Not Bed-Time Tales

Unlike most of my reviews, this took two days from the moment I put the book down. Anxiety about the status of this review turned to embarrassment when I realised that I italicised story titles (a big boo-boo) and used the word "genius" twice. And a misspelling of "United States", which might or might not have been my fault. Yeah. Me, editor.

Time to bury myself deeper into the grammar and style guides on my desk.

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Not bed-time tales

Sedaris's twisted genius will leave readers seeking a solution after each story

first published in The Star, 30 January 2011


"For my sister Gretchen", reads the dedication to David Sedaris's latest book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. Again, I looked at the little hardcover tome with the nice picture and wondered why Sedaris is moving to the under-12 market.

Then I consulted Google. While Gretchen Sedaris is younger than David, she should be at least 50 by now. And there was something he was supposed to have said in an interview, holding a knife with a hoof for a handle: "I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, 'I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.'"

That'll teach me to judge a book by its cover. Still, it's pretty hard not to, even though Sedaris's writing isn't the kind one associates with bed-time stories.

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (the subtitle is missing from the jacket flap) isn't really about a dating service for woodland rodents. It's one of 16 very short stories based on typical human dramas, except the parts are played by animals. Think Aesop's very short fables for cynical grown-ups.

You've probably queued up with the "Toad, the Turtle and the Duck" at a busy counter; endured the "Migrating Warblers"' travel tales; and the dialogue between the "Cat and the Baboon" sounds like something you'd hear at a beauty salon.

Some of these are sad, particularly the one about the orphaned bear, and the mouse with a pet snake, but it's because they were asking for it. The latter reminded me of a documentary in which someone was crushed to death by his pet python. It's kind of familiar but funny – Sedaris's dark kind of funny.

Reinforcing the book's dark adult theme and the mental near-immortality of the stories are the doodles of Ian Falconer, well-known for his kids' books about a pig and covers for The New Yorker. Quite a few images could fuel nightmares, even when you're awake.

The gloomy theme of the book is upset a bit by the title story, "The Squirrel and the Chipmunk". This short and bittersweet (more bitter than sweet) tale of a doomed, star-crossed love affair is perhaps the best example of Sedaris's genius. After its conclusion, you look at the cover again and, if you have a heart or "been there, done it", it's hard not to tear up.

Of course, chances are you won't recognise some of the situations being written about here. The tale of two lab mice sounds like a jab (pun intended) at die-hard adherents of New Age hocus-pocus, but I don't quite know what to make of "The Faithful Setter" and "The Cow and Turkey".

Is "The Parenting Storks" a parable on the perils of a lack of sex education? Is "The Mouse and the Snake" really about snakes, or an allegory for some governments' (read: the United States) habit of coddling two-bit dictators out of political expediency?

When countless Internet searches yield few clues and no cheat sheets, you curse and swear at and stew over Sedaris's twisted genius. You cannot solve it, but you know there's a solution.

Like Fermat's Last Theorem (proposed in the 17th century and proved only in the 20th), the fables you can't figure out will likely torment you long after you put the book down – an amazing feat for something that's just 160 pages long. Just hope you don't have to spend over three centuries figuring out what "The Grieving Owl" is really about.

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Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

David Sedaris, Illustrations by Ian Falconer
Little, Brown and Co.
159 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0316038393

Fishy, Much?

The Malaysian corner of cyberspace is (slowly) buzzing with horror at the BN-led government's intentions to expand the Printing Presses and Publications Act to everything published on-line by Malaysians. Bloggers, in particular, appear concerned about arbitrary or indiscriminate prosecution.

They forgot irate restaurateurs.

Already no stranger to controversy, Poh Huai Bin of sixthseal.com was reportedly sued for allegedly defaming a Lonely Planet destination: Jothy's Fish Head Curry Banana Leaf Restaurant, in Kota Kinabalu. The RM6 million suit even mentions Google as a co-defendant.

