I asked you a couple of days ago what you are reading and it's only fair I should reciprocate! I have a fair bit of catching up to do here. Here's a start.
The book I've enjoyed most recently is far and away No-one Belongs Here More than You, Miranda July's funny, sad, startling collection of short stories that won the Frank O'Connor last year. You may remember that the book comes with different coloured covers so that you can coordinate your copy with your clothes. I bought mine via Abebooks and got a bright green copy which clashed a bit with my wardrobe. (Just read on Eric's blog that he found copies at MPH Midvalley but he doesn't say what colour.)
Often bordering on the bizarre, these 16 stories of lonely misfits, injured by life, aching for love and acceptance would really hurt to read, but the characters are survivors, buffered by their rich fantasy lives.
The protagonist of Shared Patiolongs to write for a magazine advice column and the story is sprinkled with offbeat advice. She builds fantasies around her neighbour which she gets close to fulfilling when he has an epileptic fit on the shared patio one day.
In Swim Team a woman coaches a swimming team comprising old people in her apartment and without the aid of water (although she does provide them with bowls when they need to practice breathing exercises!)
A woman dreams of an erotic encounter with Prince William in Majesty and awake plots how she might meet him.
In The Sister A lonely man is set up on a date with a colleague's sister who never turns up, and turns out never to have existed. Perhaps it doesn't matter in the end.
It's hard to pick a favourite, but Something That Needs Nothing is a love story that broke my heart. This Person is about how we will always go on sabotaging ourselves is as perfect a short short story as they come, and you can read the whole thing here.
I wonder it everyone reading the book will find themselves reflected in this book. Do you feel as lonely, as out of sync with the world, as uncertain, as July's characters?
It's frightening to admit, but I do sometimes. I really do! And if you say yes too, I think I will look at you oddly (as of course you will have to look at me). Maybe this is the great unsayable - we aren't as together as we'd like the world to think we are.
But when you look at Miranda July, who successful, young and beautiful, everything her characters are not, you wonder how the hell she channels these voices!
I feel like turning the book over and beginning it all over again. This is a collection that is staying on my writing desk to stir up my slothful own muse.
Here's a video from a really fun literary event organised around the book by Strangers in Seattle, and you can hear the author reading excerpts that are bound to have you rushing out for the book.
Just make sure you coordinate clothes and handbag and shoes.
Every business on which the development will have an impact – from booksellers, publishers and e-tailers – will be watching how UK consumers take to e-book readers ...
the Bookseller notes while Graeme Neill on the Bookseller blog considers the knock-on effect for the British publishing industry, and wonders what Amazon.com will do now - they have thus far refused to discuss a UK launch date for the Kindle. (Are they playing a wait-and-see game?)
However, Neill points out :
... the most interesting thing that will happen over the 12 months is whether the public are convinced. A £199 price point is attractive to early adopters but according to our features editor Tom Tivnan, the only member of The Bookseller to use the device, it is clunky to use. With the likes of the Nintendo DS and iPod on the market, the public is used to beautifully designed products that scream 'must have'. Will the Iliad and Sony Reader capture the imagination in the same way?
John Sutherland muses about the advent on the ebook on the Guardian blog and its likely impact :
... my feeling is that the current batch of e-readers are still two electronic generations premature. We await the Model T. But the seed is sown, and we won't have to wait long - the market is too big not to be filled. Will it kill the traditional book? No more than TV killed the movies, or the movies killed the theatre. It will, of course, change the cultural constellation. But, having enjoyed 500 years of dominance, the codex book can't complain about taking a back seat for the next half millennium. ... What the e-reader means - in the not too distant future - is as much of a cultural explosion as the "rather unusual manuscript" brought with it in the 15th century. It's not a storage device but a portal, a Lewisian wardrobe, opening into new worlds. New possibilities in linkage and illustration will supplement facsimile type.
Sutherland's vision of the future of the ebook is just beautiful (and - ahem - similar to my own!) :
In a few years, you'll be able to hear the author's voice - should you so wish - or switch between script and oral versions, full-text or abbreviated text, or digest. You'll be able to "dialogue" the book, or its maker. Soundtracks will be as possible, and as enriching, as they are with movies. Media mix will create new realms of literary artistry. Perhaps even smells. ... In 20 years, we won't know how we lived without the thing.
