Paper People

I decided to get Tom Rachman's The Imperfectionists at the advertised 20 per cent discount. The sales assistant mentioned a "coupon", but turns out all I had to do was to surrender that section of the newspaper in exchange for the price cut.

At a discounted price of RM48 it was still expensive, never mind the "bonus" interview featuring Rachman and Malcolm Gladwell and accolades such as the New York Times Book Review of the Year.

At least the book didn't disappoint.

Formerly a journalist with Associated Press, Tom Rachman was born in 1974 in London, but grew up in Vancouver. The Imperfectionists is his début novel; he's now in London, working on his second.

Tom Rachman's newspaper novel

This novel charts the fall of a fictional newspaper headquartered in Rome, through the vignettes of key characters involved with it. Each chapter is dedicated to one character, complete with a headline. Spliced in between are the milestones in the paper's history, rendered in eye-gouging italics.

Among others, we meet an obituary writer and trivia section custodian, who struggles with his editor and later, a family tragedy; the grizzled corrections editor who can't seem to keep up with the Internet-powered changes in his world of words; a frumpy, bitchy, bitter copywriter who has a love/hate relationship with her career; and a news editor/aspiring inventor who tries to deal with his girlfriend's cheating.

Rounding up the cast is the struggling, starving freelancer who's miles away from it all, and is therefore, clueless about how the news mill he writes for is run; the equally clueless descendant of the paper's founder; and one who is perhaps the paper's most loyal reader.

Despite my very brief stint in journalism, and even though the setting and ethnicity is different, I can still recognise bits of former colleagues in the characters. In myself are fragments of struggling freelancer Lloyd Burko and obsessive-compulsive corrections editor Herman Cohen. As for the premise itself - well, it's one that's playing out everywhere.

The format may look odd, breaking the story up and interrupting the momentum, but thanks to sharp, witty prose and an innate knowledge of the industry, this 200-plus-page obituary to newsprint that Rachman has written is one fun, morbid ride. The character's individual stories, though interesting and funny, are somewhat peripheral to the world crumbling around them.

In The Imperfectionists one can truly see the physical newspaper's slow, painful spiral to oblivion. Despite knowing what's to come, the pages keep turning. Writers/journalists/publishers of every stripe will find the depressing tone of the book strangely comforting in its familiarity.

Hence my bafflement at this book being marketed as fiction. It's as real as it can one wants it to be.

They could have done without the Rachman-Gladwell section. Omitting that would probably cut the price by 30 per cent.

---

The Imperfectionists

Tom Rachman
Dial Press (2011)
281 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-385-34367-1

"Eet Ees NOT Too SOHLTEE!"

A long, long time ago in a Visa Card ad with a restaurant setting, Zhang Ziyi infuriated a chef with the complaint, "De sup is too saltee." The pissed-off chef yells his denial and set his kitchen staff on her. A re-enactment of the restaurant fight scene in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ensued. Though the place was trashed, Zhang emerged triumphant and hurled a Visa Card to a waiter - "for the 'extras'".

In 2008, at a restaurant in Taiwan, a similar tableau unfolded but this time the chef - or rather, the restaurant - won.

A food and lifestyle blogger who visited the restaurant not only complained about salty food, but also of cockroaches in the kitchen and the owner who allowed indiscriminate parking near his premises. When the owner heard about the review, he sued her for defamation.

The judge ruled in the restaurant's favour on the grounds that the blogger had gone too far with her review. She was sentenced to 30 days in jail and ordered to pay the restaurant about US$7,000 for losses her review may have caused.

This sounds... kind of familiar... except that nothing about that fishy case has come up so far.

I have not read the review, but I feel the judgement handed down was a bit heavy-handed. Making sweeping statements about the food based on one dish is reckless (unless it's the only dish served by the establishment), though I feel the roach part is valid. It was just one review by one person; other diners may beg to differ.

So can a food blog, a chronological journal of one's eating experiences with anecdotes of bad food and bad hygiene for a particular day, be defamatory? Is it unfair and unobjective to say something tastes "bad" when it, well, tastes "bad"? Tastebuds generally don't lie.

