postscript

I found Cusk's discussion of the novel at the Guardian website, fascinating. Best line:

I don't really believe in stories, only in the people who tell them.

Writing at the British Council

My next creative writing course Getting Started - Finding the Flow will held at the British Council starting August 29th, and is partly sponsored by the BC Library. Details and registration here. (Get in touch if you want to know more - sbakar at streamyx.com.)

There is a slight amendment to the dates though - I will be in Bali late September - early October at the Ubud Readers and Writers Festival - so the final session will be on October 10.

I'm really happy about British Council giving my course a home and promoting it for me. They were happy with the feedback from the last course I taught there, which really was fun.

I plan to launch further courses beginning September and have lots of schemes and plans buzzing round in my head but need to sit down and get the actual planning done and the scheduling worked out. Watch this space!

Custom Reads

Stumped for what book to read next? Whichbook.net is a fun website which helps you to find fiction you'd like to read when you enter in your criteria. Want something fun yet unpredictable, with lots of sex? Or a novel that's longer, serious with plenty of violence thrown in? Whichbook can suggest a book you'd like.

You can ever search by the type of character or plot you fancy!

Whichbook enables, for the first time, the choice of book to start from the individual reader and what they are looking for.

Anyway, that's the theory!

I tried it out a few times with different criteria and it kept telling me that I should read Heavy Water and Other Stories by Martin Amis.

Perhaps it knows me better than I know myself?

Story Stars

Starlight is inviting you to share your short short stories (300 words max) with her and either post them on your own blog, or send them to her so she can put them up on hers. As she says - on your marks, get set, WRITE!

Puisy-Poesy Pussy

Cat, that is.

Poems on the Pusiy-Poesy blog include On the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes by Thomas Gray which I've just put up. Machinist examines Tennyson's The Eagle, and reminisces about Plymouth Hoe. Sharanya introduces all of us to an Indian poem Things Standing Shall Fall, But the Moving Ever Shall Stay by Basava which addresses, I feel, a fundamental religious truth no matter what our faith.

Enjoy and let us know what you think.

Botched Beginnings

A great first line for your story is vitally important, and some time back we shared our favourite book beginnings.

But actually bad beginnings can be much more fun! Sympozium sent me news of The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest which celebrates awful writing annually. (Check out the 2006 winners.) The prize honours:

... the memory (if not the reputation) of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873). The goal of the contest is the essence of simplicity: entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. Although best known for "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), which has been made into a movie three times, originating the expression "the pen is mightier than the sword," and phrases like "the great unwashed" and "pursuit of the almighty dollar," Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words that the "Peanuts" beagle Snoopy plagiarized for years, "It was a dark and stormy night." The contest began in 1982 as a quiet campus affair, attracting only three submissions. This response being a thunderous success by academic standards, the contest went public the following year and ever since has annually attracted thousands of entries from all over the world.

Here are some of the best from past years which clearly tickled Sympozium's funny-bone:

The camel died quite suddenly on the second day, and Selena fretted sulkily and, buffing her already impeccable nails--not for the first time since the journey began--pondered snidely if this would dissolve into a vignette of minor inconveniences like all the other holidays spent with Basil.
--Gail Cain, San Francisco, California (1983 Winner)

The lovely woman-child Kaa was mercilessly chained to the cruel post of the warrior-chief Beast, with his barbarous tribe now stacking wood at her nubile feet, when the strong, clear voice of the poetic and heroic Handsomas roared, "Flick your Bic, crisp that chick, and you'll feel my steel through your last meal."
--Steven Garman, Pensacola, Florida (1984 Winner)

The countdown had stalled at T minus 69 seconds when Desiree, the first female ape to go up in space, winked at me slyly and pouted her thick, rubbery lips unmistakably--the first of many such advances during what would prove to be the longest, and most memorable, space voyage of my career.
--Martha Simpson, Glastonbury, Connecticut (1985 Winner)

