Assassin of Secrets: A Plagiarism

A new book published early this month received rave reviews.

Kirkus said, "Containing elements of the 007 and Jason Bourne sagas, Graham Greene's insular spy novels, William Gibson's cyber thrillers, TV’s Burn Notice and Mad magazine’s classic Spy vs. Spy comic strip, this book is a narrative hall of mirrors in which nothing and no one are as they seem and emotion is a perilous thing to have."

Publishers Weekly pointed out "the obvious Ian Fleming influence" which "just adds to the appeal."

The were talking about Assassin of Secrets by QR Markham, real name Quentin Rowan, part owner of a bookstore in New York. He also wrote poetry and contributed something to The Huffington Post. Markham inked a deal with publisher Little, Brown to write a series of espionage thrillers featuring a character called Jonathan Chase.

Those who blurbed the book would learn just how close their comments hit home. It did sort of validate their reviewing chops, though...


Too good to be true
Turns out that significant parts of Assassin of Secrets were reportedly borrowed from the works such as those by Robert Ludlum and, yes, about James Bond. The book was a pastiche of plagiarised material.

The New Yorker's Book Bench blog theorised that Markham was not an author as he was an artist who did "a bang-up job" in pointing out how recyclable spy novels are and how readers of the genre keep going back to the same old stuff.

Others aren't as appreciative of the genius. Little, Brown pulled the book, prompting a fire sale of sorts that sent its Amazon ranking up to 174 from 62,924 in 24 hours.

Elsewhere, Markham's contribution to The Huffington Post, ironically titled "9 Ways That Spy Novels Made Me a Better Bookseller" was removed from the mega-blog - because large parts of it were also plagiarised.

I know. I think he must've lifted more than nine parts for his spy novel, too.

The hero in Assassin of Secrets would also be familiar to those who still remember the Eighties TV series Manimal; "Jonathan Chase" is the name of the series' protagonist, played by Simon MacCorkindale. Though that could also be coincidental.


Fascinating fakery
Every time a con like this happens, I'm reminded of art forger Tom Keating. He saw the whole American-dominated art auctions industry as rotten and corrupt and did something about it. Over many years he used the techniques he learnt as an art restorer to produce fakes which he passed off as authentic pieces by the masters.

Unlike those who forged paintings for profit, his works had elements that would tip inspectors off. He wanted people to know they were fakes. For instance, he'd write messages such as "This is a fake" or "Ever been had?" on canvas with special paint that would show up in x-rays before painting over them.

He was eventually caught and went to prison. But he left the art world a sticky legacy by not naming his fakes. This meant that if an unknown Keating had not been ID-ed as a forgery, it would still fetch a high price - not quite achieving what he'd set out to do. The casual collector might even feel the urge to collect and display a few Keatings in his living room.

It's perhaps that impulse that QR Markham might have banked on to shift copies of his shifty book, in case someone uncovered the scam. From the Amazon ranking jump, it looks like it worked.


Getting away with it
So, you might be asking, as did Book Bench and a number of others: "How did Rowan think he’d get away with this, especially in the era of Google?"

When this story first broke, I was with the camp that says he expects being caught eventually. It's perhaps a matter of how long he could keep the scam going.

Then, what about the editors? The publishers? Couldn't they have seen it coming?

I say, not too likely. Publishers and lit agents in the US get lots of submissions and books to the point where they don't even have the time for a Google- or Copyscape-powered fact check, which I think would not be uppermost in the to-do list of a beleaguered editor or book reviewer with a deadline snapping at his heels.

Also, would they even know what to look for?

Thank goodness for the Google, which has helped open up online sleuthing to those who have the time and tenacity. In time, publishing houses would be thinking of ways to ensure there would be no repeats of this incident.

But I don't think this would mean the end of the likes of QR Markham.


"...there was nothing I could do..."
Just when I thought it wouldn't happen so soon, it did. Markham himself ended speculation over his motives which were, sadly, not quite as "artistic" as some had presumed.

In a long Q&A in a blog post's comments section, between him and one of the authors who blurbed his book, he claims to have caved in under the pressure of living up to everyone's expectations of him being this young wunderkind writer. When he couldn't, he started borrowing bits from here and there that would make himself look the part.