Things change all the time in restaurants, and unfortunately for that blogger, that day was perhaps a bad time to visit. Things might have happened afterwards: a visit from a healthy inspector, another customer complaint... the problems that were blogged about may have been solved after the review was published - something a review should include.

Commenting on the case, a Taiwanese lawyer said food bloggers should be "truthful in their commentary", "be fair and objective in their writing", and use photographic evidence to protect themselves. In short, they should be like journalists. But are food bloggers supposed to be journalists? Or will journalism be expected from bloggers in the future, particularly those whose blogs have high page hits?

Will being like journalists actually help protect bloggers from defamation suits?

One way this could have been avoided was not to review the place at all. With the exception of one or two blogs I know of, Malaysian food bloggers don't bother if an overall restaurant experience is sour. But what if a review was paid for, or by invitation? Does one gloss over the flaws, write a "balanced" review, or what?

In the near future, however, I think they'd better be careful when reviewing eating places in Taiwan.

France Made Fun

I had expected this to be out on in the Sunday Star's ReadsMonthly, not today. I wonder what will that section feature?

Not much else I have to say about this review, other than it took me 2½ days to finish. With this, Stephen Clarke and Dan Simmons are now the authors whose works I've reviewed the most. Not sure if that's a good thing... .

---

France made fun

Sample these sharp and humorous takes on all things French sparingly

first published in The Star, 24 June 2011


Stephen Clarke is funny, which is to be expected of a writer who cut his teeth writing comedy sketches for the BBC. After moving to France, he turned his incisive wit on his adopted homeland, resulting in a series of novels and several non-fiction books that are mostly about the pleasures and perils of living in that country.

Talk to the Snail was how I got to know Clarke ("French comprehension", Reads, StarMag, Dec 30, 2007). His handy, hilarious survival guide to France was chock-full of myth-busting anecdotes. "... if you want to know France, don't ask a Frenchman. He'll only give you the version he wants you to hear," says Clarke. "He won't mention that French women have just about the highest Prozac consumption in the world.... Or that the French are mad about hamburgers...."

Stephen Clarke's 1000 Years of Annoying the French (left) and
Paris Revealed - more of the French than you can handle

That book didn't shock, but it left me quite breathless by making me laugh my lungs flat. It's just that all these hidden, surreal sides of France are so over the top, they look more natural and less funny in fiction – I decided that I find Clarke funnier when he's not writing fiction. So when I came across a 2010 non-fiction release I hadn't seen, as well as a title released earlier this year, I couldn't resist asking to review both.

1000 Years Of Annoying The French, which sounds like Clarke's job description, is a brick-like tome that tries to "set the record straight" about the long tragicomedy that is the French-English relationship. A healthy portion of it, however, appears dedicated to what Clarke does best, which he suggests is nothing new. From William the Conqueror to the diplomatic gaffes suffered by current French president Nicolas Sarkozy, all forms of insults have been flying between Britain and France for centuries. Kind of like Malaysia-Singapore, only much longer.

From 1000 Years, it seems the French may have exaggerated notions of their place in history. In his own inimitable way, Clarke mercilessly tears down each "historical fact" and uncovers some surprising things:

• Clarke says that William the Conqueror was not a French king because he was of Viking descent, drank little wine, and was faithful to his wife.
• Mary, Queen of Scots, had French blood and upbringing. As Clarke states, "She was as Scottish as foie gras-flavoured haggis."
• The fearsome guillotine used to dispatch various French royals and nobles during the French Revolution was a British invention.
• France's exorbitant demands for war-time reparations from Germany after World War I might have bred the resentment that would later fuel Hitler's rise and start World War II.

Here, Clarke shows his work as an acerbic, wittier, and less genteel David Attenborough of the history of Anglo-French relations. Each sequence of events is threaded together well, with references to previous chapters and modern events, plus accompanying footnotes to make the history more interesting, entertaining even.

Case in point: The English may have killed Joan of Arc (see chapter four), but it seems that France allowed them to. Centuries later, after World War I, France had her made a saint (see chapter 24). Clarke notes the irony. "Yes, just eighteen months after Britain had sacrificed a whole generation of its young men to defend Joan of Arc's homeland against invasion, the French adopted an anti-English patron saint." Merci beaucoup, les amis (thanks a lot, buddy), indeed.