The bone-chilling scream split the warm summer night in two, the first half being before the scream when it was fairly balmy and calm and pleasant for those who hadn't heard the scream at all, but not calm or balmy or even very nice for those who did hear the scream, discounting the little period of time during the actual scream itself when your ears might have been hearing it but your brain wasn't reacting yet to let you know.
--Patricia E. Presutti, Lewiston, New York (1986 Winner)

The notes blatted skyward as the sun rose over the Canada geese, feathered rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically peddling unseen bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by Nature's maxim, "Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work," and at last I knew Pittsburgh.
--Sheila B. Richter, Minneapolis, Minnesota (1987 Winner)

Like an expensive sports car, fine-tuned and well-built, Portia was sleek, shapely, and gorgeous, her red jumpsuit molding her body, which was as warm as the seatcovers in July, her hair as dark as new tires, her eyes flashing like bright hubcaps, and her lips as dewy as the beads of fresh rain on the hood; she was a woman driven--fueled by a single accelerant--and she needed a man, a man who wouldn't shift from his views, a man to steer her along the right road, a man like Alf Romeo.
--Rachel E. Sheeley, Williamsburg, Indiana (1988 Winner)

Professor Frobisher couldn't believe he had missed seeing it for so long--it was, after all, right there under his nose--but in all his years of research into the intricate and mysterious ways of the universe, he had never noticed that the freckles on his upper lip, just below and to the left of the nostril, partially hidden until now by a hairy mole he had just removed a week before, exactly matched the pattern of the stars in the Pleides, down to the angry red zit that had just popped up where he and his colleagues had only today discovered an exploding nova.
--Ray C. Gainey, Indianapolis, Indiana (1989 Winner)

Dolores breezed along the surface of her life like a flat stone forever skipping across smooth water, rippling reality sporadically but oblivious to it consistently, until she finally lost momentum, sank, and due to an overdose of fluoride as a child which caused her to lie forever on the floor of her life as useless as an appendix and as lonely as a five-hundred-pound barbell in a steroid-free fitness center.
--Linda Vernon, Newark, California (1990 Winner)

Sultry it was and humid, but no whisper of air caused the plump, laden spears of golden grain to nod their burdened heads as they unheedingly awaited the cyclic rape of their gleaming treasure, while overhead the burning orb of luminescence ascended its ever-upward path toward a sweltering celestial apex, for although it is not in Kansas that our story takes place, it looks godawful like it.
--Judy Frazier, Lathrop, Missouri (1991 Winner)

As the newest Lady Turnpot descended into the kitchen wrapped only in her celery-green dressing gown, her creamy bosom rising and falling like a temperamental souffle, her tart mouth pursed in distaste, the sous-chef whispered to the scullery boy, "I don't know what to make of her."
--Laurel Fortuner, Montendre, France (1992 Winner)

She wasn't really my type, a hard-looking but untalented reporter from the local cat box liner, but the first second that the third-rate representative of the fourth estate cracked open a new fifth of old Scotch, my sixth sense said seventh heaven was as close as an eighth note from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, so, nervous as a
tenth grader drowning in eleventh-hour cramming for a physics exam, I swept her into my longing arms, and, humming "The Twelfth of Never," I got lucky on Friday the thirteenth.
--Wm. W. "Buddy" Ocheltree, Port Townsend, Washington (1993 Winner)

As the fading light of a dying day filtered through the window blinds, Roger stood over his victim with a smoking .45, surprised at the serenity that filled him after pumping six slugs into the bloodless tyrant that mocked him day after day, and then he shuffled out of the office with one last look back at the shattered computer terminal lying there like a silicon armadillo left to rot on the information superhighway.
--Larry Brill, Austin, Texas (1994 Winner)

Paul Revere had just discovered that someone in Boston was a spy for the British, and when he saw the young woman believed to be the spy's girlfriend in an Italian restaurant he said to the waiter, "Hold the spumoni--I'm going to follow the chick an' catch a Tory."
--John L. Ashman, Houston, Texas (1995 Winner)