Unlike some plagiarists, he did lose sleep over it. He seems to know that it was only a matter of time. Instead of owning up earlier, however, he felt that:

...I'd already thrown the dice so long ago by that point I felt there was nothing I could do but play the out the awful pantomime... I can only compare it to other kinds of obsession or addictive behavior like gambling or smoking: in that there was no need to do it initially, but once I'd started I couldn't stop and my mind kept finding ways to rationalize the behavior. Even though, somewhere deep in the chasms of my thick brain, I knew it would destroy me.

Such a waste. Like that other cautionary tale closer to home.

And pity the publisher, whom I didn't know got burned by another famous case of plagiarism a few years ago.

It's not as if he's a bad writer. Markham - or should I say, Rowan - managed to articulate his thoughts pretty well. But his excuse comes off a bit lame to me. Why should he care about what people thought?

Had he confided to someone that he might be, hypothetically, contemplating plagiarism to take the heat off himself, that someone might've set him and kept him straight.

There was something he could have done. But I guess we'll never know.

Why I Like My Job

Something is coming your way in December, i.e. next month.

May I present: Luis Alberto Urrea's "...at turns heartbreaking, uplifting, and riotously funny" Queen of America, which confirms the author as a "writer of the first rank."

Got a copy to review this afternoon from the distributors. I was told The Bookstore (you know which one) was promised the hardcover versions, but then the paperbacks were released. So bookshoppers might not be seeing this edition at outlets this month.

Now that I've managed to kick out most of the must-do items from my reading list, I think I'll dive into this this weekend. But I think the NST may present their take on this book before anyone else here - they're like that.

Adapted from the publisher's web site:

After the bloody Tomochic rebellion of 1892, Teresita Urrea, beloved healer and "Saint of Cabora", flees with her father to Arizona. But after she's made the spiritual leader of the Mexican Revolution, she's sought after by pilgrims and assassins.

She embarks on a journey through turn-of-the-century industrial America, meeting immigrants and tycoons, European royalty and Cuban poets. And as she decides on her own role in this new American century, one question begs to be answered: Can a saint fall in love?

Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of other books, including The Devil's Highway, The Hummingbird's Daughter, and Into the Beautiful North. He's also won a boatload of awards.

And Queen of America confirms him as a "writer of the first rank."

Sounds like a thrown glove, doesn't it?

Reto aceptado.

Under The Pear Tree

Nope, no long preamble for this. Not much I can add to the review, either. The covers, though...

---

Under the pear tree

There are exotic characters, tropical settings, intrigues and conflicts galore in these re-issues of the works of an author from a little-written about community.

first published in The Star, 13 November 2011

One of two books by the late Eurasian author Rex Anthony Shelley released by Marshall Cavendish in 2009 was The Shrimp People, a novel about Eurasians originally published in the 1990s. It was the first of what has been dubbed as Shelley's "Eurasian quartet". This year, Marshall Cavendish re-issued the three remaining books in this quartet: People Of The Pear Tree, Island In The Centre, and A River Of Roses.

So, why now? "Rex Shelley was an author whose works we felt a new generation could benefit from," said Chris Newson, general manager of Marshall Cavendish.

"We didn't want his books to be consigned only to the archives, and so decided to republish them with more contemporary covers."

It was said that no one else before Shelley had written so much about this particular demographic. In his own way, Shelley was the spokesman for his community, offering glimpses into the lives and history of Singapore's Eurasians through his works of historical fiction.

"It is all fiction," says the author in the preface. "But the settings are in real worlds of the past. I have tried to keep the facts generally correct."

And, lest we forget, there are many more components in our country's demographic makeup other than the oft-mentioned trio of Malay, Chinese and Indians. Because many of my generation would probably never learn about the Eurasians (or the Serani), Shelley's Eurasian quartet is the closest thing we have to a time capsule about a people and an era.


Thy surname is pear
People Of The Pear Tree is told largely from the viewpoint of the Perera family in the 1930s and 1940s. Augustine "Gus" Perera ("pear" in Portuguese) falls in with a bunch of British-backed Communist insurgents.

Gus's sister Anna is courted by Japanese army officer Junichiro Takanashi ("high pear" in Japanese) and later, becomes entangled in a love triangle of sorts when British guerrilla trainer John Pearson (see where this is going?) is drawn to her.

