Tuesday, August 30, 2005

 

Buying books

Ai hai...It's been quite a while...but I'm back....I've been spending a fair bit of money lately on books... at the recent KL International Book Fair and TIMES warehouse book sales… there were so many cheap ( or as some people prefer to term it as “cost effective” ) but high quality books esp at the TIMES book sales and it really drives me crazy... and made a heavy dent on my pocket too...I'm addicted to Art, also books and a few other things beside...I'm cataloguing my recent acquisitions and will list it here sometimes...may be…

It's heaven...I got to buy all those recent Booker Prize winners and short listed books for RM8.00 each at TIME Warehouse sales....unbelievable....Yellow Dog by Martin Amis, Line of Beauty -Alan Hollinghurst (Booker winner 2004), Life of Pi- Yann Mantel (Booker winner 2002?), the Swimming Pool Library-Alan Hollinghurst's first novel, The Master -Colm Toibin, Cloud Atlas -David Mitchell , etc etc..Dairy of a Snail -Gunther Grass, and lots more...Tibor Fisher, Kafka...Mario Vargas Lhosa Jose Saramago Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom.....etcAnd lots of non fiction...biographies ,...especially happy to get Karen Armstrong's memoir /biography ..The Spiral Staircase, Paul Auster's Hand to Mouth (not a good bio , or just not to my taste) ..diaries of Kenneth Tynan etc…And some art books too!!....And many travel books...speaking of which...I recently travelled to Bangkok …ostensibly for biz but in fact just want to see the country …so I drove up to Chieng Mai, from there up again to Chiang Rai and right up to Mae Sai the Border town with Myanma and even had a quick crossing to the Myanma side at Ta Chi Lek…

What surprised me most is how good the highway and roads are all the way from Bangkok to Mae Sai… and didn’t see any poor houses or squalor as I half expected…on the contrary there are even some fine houses even in the remotest areas along the highway ...I was told that these fine houses are thanks to the money sent to the parents by the girls who work in go go bars in Bangkok and all over the world…. So there are good things in prostitution after all…..

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

 

Eccentric protagonists

I suppose by definition all protagonists in good books are eccentrics one way or another....all characters in fictions by American satirist Kurt Vonnegut are loony. Oskar, the dwarf hero who refused to grow up and banging the tin drum all day long is an eccentric...he's of course the main character in "The Tin Drum" by Gunther Grass. One of the craziest eccentrics I've ever come across is the chess mad protagonist in Elias Canneti's one and only great novel "Auto Da Fe"...Holden Caulfield is depressingly loony...He's the hero in "the cather in the rye" of course...all characters in one of the greatest children books I've ever read...alice in wonderland ...are marvelously loony...

But what I want to tell you is this book that I'm currently reading..."The underground man" by Mick Jackson. I don't know anything about this author and I discovered the book at a junk sale (Amcorp mall) and bought it for RM4.00. What attracted me to the book is the short blurb...Shortlisted for Booker Prize 1997....and now I'm reading it and have to put the others that I'm also currently reading on hold... and it says something about "The Underground Man" if I have to keep aside "Atomised" by Heullebecq , "The Line of Beauty " by Alan Hollinghurst, "The word According to the Son " by Norman Mailer (fictional account by Jesus of his life) "Among the Thugs" (Non fiction about football hooligans) by Brufford and "Dream Catcher" by Margaret Sallinger (autobiography/memoir)....

The protagonist in this book is definitely loony... an old ugly but lovable duke living in a big mansion in a large estate in 19th century and with very amusing err.. musing....the book started with him thinking about apple trees...and it hooked me from the start...not what I would call a heavy reading but very nice feeling to it... his line of musings are things that I can identify with...nothing grandiose but v. funny....the book lost to Arundhaty Roy's "the god of small thing" for Booker prize....which I have but have yet to read...

And one small post script... a couple of years ago, while in line at the immigration check point at Bangkok Airport...I saw Suhaimi Baba the film director in front of me...and she was reading "The God of small thing" while waiting for her turn to get her passport cleared... she was on her way to get her film (can't remember which one) processed or something in Bangkok....seems like she has good taste in reading..........

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