"Ace, watch your head!" hissed Wanda urgently, yet somehow provocatively, through red, full, sensuous lips, but he couldn't you know, since nobody can actually watch more than part of his nose or a little cheek or lips if he really tries, but he appreciated her warning.
--Janice Estey, Aspen, Colorado (1996 Winner)

The moment he laid eyes on the lifeless body of the nude socialite sprawled across the bathroom floor, Detective Leary knew she had committed suicide by grasping the cap on the tamper-proof bottle, pushing down and twisting while she kept her thumb firmly pressed against the spot the arrow pointed to, until she hit the exact spot where the tab clicks into place, allowing her to remove the cap and swallow the entire contents of the bottle, thus ending her life.
-- Artie Kalemeris, Fairfax, Virginia (1997 Winner)

The corpse exuded the irresistible aroma of a piquant, ancho chili glaze enticingly enhanced with a hint of fresh cilantro as it lay before him, coyly garnished by a garland of variegated radicchio and caramelized onions, and impishly drizzled with glistening rivulets of vintage balsamic vinegar and roasted garlic oil; yes, as he surveyed the body of the slain food critic slumped on the floor of the cozy, but nearly empty, bistro, a quick inventory of his senses told corpulent Inspector Moreau that this was, in all likelihood, an inside job.
--Bob Perry, Milton, Massachusetts (1998 Winner)

Through the gathering gloom of a late-October afternoon, along the greasy, cracked paving-stones slick from the sputum of the sky, Stanley Ruddlethorp wearily trudged up the hill from the cemetery where his wife, sister, brother, and three children were all buried, and forced open the door of his decaying house, blissfully unaware of the catastrophe that was soon to devastate his life.
--Dr. David Chuter, Kingston, Surrey, ENGLAND(1999 Winner)

The heather-encrusted Headlands, veiled in fog as thick as smoke in a crowded pub, hunched precariously over the moors, their rocky elbows slipping off land's end, their bulbous, craggy noses thrust into the thick foam of the North Sea like bearded old men falling asleep in their pints.
--Gary Dahl, Los Gatos, CA (2000 Winner)

A small assortment of astonishingly loud brass instruments raced each other lustily to the respective ends of their distinct musical choices as the gates flew open to release a torrent of tawny fur comprised of angry yapping bullets that nipped at Desdemona's ankles, causing her to reflect once again (as blood filled her sneakers and she fought her way through the panicking crowd) that the annual Running of the Pomeranians in Liechtenstein was a stupid idea.
Sera Kirk, Vancouver, BC (2001 Winner)

On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet-paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained.
Rephah Berg, Oakland CA (2002 Winner)

They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white . . . Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn't taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would have you
believe it does by coloring it differently.
Mariann Simms, Wetumpka, AL (2003 Winner)

She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight . . . summarily, like Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp's tail . . . though the term "love affair" now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism . . . not unlike "sand vein," which is after all an intestine, not a vein . . . and that tarry substance inside certainly isn't sand . . . and that brought her back to Ramon.
Dave Zobel, Manhattan Beach, CA (2004 Winner)

As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual.
Dan McKay, Fargo, ND (2005 Winner)

(Notice I used purple text for purple prose!)

Sympozium adds this one of his own:

"The Director of the library said, "Our new roof costs RM5 million, but I don't know how much we spent on books. But a roof OVER our heads is more important than what's IN our heads." :-)))

A Journey Through Yoga

Some months ago I got a phone call out of the blue from an American guy called David Byck who said he needed some editorial help with a book.

Now I'm not the world's most enthusiastic editor (I hasten to add before you all start sending manuscripts my way!) and when I heard that the book was about yoga, a subject I know next to nothing about (apart from some embarassing attempts in classes where everyone else seems to be made of India rubber and me of precast concrete), I wasn't at all sure I was the person for the job.