And she ponders the sad fact that many people seem to look down on the genre :
For me, the thrill of my book’s having been sold outlasted my confusion over its classification. Then, as the publication date approached, I received a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. One morning in the dining room, another writer asked who was publishing my book; I told her that it was Random House, and that it was being published as young adult.
“Oh, God,” she said. “That’s such a shame.”
I couldn’t get her words out of my head. I spent a lot of time worrying about whether my book would be taken seriously. I noticed the averted gazes and unabashed disinterest of literary acquaintances whenever I mentioned my novel was young adult.
Again, I wasn’t alone. “There’s an enormous level of condescension towards Y.A. writing in the literary world,” said Martha Southgate, whose first novel, “Another Way to Dance,” was Y.A. She followed it with two adult novels. “My first book often gets literally left off my bio,” she said in a telephone interview.
Mark Haddon, who wrote numerous novels for children before “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” said in an e-mail message that he recalled “a number of people looking down their noses at me when I explained what I did for a living, as if I painted watercolors of cats or performed as a clown at parties.”
Many YA novels have of course made the cross-over, classic examples being Mark Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime, Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy, and the Harry Potter books. I really hope Margo Rabb's book does make it back over the border!
I'm going to be pretty busy today running a creative writing workshop for IKIM (my third). So I'm just going to leave you this space to tell us - what are you reading? And is it any good?
I promise that I will be back to answer the question myself later!
Take comfort (!) in the fact that Malaysia isn't the only country with dismal reading statistics. ('Tis indeed a world wide phenomena.) Turkey Zaman reports [found via] :
Statistics shows that most Turks do not read on a regular basis. In fact, the average Turk spends only $10 a year on books. According to the United Nations 2007 Human Development Report, Turkey ranks 101st among 177 countries for its level of adult literacy. While Turks spend an average of five hours a day watching television, they devote only six hours in an entire year to reading. Furthermore, only 4.5 percent of the population reported that they are regular readers.
The article talks about some initiatives aimed at getting people to read more. This I thought was great :
Some judges have also gotten into the act by ordering minor offenders to read books. Murat Şenol Demirci, who was convicted for firing shots into the air at a celebration of his friend's enlistment, was sentenced to reading four books every month for one year.
Not surprisingly, the offender seemed very happy with his punishment!
Here's an invite for you to an event you might enjoy which features art with a literary twist!
Dear Sharon,
Sharon Chin and I are having an art exhibition, "Chin Chai" (after our surnames), at Sek San's from 9 - 23 August 2008.
We'd love for you and your readers to come for the opening event on 8.8.08 at 8pm (Friday).
During the opening event, we'll be launching our accompanying book to the exhibition, also titled "Chin Chai". It features new writing by KL writer Simon Soon, Auckland-based artist Kah Bee Chow, some poetry by Sharon and a short fiction piece by myself. The book will be 'sold' by donation.
We're very excited about this and would appreciate people spreading the word about the exhibition and book launch. Attached below is the full press release with more info about the exhibition and ourselves.
Thanks, Sharon.
Regards, Lydia
Event: "Chin Chai"
Dates: 9 - 23 August 2008 (opening event 8.8.08, 8pm)
Venue: 67 Jalan Tempinis 1 Gallery, Bangsar, KL (see map)
"Chin Chai" is a joint exhibition by artists Sharon Chin and Lydia Chai. They met in art school and became friends. Now Sharon lives in Kuala Lumpur while Lydia lives in Auckland. In an ambitious series of drawings, installation and video, they explore ideas of distance and friendship in relation to artistic collaboration. "Chin Chai" is the invented landscape of two very different artists living far apart, engaged in conversation with each other and the world around them.
We warmly welcome you to the opening event on Friday 8 August 2008, 8pm, where an artist book will be launched in conjunction with the exhibition.
There will be a screening of Werner Herzog's "Mein liebster Feind" (My Best Fiend), followed by a discussion of the film and the exhibition on Saturday 9 August, 3pm.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Sharon Chin was born in Kuala Lumpur in 1980. Working with text and sculpture especially in site-specific installations, her work looks at how we negotiate geography, history, human relations and language in the contemporary imagination. Recent solo exhibitions include Fourth World at the Australian High Commission (2006) and SENSORS: Banned Books and Other Monsters (2007) at Central Market Annexe. She is the recipient of the Krishen Jit ASTRO Fund grant as well as Australian High Commission Visual Arts Residency. She also writes regularly on art.