This history book with a difference was every bit the enjoyable read it promised to be. I can't say quite as much about the other book. Returning to the present day and familiar territory, Clarke zooms in on his home city. Paris Revealed: The Secret Life Of A City is essentially Talk to the Snail Lite, focusing specifically on the "secrets" of the city. Clarke lays bare the mysteries behind the some Parisian eccentricities: the signage, the people, the architecture ... the works.

Treasures in this box includes a map and brief descriptions of Paris's 20 arrondissements (administrative districts); survival tips, such as how to become a Parisian and how not to annoy other Parisians; and addresses of cafés, restaurants, museums and other places of interest. Choice bits and helpful information about the "city of lovers" are divided into helpful sections: Parisians, Pavements, Water, History, Romance, Fashion, and so on.

Though it veers towards TMI territory, it isn't Clarke's intention to scare people away from Paris. He hopes the book will complete the "glitzy, romanticised" image of the city that often graces travel brochures, making her personality more real and fully rounded. "After all, you don't truly fall in love with someone until you know what makes them tick." Well put.

Even so, Paris Revealed is pretty lightweight reading, compared to 1000 Years. Though a good mix of fact and fun, it has little of the zing that Talk to the Snail has. By the time I was halfway through, Clarke-fatigue had set in. The writing started appearing dry and a little self-indulgent. The jokes get old rather quickly, and the use of French phrases in punch lines soon becomes a bad idea, especially if the reader doesn't know the language. Do I smell an author's impending burnout?

I hope not. Few can write like Clarke, and it would be a pity were he to keel over after flogging the old French nag for so long. Every book in his repertoire so far revolves around taking the mickey out of France – which the French themselves have begun doing, as recent headlines suggest. Perhaps a new source of inspiration is in order. Italy, maybe?

In spite of it all, Clarke remains a must-read on my shelf, and I'd recommend (some of) his books to anyone who's interested. It's just that his stuff is like foie gras: rich, and should only be consumed on occasion – preferably in small, manageable portions.

---

1000 Years of Annoying the French

Stephen Clarke
Black Swan (2010)
686 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-0-552-77575-5

Paris Revealed

The Secret Life of a City

Stephen Clarke
Bantam Press (2011)
306 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-0-593-06711-6

One Sick Fish

When I was with Off The Edge, we received mail from a reader who noted the little "Consumer Price Index" slot we gave to Hotel Nikko, advertising its Chinese restaurant's Superior Shark's Fin with Golden Broth and Gold Foil (OTE, Jan 2009).

He went on to express "surprise" that "one of the more enlightened publications in Malaysia" would promote, from the vibes I got, something so decadent and environmentally damaging as sharks fin soup. Shock! Horror!

So he suggested that perhaps we should've added a disclaimer of some kind, which he helpfully provided. The chief felt he had a point, so he published the "disclaimer" in full in the next issue.

Eating shark-fin soup seriously threatens the survival of sharks. More than one hundred million sharks are killed each year ... The irony is while the shark-fin itself is tasteless ... it actually contains a high concentration of toxic mercury (causes nervous system deterioration, male infertility) since [the shark] is the apex predator in the sea and accumulates all the mercury from the fishes in consumes during its long life. Have a healthy Chinese New Year.

I had different thoughts.

The reader might have done his homework and meant well, but to me he was a complete tyro. The point was to promote the dish, and tacking his kind of "disclaimer" to the slot would be the equivalent of "save the sharks, shut down some restaurants". The "male infertility" thing was definitely pinpoint targeting. Tact, dude.

And did he really feel people who'd buy OTE would be so woefully uninformed about shark's fin? As a sometimes-reader myself, I'd be offended - and I was. And still am.

Given the choice, I wouldn't order it. It's expensive, wasteful (if it came from finning) and the fin fibres themselves have as much nutrition as your hair or fingernails. But when a bowl of Jaws' flipper-fibres is put in front of me, I'm very likely to eat it. Because by the time the shark goes into the bowl, it is already too late.

