Mostly Melancholy

This is no spicy literary pick-me-up perfumed by the kind of exoticism generally associated with the Indian subcontinent

first published in The Star, 21 October 2012


When buying books, warning flags to observe include author names that are bigger than the titles, "Winner of the Booker/Man Asian/Nobel/Whatever Prize" - "... brings a cool eye to friendship, love and the idea of belonging in its movements through old and new worlds..." - and abstract-sounding back cover blurbs.

The adult life of Leela Ghosh, the protagonist in Anjali Joseph's Another Country, begins in Paris, where she teaches English and goes about the business of negotiating "the world, work, relationships and sex" to find "some measure of authenticity".

The author once stated that Leela's migratory path mirrors her own: Joseph moved to Britain when she was seven because of her father's job; she lived in France for a year after graduating from Cambridge, teaching English at the famous Sorbonne; and she moved back to India, "a little accidentally", when she was 25.

It's hard to believe that Joseph's second novel is a complete work. Stretched across 31 short chapters, the collage of snapshots of Leela's largely uninteresting early 20s feels like an avant-garde art film in which details trickle in but never form a whole picture, even at the end.

Characters and places abruptly come and go, leaving nary a trace on the reader's mind or heart. Nothing strikes a chord with me. You can put the book down for a break and pick up where you left off easily.

As for the overall tone: "Sharp, funny and melancholy" says the back cover blurb? Mostly melancholy, methinks.

Leela's presence is almost as ephemeral as the rest of the supporting cast, an odd trait for a lead character. She strikes me as aloof, self-absorbed and a little mordant, radiating little warmth with her cloudy disposition and sterile, clinical observations of people and places as she flits from one chapter to another. One is hard-pressed to sympathise with her when, for instance, she gets thrown out of her boyfriend's flat at three in the morning.

But maybe we're not supposed to care too much.

In an interview, Joseph spoke of a kind of "unsettledness" which is probably felt by "a lot of people who live in many places and without a clear sense of how their own sense of self fits within national or regional boundaries". People such as Leela Ghosh and, perhaps, the author herself.

The displaced tend to feel disoriented; far away from home, comfort and stability are sought within the familiar while adjusting, during which some sights, sounds and such feel more important than the rest.

What's not important is blocked out, numbed down and closeted somewhere in the mind to fade away like a traveller's footprints on a beach.

The apparent gaps in the narrative seem to illustrate this but, overall, one feels rushed through a series of half-done dioramas in a museum exhibit put together by an impatient curator.

So the dry, barebones depiction of a young person's life in Another Country feels quotidian. Maybe that's the point – this is no spicy literary pick-me-up perfumed by the kind of exoticism generally associated with the Indian subcontinent. Real life for many of us already has enough drama, so why ramp it up into a full-budget Bollywood song-and-dance?

Joseph's open-ended tale of a migrant's journey would, perhaps, click better with other fellow wanderers: displaced, unsettled individuals seeking stability beyond their beginnings. However little one feels about this book, it's hard not to wish its protagonist all the best in her search for home and self.

For the world-weary wayfarer, there is no greater release than the feeling of coming home.


This review was based on an advance reading copy.

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Another Country

Anjali Joseph
Fourth Estate (2012)
265 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-00-746278-0

Late, Late News: Bring Up The Bodies And All That

I was holding out for the results of this year's Man Booker Prize before posting but, in the end, a Malaysian favourite lost out to a foreign heavyweight. Oh well....

Hilary Mantel's second Booker win for the sequel to her first, Wolf Hall, was apparently expected. Was the choice too obvious?

"I merely wanted novels that they would not leave behind on a beach," said Sir Peter Stothard, who led the judging panel and may have ticked off a bunch of book bloggers for what he reportedly said about them.

Leave a novel behind on a beach? La sir! Do you know how much they cost these days?

---

The digital revolution in publishing was expected to be a hot topic at Frankfurt Book Fair, where the mood appears clouded by economic woes in the Eurozone.

More clouds forecasted for writers, in light of the concerns raised over Google's deal with publishers regarding book digitisation. Related to this is a judgement in the US favouring a "digital preservation effort" by a bunch of research libraries based on material scanned by Google. Getting harder to not be evil each year, hmm?

Meanwhile, a Jewish reading site complains about Saudi and Iranian presence at European book fairs. Uhm... yeah.

---

Chinese, but different fates: Nobel Literature prize winner's books, predictably, fly off the shelves after announcement. A Chinese forestry official turned environmental activist, meanwhile, may be jailed over book on environmental protection.

The Guardian offers some visuals on, among other things, how getting shortlisted for a major literary award is enough to boost sales. Everyone's a winner!

---

Somebody at Forbes begs to differ (a little) on a listicle on the already stale topic of ten ways to save the publishing industry in the Guardian. Will the debate never end?


In other news

• Rich Dad author Robert Kiyosaki may be US$24 million poorer for allegedly reneging on a deal. Those who were helping themselves to some sweet, sweet schadenfreude jumped the gun.
• "Forget the money and write." Good advice that may apply even if there is money involved.
• Those who bought Kindle books (between April 2010 and May 2012) to get refunds.
• Hay in the Parc, a lit-fest in a lockup that's contributing to rehab of young prisoners.
• Johnny Depp to launch his own book imprint with HarperCollins? Is HarperC cultivating a stable of celebrity publishers?
• Famous authors and their favourite foods. Agatha Christie sipped Devonshire cream? And how the heck does one make a "tomato soup cake"? No prob - recipes included.
• A "short" defense of verbosity in literature. Because, why not?

Last but not least: Can't get enough of Boey Cheeming? The author, styrofoam cup beautifier and former animator will be meeting fans this Saturday, 20 October, at Popular Bookfairs at 1Utama (2pm - 3.30pm) and Paradigm Mall (5.30pm - 6.30pm); and Sunday, 21 October, at Popular Bookstore, Sunway Pyramid (3pm - 4pm). These may be his last appearances in Malaysia for a while, so don't miss it.

Late News: Coffee, Cookbooks and Controversy

Seems there's a bug creeping around; several colleagues came down with symptoms like mine: hangover-ish headache, listlessness and a touch of fever and the sniffles. Hoping it blows over soon.


Coffee...
A publisher's coffee-and-books initiative has the whiff of a good cuppa. The Bee @ Jaya One, PJ sells music CDs and one or two book titles on occasion, but why is this model not being adopted elsewhere? Sounds like a good idea. "Coffice romance"? COFF.

Seems a study lists fifteen of the most caffeinated professions, with added trivia. Mine's ranked fourth and yes, I do tend to add flavours to my coffee.

And the most caffeinated profession, according to these scientists? Scientists. Maybe research's more fun with caffeine.


...cookbooks...
Some genuine Italian mammas are, to say the least, not impressed with Nigellissima. Nor is John Crace, from the looks of it. I think handing this book to these critics was a practical joke.