As Malaysians, we have strong attachments to food. Much of it still feels as if they came out of our own kitchens. When we have bad experiences in restaurants that we felt had let us down, we express that hurt in many ways. This is particularly true for the institutions and places that grow old with us.

Poh's history aside, it appears on the surface to be a case of scapegoating. Taste buds usually don't lie. Still, he's being accused of "defamation". Would it have been better for Poh to go through the "proper channels", i.e., complain to the restaurant's manager? Would it have worked?

Also, how long has it been since the Lonely Planet listing? The work that goes into such guides means a long time between updates, perhaps as much as several years. Any noticeable drop in quality could have happened since - and it doesn't have to take years. Besides, favourable listings by any authority isn't something set in stone.

A chef will have a bad day on occasion. Maybe it's just bad luck that it was also a bad day for Poh to be at the restaurant. However, his harsh commentary, which includes allusions to a veneral disease, could have been worded differently.

If the quality of Jothy's food has been on a steady decline, nothing will improve its fortunes short of a revamp of how it does business. This multi-million-dollar lawsuit, however, is more likely to isolate the place further.

(I also question the wisdom in naming Google a defendant, a move one tends to associate with lawsuits-for-show. Google's probably too busy to care, and this isn't McDonald's vs McCurry.)

The only thing a court victory for the restaurant would achieve is that no-one will publicly badmouth it. However, it's also unMalaysian to subject friends and family to a bad restaurant experience. Nobody - and certainly no Malaysian - would knowingly patronise an eatery with substandard offerings.

About The Real Bibilophobia

For some time now, people have stumbled onto Bibliophobia...! while researching... bibliophobia. Even if it's by accident, I can't let them go away empty-handed. So...

Bibliophobia is, according to the Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), "a dread of books".

"Bibliophobia" was said to be first used in popular English literature sometime before 1914, according to the Wikipedia. A much earlier use of the term - to refer to something else entirely - was in Religio Christiani, a Churchman's Answer to Religio Clerici, quoted in the October 1818 issue of The Gentleman's Magazine, in page 345, to refer to what I think is a fear of the Bible.

Bibliophobia has been defined as an irrational fear of books. It's not a common phobia, and I don't know anyone who has this. I picked it as the title of my blog to avoid changing domain names. I do have an aversion to books, but it's not serious enough to be a phobia.

A fear of books is rarely because of the book per se, but past experiences related to certain kinds of books, or the contents themselves. For a long while, I dreaded opening past issues of Reader's Digest dated more than 25 years ago. I hate and am deathly afraid of roaches, and a certain pesticide ad with a magnified shot of the insect's nightmarish segmented underside made occasional appearances in the magazine during the Eighties. It's the same reason I avoided a certain Papa Roach album.

As yet, shrinks have no big name for this kind of fear, but "subsets", or derivations of bibliophobia are out there.

Many people suffer only a subset of this phobia, fearing textbooks or historical novels or children’s stories, rather than a fear of all books. Mythophobia, or the fear of legends, can be considered a subtype of bibliophobia if the fear is of those legends that are written down. Metrophobia, or fear of poetry, is another subtype of bibliophobia.

- American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual
of mental disorders (4th Ed.)

And bad writing. Elements of bad writing, such as complex similes and metaphors, verbiage, and purple prose will put you off reading stuff. The publishing sector has its risks.

Possible symptoms of bibliophobia is marked by difficulties in reading, particularly when you're "encouraged" or rather, forced to read, say, out loud in front of class. If you have a learning disability, speech impediment, a fear of pronouncing difficult words (no big word for this, either) or foreign names (ditto), or simply illiterate, that might be the basis for being afraid of books.

At times, it's not just individuals who fear books. History is replete with incidents of book burnings, also called "biblioclasm" or "libricide". Notable ones include the immolation of Maya codices by Spanish missionaries, Qin Shi Huang's torching of scholars' books (and live burials of said scholars) and the Nazi-era biblio-bonfire.