I like sharks. It is one sick fish. While the raptors were busy growing the parts that would help them fly, sharks were already masters of their realm. Around this time was the reign of a personal favourite: carcharocles megalodon, the bus-sized, whale-eating terror of the deep.

The shark evolved to effectively hunt and kill slow, weak and stupid marine life, so that only the strong remain and make stronger, smarter offspring - kind of like what Simon, Randy, et al do on American Idol. On lean days, their keen senses are used to look for dead or dying prey species and eat that, keeping the seas relatively clean and sanitised.

However, as Reader so helpfully pointed out, in this day and age countless numbers of sharks across the spectrum of species are killed each year. And as apex predators of the deep, they accumulate all sorts of toxic substances in their bodies as they hunt and eat inside increasingly polluted oceans, much like whales.

Though it's been established that many species such as the great white mature slowly and rarely reproduce, science still knows so little about the shark's life cycles. The scale of the slaughter is such that the impact of one dead shark can send big ripples across an ecosystem.

And if we do wipe out the sharks, are we willing to take their place in the ecosystem, hunting and cleaning up the oceans of dead, rotting whales and such?

But it didn't used to be like this. Or was it, except on a smaller, more sustainable scale?

Which is why I'm interested in what this book has to say about sharks and our relationships with them. They could have done away with the simulated gill slits on the cover, though. And did they have to call it Demon Fish?

In this book, the author Juliet Eilperin goes round the world to investigate how different individuals and cultures relate to the shark, one of nature's most awesome creatures. Eilperin is the national environmental reporter for The Washington Post, where she writes about science, policy, and politics in areas ranging from climate change to oceans.

Ah, that's one sick book. Too bad it comes with a sick price tag. The paperback can't come soon enough.

Man On The Fringe

In my brief stint at Off The Edge magazine, I'd had the privilege of interviewing and writing about people I'd never thought I meet and proofing the articles of some really high-powered personalities. The job had its moments but I only ever got to meet a handful of these people in person.

The first time I saw Benjamin McKay was at the first Seksualiti Merdeka, in 2008. He was in a panel that included Sharon Bong and an MP, and he was presenting a paper on public spaces and the "cruising habits of the Malaysian male." Which, he constantly reminded his audience, was done with no funding. He was a Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University's Sunway Campus and, I heard, knew his stuff well.

I never got to know him other than through the articles I checked, and even then, gave them a perfunctory glance for any glaring typos and whatnot. From what I would hear much later, all the copies I'd received had been substantially cleaned up beforehand.

His passing came as a shock to everyone. Back then, chances of McKay's name on a list of "people who might die tomorrow" were very, very remote.

Off The Edge folded around the same time he passed on. I barely got to know the magazine before it went, too.

My time with both McKay's articles and OTE was brief, and I did wonder if that was enough to "allow" me to attend the event that also commemorated his brief time with us. But went I did.

Fringe Benefits: Essays and Reflections on Malaysian Arts and Cinema was launched on 19 June at The Annexe, Central Market, and it was attended by several of his students, colleagues, friends and acquaintances. The book is a compilation of selected film-related articles he wrote for online Malaysian arts portal Kakiseni and Off The Edge.

The phrase "fringe benefits" had a significance. According to McKay's former colleague Yeoh Seng Guan, the fringes of a society was where interaction with the outside world was and where all the creative energies were - the edges of the box one should think out of, so to speak. So the "benefits" from the fringe are new ideas, radical ways of thinking that can enlighten and transform a society. Perhaps an allusion to a quest to bring these benefits from the fringe to the "centre" - the mainstream society.

Another thing that was mentioned was that McKay's office was located on the fringes of the campus as well. That made his fronting the "Fringe Benefits" column doubly apt.

I'm intellectually lazy, so I'll only tell you that his stuff, though at times very scholarly, were quite fun to read. Each would have a humorous undercurrent there somewhere, but he always had respect for his subjects - except, perhaps, those that deserve the full weight of his derision, though I can't remember on which occasion.