Lydia Chai grew up in Petaling Jaya and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland, New Zealand, where she is now based. Her recent work ranges from chinese ink and watercolour paintings to socially interactive projects. These works are based on the form and idea of roots and footnotes, their rhizomic qualities, while extending the metaphor to relations between people. She recently exhibited in the group show Tell Me To My Face (2007) organized by The High Street Project and curated Footnotes: Walking Backwards Toward Meaning (2007) in Off The Edge magazine. She has her writings on art published now and then, while working on fiction privately.
A week or two back, I discovered that one of the people who had joined in the discussion on a post here was freelance book editor, Rob Redman. Never one to miss an opportunity, I persuaded him to write a post for us about what a freelance editor (sometimes, especially in the US called "a book doctor") actually does, and what you need to bear in mind when you choose one.
I reckon that this is very useful for those of you who write to know about, as good editors who can give you proper advice that will help you to develop your manuscript are few and far between in Malaysia.
Here's Rob's piece :
This is how the story goes. Freelance fiction editing began to bloom a couple of decades back, when downsizing publishers sacked many of their in-house editors. Publishers were now more reluctant to take on manuscripts that were in need of development, and there were dozens of experienced fiction editors in need of work. It was only a matter of time before those editors began to advertise their services directly to hopeful writers. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, where more prospective authors than ever before compete for the attentions of fewer publishing houses, hiring an editor is seen as one way to increase the chances of success.
I think this has led to a slight misconception regarding the role of freelance editors, and it's one that the less scrupulous editors are all too ready to exploit. You see, editors aren't really there to help you sell your book, but rather to help you improve it, to develop your abilities as a writer, and progress towards that point where you can sell your book for yourself. Personally, I'd say that 90% of the critiques I do are about helping writers in the early stages of their development, rather than polishing almost-perfect manuscripts before they're submitted to agents.
It's best to think of an editor is as a writing coach, and the process of the critique as a focussed writing course, based around your novel.
HOW TO CHOOSE A GOOD EDITOR
You'll find plenty of opinions online about what makes a good editor. All good editors should have worked in a publishing house, or have an MFA in creative writing, or have published novels themselves, or... Ultimately, that's all rubbish. Any one of those might be a good founding for an editor, or it might not. What you should look for in an editor are: an understanding of the way fiction works; genuine enthusiasm for your manuscript, whatever its level; a willingness to exchange ideas, an ability to communicate clearly; and a working knowledge of your genre, both in terms of the classics, and what's happening in the market now.
The best way to find out how an editor matches these criteria is to request a sample edit. Many editors offer these for free, others charge a token sum (say £10-£20, or US$20-40) for editing the first few pages of your manuscript. I don't think there's any harm in charging a token fee for this, as it does help to weed out time wasters, but be wary of anybody who charges anything more substantial, or doesn't offer a sample edit at all. (If you end up hiring the editor, you can often get the fee deducted from the price of the critique.)
Critiques themselves can vary hugely in terms of both price and style, so look closely before making your choice (and don't be afraid to ask questions). To give you an idea of the sort of differences involved, both of these are real critiques, from real editors: For a critique of a 70,000 word manuscript, Editor A charges £175, while Editor B charges between £525 and £700. Both critiques come with a report, of about 6-10 pages, which examine the manuscript according to a checklist of factors: character, plot, opening, language, etc. At first, it looks like Editor A is the one to go with, and editor B is some kind of shark.
However, Editor A actually farms its manuscripts out to subcontractors, to whom it pays about half its fee. These guys skim through the manuscript and then fill in the form in the space of an afternoon. Meanwhile, Editor B spends a week or two with each manuscript, annotating it throughout. After the critique, Editor B is available to discuss their comments, while Editor A is not. The services are entirely incomparable, but both have the same name. In fact, Editor B is the professional, and Editor A, well, I wouldn't hire them. This is one of the reasons why it pays to shop around, and to check the small print. The critiquing business is entirely unregulated, and the only way to know what you're getting is to ask, every time.