The Wikipedia defines libricide as a "practice [that's] usually carried out in public", which "is generally motivated by moral, religious, or political objections to the material." In short, there isn't any logical or rational reason to be afraid of books.

To date, there doesn't seem to be any detailed record of bibliophobes or accounts of how they became afraid of books and how they managed to beat it. I suppose if there's no specific cure for the phobia, consultations with psychologists might provide some answers. Being afraid of (paper) books can be a bummer in civilisation, unless e-books take off in a big way.

Stuff for MPH Quill This Month

Just a month into my new job, I began contributing articles and editorial work for MPH's Quill magazine. It was particularly hectic in December as we were closing two issues of Quill: the Jan-Mar 2011 issue and the 2011 annual issue.

I confess I've only glanced through a number of pages from Anjali Joseph's Saraswati Park, not enough for a decent review. To formulate questions she hadn't been asked before, which was tough, I trawled the Internet for past interviews.

What I wasn't told was that Ms Joseph was in the midst of moving house and was travelling in India at the time. Which was why she sounded kind of brusque in many of her replies. I hoped it had little to do with the questions I posed.

First two pages of the three-page Q&A with Anjali Joseph,
author of Saraswati Park; the full text is here

I had the good fortune to hear Imran Ahmad speak at The Annexe, Central Market during the Art for Grabs weekend last December. His was among the events that enlivened what would be an otherwise dull weekend.

Days later, the editor in charge of Quill showed me a copy of the Australian edition of his book, Unimagined. I, as usual, opened my big mouth. The blog post commemorating the event became an article in the 2011 annual issue of the magazine. I must've revised it three times before it was good to go.

Feature: Imran Ahmad, author of Unimagined and his talk at
The Annexe, December 2010; full text here

Sadly, MPH won't be distributing or selling the book. I was given several reasons, but it seems they're worried about the potential hassle when a thousand or so copies of a book published overseas, imported at a considerable cost, is impounded by the Ministry and ultimately banned.

I'm also doing additional (uncredited) write-ups, such as announcements for new books, advertorials and the like.

New book announcements: Tom Plate's Conversations with Mahathir Mohamad
and Catherine Lim's Ms Seetoh in the World

Both issues are out in MPH stores and major newsstands now.

Tough Times

What a way to start the new year: my first published book review for 2011. Writing it was like walking a tightrope. Who am I, a weekend book person, to call this novel "wordy"?

The online version is, oddly, titled "Recollections of an amnesiac".

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Tough times

This tale of an amnesiac paints Malaysia's own story with almost lyrical prose

first published in The Star, 07 January 2011


I decided to read this book after a Malaysia Day panel discussion at which local author Chuah Guat Eng noted the average Malaysian's apparent inability to distinguish between fiction and non-fiction. For instance, in her latest novel, Days of Change, her realistic portrayal of a middle-aged Malay man led to speculation that she must have known such a character intimately.

I became curious.

By now, I'm almost afraid of books advertised as "Malaysian novels". A lot of books out there attempt to narrate our country's past; some resort to romanticism, presumably to better shift copies.

It was with a different kind of fear when I opened Chuah's Malaysian novel. "Days of Change is a sequel to Echoes Of Silence," began the author's note, and my heart sank. Will I be able to get the story without referring to the previous volume?

I needn't have worried. The events in Echoes Of Silence took place decades before Days of Change. The narrator in the former, one Lim Ai Lian, returns as one of the main characters in the new book. Though written as a sequel, Days of Change is good enough to be read on its own.

The chaotic, rambling recollections of one Abdul Hafiz bin Dato' Yusuf is the record of the "days of change" the man experiences after tumbling down a ravine and waking up in hospital with amnesia. After an unsuccessful attempt to consult a psychiatrist, he consults the I Ching, the famous Chinese "book of changes", to make sense of his jumbled memories.

What follows are pages and pages of a recovering amnesiac's recollections and ruminations.