One fun article was about how common images of half-naked men were in the Philippines ("Musings on the Filipino male in advertising", Off The Edge, February 2009). The accompanying photo we had was quite low res, and I didn't relish the task of looking for a better one. We eventually settled for a less than ideal picture of "that ding-dong".

I didn't get a copy of Fringe Benefits that day. I felt I'd read enough of McKay for a while, but only as a proofreader. And I don't think it's okay to review stuff I had a part in publishing. So don't let it stop you from getting one.

Buckets Fixes Melancholy

Coming back from a wedding celebration, I got stuck in a traffic jam outside Dataran Sunway at Kota Damansara. On The Om Nom Show at BFM89.9 was artisanal ice cream entrepreneur Elaine Gunting.

As the segment wrapped up, John Lim asked Elaine where her business was located.

"We're located at Kota Damansara-"

...What?

"That's where our factory is, The Strand," she continued. "We opened some counters to complement the production line. When we experiment with different flavours, we take it out and people can sample them..."

No prizes for guessing what I did next.

Buckets was tucked deep inside The Strand, far from the main road and out of sight. Two tables, several seats and barebones decor. The co-founder who calls himself Jay was standing by, "one leg kicking" as he said. He wasted little time, and I was sampling a number of flavours.

Buckets is about cold stuff: ice creams, sorbets and yoghurt-based desserts. Their ice creams are made the gelato way, with fresh raw ingredients. To make it low fat, they use palm-based stuff. They sell their stuff to a few cool customers, which include Ole-Ole Bali, Sushi-Tei and 7ate9.

"We use real fruits and ingredients," said Jay in his sales pitch. "When you eat our sorbets, it's like eating the fruit itself. If you tried similar products from other manufacturers, the first-"

"You'll taste the ice first," I cut in.

"That's right. But here, you taste the fruit first."

He didn't have to try so hard. The cool and refreshing rock melon and passionfruit sorbets released the fruits' aromas as it melted in the mouth. Likewise the banana ice cream. Some of the products had Italian names, which made selection a tad difficult.

I had a double scoop: vanilla and banana. Jay pointed out the black dots in the vanilla ice cream, which I knew were vanilla beans. The real deal. Strawberries from France, Thai honey mangoes, and pisang berangan for their banana ice creams. An ongoing experiment involves stevia, a healthier natural sweetener.

"Try this and tell me what you think," said Jay as he handed me a spoon of chocolate ice cream made with "the finest" dark Belgian chocolate. I cleared my mouth of the other flavours and in it went.

Wow. The chocolate hit the tongue almost immediately and seconds later, the aroma reached my nostrils via my throat.

They choose their raw ingredients based on not just on flavour, but also how the ingredients react to being frozen, then thawed, mixed with milk and blended in. Changes in quality and flavour can occur between box to bucket.

The ice creams were great. The lingering feel of the slick palm-based fat is to be expected - ice creams need some kind of fat in them.

A family walked in and bought a cup or two. Then, a couple waltzed in with a print-out for a Milk-A-Deal redemption. They were similarly sold on many of the flavours, particularly the sorbet and the yoghurt-based thingy with mixed berries. Then Jay mentioned durian.

What? I didn't hear about this.

After the couple leave, I asked for a single scoop of durian. After my two scoops of vanilla and banana.

Jay was incredulous. "Serious?"

Of course. In a year, durian rarely happens.

Of course it was good. It's durian. Buckets, Jay said, only use the expensive maoshanwang varietal.

The durian ice cream was the perfect ending for my incidental visit to this hidden dessert corner. Also a sweet way to end a hectic, draining week. Funny how things just seem to fall into place like that.

So this must be what it's like for Melody when she's having a good day.

---

Premium Buckets Sdn Bhd

38-G & 38-1, Jalan PJU 5/20B
The Strand, Kota Damansara
47810 Petaling Jaya, Selangor

CLOSED FOR GOOD

Review for Revenue?

Carol Hoenig, a freelance writer and publishing consultant, asks whether one should pay to have books reviewed. She expresses guilt over not being able to review every book delivered to her, but stresses that priority must be given to her paying gigs.

"The shame of it is that there are fewer places to have one's book reviewed, thanks to so many publications eliminating the position or having folded altogether," she says at one point.