I tried to pass him on to Starlight, who is both editor and advanced yoga practitioner (and by some strange synchronicity they bumped into each other a few days later and she also ended up helping with the book!) but in the end I agreed to at least read the manuscript and scribble down some notes.

I'm glad I did because I found It's a Long Way to the Floor a very enjoyable and engaging read, which feels like a conversation with a friend. (I had very few changes to suggest.)

Yes, it's about yoga and I don't do yoga ... for much the same reasons David rejected yoga in the beginning. I feel stupid and inadequate trying to bend myself into the easiest positions. David struggled with every pose too. He was in his forties, couldn't even touch his toes when he began and suffering from stress related illness which played havoc with his metabolism. And he was initially sceptical about what yoga could do for him. There were points of identification for sure!

Yet, week by week as he struggled with the classes, he found that not only was his body becoming increasingly flexible, and his health improving, but yoga was changing his whole outlook on life, teaching him patience and humility and increasing his spiritual awareness (to his great surprise since this wasn't a benefit that he had looked for in the first place!).

Anyway, today there was a package waiting for me, and inside a copy of the book, which looks beautiful. There's David's smiling face on the cover (which Starlight had a hand in) and both of us are acknowledged inside, which is great! It isn't a how-to book, so there aren't photos of yoga poses, but I love the creative use of watermarks showing the various positions, behind the text.

The book has an American publisher and was printed in India, and it's available at Amazon.

Much more about it on David's website, and read what Starlight said about the book when she first read it back in March.

I may ... you know I may just ....

... because David has demolished every excuse I'd put in place for not persevering with yoga!

The Sex Life of David Herbert

Lady Chatterley's Lover created a storm of controversy when it was first published: never before had any novelist written so frankly about sex. And the book remained banned in Britain for three decades until the famous obscentity trial at the Old Bailey in 1960. (It's apparently still banned in Malaysia where the censors haven't woken up to the fact that it is pretty mild fare compared to much of the fiction that's on our shelves!)

But what was Lawrence's own sex life like?

In this fascinating article from the Guardian Doris Lessing talks about Lawrence's sexual relationship with his wife, Frieda, and how the tuberculosis he suffered from while writing Lady C. heightened his sexuality and its feverish imaginations but at the same time cruelly caused impotence.

Lawrence lived in an era that "was sexually ignorant to the point these days that it is hard to rmember it or understand it" and Lessing claims that Lawrence was clued up about some aspects of sex, but totally ignorant about others. (I leave which and what for you to discover!)

Lady Chatterley's Lover for all it's reputation for being a racy read, a smutty book, is a beautiful novel about the power of sex to redeem the human spirit, and I was much moved by it when I read it as a teenager going through my Lawrence phase and feeling that no writer before had ever come so close to understanding what I felt. Lessing tells this wonderful story about another reader greatly affected by it:

I once owned a farm cottage on the edge of Dartmoor and I often drove up and down from London, giving lifts, as in those days we thought nothing of it. Once, coming up from Devon, I stopped near Salisbury Plain, where they train soldiers, to give a lift to a very young soldier who I at once saw was in an unusual state of mind. He was flushed, smiling, could not stop talking, sometimes exploding in a young laugh, surprising himself and me. He was in love. Scarcely conscious of me, the middle-aged woman driving him up to London and his true love, he had to talk, had to tell someone ... he wished he could tell me how he felt, he didn't have the words, but did I know this book here? And he brought out a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover. A friend had given it to him, saying it was all about love, and yes, he was right, this friend, he had never read anything like it, well, he wasn't really a reader, actually this was the only book he had ever read. But he had read it several times, and kept finding new things in it. Had I read it? he wanted to know, and if not I must look out for a copy. Then I would understand what he was feeling now ... and there he sat, all the way to London, Lady Chatterley's Lover in his hand, smiling, laughing.