Lush, descriptive writing lends poignancy to his recovered memories, some of which, perhaps, he would rather forget.

Though a wealthy property developer, Hafiz is unlucky in love and marriage. His life is also marred by a couple of tragedies at home: two mysterious murders, details of which he attempts to uncover. And why is he so repulsed by his lovely young wife? To top it off, another property developer has plans for a Disneyland-style theme park in Hafiz' (fictional) hometown of Ulu Banir, which also involves the bungalow at Jock's Hill, where he spent his childhood.

The way I see it, Chuah tells Malaysia's story through the goings-on at Ulu Banir, where much of Days of Change takes place, and through Hafiz's inner struggles and mission to fend off the land barons. We all know the ingredients: religion, politics, socio-economic policies, independence, communists, and race riots on May 13, 1969.

But Chuah's almost lyrical prose and deft juxtaposition of people, places and history make this book about more than just a bunch of "Malaysian" characters parroting the usual socio-political tirades you would find in, say, the local blogosphere.

However, it's the kind of writing that made me wish the story would move faster. One word: "wordy". Case in point would be the author's note: "... In both novels the Banir River, the district of Ulu Banir, the ancient fortress town of Kota Banir, the Malay village of Kampung Banir Hilir and the Chinese fishing village of Bagan China exist only in my imagination, as do all the characters. References to actual people, institutions, and events serve purely to create the illusion of reality from which this type of fiction draws its vitality."

Then again, perhaps the wordiness is in keeping with Hafiz's character as he struggles to make sense of the gaps in his memories and deal with his current problems. The stress and emotional turmoil is evident in his recollections. This is not light, easy material for impatient readers.

Impatience aside, I guess I do kind of get what Chuah is trying to do with Days of Change. The Malaysian story, it seems, is akin to Hafiz's journey of recovery after his near-fatal fall – often turbulent, sometimes tranquil, with dark mysterious gaps awaiting illumination, and some hope for a better future. Kind of like our current days of change.

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Days of Change

Chuah Guat Eng
Holograms/Chuah Guat Eng
277 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-983-43778-1-6

Year-End Travails Of 2010

So long, 2010. Where have you been all this time?

Though this year seemed a little slower, it still feels like it just whizzed past. I thought I'd end the year with an update before it disappears completely. I'd returned from a tiring hot springs weekend retreat at Sg Klah, Perak, feeling not the least rested or relaxed. It still smarts here and there.

I quit my job this year with Off The Edge, which was shut down six weeks afterwards. My dalliance with freelancing came to nought, and towards the end of the year, I was keen to return to full-time employment. I'm now an editor at a publishing house, a job I intend to keep for a long, long while.

In my previous job, my writing suffered somewhat, a persistent word drought. To have words flowing freely again after so long is a joy. I think it's the close proximity with volumes and volumes of written work. I was never bored. Book-related work - hell, book-related anything - seems to be good for me.

Readings @ Seksan's, December 2010

Which is probably why I found the return of Readings @ Seksan's in December just as refreshing after a one-month hiatus. I arrived uncharacteristically early.

Characteristically, the guests and readers for the month arrived late. Since there was no session in November, I wondered if the turnout would be bigger this time.

Not quite.

This Readings session had a more artsy, poetic crowd. A young doctor called Fadz, performance poet kG Krishnan and Youtube sensation Azwan Ismail were among the readers. Eeleen Lee was absent because of a family tragedy. Dr Fadz's story about a doctor (naturally) who was treating his dying brother and kG at his melancholic best complimented the cloudy weather - a casual observation. Both write beautifully.

Left to right: Maizura Abas, Jeremy Chin, Azwan Ismail

Azwan's excerpt from a gay-themed short story from the compilation Orang Macam Kita or "People Like Us" provided some laughs. The reaction to his Youtube video, however, was so not funny. Said video, a message of hope for abused and persecuted members of the LGBT community, was taken offline after death threats were made against him. The authorities, as far as I know, have been very vocal about his sexuality but silent on the death threats.