We are also introduced to Ah Keh, a Communist guerilla. He's the one who drags Gus into the Communists' anti-Japanese struggle and continues to be nothing but trouble to the Eurasian protagonists in the three books.

When the Japanese land in Singapore, a bunch of Singapore Eurasians, including the Pereras, are transplanted to a swampy malarial hell in Malaya, where nothing grows well and the living is hard. Then, the fighting starts....


Welcome to Singapore
Part diary and part narrative, Island In The Centre begins in the 1920s in Japan. A conversation among a bunch of human traffickers foreshadows the fates of village girls Yuriko Sasakawa and Hanako Ohara.

Meanwhile, electrician Tomio Nakajima writes in his diary: "Today the starting is. My English Diary. To help learning English language it is. But a English-learning book it is not. A life-details record it will be."

Posted to Singapore, Nakajima is dazzled by his new home, an "island in the centre" like himself ("naka" means middle, "jima" means island). His grammatically clumsy description of a Deepavali celebration is almost poetic.

Nakajima later saves Hanako from a brothel and marries her. But things get complicated when he embarks upon an affair with Eurasian hottie Victoria Viera who sells sports equipment (hey, don't look at me) and is also involved with Ah Keh.

With the imminent Japanese invasion of Singapore, Nakajima is roped in for intelligence work.

At this point, the timeline intersects with that of the previous novel, and we learn more about the events that led to Nakajima's fate.


Not all rosy
The last of Shelley's quartet, A River Of Roses, continues the story of our Eurasians from the previous books. It's the 1950s, and the Japanese have left.

Feisty 50something Philippa Rosario (Portuguese for "rosary", or rosa, ie, "rose" and rio, ie "river") is a junior college teacher and believer in the Chinese and Western zodiacs. A side story involves the past: the war, how Philippa and Vicky met, and a substantial chunk of backstory on Philippa's brother Antonio, all of which is inserted intermittently between the novel's current timeline.

It wouldn't surprise anyone to learn that Philippa is friends with Vicky Viera, sporting goods salesperson, and that Vicky is still carrying on with Ah Keh, who manages to drag our Eurasian teacher into an underground resistance movement.

Too bad our amateur zodiac reader couldn't see that Ah Keh is bad news, or that a love affair with a Kassim Selamat-type would end in tears....


Tantalisingly testing
Personally, I'm not sure how the Eurasian community would be served by a trio of novels that feel like a Latin American telenovela. The exotic, often lusty characters, tropical settings, familial and community intrigues and conflicts and all the Pereras, de Britos, Vieras, Rosarios....

And with all the supporting characters and the tangled skein that is whomever's family tree, it becomes hard to keep track of who's who. After some time, I just tossed my hands up and kept my nose on a few key characters.

Or you could get a paper and pen, which is so, so wrong. Novels shouldn't test you.

Also, there is nothing remarkable about the tone of the narrative, which is mostly descriptive and tends to rush the reader towards the rather abrupt endings. A River Of Roses, for instance, ends with one cul-de-sac of a conclusion.

I think there's more colour and character in the characters' dialogue. Perhaps this was the author's intent.

Don't be too shocked by the racist or bigoted statements, which were probably part of the times before political correctness became trendy. Though I didn't find them as outrageous as, say, the notion of adding grilled unagi to char koay teow....

Don't let all this stop you from picking up these three books, though. Until the next great Eurasian novel comes along, you won't find a better window into this community.

And don't worry, just take it slow, 'cause no one's going to test you.

---

People of the Pear Tree

Rex Shelley
Marshall Cavendish Editions (2011)
270 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-981-4346-24-5

Island in the Centre

Rex Shelley
Marshall Cavendish Editions (2011)
271 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-981-4346-25-2

A River of Roses

Rex Shelley
Marshall Cavendish Editions (2011)
471 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-981-4346-26-9

Once Upon A Time In Paradise

This book made me angry a few times.

Well-written? Sure. Evocative? Yes. A good story? Definitely.

But the cover fooled me into thinking this was a "happy" book. Its overall tone was sombre.

It was sobering. Hard. Unforgiving. Real.

But I wasn't charmed by it. I couldn't see the wit. Nor could I relate to the times the book was set in.

Maybe it's because it's not my world, not my childhood that unfolded as the pages turned.