Meanwhile, the myth of Jamie's 15-minute meals seems to have been ... busted. But Jamie doesn't seem to be perturbed. With regards to complaints that his "30-minute meals" took longer than that to make: "I could give you a lot of defensive sh** and say they didn't do the recipes exactly from the book or didn't use a food processor for chopping – which is an absolute must, unless you have knife skills like me. ... I look on Twitter and somebody says it took them 45 minutes and I think, 'God bless you, keep trying and you'll speed up next time.'"

Okayyy....


...and a bit of controversy
As last week was Banned Books Week, here are some 'funny' author responses to their books being banned.

Sikhs were up in arms over the self-harming Sikh character Sukhvinder Jawanda in JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy. Did they finish reading it?

Haruki Murakami tells Japan and China to chill the heck out over the island spat, which has appeared to spill over to China banning or blocking books (including Murakami-san's), articles, racers, etc that have anything to do with the Land of the Rising Sun.


In other news

• Google and US publishers reach a settlement in the former's ambition to digitise books. But, somebody asks, what about the authors?
• Scott Pack shares some numbers and suggests how e-publishing can help raise the sales of 'dead' books.
• RIP Eric Hobsbawm, historian. His posthumous collection, Fractured Spring, is scheduled for release next March.
• Jason Kottke unpacks the rants of Obama-hating ultra-rich in The New Yorker. Probably too pissed off to continue.
• How to self-publish on Amazon Kindle. Go on, you know you want to.
• Manufactured: the making of K-pop.
• Eleven things to avoid before launching your book.

Not So Casual, Actually

While I'm relieved that it's finally published, I'm still averse to reading the many other reviews out there. Can any more be said about it?

The only other Rowling book I read was Tales of Beedle the Bard, which may have narrowed the scope of my review. I took only two days to read it and I didn't take notes and ... oh tidak, I spelled the name of the killing curse wrong!

That's why I'm jittery about sending pieces to other media outlets.

But what's this? Oh look, the Zagat 2013 guide for San Francsico and Bay Area restaurants is out.

I know I shouldn't, but ... I feel better.

---

Not so casual, actually

Nothing supernatural in JK Rowling's latest, but expect skeletons in closets, ghosts from the past and voices from beyond the grave

first published in The Malaysian Insider, 03 October 2012


Just as in "Desperate Housewives", JK Rowling's first adult novel The Casual Vacancy, begins with a death.

In the case of the book, it is the death of Barry Fairbrother, the parish councillor of the fictional small town of Pagford. Thus begins the rush for the plum position in the town's administrative body left by the "casual vacancy".

A character in a famous video game once likened people to rugs: shake them a few times and marvel at the amount of dirt that comes out. In this case, the whole town is the rug and, good grief, the kinds of dirt that gets shaken out by the race for the councillor's seat.

With the mystique attached to Rowling's blockbusting Harry Potter series, many wondered if she could weave another similarly successful spell with more mundane items: small-town politics, class wars, and a tangled web of intrigue and deceit among the residents that comes to light in the wake of a councillor's sudden departure.

The novel was said to be partly based on Rowling's childhood in Gloucestershire, so there is, of course, no magic in this novel. But do expect skeletons in closets, ghosts from the past, and a voice from beyond the grave enabled by technology.

For someone who has completed the decade-long Homeric multi-volume epic about a boy wizard, it can be a Herculean effort to wrap up a story in one book. Though Rowling somehow manages to do so, it still feels overwritten.

The novel starts off painfully slow as the stage is set and some background is established. The Pagford council is currently saddled with the Fields, a high-maintenance (costly) adjacent housing area plagued by a host of social ills.

The council's snooty faction wants nothing to do with the Fields, while the altruists aligned with the deceased councillor want to preserve the status quo.

Free from child-safe restraints that held her back for over 10 years, Rowling lets it rip. She annoys the hell out of readers with the grim, distressing portrayal of a town's fraying social fabric. Still, the level of estrangement in some of the families is extreme.

The grown-ups and kids appear terribly self-absorbed in the beginning, lost in their own worries and pursuits.

It gets worse as the story ponderously rolls on, no thanks to Rowling's over-characterisation of the people and places. Bits of bracket-encased backstory and flashbacks are inserted between present dialogue and narrative, making for a really tedious and choppy read. Secret thoughts and schemes are laid bare for all to gawp at. And many characters swear a lot.

That one still finds it all believable is perhaps a sign of the times.

By the time you get close to page 400 you decide that the whole town and the novel are beyond salvation. But just when you're ready to hurl your Avada Kedavras, a tragedy occurs, followed by a miracle.

Bhai Kanhaiya, a guru admired by the mother of the town's Sikh family, once served water to wounded soldiers from both sides of a conflict because "the light of God shines from every soul".

Like the spirit of hope at the bottom of Pandora's box, the guru's compassion appears from within an unexpected source during the novel's darkest phase, initiating an incredible transformation.

No magic? The speed at which this happens, after about 460 pages of misery, gloom, racism, misogyny, drugs, domestic abuse and other choice examples of despicable human behaviour, is nothing short of magical. Some may find this incredulous, even with some suspension of disbelief. Kinder hearts, however, may feel differently.

So maybe Rowling did work a tiny bit of her familiar alchemy into a realistic Muggleland fable about the worst and best in people, albeit one hobbled by a large cast, too much detail, a glacial build-up to an abrupt finale (with Rihanna and Jay-Z? Seriously?) and, perhaps, by the pressure to repeat her multi-book success with a single-book one.

Whether that little bit of magic can cut through the hype and criticism remains to be seen; it's barely a week since its release, after all.

Disappointed fans, meanwhile, can take heart in the news that she's pondering a release a "director's cut" of several Harry Potter books and a possible return to the Potterverse.


A spelling error was corrected in this version.

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The Casual Vacancy

JK Rowling
Little, Brown (2012)
503 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-316-22853-4

News: This Earth Of Mankind And All That

Banned Books Week 2012 kicks off in the US. The New York Times volunteered some ideas on how to 'celebrate' the Week. Gosh, has it been a year already?

Though Banned Books Week is a US-only thing, many of us can emphatise with the notion. This year's biggest banned book is arguably Irshad Manji's Allah, Liberty and Love. A local publisher and a bookstore manager were visited by religious authorities in relation to the book. One issue with the 'visit' seems to be more about conflicts between federal and religious laws with regards to print material that's deemed objectionable, not the ban itself, though some may argue that there's no point banning the book anyway.

Another more recent casualty - in China, at least - is Haruki Murakami's 1Q84. The novel became collateral damage in the Sino-Japanese spat over a bunch of rocks northeast of Taiwan, which got China banning or closing everything Japanese. An article on fossils in Japan's Gifu Prefecture was deleted minutes after it was posted on a Chinese web host. And a Japanese-backed cycling team pulled out of the Tour of Beijing event.

A cheerier celebratory occasion this week is this year's Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, happening from 03 to 07 October. Themed Bumi Manusia ("This Earth of Mankind"), after a title from Pramoedya Ananta Toer's first book in the once-banned historical fiction series The Buru Quartet, this year's Ubud Fest is held in honour of the enduring power of storytelling.