A surprise appearance by Imran Ahmad was an opportunity to ask for his contact and an autographed copy of a limited edition of his book, Unimagined. Turns out Imran is looking for a local distributor for Unimagined, and maybe someone to translate it to Malay for the local market.

Left to right: Fadz, Imran Ahmad, kG Krishnan

I promised I would try and help. Our bookshelves are in need of something funny and uplifting, and Unimagined fits the bill. Scott Pack, formerly Head Buyer of bookstore chain Waterstone's in the UK, correctly predicted it would be a hit. Why wouldn't it sell here? Shying away from this book because of the subtitle "Muhammad, Jesus and James Bond" would be a shame.

Since I already attended his talk, it wasn't as funny third time around. It was still the same excerpts: second place at the Karachi's Bonniest Baby contest, spam, pork sausages, fish and chips, and why he can't be an actor. For those who were listening to him the first time, I can say it's most likely his flu. What is he doing here? The man should be in bed. Otherwise, he should be in show business. I don't think talk-show hosts or stand-up comedians need to snog anyone.

What was on sale

I also gave my contact details to Maizura Abas, a young new mother who took Sharon Bakar's writing course and started churning out lots of stuff, mostly on being a new mom. One of her pieces ended up in a Chicken Soup compilation for young moms, which was due next March. Her candid accounts of the travails of motherhood are fun and honest. I think Imran approved.

New author Jeremy Chin was there with the missus. He was reading too, and it was his birthday. Sharon got everybody to sing him the birthday song. After his turn at the mic, she encouraged him with the words of David Davida, formerly of Penguin India, something about good authors having an abandoned first novel in the drawer. I picked up a copy of his book, Fuel, a story about how passion drives a man.

I remember this book. Bald, cheerful, self-effacing Chin appeared at a previous Readings and mentioned a self-published first novel. He was there at Imran's Annexe gig as well, sharing a booth with Amir Muhammad and selling copies of said novel. I bought their books with some degree of trepidation. The girlfriend kept reminding me we were saving up for a house.

Several days later, she had gobbled up both books before I could even finish half of either. Unimagined charmed her with its honest hilarity. The language in Fuel held her spellbound, and its ending made her weep. It's the kind of writing - deep, introspective, well-crafted and polished - that I used to want to do, but couldn't.

No, I haven't read it yet, but I had little reason to doubt the girl. She's never been wrong about food, and she isn't wrong about the books she's read so far.

It didn't help that Chin, who worked at an ad agency before he quit to write the book, is also a creative wiz. Look at his business card. Look at the web sites he's worked on. Look at the cover of Fuel. Minimalist designs with maximum impact. Especially the book cover, which gives little idea of the power in its pages.

There's a Malay proverb about still waters and crocodiles. In this case, what jumped out was that 40-foot dinosaur-eating terror some fossil hunter found in the Sahara.

Man, I was so taken in.

Power Of The Outraged, Helpless Masses

Now at the CSR Digest web site: one of the few book reviews not for the newspapers.

This was one kind of hard-to-review book, and it kind of shows in my writing. But it was a nice change from the usual stuff I look at.

Thanks to Daniel Chandranayagam for the opportunity to review this book and contribute to CSR Digest, and apologies for holding on to the book for so long. I hope he found it more enjoyable than I did.

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The World That Changes The World

first published in the CSR Digest, 24 November 2010


Thanks to modern technology, bad news are delivered with great speed and in huge amounts. We are barraged by "Have you heard?", "OMG!", and of course, "Look at this!", which is often followed by "Spread the word!" or, if you're on Facebook, "Please 'Like' This." So far, over 200,000 Malaysian Facebook users have stated their objection to the latest addition to the KL skyline, and possible white elephant: a 100-storey steel, glass and concrete masterpiece.