Here are some things to consider when shopping around for an editor:
Do they offer a sample edit? (either free or for a token payment) Do you get just a report, or a report and annotations to the manuscript? Is the editor available to discuss their suggestions with you after the critique? What's the editor's experience? Does the editor work in your genre?
(Regarding this last question, my website's called "The Fiction Desk", but I still get a surprising number of requests to edit non fiction. I've even had a request to edit a hip hop video!)
Don't ever hire an agent or a publisher for any kind of critique or reading. The same goes for self-publishing outfits, who have an interest in making you think your book is publishable when it may not be.
Draw up a shortlist of two or three editors who look like they meet your requirements. Send them an email asking for the sample edit, and don't be afraid to ask any other questions you might have. (Requesting more than two or three sample edits at a time isn't really fair, because these do eat into editors' workdays, but if your first round doesn't turn up anybody you'd like to work with, you can always try again with more editors.)
When the editors reply, they'll probably have some questions of their own, about your story, who you're writing for, that sort of thing. It really is worth trying to answer these, because they'll help the editor to do a better job for you. It's also worth getting into the habit of writing professional, responsive emails about your work, because you'll need to do this when you're looking for an agent or a publisher. Sometimes an editor will turn down the sample edit request, simply because it's not their genre. That's okay.
Once you've got your sample edits back, compare both the edits and the emails you've received, and decide whose working style suits you best. If none does, start looking for another couple of editors. (If you decide not to hire an editor, it's nice to send them a quick email to let them know, and to thank them for the sample anyway.)
If you find an editor you like, ask again to confirm the details of the edit, what you'll get and when, then sign up!
Rob Redman offers editing services and advice through his website, The Fiction Desk.
He has promised to drop by and answer any questions you may have about freelance editors, so please go right ahead and ask. And some of you might have experiences of your own to tell us about.
Burning books is the most extreme expression of censorship, isn't it? The book pyre an extremely emotive image. We think of the Nazi's burning works of philosophy and literature in 1933 (below), of the burning of Rushdie's The Satanic Verses in Bradford in 1989. (Wikipedia has a very detailed list of book burning incidents through history.)
So emotive and potent is the image in fact that here Sisters in Islam recently protesting censorship of books had images of books being burned on posters and postcards ... even though books have never been physically burned by the authorities here!
Australian antiquarian bookseller Matthew Fishburn was so fascinated by the fiery subject as his topic for his PhD thesis, which has now been published as Burning Books, and he says in an interview with The Australian that there are many other reasons beside censorship why books get burned.
Simply getting around the problem of disposal for unwanted books, is one example. Or folks making a symbolic gesture that they have moved on with their lives, as these lads are doing :
In modern times, as Fishburn notes, book burning has faded from the scene. Partly it's the improved technology of pulping. Partly it's that Goebbels has given the practice a bad name. Partly it's obsolescence: how do you burn an e-text? How will some future Caliph Omar be able to destroy the great Google Library (some five million texts), available to us (at a price) later this year?
The other day Uma raised the issue of why our published-to-critical-acclaim- overseas-Malaysian-authors :
... seemed to be everywhere else. To be anywhere but here.
The same is true of course of Indian authors. (And Pakistani authors, and Bangladeshi authors, and Sri Lankan authors, and Nigerian authors and ... the list goes on.)
The next time you walk into a bookstore to browse English books penned by Indian authors, try this little game. Turn to the author biography to see which continent he currently calls home. If you are pondering established names on the literary scene, chances are that nine times out of ten, you will hit upon the phenomenon of the Indian English writer in self-imposed exile.
She ponders the reasons for this, muses on the effects on the writing :
The multiculturalism evident in the works of émigré Indian writers is a result of the alienation they have suffered from both cultures, Indian and western, and their struggle to bridge the gap between the two. It is often because of the distance these writers must contend with between themselves and the milieu of their stories that a certain longing and sentimentality often creeps into their works. Though this element of nostalgia has often been debunked by the critics, it may well be seen as the hallmark of an emerging class of Indian writers.