Author Michael Ruhlman also had something to say about storytelling, the importance of food writing, in particular. "...telling stories about food and cooking is not only natural, it's necessary for our survival. It's important to understand how something that is essential to our humanity and our well-being affects all other aspects of our lives and our humanity."

Hear, hear.

In other news:

• Penguin seeks repayment of big advances from writers who didn't deliver. Among those being pursued are Elizabeth Wurtzel (Prozac Nation), Wonkette's founding editor Ana Marie Cox, and Holocaust survivor Herman Rosenblat.
• John Scalzi's readers recommend some books in what is probably among the longest comments thread on the Whatever. Multiple nominations include Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, Jenny "The Bloggess" Lawson's Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Libriomancer by Jim C Hines, The Map of the Sky by Felix Palma and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus.
• Shades of virtual book-burning in the disappearance of Jonah Lehrer's book from various retail outlets and portals? Don't worry about it, says some readers of Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish. At least, I think, for now.
• US retail chain Wal-Mart is said to have stopped selling Kindles. Another US retail chain, Target, pledged to take the Amazon e-reader off its shelves this May, seemingly because of the latter's aggressive expansion tactics.
• A fiction writer's heartening open letter to her ... should it be "colleagues" or "comrades"? In short, she says, "Keep writing."
• Things from Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" that are still burning. Will the Middle East 'burn' forever?
• The origin of a "hackademic" book publishing initiative, and how it can help students and journalists.
• From the author of The Lizard King: a sad tale about the role of religion in the ivory trade.
• Punjab's own Interlok kerfuffle was raised when words regarding caste land publishers in jail. The report could've been written better, though.
• The New Yorker commemorates the 50th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, the book said to have kicked off the modern environmental movement.
• England's government announces a review on e-book lending in libraries.

News: Price Wars, And A Mallet

I don't think last week was a slow one for books and publishing; I just so happened to be back in my hometown during the weekend, so I wasn't paying too much attention to assorted goings-on.

But I managed to finish a book for review. And I was amazed and a little dismayed at the 1Malaysia bike by Orange County Choppers - when did THAT happen? - which looked a lot less remarkable compared to previous models.

Anyway...


Last week, the much-maligned Apple agency model for e-books (in Europe) started crumbling under pressure from European Commission. In the aftermath, the e-book price war seemingly flared anew, with some discounts going as high as ... 97 per cent? But it seems not all e-books are considered 'cheap'.

The price war may have started hitting the e-reading public in China, as one of the country's main e-retailers announced a 'deal' where customers can, for three months, lend a thousand books for less than US$5. Why? Because "Chinese readers, long used to free content", apparently need time to adjust to the idea of paying more than five yuan (about US$0.80) for an e-book.

No word, however, on the e-fate of Haruki Murakami and other Japan-related books, physical copies of which have reportedly gone missing from Beijing bookshelves as China and Japan fight over a pile of rocks northeast of Taiwan.

In other news:

• Five questions for a literary agent. The usual 'indie/small press thrives among bones of traditional publishing' thing.
• "Shelf preservation": Why it's better to read 3-D editions of certain genres.
• Are books the "ultimate new business card"?
• A papyrus scrap refers to "Jesus's wife", but too early to say Dan Brown was right.
• Ten questions to ask yourself before commenting on a blog. Good advice from the author of what could be one of the best-policed blogs around - I mean, who doesn't want a Mallet of Loving Correction?

News: Privates, Padlocks, and Price Reductions

Private matters
Everybody seems to be all abuzz over Naomi Wolf's, uh ... privates. From the news portals I've been surfing, Wolf's Vagina (snrk) got more brickbats than bouquets since it was released. Critics cited bad science, Orientalism, unintentional self-parody, betrayal of feminism, etc.

And, of course, there's the title, which opens up plenty of opportunities for punsters, as Jessa Crispin suggests. "Although from reading the excerpts and the horrified reviews, it seems like the publishing company just kind of let Wolf run herself into a tree in all kinds of ways with this one."

Maybe because the publishers knew the kind of buzz it would create?

Even those who question the criticism Wolf's been getting can't help slipping in a crack or two. "And I can't help wondering if this isn't just a little bit problematic, and if it doesn't, just a little bit, make Wolf's point for her?"

Wolf has responded to these criticisms, and I think her arguments are sound. I'm once again reminded of Howard Jacobson's assertion that readers these days - as well as critics - can't seem to handle certain books.

At the time of posting, Zoë Heller's article has an NSFW picture. Do not click at work.


A bridge too far
Know that old chestnut where, in Rome, lovers can seal their relationship by writing their names on a padlock, clamping it to a lamp post of the Milvio bridge and throwing the key into the Tiber River? That little tradition, inspired by Federico Moccia's 2006 novel I Want You, has been banned by officials in Rome.

The bridge's popularity led to posts being installed on the bridge so that others can have a shot at happiness, but officials are concerned that the weight of all those padlocks will collapse the ancient bridge.

Moccia is apparently "nonplussed". "The removal of the locks is inconsiderate," he said. "Rome is handing Paris the 'bridge of love' tradition, which was born here and should stay here."

Even at the expense of a piece of history? Pompeii and Herculaneum, arguably two of Italy's most famous archaeological sites, are in danger of disappearing, thanks in part to tourists. Some traditions shouldn't be preserved.


Well, that was fast
In the aftermath of a settlement with the US Department of Justice over allegations of e-book price-fixing with Apple, publisher HarperCollins inked new deals with Amazon and other retailers. Days later, HarperCollins titles were said to be selling at Amazon at discounted prices.

HarperCollins, along with publishers Hachette and Simon & Schuster, settled with the DoJ days ago. It's possible that e-book retailers will soon be lowering prices of books from the other two publishers. And them fingers keep a-pointin', mostly towards traditional publishers.

In somewhat related news: A Waterstones staff reportedly trolled an author who self-published with Amazon for leaving promotional material for said book at the Waterstones outlet. Bezos's jungle may have emerged the victor in the latest dust-up over e-book prices, but it looks like pockets of resistance can still be expected.

Also: Would writers have to keep telling stories a la Scheherazade to survive in the Kindle era?


Other news

• Is it ever okay to pirate books? Even if the copies are from books you already own and for private use?
• Is Village Voice critic Robert Sietsema the acerbic non-person Ruth Bourdain? Sietsema says no but, for all we know, he could be muddying the waters a bit, possibly abashed at how it came out so quickly. We probably wouldn't have known that Waiter Rant is Steve Dublanica if he didn't shed his anonymity to promote his book. Both these guys seem to be good writers, but I feel Dublanica's warmer, more open.
• "Radioactive" online comments are poisoning civil discourse in cyberspace. So here are some tips on how to argue online and avoid becoming a cyberspace-polluting troll.
• A literary agent was attacked in her car, possibly over a rejected manuscript. The Huffpost entry suggests she was tracked down via a social media app. Getting rejected isn't the end of the world. Now, violently rejecting a rejection, however...
• "Is this book bad, or is it just me?" The book review is dissected.
• Art of War meets Mad Men? China's popular "workplace novels" weave career advice into soap opera plots.
• Plan to burn "Fifty Shades" conjures fears of censorship and totalitarianism.
• For Wikipedia, Phillip Roth, it seems, is not a credible enough source on a Phillip Roth novel.