First Folio

The price is a bit steep for a well-thumbed second-hand book with scribblings in the margin.

£2.8 million!

Simon Finch, a London book dealer based in Mayfair, is now the proud owner of a copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, published just seven years after the playwright's death in 1623, the Guardian reports.

A Nation That Reads ...

Last November it was announced that the government was about to launch a huge campaign to encourage reading among the young. In today's Starmag Daphne Lee reveals that it was flagged off last week. (Did anyone hear about it?)

Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim (left), in partnership with the Education Ministry and the National Library, has decided that this year’s reading campaign will last five years instead of the usual one month:

The campaign’s theme is Bangsa Membaca, Bangsa Berjaya (a nation that reads is a nation that succeeds).

“A month is hardly enough time for a reading campaign to get started. It’s too short a time to see any progress and there is also no time for the public to participate in activities,” says Dr Rais.

He adds that the campaign will last throughout the Ninth Malaysia Plan (2006-2010) and that RM40mil to RM50mil has been allocated for the entire campaign, which works out to RM10mil a year.

“We will target everyone regardless of age and make the campaign a platform for public participation. Reading of all kinds of material will be encouraged – novels, non-fiction works, magazines, newspapers – in any language. It is all equally beneficial.”

So how do you get people to read more? Dr. Rais admits that books have to be made more affordable and promises to investigate duty issues and ways of reducing local printing costs.

He also acknowledges too the role that must be played by public libraries but laments that many are not well stocked (though I am pretty sure this is an area the government will be targetting). But there are some problems you can't throw money at: librarians need to play an active role in encouraging communities to read, but Rais suspects (most probably quite rightly) that they themselves do not read and therefore are not equipped to do a good job.

(Daphne's chat with National Library’s Director-General, Dr Haji Wan Ali Wan Mamat is ... erm ... revealing.)

Daphne highlights some very effective reading campaigns for children in other parts of the world from which we can surely draw important lessons and interviews Margaret Hamilton director of the Children's Book Council of Australia about the excellent work carried out by the organisation.

..it takes much more than book fairs, theme songs and bright ideas to get children reading

says Daphne. Now if she were spearheading this campaign ...

Self-Serving Great Grandmother's Dishes

MPH Writer's Circle today and it was nice to have Oon Yeoh back in the driver's seat.

The topic was self-publishing. Azizi Ali talked about his self-publishing venture first. This was pretty much a repetition of what he said in a session last year but I guess he was trying to drum up support for his seminar How to Write a Best-Seller in 88 Days. (Why 88? Why not 30 or 153? Think Chinese numerology lah!)

Best piece of info from Azizi - the most important page of your book is the back cover, since research has shown that readers spend an average of 3 seconds looking at the front cover and 8 seconds looking at the back.

I was much more interested in hearing about Shirley Zecha's part family-history, part cookbook My Great Grandma Never Left Our Kitchen. Shirley talked about how family recipes (a unique blend of Indonesian/Dutch/Chinese/Nyonya influences) had been passed down the generations from her great-grandmother to her grandmother, to her aunt and finally to her. Four women who lived in different eras were united in their passion for food.

But it took a fifth woman to bring the book to fruition: Shirley's daughter Claudine realised that the recipes and stories were not just a family treasure in danger of being lost forever since she isn't a cook herfelf, but of much wider cultural relevance.

She put the book together and became the publisher. ("I'm only the cook," said Shirley, modestly.) After consulting cookbook publishers who seemed to have very set ideas about what a cookbook should look like, she decided to self-publish to have more control over the finished product and the process of putting it together.

Claudine says she managed to find the right team of people to edit and design the book (her background in advertising clearly came in useful), and all the cooking was done at home over 10 days, working from early moring till late night. The photos of the dishes, taken in and around the house, are absolutely mouthwatering and I couldn't bear to look at them because it was too near lunch time!