And in the end recognises :
Whatever the reasons, the exile has done more good than harm to the Indian literary scene, with publishing houses and literary agencies setting up base in India, in recognition of the growing importance of Indian writing in the global scene. The press has been flooded for some years now with stories of major publishing houses like Penguin, HarperCollins and Random House flocking to India in expectation of a literary boom in the country. This in turn has helped many English writers living in India find good publishers and recognition for their work.
Not to mention of course the encouragement for writers inherent in seeing someone from your own part of the world succeed globally.
By the way, I take issue with Maurya saying that Hari Kunzru is an Indian author settled abroad! He was born in Britain and brought up in Britain, but yes has an Indian father! Does everyone need to be pigeon-holed neatly into boxes that identify them as exclusively this and that?
Don't challenge Salman Rushdie to a duel of the book-signing pen!
Wine writer Malcolm Gluck had the audacity to question whether Rushdie could possibly have signed as many books as he had claimed, or whether he had just scribbled his initials. According to Maev Kennedy in the Guardian :
Gluck's claimed record is 1,001 copies in 59 minutes, set at a wine warehouse in London in 1998. Gluck achieved this with the help of a team of three men, one fetching the copies, one opening them at the blank page, and another whisking the signed copies away.
Rushdie said he had signed 1,000 copies, on his most recent tour promoting the Enchantress of Florence, in a books warehouse in Nashville in 57 minutes.
A crack team of bookstore staff is apparently essential to facilitate the process and Rushdie is apparently right up there in the company of President Jimmy Carter, the novelist Amy Tan as one of the world's fastest book-signers. (Although the article adds that thriller writer Ken Follett could be a serious contender. He signed 2,050 copies in three-and-a-half hours at a book fair in Madrid earlier this year, beating his own record of 1,600 last year at a fair in Italy.) Btw, I really wish bookshops here would get authors to sign stocks of their books when they are in town! The only author who did this as far as I know was naughty Nirpal. Peter Carey was the biggest one (as far as I am concerned) who got away.
I enjoyed this piece on the Paper Cuts blog, but must confess I am of the same opinion as the commenter who contributes Randall Jarrell's definition :
A novel is a prose narrative of a certain length that has something wrong with it.
Some of the novels for which perfection or near perfection are claimed by blog readers here are The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lolita by Nabokov, David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green, As I Lay Dying by Faulkner, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee among many many others.
(I would perhaps have added Ian McEwan's Atonement, Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day and Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.)
This is an excellent list of reading recommendations and whether any of these books really are "perfect" or not doesn't really matter, does it?
(Pin-up boy is of course Robert Redford in The Great Gatsby. Luscious.)
Heavens above! Once again we have a single Saturday crammed with activity of the bookish kind. I'm talking about 26th which kicks off with MPH Breakfast Club (11.00a.m. to 12.30p.m.) featuring short story writer Robert Raymer, whose collection Lovers and Strangers Revisited has just been republished by MPH. (More about Robert and the event on Eric's blog.)
I've been hoping for some time that Sarawak based Robert would find his way back over here again soon, and that I would be able to nab him for Readings@Seksan. And so it has come to pass.
This then is the second great event of the day, running from 3.30-6 p.m.) and the poster will be up on this blog as soon as I have finalised the line-up (or as far as I can, given the inherent unpredictability of this kind of event!).
Saradha Narayanan will be at Silverfish at 5.30 p.m. to talk about a little about her experience with writing and then read selected passages from her book, Freedom of Choice. (Should be possible to hop from Seksan's to Silverfish in time to catch this if you need a double/treble dose of book events.)
Meanwhile, over at Rasta Restaurant in Taman Tun (5.30-8.30), the lovely Farish Noor launches his new book Dibalik Malaysia. The hilarious Harith Iskander will be MCing and there's food! (Click the poster up to full size to see details and map.)
Can you cram in four events in one day? This is the ultimate lit-lovers challenge.
Would your life be totally meaningless, worthless, hopeless and unbearable without it?
Do you dream of having your own poetry published so much so that you stay up late at night, night after night, writing your bestest poem ever?
Then you need PoetiKa!
JK
If you saw yourself in that intro, don't be shy about sending your work to Jerome and the other guy whose art you can see atop. The submission guidelines are here. There's also a Facebook group.