Enthrallingly English

An enchanting Sunday afternoon roast at Albion KL

first published in The Star, 15 September 2012


Melody leads a charmed life. She gets to travel to exotic places and eat at fabulous places for work, like this modern English bistro in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

From this establishment, she smuggled a bit of macaroni and cheese home in a microwaveable container, presumably to taunt me – again. The M&C was cold and had congealed into a lumpy mass, but it was glorious. I suspect the added bacon had enough time to infuse the leftovers with its savoury, smoky flavour on the way home.

We agreed we had to go back there. If their mac-and-cheese is this good, what else can they do?

Melody wanted the Sunday roast, so she e-mailed ahead for details. Yes, they had roast beef or lamb on the Sunday we'd planned to drop by. I wanted the lamb, a meat with more character. Her e-mail response was a heart-rending, "But I want beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeffffffffffffff and it is my birthdayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy."

When she's like this, there's no point arguing. So "beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeffffffffffff" it is, even though her actual birthday had passed a while back.

Tucked inside the Changkat Bukit Bintang area, the red-painted façade of Albion is a beacon for visitors with a poor sense of direction. One is embraced by a palpable kind of Englishness upon entry. On a wall is an arty portrait of Sir Winston Churchill chomping on a cigar. Classical English court music wafted through the air as we pored over the menu, a subtle reminder to always, among other things, mind your P's and Q's and sipping (not gulping) your tea within the premises.

Manager James Grierson guided us through the selections and portion size (typically Malaysian, he suggests). We decided to go with Albion's Greek-style Salad and a serving of roast beef to share, with mini Yorkshire puddings. Dessert remained a question mark for a while.

Several warm buns were brought to our table in a tiny basket, with slices of softened butter and what I assumed was the “spiced tomato jam”, while our orders were seen to. The appetising tomato jam, a mixture that included anchovies and olive oil, was surprisingly delicious when eaten with buttered buns but it left us hungrier than before we walked in the door.

Then the salad came.

We felt the price of the Greek-style salad didn't compensate for the abundance of feta cheese in it. The sharp-tasting tangy and salty cheese, together with the olives, mushrooms and various greens, made for a rich, satisfying appetiser.

Definitely more than six cubes of feta in that lush Greek-style salad

Albion's chef, Colin Yap, explained that they came up with this version after trying another one that had "about six or so tiny cubes" of feta, but Albion's had all the ingredients that made it a winner. The flavours came together really well.

Despite assurances that the portions were manageable, we still gaped at the roast when it arrived. Some slices of medium-done roast beef, greens, roast potatoes and a pair of mini Yorkshire puddings. The Yorkshire pudding was a light, crispy pastry that's best eaten warm and useful for wiping up the leftover gravy, spilled meat juice and fat. It was the first time I'd ever seen or eaten one.

Melody tried to wheedle some secrets about making Yorkshire pudding out of the chef. The whole business is tricky, the chef said, like making soufflé.

"It's a temperamental thing," he added.

No fluffy, light and buttery pastries coming out of my little oven, then.

The Sunday Roast may look standard, but it's lovely

The roast was lovely. We tried slices of beef with the light and subtle horseradish sauce and the assertively pungent, sinus-clearing English mustard.

"Laave-leh," I drawled in an exaggerated Englishman's accent when I could breathe through my nose again. "Simply brilliant."

Some may feel differently – it's just roast beef, they might say – but in this cosy nook in the middle of the city, it's also where you eat it and who made it ... and maybe what they're playing on the sound system.

Still, the meal didn't feel complete, like a story without an ending. After sitting around for a while and sipping the rather good coffee (gasp!), we settled on the English-sounding Trinity Burned Cream with Raspberries to round up a lovely lunch.

The dessert, essentially a crème brûlée, turned out to be a good choice. Under the slightly burnt layer of sugar was a bed of rich (unburned) custard cream covering what looked like raspberry compote. One serving was just right for two waistline-watching Malaysians to share and still come away fully satisfied.

We stayed long enough to wait for teatime, but we didn't want to ruin the experience by taking in too much of this delightful place at one go. Reluctantly, we peeled ourselves off our chairs. We'd be back.

And we are having laaaaaaaaamb the next time around.

---

Albion

31 Jalan Berangan
50200 Kuala Lumpur

CLOSED FOR GOOD

Betrayed

One of the first books I've read this year kind of surprised me, even though it wasn't light reading. Great début by Wiley Cash.

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Hope in faith

When those we trust fail us

first published in The Star, 14 September 2012


I remember being aghast at stories of child abuse at the hands of religious figures. So it's no surprise that I found the premise of Wiley Cash's debut novel compelling: what happens when religious figures fail to live up to their ideals?

The novel was inspired by the tragic story of an autistic African American boy who'd been smothered during a healing service in Chicago in the United States. "I was bothered that a group of people, including the boy's mother, could stand by while something like that took place," said Cash in an interview.

A Land More Kind Than Home takes place in a small North Carolinian town populated by generally God-fearing townsfolk. Some of them, however, fear something else, too.

Elderly midwife Adelaide Lyle is haunted by the death and subsequent cover-up of the time a churchgoer dies during a snake-handling ritual presided over by the church's newest pastor, Carson Chambliss. The incident prompts her to take the children out of the church.

Despite her efforts, young Jess Hall's autistic older brother, Christopher, lovingly nicknamed "Stump" by his father, becomes the church's next victim as his mother stands by and does nothing. As the case unravels, this story of family, faith and secrets unfolds through the perspectives of three people.

There's Lyle who, as a young girl, survived what sounds like the 1918-19 global Spanish flu outbreak and helped bury a long-deceased relative. This fortitude helps her bear the secrets she has to hide but the weight would eventually prove too much. Too old to actively resist Chambliss's corruption of the church, she mostly watches from the sidelines.

Jess Hall, meanwhile, has to deal with his brother's death, which he feels somehow responsible for. The return of his grandfather Jimmy doesn't help. Instead, Jess retreats into the safety and comfort of memories of him and his brother, despite the adults' efforts to help him cope.

And we have Sheriff Clem Barefield, a survivor of his own family tragedy who has the unenviable task of battling small-town reticence and the church's code of silence to solve Stump's case. There's also a bit of unfinished business between him and Jimmy Hall.

Cash wanted to write the story of the failed Chicago faith healing, but he wasn't familiar with the city or the community. So the North Carolinian set the story in Madison County in his home state. "Once I did that, the story came alive; it became real."

And it did. Cash has done his research well, judging from how one is deeply immersed in the atmosphere of the town, with the sweet aroma from drying tobacco leaves at the Halls' farm and the "ain'ts" and double negatives in the locals' speech. In this day and age, such a stereotypical portrayal of a small American town may be frowned upon, even as one believes that such places still exist in that country, rotary dial phones and all.