Hers is perhaps the longest question I've read so far on whether paid reviews are relevant in the age of the digital freebie.

...Probably not.

The modern phenomenon of shrinking attention spans is eating into a lot of the stuff we do, including writing reviews of anything that justifies a paycheque. Nowadays, the gauge to whether a book is good is the number of stars or votes it gets on Amazon, Librarything or Good Reads. In short, "Is this book worth my money and time?"

...Probably not.

Reviews of a book - of anything - are subject to the fancies or foibles of those who pen them. Not everybody thinks Phillip Roth is a writer, and still many others wonder, "How the hell did this book get so-and such prize?" If one has trawled through the 20-odd pages of reviews for a popular book in Amazon before deciding to buy it, chances of a 50/50 "I will like/hate this book" will still be high enough to give pause.

So why write reviews at all?

I suppose it depends on where the review is going to be published.

It's true that the mainstream media nowadays sees little reason to publish book reviews or book-related features, especially when the featured books are not considered commercial successes. In the old, old days when books were relatively a luxury and a bit later, associated with culture and enlightenment, reviewers (or whatever they're called back then), could show off a little by disassembling a book and calling out the author on plot devices, characters and the hidden messages, cutting commentary and whatnot, disguised as a work of literature.

Though that aspect of the reviewer's job remains, modern reviews are geared towards selling books, hence the "balanced" review, even for books one knows are unequivocally bad. Of course, a review for the mainstream media has to be of a certain length, depth and quality for payment to be justified.

But will it be enough to make people care and, maybe, shuffle off to the bookstore to pick up a copy and see if the reviewer is right?

...Probably not.

The increasingly huge freebie pool comes with history's biggest caveat emptor sign. When free doesn't necessarily mean quality or veracity, you'd be a fool to believe everything you read on the web. At home, book reviews tend to be supportive, if not "balanced", so I don't think the question of ethics and "honesty" in one's paid review really applies.

Nevertheless, we should probably be grateful that the mainstream media hasn't given up on books yet. Though it is foolhardy to pay the bills by solely reviewing books, those who still write reviews will have a platform to publish - and maybe an additional, albeit small, income stream.

...And this is the longest preamble to my reply to Ms Hoenig's question.

Which is, should reviews be paid for? By paid reviews, I assume she's not talking about those commissioned by newspapers or magazines, but the freebies gathering dust on her table, which she might review on her blog or web site if... .

...Probably not.

When a publisher, agent or bookstore (chain) sends you a book, it implies that they are confident that your blog, newspaper or online portal can provide some degree of visibility for whatever they send you. It is, I think, not a decision made lightly. Every printed book sent to a reviewer means one less sale, on top of postage. That sort of suggests you should do something with it, even if the letter says you are not obliged to.

Lots of books are released each year and some really good ones get swamped by the buzz over hyped-up commercial successes. Reviewers should take a chance on some books not extensively covered by the press. Not to mention the thrill - and spill - of the gamble when you, if you can, dive into the book pile at a newspaper's HQ.

And if the book is not available in your local bookstores? Who cares? There are no borders in cyberspace. Someone in Poughkeepsie, New York might want to know if that book he's looking up is worth his time and money. Your review could help him decide.

Write the damn review(s). Find the time. Got books you're "not obliged to review"? 500 words, minimum. Maybe less if you're a blogger, or a reviewer at The Independent. Quote some passages to complete the word count. When it's done and posted, that's your obligation, there. That's also material for your blog, and a free book for your bookshelf.

...Probably not a good idea to wait until the book is out of print.

(Disclosure: I have missed deadlines before. You don't need to know how many times. This is not about me.)

I guess the writing of book reviews, along with the reading and writing of books, has always been a labour of love, and we know just how much love pays where cash-strapped, overworked and stress-out freelancers are concerned. Labour of love, or simply a chance to show off one's biblio-forensics skills.

But as long as there's a space for the book review, those who want to, will. If you can spin an entertaining review out of a good (or bad) book, that's even better.

"Can you tell me how?"

...Probably not. That's something you have to discover. Just like what I'm trying to do.