Claire Wigfall, the youngest writer on the shortlist and a relative unknown, has won the BBC's National Short Story award with The Numbers, which Lyndsay Irvine in the Guardian calls :
... an eerie tale of life on a remote Scottish island
Jane Gardam was named as runnerup for The People on Privilege Hill. The other shortlisted stories were Guidelines for Measures to Cope with Disgraceful and Other Events by Richard Beard; Surge by Erin Soros; and The Names by Adam Thorpe.
The award is the world's largest for a short story and worth £15,000, and all the shortlisted stories are to be compiled into a single volume by Short Books.
Kee Thuan Chye's play critically acclaimed new play The Swordfish, Then the Concubine :
A bitingly comic satire that blends ancient myth with contemporary politics. A highly theatrical production of an exciting epic.
is being staged in Singapore from Wednesday, August 6 to Sunday, August 10, 2008 at The Drama Centre, 100 Victoria Street, National Library Building Level 3.
The play is directed by Ivan Heng and accompanied by live orchestration by Gamelan Asmaradana.
This year's Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction has been won by In The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale, which takes for its subject a notorious 1860 murder case in which Saville Kent, a three year old child from a respectable middle-class family disappeared from his bed. His body was later found stuffed down the privy (outside toilet).
The Road Hill House murder provoked national hysteria, and inspired writers such as Charles Dickens and that great exponent of the Victorian sensation novel, Wilkie Collins.
Chair of Judges, Rosie Boycott described the book as:
... one of those great non-fiction books that uses the techniques of fiction to magnificent effect. On first reading, it is an absolute page-turner. Then, when you reread it, you realise how many levels it has, how much it tells you - about the founding of the police, the Victorian study of physiognomy, the inherent snobbery of the time that meant that the police wouldn't touch anyone from the upper classes, because they 'couldn't' have committed a crime. ... And then there's the way the case became a media event, in a very McCann-like way. The newspapers of the time started spinning stories of who might have done it.
There's a really whizzy website for the book, complete with interactive map of the house where the murders took place. And you can read an appetite-whetting extract here.
There was a very strong shortlist for this year's prize and the other books that were nominated are :
This year's Ubud Writers & Readers Festival will take place from the 14-19 October and has the theme Tri Hita Karana, which refers to Balinese concept of balancing Man, Nature, God.
There are plenty of literary superstars going to be there including Vikram Seth (be still my beating heart!), Indra Sinha, John Berendt, Camilla Gibb and Alexis Wright.
Malaysians will be out in force, represented this time by Preeta Samarasan, Chiew-Siah Tei, Faisal Tehrani, Amir Muhammad, and Bernice Chauly. Sharanya Manivannan, now living in India, is also invited.
Recently, I found such joy in Preeta Samarasan’s Evening is the Whole Day. A novel I had hastily purchased, at Heathrow Airport, while rushing to my departure gate. I knew nothing about it except that it had a pretty cover — orange and yellow and green and turquoise — I could not help but want it. It was only later, once I had settled comfortably into my seat, safely buckled in, when I realised that it was, in fact, written by a Malaysian.
Now I don’t know about you, but each time I pick up something by a Malaysian author, I am both excited and apprehensive. I hope for the best but expect the worst. Because when you ’ve had your heart broken as many a time as I have, you eventually learn to be a little cautious.
A caution that proved to be entirely unnecessary when it came to Samarasan’s effort. I finished it in one sitting.
Her rich and beautiful prose had me enthralled for most of the 13 hours that it took for me to get home.
But what, he asks, about the great Malaysian novelist?
I was looking at the biographies of some of our authors who have recently received wide and critical acclaim only to discover that they live in France, Glasgow, London and Cape Town. I began to wonder why they seemed to be everywhere else. To be anywhere but here.
Maybe it’s because what they do is so under-appreciated over here.
Maybe it’s because they had to leave the suffocating surroundings of their youth to be able to produce something so deep and unclouded.
Because for the grass to be greener on this side, you have to be on that side.
Then again, maybe it’s because we feel more Malaysian when we are abroad. We feel special. We feel unique. We feel one of a kind. So much so, that we gain more of ourselves when we are overseas than we ever do when we are at home.
Maybe it’s true what Theroux says, that “enlightenment will always involve the poetry of departures”.
I gave this matter some thought too, a while back.