We are shown how the decay of religion in a slice of the American heartland can affect its people. We feel the characters' pain, caused by alcoholism, domestic abuse and betrayal by those they trusted, as well as the plight of the lost searching for meaning or something to fill the void in their hearts.

We seethe at the seemingly aloof wickedness of those who prey upon the insecure and desperate to achieve power and influence. We are crushed, slowly, as we watch a family come apart. Even before the conclusion of this well-written novel, the slimy preacher will leave one more scar upon the lives of the protagonists.

Yet, the novel offers hope. Lyle still believes the church is the town's pivotal institution and that it will again be the beacon and safe haven it's meant to be.

"The living church is made of people," she says, "and it can grow sick and break just like people can, and sometimes churches can die just like people die. ... A church can be healed, and it can be saved like people can be saved."

We somehow find comfort in these words, even as we cringe at the on-air antics of today's Carson Chamblisses. And we hope that our religious institutions will eventually become a place more like home where those we trust with our lives – and souls – will never let us down.

---

A Land More Kind Than Home

Wiley Cash
Doubleday (2012)
306 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-857-52070-8

Well Done

Though he's left the kitchen, everyone's favourite trash-talking chef is still dishing out food for thought


A bitter and angry chef, resigned to remain rooted behind a stove until he dies, lets it rip in an over-testosteroned rant-fest of a memoir dedicated to his ilk and pokes fun at TV chefs, vegans, and the like. He's confident that the book will never get him on TV, take him to exotic foreign locales, or hook him up with more famous, qualified chefs.

Anthony Bourdain has eaten a lot of things since then, including his own words; check out his other books: A Cook's Tour and The Nasty Bits.

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook is the book fans have been waiting for since That Book, Kitchen Confidential. Profane and profound, his take on all things close to his heart are a joy to read, especially in countries where freedom of expression also comes with a hefty rulebook to safeguard presumably fragile egos.

Hunter S Thompson may be the father of gonzo journalism, but it's this chef-turned-author and travel show host that many of us with an opinion and a shtick to bandy about want to be one day.

From Medium Raw, we learn a bit more about what happened to Bourdain since That Book came out. Why he became a father at fifty. The new targets of his ire. The Top Chef contestant anonymously featured in That Book. The deal behind David Chang, who could be the next Angry Writing Chef. More tantalising are the latest updates about the prominent personalities featured in That Book, and why Bourdain called that restaurant reviewer a dirty name.


Burning bridges
We also learn, in spite of all he has now, why Bourdain doesn't seem happy. In his jottings one still senses the jitteriness of someone who had lost something good when he least expected it - and constantly looks out for the next such catastrophe. If he's not burning bridges, one suspects he's checking to see if someone else will burn them, or if the bridges spontaneously combust.

Probably explains his apparent gusto for the life he's leading now; if he concentrates on going forward, he can forget about looking over his shoulder.

In the prologue, we get a sense of how different things have been for Bourdain since Kitchen Confidential, published over a decade ago. The clandestine gathering of world-class chefs at a secret dinner capped by a taste of the controversial ortolan dish is worlds apart from his old life. He not sure why he's here, other than being a guest of his best pal, who sounds suspiciously like the Michelin-starred chef of Le Bernadin, Eric Ripert.

UK edition of Medium Raw from Bloomsbury with new
cover (left) and US edition from HarperCollins/Ecco

Sure it's fun, exciting. But he also sounds unsure, lost, out of place. Maybe a little guilty. I shouldn't be having this much fun, he seems to be thinking. This is not my circle, which I left - or rather, abandoned - for a more cushier gig.

Is that why he flagellates himself so ruthlessly in the first few chapters of Medium Raw? "Heretic", "sell-out", he calls himself. He compares himself to a prostitute, drops names of chefs who've taken similar paths and explains why they did it, as if it's something needing justification. The calamitous Caribbean island getaway with a crazy rich chick, after the end of his first marriage, must've been very painful to recall.


Paid his dues
He gets over it, though. He's paid his dues, I think, and his new jet-setting life now is much better suited for his age. "If I go back to the kitchen now, it would break me," he confesses in The Nasty Bits.

Besides being less angry, he's also more neutral, finding silver linings in the same subjects he used to run down. Such performances, however, feel forced, like in the chapter on US chef and food activist Alice Waters, the "Pol Pot in a muumuu". And he's still shining the shoes of British chef and Parkinson's disease sufferer Fergus Henderson. It made sad reading.

Similarly forced is the chapter devoted to food porn. Though formulaic, it still had enough mojo to drive one into night markets, looking for placebos to lush descriptions of chicken butt yakitori.

Foreign audiences outside the US, however, may have problems with his references to obscure pop and food culture. He doesn't explain, in one chapter, why he considers Mario Batali and Eric Ripert heroes. When this book was first published, Ripert chaired a New York-based charity that rescues unused food to feed hungry people, and Batali was active in charities for children.

...Well, it is said that he says a lot – and says it damn well, too – about the things he feels strongly for.

In the ten years between Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw, he never really left us at all. He's still slinging it, commenting on more than just food: in the news, online, in the airwaves, on TV - seemingly one of the last honest people out there who speaks his mind with little thought of the repercussions, because some things have to be said.

Keep talking, Tony. We're all ears.


Another version of this review was first published in the July - September 2012 issue of MPH Quill. This review was based on the 2010 Bloomsbury (UK) edition of the book.

---

Medium Raw

A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

Anthony Bourdain
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (2010)
281 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-1-4088-0934-1

MPH Quill, July - September 2012 Issue

...is very damn late. I know. But it's out.

I've heard talk about changes in direction for Quill, but no clues about that so far.

Okay, let's see what's inside.

...Luke Clark, editor of Discovery Channel Magazine, on the mag's
relaunch (right)...

...Adam Jacot de Boinod speaks about weird words and his books
about them...

...profile of Dina Zaman and her short story collection, King of the Sea...

...Ellen Whyte spends a night at the Szechwan Opera in Chengdu...

...and more. Of course there's always more.

News: Sockpuppets, Book Raids, and Scalzi's Goat(s)

Criticism ventriloquism
Sock-puppetry: Why do they do it? From these tales of two sock-puppeteers, they might be more the norm than anyone thinks. Well, Sock-puppetry in book reviewing may not be new, but that doesn't necessarily make it right. Scott Adams, however, suggests that (fake) positive reviews can balance out the (fake) negative ones in an ecosystem where 'everybody cheats'.

I might have my own take on this later, but maybe not.


Book raid bulletins
The Federal Territories Religious Affairs Department (JAWI) admitted to raiding the Borders bookstore in The Gardens, Mid Valley City before an edict or ban was declared against the book that prompted the raid. In West Bengal, a publisher was also raided over book critical of the state government. Said book then sold out after news of the raid broke.


Getting Scalzi's goat
After John Scalzi announced a book project, the Internet gave him another after he joked about writing a book called 101 Uses for a Spare Goat on Twitter. So now, we can expect said book to be out in the future, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

A cautionary tale of why it's dangerous to coin absurd phrases online, but that's how the Internet works these days. What would make this even more amazeballs? Paying for the book with goats.