As attested by the popularity of such campaigns, the sense of outrage and helplessness engendered by bad news can be a tremendous force. Imagine the things it can help achieve if harnessed.

Media, technology, and social responsibility are just several of the cogs in an even bigger system. The social ecosystem, touted by the Lien Centre for Social Innovation as "The World That Changes The World". It is also the title of the book, which the Centre hopes will explain the environment where corporate social responsibility (CSR), perhaps the most visible aspect of social responsibility, is but a drop in a huge ocean.

The social ecosystem, as the Centre puts it, is "a pulsing, thriving community of very diverse, at times divisive players, all driven by a common mission: to change the world for the better." This ecosystem is populated by those who need help (beneficiaries); those who help (social purpose organisations); and those who help the helpers (capacity builders). The last two include "more than 20,000 international groups", who spend more than the current US debt (US$1.9 trillion) annually, and provide "more than 4.8 million full-time jobs", with the help of the wider community (helpless, outraged people), the media (Facebook), and governments.

In this book, twenty-one thinkers, captains of industry and leaders in their fields from around the world provide their perspectives and insights into the complex social ecosystem, two of whom are also the book's editors: chairman Willie Cheng, and manager Sharifah Mohamed, both from the Centre.

Other contributing authors include Chris Cusano, ASEAN Change Leader for Ashoka: Innovators for the Public; Jonathan S Huggett, Visiting Fellow at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Oxford University; Dr Geoff Mulgan, director of the Young Foundation in London; Dr Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International; Dr Thomas Menkhoff from Singapore Management University; and Laurence Lien, CEO of the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre in Singapore, and chairman of the Lien Foundation.

In the first two chapters, the editors introduce us to the concept of the social ecosystem: the components, the forces behind it, and the changes to it that are happening now, or might happen in thefuture. Essays from the other authors describe and discuss aspects of the ecosystem: beneficiaries, social purpose entities, capacity builders, community, government, change enablers and macro-trends. The end result is a collection of essays most likely targeted at the very same players described within. Given the scope of the book and the logistics involved, there's little doubt that it's a serious, exhaustive undertaking.

While the mission to create a holistic, complete, detailed view of the social ecosystem has more or less been achieved, there appears to be no inclination on the authors' part to put all that knowledge and insight in more... accessible terms. The writing is staid, very textbook, perhaps in keeping with the need for a uniform voice across the pages, and to emphasise the gravity of the issues, problems and solutions being discussed.

The numerous endnotes suggest further reading is required. Just as well, since the various topics presented in this book would, perhaps, already have entire treatises of their own, written by others eager to get to the bottom of things. Gastroenterology & Medicine International's Tan Chi Chiu's essay is noteworthy for his inclusion of Abe Maslow's pyramid of needs and a famous John Lennon song to brighten up his extensively researched, and somewhat depressing essay of just how many people out there need help.

There is also a lot of cross-referencing as well. Ashoka founder Bill Drayton mentioned his organisation in the foreword. At one point, Willie Cheng notes that "...Organizations such as the Young Foundation and the Lien Centre for Social Innovation are dedicated to fostering the cause of social innovation."

Bill Drayton is mentioned in IJ Partners' Maximillian Martin's writing on "transformative leaders", as an example of leaders who possess "engineering leadership", together with Bill Gates. These people and organisations may be the closest, credible examples within reach of a stressed, time-starved author, but at first glance, such referencing can be perceived as self-promotion or mutual apple-polishing.

The World That Changes The World is a notable effort by the Centre to piece together a credible primer to the overall social landscape, a world that the rest of us only see in glimpses. However, one wonders what the average layperson would make of it all, if this book was meant for the average layperson to begin with.

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The World That Changes The World

How Philanthropy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship are Transforming the Social Ecosystem

edited by Willie Cheng, Sharifah Mohamed
Jossey-Bass (2010)
Non-Fiction
388 pages
ISBN: 978-0-470-82715-4