The National Library has started a National Reading Club, launched July 1st, to help inculcate the reading habit among Malaysians, A. Kathirasen in the New Straits Times reports. The National Library has something to celebrate, it's membership has been rising steadily :
In 1990, it had 128,045 members, rising to 460,000 in 2001. The latest figure (as at July 5) puts it at 788,541.
And the Unity, Culture, Arts and Heritage Minister Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal apparently said at the event that he would propose to the government that civil servants be given a book allowance, and he wants the private sector to do likewise.
Throughout the article it's rubbed in once again that Malaysians are failing miserably at becoming readers :
According to the national book policy target, germinated in 1984, the nation should have achieved reading society status in 2000. We are eight years overdue; and, it seems, nowhere near the target. ... The findings of a National Library survey, Shafie said, showed that only 13 per cent of 27 million Malaysians read books. ... Surely it is an indictment of our collective apathy and the failure of the hundreds of reading campaigns and book exhibitions.
But as we've said before many times on this blog - What (hundreds of) reading campaigns? (As Kathirasen very tactfully puts it, there :
... has been an inability to sustain the momentum of campaigns.)
None of my blog readers seem to know anything about them. The only thing I've personally seen to indicate a campaign going on is a single poster in the library of a single sekolah rendah. Surely the evidence of a reading campaign should be everywhere? This is pretty serious when you realise that a lot of taxpayers money is being spent. (We are probably more aware of the efforts of our southern neighbours than we are of our own. And look how much fun they make reading!)
Kathirasen goes on :
The government even declared 1988 The Year of the Reader. The campaign saw a flurry of activity, including the establishment of reading committees everywhere. What became of them?
Who knew anything about these "reading committees"? What were they supposed to achieve? What is a reading committee anyway?
Ministers and directors-general ordered their underlings to set up reading corners in all federal, state and district government offices. There were calls to set up reading corners aboard trains and xpress buses, and in estates, factories and homes. What became of them?
Kathirasen gives some good suggestions for improving readership, but I do find it sad and depressing that hand-wringing articles like this appear in the newspapers at regular intervals. A lot of lip-service is paid, very little done that is effective.
I wish the National Library all the best with their National Reading Club, about which I cannot find any information on the internet beyond the fact of its launch. If there's anyone reading this who can enlighten us, please do get in touch and tell us about it.
Her original blog is down at the moment, probably because of the number of hits, but a temporary site was set up for her here. And what a joy she sounds! The news agency says:
Riley had posted more than 70 entries on her blog from Woy Woy on the east coast since February last year, sharing her thoughts on modern life and her experiences living through the entire 20th century. ... Born in the outback town of Broken Hill on October 20 1899, she lived through two world wars and raised three children while doing various jobs, including ranch cook and barmaid.
How many family stories do we lose because we never helped our parents and grandparents to tell them for us and future generations? Perhaps you have old folks in your own family who might enjoy blogging and need a little encouragment.
In a cold but stuffy bed-sitting room littered with cigarette ends and half-empty cups of tea, a man in a moth-eaten dressing-grown sits at a rickety table, trying to find room for his typewriter among the piles of dusty papers that surround it. He cannot throw the papers away because the wastepaper basket is already overflowing, and besides, somewhere among the unanswered letters and unpaid bills it is possible that there is a cheque for two guineas which he is nearly certain he forgot to pay into the bank. There are also letters with addresses which ought to be entered in his address book. He has lost this address book, and the thought of looking for it, or indeed of looking for anything, afflicts him with acute suicidal impulses.
I came across a reference to this piece by George Orwell in a comment left on the Guardian blog the other day, and it tickled me, as a sometime book-reviewer. (No lah, thankfully don't see much of myself in it - apart from the bit about the lost cheques!) And although it was written in 1946 there is still more than a grain of truth in it, especially :
The best practice, it has always seemed to me, would be simply to ignore the great majority of books and to give very long reviews — 1,000 words is a bare minimum — to the few that seem to matter. Short notes of a line or two on forthcoming books can be useful, but the usual middle-length review of about 600 words is bound to be worthless even if the reviewer genuinely wants to write it.
Sadly 600 words is the limit we are all to often told to write to in the local press, and it is very difficult as Orwell says, to do a decent job in that few words.