Censorship, China, and coffee
State censorship, conservative publishing choices and lack of good translations appear to be some of the factors narrowing outsiders' views of modern China. But China's bookworms are said to offer hope for traditional publishing. But how can the mood be buoyant without good coffee? Oh, and here's why coffee will never taste as good as it smells.


Other news

• The economics of an indie bookstore ... can be pretty dismal.
• Outside the literary world, bad reviews breed more bad blood. A restaurateur in Canada apparently spent months trying to ruin the reputation of someone who gave her restaurant a bad review. She was found guilty of criminal libel and will soon be sentenced.
• Did this writer see Pakistan's bleak future?
• A book that Scott Pack hates this much? Can't be all bad. For one, Wong Kar Wai gets killed in it.
• Apple, publishers offer pricing concessions to avoid hefty European Commission fine.

MPH Warehouse Sale 2012, Mooncakes, Etc

The MPH Distributors Warehouse Sale will be held from 08 to 17 September (8am to 6pm) at:

The Crest, 3 Two Square
Block F, Ground Floor
No. 2 Jalan 19/1
46300 Petaling Jaya

For inquiries, call 03-7958 1688 or visit www.facebook.com/MPHDistributors

---

Yvonne Foong is selling low-sugar mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Some of the proceeds, as I understand it, will be going towards her medical fund. Head over here for more details.

...So, yeah.

News: Commercialised Criticism, Book Fights, and Language

Review revelations
A (former) peddler of paid-for book reviews is profiled in the New York Times and kind of lifts the lid on all those 'positive' reviews received by certain blockbusters. Not news, really.

This report raised quite a bit of odour and soon, just about everyone had a take on this, most of it bad. One author felt buying paid-for reviews to ramp up book sales is akin to using drugs in sports. Another voice says 'buying respect' with paid-for reviews is "lazy" and runs "counter to the true indie spirit". "Unethical scumbags", was another author's choice words for paid-for reviewers and those who hire them.

The fake review 'revelation' prompted relook of Amazon review graphs - why "beware" THAT shape? Someone even compiled a list of major best-sellers with over 150 one-star Amazon reviews which kind of suggests that something's not quite right.

Elsewhere, others are wondering if the paid review revelations will eventually kill the critic. Meanwhile, a critic offers his (long) manifesto on being a critic.

While we're on the subject: another reviewer gets brickbats and threats after pissing off fans of Emily Giffin by suggesting, among other things, that the author encourages mob behaviour against critics among her fans. She'd subsequently downgraded her review fron four stars to one and explained why. She got more than a taste of said mob behaviour not long after - which may include practices condemned by a group of authors (crime author Jeremy Duns, who uncovered the instance of sock puppetry that led to the outrage, was also caught up in another literary scandal some time back). Looks like critics and reviewers aren't the only ones who need to search their souls.


Settle down
Publishers Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster reached a US$69 million settlement with various US attorney-generals over supposed fixing of e-book prices. Much of the money wil be refunded to bookbuyers, and the US state of Kentucky may get as much as US$700,000. But would this case really mean lower prices for e-books in the future?


SEAL hunt
A former US Navy SEAL who authored a potentially explosive tell-all on the Bin Laden takedown had his identitiy blown by US rightwing "news" outfit Fox News. Since then, some details about the book have been released, and the author had received threats from al-Qaeda. The US military argues that the former SEAL's book had violated protocol and are considering pressing charges. At the time this is written, the book's publisher is going ahead with the release. The co-author defends the book in The Huffington Post.

A bunch of Special Ops veterans hold a different view, and they are releasing an e-book in response, which includes an examination of the author's version of events and the rather prosaic motives for publishing the book:

..."[Owen] was treated very poorly upon his departure ... once he openly shared that he was considering getting out of the Navy to pursue other interests." [Owen] was essentially given a plane ticket back to Virginia and nothing else—not much of a thank-you for his "honesty and 14 years of service."

One wonders if things might have been different for Owen (the author's pen name) if he'd kept his "getting out of the Navy to pursue other interests" under wraps, but given the subject matter and timing of the release, tongues are bound to wag.


Flaming protest
A charity for victims of domestic violence has condemned the "misogynistic crap" that is Fifty Shades of Grey and they're calling for a bonfire of said book. In spite of my own opinions on the books, I can't agree with that. You'd have to harbour an exceptionally towering amount of hatred towards a book to want to light it up.

There are better forms of protest, like this review (more like a roasting) of the audio book ("Bambi [in] de Sade's '120 Days of Sodom'" - SIZZLE, CRACK!) in The Telegraph. Because bad writing in any other language is still bad writing.


Other news

• After what I presume was a long period of sluggish shelf movement, Jeremy Chin's book Fuel may be yanked from local bookstores. I think it's quite a good (albeit syrupy) read. Get a copy online or borrow one from friends. And I think there might be a copy on the shelf at a local café somewhere....
• The release of the latest Godfather novel, The Family Corleone, sparked a fight between Paramount Pictures and the state of Mario Puzo over rights to the franchise. Unable to find a solution, both parties have taken the fight to federal court.
• Chicken Soup for the Soul publishers to 'publish' Chicken Soup for the Stomach. But will it taste as good?
• "Promiscuous reading". Does that phase even make sense?
• This guy endured some great writers' worst books, so that we don't have to.
• Is our dependence on technology making us forgetful,like this book suggests?
• Servers at Jamie Oliver's restaurants were, I read, told to talk like Jamie Oliver when describing the food. "May I rec'mend th' bayked p'tat-uhz wi' th' skins on? Abs'lutely wicked, scrummy, and proper rustic. Throw in s'm crispy baykon bits 'n a duhlup o' s'ouh cream... funtastic!" ...If Jamie-O wunts t'give 'is rest'ronts 'is Mockney flavuh, he c'n do i' 'imself. 'Coz no one else cud'do it bet'er.
• Talking Turkey: the roots of Indo-European languages.
• Parents in China duped by 'special skills programme' for kids. Reading "waves" from books and poker cards? What is this, a Stephen Chow film?
• 'Vanity publishing' and 'legacy publishing': Why must they always be at loggerheads?
• It seems book publishers have to start thinking of themselves as - (SOB!) - "multimedia content producers".

Casting Pearls Before...?

US fantasy magazine Weird Tales published an extract from Victoria Foyt's self-published YA novel Revealing Eden: Save the Pearls Part One, which is set in a sort-of dystopian world where a black-skinned race dubbed the Coals lord over a white race called the Pearls on a sun-scorched Earth. To survive on the surface, the Pearls cover themselves with a substance that makes them look 'black'.

The premise of the novel touched of one of those fires where everyone can look righteous by calling it for what it is: racist. Just how long has it been since another issue about colour in books was raised?

Weird Tales has since removed that excerpt and apologised for publishing it. In that apology, publisher John Harlacher, concluded that "the use of the powerful symbols of white people forced to wear blackface to escape the sun, white women lusting after black 'beast men', the 'pearls' and 'coals', etc., is goddamned ridiculous and offensive. It seems like the work of someone who does not understand the power of what she is playing with."

