Twan and Tash the Litera-nauts

I haven't blogged about a lot of great stuff in past issues of Off The Edge, partly I think because I feel so guilty about not having written anything for it in quite a while, other stuff getting in the way. (So sorry, Jason.)

This issue brings Ann Lee's piece about our two literary space pioneers, Tash Aw and Tan Twan Eng. (I'm sure you can work out which is which in the cartoon!) This piece, putting both authors and their work side by side was positively aching to be written.

And as Ann points out quite rightly, getting onto the Booker longlist is a far harder feat for Malaysians to achieve than being sent off into space:

After all, you can still pay for that to happen.

The astronaut analogy works very well, with Tash as:

... the Neil Armstrong of Malaysian authors hitting the high numbers of international readers.

As Ann notes too, it's a real shame that there has been no official acknowledgment of their achievement (a phone call from the PM would have been nice!), and the academic community haven't quite yet got round to highlighting their achievements either. Are their works too recent to be considered real literature, perhaps?

I enjoyed Ann's reviews of the two books very much, and found myself agreeing with much she said, as well as enjoying the way she writes. (Hurray for this magazine which gives reviewers the space to do a decent job.)

There's some lovely ephemera about Twan in an accompanying column, especially about his early love of Enid Blyton. (Hey, I loved Mallory Towers too!). There's also a I'd-laugh-if-it-wasn't-so-bloody-tragic column detailing just how hard it is to track down a copy of The Gift of Rain in various branches of MPH. (Remember Glenda's lament?)

There's much else that's really good in the magazine. Siti Nurhaliza looks natural and gorgeous in Vinod J Nair's photographs. Nazim Isa's photographs of the Roma of Sulukule are fascinating. I missed Sharon Chin's exhibition on banned books and am grateful for the pictures and review. Amir Muhammad's Malaysian Politicians say the Darndest Things gets a two page plug. And Ann Lee pops up again reviewing the Ubud Writers' and Readers' Festival and I get to hear about some of the bits I missed.

And much much more ... including one ad I think many of you will be interested in. Time Out, that icon of London culture has been steadily extending its' reach to other world capitals, is now coming to Kuala Lumpur and is looking for freelance journalists and contributors!

Postscript

Irene Q has problems finding the books she wants at MPH too. Book retailing is one of the trickiest businesses to be in, which is why it requires really on the ball staff!

Borrowing Borrow

Farrs,
Sutton,
Nr Pulborough

Sunday

My Dear Jack,

You will no doubt be disppointed to find that this beautiful parcel of books is not a handsome present but more of a repaid loan - borrowed Borrow, for which I am extremely grateful. When you eventually read my estimate of the Gypsy gent I hope that you won't regret that you helped me to make it.

I am looking forward greedily to revisiting the glimpses of Lovell's Farm - it will be too late, I'm afraid, to pick up windfall apples or plant tomato-plants by the wrong method, but that will leave all the more time for chatter.

Meanwhile,

Love to both you you

from both of us

and many thanks again for Borrow.

Martin

I found this letter between the pages of a second-hand book I bought from a dingy bookshop in Charing Cross, George Borrow's The Bible in Spain. I'd been trying to track down a copy for some time, but the book was long out of print. It's a fascinating tale about Borrow's journey through Spain at time when travel was perilous, and even more so because of Borrow's clandestine mission which struck right at the heart of the hegemony of the Catholic church. He had copies of the bible in Spanish to give away. Before that the only people who could read the bible were the priests: the bible was in Latin, a language ordinary folks didn't speak. To put direct access to the words of God into the hands of lay people was to give them a power that the church would never again be able to take back.

I wanted the book though, because it was another piece of a jigsaw I'd been trying to complete. I was fascinated to learn about the Romani people (gypsies). Borrow, the original "Romani rye" (gentleman) certainly had access to secret inside information about the Romanichal (British gypsies)- some have speculated that he might have been romani himself. While Borrow was travelling across the Iberian peninsula, he tracked down local gypsies and researched their language (he was an incredible linguist and spoke something like 28 languages fluently) and chronicled their hardships.

So, a letter between the pages dating from 1899. Dear Jack is John Lochhead RBA - he his name is signed the flyleaf. I did some searching on the internet this and found that he was a very well known artist in Victorian times, though his paintings of rural scenes are too chocolate-boxy for my taste. I wonder if Martin's article was ever published.

It's nice to know who owned the book before you did. To feel the pleasure of reading passed on.

New books are lovely, but antiquarian books with the patina of previous ownership are special indeed. And if ever I am rich enough I will hoard them.