Claudine was pretty shrewd about approaching newspaper and magazine editors so that articles about the book appeared in the press, particularly at times of the year when interst was likely to be greatest, for example, Mother's Day. Cookery demos at MPH created more interest. Hotels in Malaysia were persuaded to stock copies, and HSBC adopted it as a corporate gift, which boosted sales. The book has sold about 3,000 copies so far and can also be found in London at Books for Cooks.

I'd love the book for the slice of Malaysian and Indonesian history it serves along with the food.

(Incidentally, while we're on the subject of putting cookbooks together, I was fascinated to read Starlight's behind-the-scenes-account of her current project ...)


Below is a picture I snapped this afternoon of Aneeta Sundararaj signing a copy of Snapshots! for me. Looking forward to reading it.

The Muse Works in Crowds

Bibi put her finger on it last night in the writing class when she asked why it seems so much effort to write when you're alone, yet when there's a group of you writing together from the same starting point, the words just flow.

I see this happen time and time again, and I love how fresh and surprising the pieces scribbled in just a few minutes in the company of friends invariably are. I used to meet my friends on Friday nights for a beer and scribble session, either in someone's house or a restaurant. (Didn't we get some funny looks!) Some of us were pretty motivated writers flying solo during the week, one or two didn't put pen to paper between meetings. But when we got together, took a random writing prompt (a word from a dictionary, the first line, a picture) and wrote at speed (a whole story in five, ten, twenty minutes!) there was a strange synergy that seemed to attract stories to our notebooks. Saras' short story which appears in the next Silverfish collection got written this way one magical evening at Leah's house. (Leah and I were both very happy with our pieces too!)

And here's something I wrote way back about one of our meet-ups in the early days:

The electricity was off in Soo Choon's house, which gave us a wonderful excuse to sit in the garden and write by the combined light of two torches and a candle. The simplest writing exercises are often the most fun. I'd brought a little pocket dictionary with me and we took it in turns to open it at random and read out the first noun on the page, which was our starting point for writing for three exhilerating minutes. Four people. Four words. Twelve minutes of frantic scribbling. And then we took turns to read out what we'd written. It was amazing how differently everyone had interpreted the words, and what a variety of images leapt from the mind. We were all off in completely different directions, with images and anecdotes and the start of stories that might yet be written. Mercy had chosen to follow one character, a sculptor, through all four of the prompts. "How come I've stared at my notebook all week and not been able to write a thing" said Saras "but the minute we all sit down together my pen can't keep up with my thoughts?"

Judy Reeves in Writing Alone, Writing Together (a book that influenced me a great deal) notes the same phenomena in action:

During writing practice groups, prompts are given and from these few words, stories, poems and essays and scenes from novels get written right then and there. At least first drafts that flare up wild as prairie fires or emerge soft as twilight in September. Seeds are sown, characters appear (and disappear), ideas take root, and notebooks get filled. Something else happens, too. A certain and electric current of connection, not just from one writer to another, but one human to another. ... Some call it the creative force. Magic. I say that the muse likes to work in crowds. Something happens when we write together that - if you trust it and go with it - can take the writing and the writer to unexpected, surprising places of memory and imagination.

You don't need much to make this happen ... a couple of friends, a space, a notebook, and a prompt for a starting point ...

Oh ... and a beer is nice.

The Floating Bookshop

Caving Liz e-mailed to ask if I was going to Port Klang to buy cheap books.

Now, I thought the poor girl'd taken leave of her senses. (Spelunking or whatever cavers do plays havoc with the brain cells, probably.) The words "Klang" and "books" just don't collocate. Ask Lydia who drives miles to Payless when she needs a fix.

But it seems that Liz was right. Books there are aplenty. And they're on board a ship!

Doulos is the world's oldest active ocean-going passenger ship, and was purchased by a Gute Bücher für Alle e.V. (Good Books for All), a private, non-profit, charitable organisation registered in Germany. Basically it serves as a floating bookfair, visiting port cities around the world, "supplying vital literary resources" to communities that don't usually have access to them. (Backward places like Klang).