Foyt denies racism, and says that, on top of the positive reviews it has received, her work aims "to turn racism on its head in order to portray its horrors and its inevitable road to violence. I believe that anyone who reads the novel will understand its strong stance against racism." However, she doesn't boost her case by saying that "if you ask if all these reviewers are white then consider that you have a racist point of view".

From the reviews of the book here, here and here, Foyt's novel looks like the literary equivalent of a collapsed and burnt soufflé. The standfirst for the first review alone says it all, with phrases such as "falls at every hurdle" and "awful prose with negligible plot". The 'heroine', said to combine "the most irritating characteristics of Bella Swan and Anastasia Steele with a predilection for dropping the full Latin names of bird and animal species once every paragraph", could probably be enough of a turn-off.

This reminds me of an author who, at this year's Edinburgh Literary Festival, suggested that political correctness may have weakened the stomachs of readers and maybe writers, making them sensitive - perhaps, more than before - to certain hot-button topics. Has the message in the book (which sounds like the first part of a series) been eclipsed by the portrayal of the characters and seemingly bad world-building?

Highlighting complex and sensitive issues such as race, religion and the origins of dishes - through writings, artworks and film - can be a dicey affair akin to making a soufflé. Most attempts generally fail. The timing of the book's release may not have been a good idea as well, as this commenter points out in his response to Foyt's defence.

Still, could some of the reactions have been more measured? I don't think this "fantasy action romance" intentionally propagates this world view, so why behave like it does? And how much did the outrage against Foyt's book help fight racism which, from incidents such as this and this, still persists?

I think the Guardian review was one of the better responses to this book. Racism is too easy to call out, so a critic should delve deeper to see if it accomplishes its purpose and, above all, if it is a good book - which said review suggests otherwise.

Maybe the final verdict should be withheld until the series is released in its entirety.

News: Snark Week in Publishing

Shnark attacks
Online mobs stifle literature, author suggests. One can also extend that to literary criticism, but it doesn't help when you have reviews that sound like the shitstorm-stirring put-down of Alix Ohlin's books. From the looks of it, the reviewer couldn't find much to say about the books (i.e. he didn't like them). Martim Amis's Lionel Asbo also received brickbats, along with the occasional 'balanced' opinions like this.

Somebody at Salon.com makes a case for positive book reviews, and gives some further reading on the subject. But here's how to write a good "bad review" - if you really, really need to. Meanwhile, a reviewer looks back at his "infamous" review of Pretty Woman two decades ago and decides it wasn't really that hot, thanks to its "miffed, hectoring, and righteously unamused" tone. Another case for ditching unrestrained snarkiness.


Controversy? Not here
Glenn Beck, peddler of paranoia, may publish David Barton's controversial book on Thomas Jefferson, said to contain factual inaccuracies. No problem for Beck, who seems totally immune to facts. Meanwhile, Ousted Komen exec Karen Handel will tell her side of Planned Parenthood story in a book whose title says everything. Note also the September 11 launch date - what is she trying to say? Somewhere south of the border, two old Latin American recalcitrants may be working on a book. 2012 is a good year to publish, it seems.


Even authors need agents these days
Getting the right fit: the job of a literary agent. For some authors who think six months is too long a period to get noticed, Michael Bourne writes, "Mainstream publishing is a Rube Goldberg machine of perverse economic incentives, in which large numbers of mostly idiotic self-help guides, diet books, and airport thrillers subsidize an ever-shrinking number of mostly money-losing literary novels and books of poetry.

"But just because publishing operates on a crazy economic model doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense," he adds. "There is a market, however tiny, for good books, and there are a small number of smart, hard-working people who live for the thrill of finding a talented author. If you are one of those talented authors, then it is your job to stop whining and figure out how to make it easy for them to find you."

Unless you're Barton, Beck, or Handel, perhaps. "Talent", you understand.


Other news

• The late Alexander Cockburn more or less accused Orwell of being racist and bigoted. WINCE. And someone else suggests the author of 1984 wasn't quite the truth-teller people thought he was.
• From what Man Booker prize-winner Howard Jacobson says, 'good readers' are getting harder to find, and that political correctness is partly to blame for weakening appetites for the "expression of an ugly point of view" in books.
• Lee Goldberg on book trailers: "Why don't you just take whatever cash you have and flush it down [the] toilet?"
• "We were quoted out of context:" Lonely Planet responds to Foreign Policy's "leftist planet" article.
• Who needs publishers and bookstores? Everybody, it seems. ...Okay. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the impression I got after reading it...
• In India, it's raining publications but the literary landscape is dry.
• Funny, crass non-person Ruth Bourdain is coming up with a "guide to gastronomy". Someone (forgot who) asked the obvious question: Who will they make the royalty cheques out to?

Late News: New Words, Spilled Ink, and Apple for Orange

Despite one additional day, I didn't quite enjoy the long Hari Raya (Eid ul-Fitr) weekend. But I didn't want the whole week off, since next week's a four-day week.

Anyway:

• CNN pundit Fareed Zakaria was the latest to be snared in a plagiarism scandal. The blog Foreign Policy tries to figure out why. Zakaria was eventually reinstated at TIME and CNN after brief suspension, but he has resigned from his position at the board of Yale University.
• Buenos Aires gives pensions to ageing writers, as GOP candidate pledges cuts to US arts.
• Mob justice goes awry as authors shut down legit book lending site.
• Tired of celebs touting quack cures and dubious science? Here are some fictional characters, promoting cures based on established science. What? Darth Vader's a fellow asthmatic? And Sauron uses OPTREX eye wash?
• Some pleasures and pitfalls of online self-publishing. Because you can't have too many of such lists.
• Coffee, cafés and coups: A Naguib Mahfouz novel and a café's role in Egypt's revolution.
• How paperbacks transformed the way Americans (and us) read.
• When writing can kill you: AL Kennedy's hard lesson.
• "Imma sexting in mah man-cave, stuffing mah brains wi' Kanye's newest earworm of a track, y'all." New words in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
• Are these travel guides - "clotted with historical revisionism, factual errors, and a toxic combination of Orientalism and pathological self-loathing" - shilling for dictators? Maybe not.
• "Prestige-free zone": Has the young adult genre become a woman's world?
• Apple may emerge as the new sponsor for Orange Prize for Fiction. Let the fruity puns fly.
• A reader laments the disappearance of great books.
• Follow the travails of a literary débutante - if you really must.
• Blogger/writer doesn't trust online book reviews.

Induced Nostalgia

I'd gotten this book sometime back, but I can't remember if I put it into my reading list.

Was this a good book? Not really. Though it was reminiscent of a previous book, something about this one felt rushed.

---

Induced nostalgia

Don't dwell on the past

first published in The Star, 19 August 2012


For some, nostalgia is like a drug. In the United States, for instance, many are longing for the good old days. This nostalgia-as-drug metaphor is expanded and explored in Dan Simmons's novel Flashback, which takes place in what could be the mother-of-all-post-apocalyptic-worlds.

About 20 years from now, global order is topsy-turvy. The United States, European Union and China have collapsed; Japan is run by clannish feudal families and oversees a new South-East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere; large swathes of Israel are uninhabitable nuclear wastelands; and there's a Global Islamic Caliphate.

Also: the United States is several states short, Texas is a republic, and criminal elements comprising Hispanic gangs, Russian mafia and others are wreaking havoc.

Every (middle-class white) American's nightmare has come true, and over 80% of the population is seeking respite through flashback, a drug that lets its users mentally re-live the best moments of their lives. Contributing to the chaos are flash gangs, groups of miscreants who commit crimes and revisit them with the drug.

Disgraced police officer Nick Bottom (great name!) is a flashback addict who finds solace in the memories of his late wife. Embarrassingly, he's caught using the drug on video prior to a meeting with a client. So this client, a Japanese bigwig called Nakamura, sends his top goon with Bottom to make sure he does his job and keep him from going "under the flash". Nakamura wants the truth behind his son's death, a case Bottom investigated years ago.

Back home, Bottom's father-in-law receives an ominous warning to leave home over a flash gang's crime – a gang whose members include Bottom's estranged son, Val. Things get really hot when Val's gang ambushes and fails to kill a top Japanese diplomat. Son and grandfather go on the run, while Bottom learns, to his shock, that his late wife might be involved in the case he's now investigating. Old wounds are opened as Bottom gets to the bottom of the unsolved murder – and the murky beginnings of the American addiction to the past.

In Black Hills, Simmons suggests that that mankind's greed may eventually ruin the world. That happens, in a way, in Flashback. How it happened can be found in the book, but it's so tangled up with the other threads in the story, unravelling each thread for a better look can be tedious. About halfway through, you just don't care anymore.

The novel starts out slowly, exploring the Bottoms' background which nobody will eventually care about. About two-thirds into it, the pace accelerates because the book is running out of pages. Things start "falling into place" like Newton's apples at various points: A cellphone, some video footage, and bits of information from shady power-brokers reminiscent of James Bond villains, all build up to a plotline pile-up of an ending where the whole novel is supposed to – finally! – make sense ... but falls short of that.

Bottom's not even a protagonist in the true sense of the word. He feels more like a pawn in a very cluttered, ruined chessboard with mostly broken pieces.

It's hard to connect or relate to characters, whom I feel are less important than the world they're set in. The "eerily possible" scenario feels authentic, but the characters don't seem to belong there.

At first blush, and from the inclusion of a reading group guide, it looks as though Simmons is trying to do more than just entertain with this novel, despite his claim that, "hell, no!", Flashback does not state his political views. Why he wrote this book is explained in the guide, more or less, which leaves little room for a reviewer to come to his own conclusions.

But let me try.

Simmons' dystopia is America's nightmare, writ large. He's taken the fears of his fellow Americans, ramped it up to 25, and weaved it into what looks like a dystopian sci-fi thriller with a message: Stop dwelling in the past, face the pain of the present, and move on towards what could be a better future. And there's a lot of pain in the United States right now.

"You can't have life without pain," Simmons writes. "You can't have a future without pain. Being alive means having the strength to face pain and loss and to find something real through it and beyond it."

Great message, albeit one that's about 500 pages too long.

---

Flashback

Dan Simmons
Reagan Arthur (2011)
553 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-316-10198-1

Wildlife Trap

Descending from a shopping mall escalator days ago, I spied an Indian girl with a pen and a board covered in signatures. Seeing me, she called out, "先生, 簽名." One of several promoters for the World Wildlife Fund.

I should've listened to my gut, but I was curious - and she was rather pretty.

As I neared, her superior took over. "Hello sir, do you know who we are bla bla bla this is what we do yadda yadda our programmes bla bla bla deforestation, trees being cut down everywhere this that this that do you know how many tigers we have left?"

Err... 200?

"There are five hundred left," she went, pointing to the figures in red on the pamphlet I was not allowed to take - probably because I haven't ponied up any F for the WW.

"Only 500, because they're being caught just for their fur Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet this is how you can help if you give consectetur adipisicing elit one ringgit a day sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt over 12 ringgit a year ut labore et dolore magna aliqua tax deductible keep the receipt you don't have to do anything Ut enim ad minim veniam fill in these forms what's your name Visa? Mastercard? Amex? Not Amex? Then you definitely must have one of the other two..."

In my fevered panic, I could only catch a few words; everything else sounded garbled. Without laying a hand on me, this wildlife conservation official pinned me down like a butterfly. Maybe she learnt that from tigers.

"...oh not yet what's your concern sir quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris why don't you visit our web site it's right here-" on the pamphlet I was not allowed to take "-have a look and if you're convinced we'll be here until tonight nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequa no problem sir have a nice day."

Sweet, sweet, freedom. I think I got off easy.

WWF certainly got their work cut out for them. Especially with the existence of characters like "a certain Mr Chan", a shark fin seller in Hong Kong, who makes his case for the massacre of sharks, thus: "It's not cruel at all killing sharks. There are so many sharks out there and if you don't kill them, they will kill you."

The web site for World Wildlife Fund (Malaysia) has a main donation page but, at the time of posting, the "Save the Tigers", "Save the Turtles" and "Climate Change" links were bad. Maybe the web site needs a donation campaign, too.

Do not get sucked in by signature collectors. Ever.

News: Matters of Style, A-Words, and Various Stuff

Stylo Coelho
Paulo Coelho says James Joyce's "Ulysses" is all style, no substance. Sure enough, the responses came. One even suggests that Coelho's work is no less... showy? Others wonder why he's doing this. Coelho's sticking to his guns, but denies attacking Joyce.


Jerk jock worship?
Ascent of the A-Word by Geoffrey Nunberg explores the apparent idolatry of assholes like Trump, Jobs and Zuckerberg. Just when this blogger/writer has had enough of snark in book reviews.

Speaking of which...


Books, reviewed - kinda
"The David Barton Lies"? A controversial book on Thomas Jefferson by the equally controversial demagogue was reportedly dropped by publisher for factual errors, spurred by the criticisms of the views presented in this book by some Christian scholars. As if something with a "foreword by Glenn Beck" has any shred of credibility.

For Keith Ridgway, author of Hawthorn & Child (2012), everything in life is fiction - but he seems to have no clue how to write it. Maybe that's why Scott Pack thinks Ridgway's latest says is "not a novel" but a "bloody frustrating", "mildly disappointing" book. These days, that's good PR.


Other news

• The publishing industry is burning bright, thanks to Fifty Shades. Like Nero's Rome, maybe?
• Follow the travails of a literary debutante - if you really must.
• John Steinbeck's son slams Texas's use of dad's fictional character to justify execution.
• New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus takes us into his world.
• Six things to do to get a short story collection published - if anyone out there is still writing short story collections.
• This guy wrote a sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island?
• E-books may be cheaper to make, but still need effort to sell.
• Will Self: "I don't write for readers." An interview with Will Self.
• Cyndi Lauper lands a book deal with Simon & Schuster, where she used to work at. Talk about "true colours".