It carries a stock of half a million books and 4,000 available titles which:

cover a wide range of subjects, such as science, sports, hobbies, cookery, the arts, economics and medicine ... The books have been carefully chosen to cater to interests of all ages, and keeping in mind the educational, social and moral needs of the local community. A large selection is devoted especially to children. Local language materials supplement the vast array of English books. The books are offered at a fraction of their retail value.

For more information, browse the website. Doulos is in Port Klang until August 1st.

I might have to go suss this out!

Nine Lives, Six Days

Caught napping! Ted has posted up the results of the Utusan Group Literature Prize 2005, which he got from Nisah. (I just should retire, haha!)

Biggest congrats to all the winners. Hope the win leads to great opportunities for you. Congrats too to Utusan for taking the intitiative to promote local writing.

I'm particularly happy for third prize winner in the English novel section, Teoh Choon Ean who writes under the pen-name Cean and has had several short stories published. (The Fan was in Silverfish New Writing 1 and we ended up doing readings together, so we know each other from back then.)

I got a very excited e-mail from her a few days ago. She knew that she had won one of the prizes for her novel Nine Lives, but not at that point which one. She says that she had had an idea for a novel which she had "outlined to death" and got bored with. Then, she says:

I threw it away and decided to sit down with a one-liner idea and write from the heart. ... with only a week left of the contest I got desperate, sat down in front of the computer and typed nonstop almost for six days keeping an eye on the page counter and promptly stopped at 150 pages (minimum number of pages in the rules) after adjusting margins a bit. Being an incorrigible procastinator, I learnt to survive under pressure. ... However I have never written a novel and decided to do a kind of transition from a short story writer. So I strung together 9 people's stories with a linking idea and voila the novel called Nine Lives. I liked my story so much that if I had not won I would have endeavoured to get it published.

I'm so happy for you, Cean, and I hope that you will get this book published (though having written it in six days, you might want time to erm ... revise it just a little!)

I'd be very interested to know about the other winners ...

(And see, Ted, you got the story first, but I got the human interest angle. Maybe I won't retire!)

Related Posts

Writers! Dont Say No-one Ever Does Nuffink for You! (30/5/05)
Recognising Local Writers (18/8/05)

Rhino Extinction

A moment's tribute to a brave local publishing venture that sadly went belly-up a few years back ... apparently because of problems with distribution.

Do you remember the Black & White series produced by Rhino Press? If your memory needs jogging, you can still find copies of these mini-books at Silverfish. (Snap them up, they might become valuable ...)

Rhino Press, was founded by Bernice Chauly and Fay Khoo, and the titles of the first ten little books were:

Kamal and
Nadiah Bamadhaj Aksi Write

Bernice Chauly Going There and Coming Back

Mahani Gunnell Mother Material

Rahel Joseph Beginnings

Fay Khoo A Little Book of Love And Loss

Jit Murad 2 Things

Mira Mustapha Speak Louder! Darling

Dain Said Surabaya Johnny

Aziz Salim A Stroll Through The Other Forest

Dina Zaman night & day

I bought my books from Guardian Pharmacy in BSC (in the days when they still sold books - remember?), and read them over a coffee. after shopping. They were just the right length for a coffee break. Cost just RM6.99. And made my heart happy because they captured on the page the Malaysia I recognised. For the first time.

I particularly loved Dina Zaman's Night & Day, recognised some of the characters in it (including my egg lady!) from the streets around Central Market.

Some of these writers are still going strong (Dina, Jit, Bernice) but I wonder what happened to the rest?

Zizou Zeitgeist

Goodness - performance poet John Hegley is really on the ball with his Zinner the Sinner.

Tractors R Us

Our reading group met last night to consider A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. Muntaj made us a delicious supper of string hoppers and chicken curry and brinjal and a coconut gravy called sothy. (Thank goodness we don't theme the food to go with the book as some reading groups apparently do: we'd have been eating boil-in-the-bag food!)

Sham led the session, telling us all she had uncovered about Marina Lewycka (I think she took her material from this interview on Three Monkeys). Then the discussion was thrown to the floor. The verdict? Most had really enjoyed the book and found parts of it hilarious. (Myself among them.) The rivalry between the sisters, the difficulties of dealing with elderly parents ... we could all identify with these. We were impressed by the way Lewycka is able to explore serious issues (immigration, aging, abuse) in a book that was so entertaining.

Our little group continues to thrive. We don't get everyone at every meeting but generally 10-12 people turn up which is just about right. (Our numbers swelled to 17 when we did The da Vinci Code and really that felt too many.) We're in our sixth year now, which is some achievement. We did think that we were the longest running reading group in Malaysia, until I discovered that the group Glenda belongs to has been going for 30 years!!!

We've lost Krishna though. Our one and only bloke has changed jobs and has to work nights now. We did have a brief "Oh now he isn't here we can say what we like about him" moment. but our hearts weren't in it, and we missed his wit and wisdom. Sandra, one of our founder members is moving to be with her husband in Langkawi and we'll miss her presence very much indeed. But we have some great new members ...

So Why Bother?

... So much that in reality is simply 'given' has to be decided when you're writing fiction. Facts have to be represented by pseudo facts, labouriously invented and painstakingly described. The reader must memorize these facts in order to follow your story, but they are flushed away almost as soon as the book is finished, to make room for another story. Before long, nothing remains in the reader's memory but a name or two, a few vague impressions of people, an indistinct recollection of the plot, and the general sense of having been entertained, or not as the case may be. It's frightening to think how many novels I must have read in my lifetime, and how little I retain the substance of most of them.

From Thinks by David Lodge

Isn't that just so true? Do you ever feel scared by how quickly the details of a book leach away from you? How much do you actually retain in your head of your favourite books?

Shirley Zecha for Writers Circle

MPH Writer's Circle meets this coming Saturday, 15th July in the Booker Room of MPH 1 Utama.

The topic is self-publication and the main speaker is Shirley Zecha, author of The Zecha Heritage Cookbook: My Great Grandma Never Left Our Kitchen.

If you'd like a place, please call Customer Service at 03-7726 9003 or email csoneutama@mph.com.my.

Homeric Sex Change?

Homer (the writer of the Iliad and the Odyssey, not Bart's daddy!) could well have been a woman, The Australian reports. Expert in oral literature Andrew Dalby says:

There is no direct evidence of the poet's identity and therefore no justification for the customary assumption that the two epics were composed by a man. ... Women have a long tradition worldwide as makers of oral literature ...

Now wouldn't that just be a turn up for the books!

Promoting Your Book Online

Of interest to those of you with books out, or in the pipeline, and a small or non-existent promotional budget.

Anthony Thornton tells in the Times how he promoted his book The Libertines: Bound Together by adopting the same strategies on the internet as the band he was writing about. He had no advertising campaign and says there was no guarantee that his book would get any media coverage at all. But by working to make friends on the web, Thornton managed to hit Amazon's Top Ten bestselling pre-orders!!

(Writing articles about writing your book is another excellent promotional tool. And no doubt I've just done my bit for his cause too by blogging this. )

More Best Holiday Reads

See, this is the time of year the Brits go on holiday to do some serious reading on a beach somewhere.

So the Telegraph has a list of best books to pack and if that's not enough for you, the Sunday Times features its 100 best holiday books, with 50 works of fiction, and 50 of non-fiction.

A few books make both lists including Digging to America by Anne Tyler, Everyman by Philip Roth, and Theft; A Love Story by Peter Carey

Life's too short. Purse's too empty. Oh dear.

Related Post

Life's a Beach (21/6/06)