In fact, it's not certain whether Lunch Bucket Paradise is the memoir of author Fred Setterberg's postwar childhood in the Californian suburb of Jefferson Manor. Over half of the book happens in the home of the young narrator, known only as "Slick" by his Uncle Win. The way it's written, interspersed with vignettes of another era, it could've been the story of any US kid in a working-class family in the Fifties and Sixties.

After World War II, the US seemed to be booming. It had to, I suppose, after downers such as the Great Depression and the Axis threat. Conveniences such as washer/dryer machines, dishwashers, electric blankets, electric can openers and electric toothbrushes made life unimaginably better. Betty Crocker cake mixes turn average housewives into not-so-average pâtissières. The future looked bright.

Of course, not everything is unrecognisable. Kids all over the world jump through the same kind of hoops on the way to adulthood. Fistfights and assorted mischief. Chores. Making and losing friends. Girls. Sexual awakenings. First jobs. Dreams and ambitions. They may be the childhood flashbacks of an American kid, but they can sure evoke yours.

And the kids here sound like kids too. They swear a lot, and do stupid things like torture little animals and taunt one another. What do kids care about political correctness?

But then, after some years, we get "Nuke the Gooks!", "Bomb 'em back to the Stone Age!", and "Ho Chi who?" For a moment I heard "Nuke the Ragheads", "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" and "Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan".

And when Slick's father mentioned a scientist that apparently ate and developed a taste for 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), presumably because it was said to be harmless to humans but not certain pests, I popped a vein. Can an ingredient in Agent Orange be "harmless"?

"Oh, they got enough in China and India to eat two, three times a day, thanks to our pesticides." Oh, the allegations I can dig up on Monsanto Corp.

Under the layers of Lime-O jelly and frosting in the home-baked cake, lurk the harsh realities of a workingman's life, a fate from which there's no escape without education and hard work. Realities I feel are far removed from today's ruling elites and parts of the middle class.

"You got to be something, you see?" Slick Sr tells his son one day. "You got to learn everything you can or otherwise you're just going to be a prisoner, like we are."

No you're not, says Junior who sounds confused.

"I was a prisoner," Senior insists. "And you'll be one too, if you don't learn enough to make you different from every other son of a bitch out there scratching around for a job."

In short, education is empowering. It's the ladder towards a better life, but you gotta make the effort to climb it. Sage advice all parents give. But it's not until the author slogs it out at a cannery that he finally sees the need to make a better life for himself.

If it was mostly based on Setterberg's childhood, it must've been hard for him to write this book, given what's going on in the US today. I certainly had a hard time reading it. If anything, it's his masterful, compelling storytelling and the open frankness of his voice that helped me go from cover to cover.

"True-life novel"? Yes. Oh, yes.

Perhaps too true to life for comfort.

Despite his war tales and bluster, Uncle Win seemed destined to be no more than the average journeyman labourer. But it's the toil of Win's generation that ensured the prosperity of future Americans and the continuation of the American Dream. What would they have to say about the suits and their slick ways that nearly brought the country and the world to its knees?


12/09/2015   This postscript might be a late one, because I wasn't sure if I should put it here. Days after this review was published, Fred Setterberg responded to this review. Among other things, he said:

You're right in thinking that it was a difficult book to write in light of the current state of the nation -- and the world. I find it particularly painful to see my home of California turning its back on the promise of education that enabled me and my friends to enter the middle class. When I attended college in the early 70s, we all worked a few months at factory jobs with union wages during the summer, and then had plenty of money to pay for books, tuition, and living expenses for the rest of the year. Today, as you know, kids are crushed under school debt, as we taxpayers abrogate our responsibilities to the next generation and virtually guarantee a dim future for our nation.

That downward spiral still continues today, with no sign of improvement.

Apart from Kinokuniya (out of stock, sadly), no other bookstore in Malaysia seems to have carried (or still carries) this book. To this day, I still feel sorry that this review is the only thing I've done for it.


This review was based on a free copy I borrowed from my boss who got it from the publisher, Heyday Books. This book may not be stocked at local bookstores.

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Lunch Bucket Paradise

Fred Setterberg
Heyday (2011)
245 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-1-59714-166-6

Get the book from Amazon.com | Heyday

Logomania: Phate, Phortune and Phrases

Ellen Whyte's lexicon of common phrases was released without much fanfare in 2009. The textbook-like appearance fitted its premise, but belies the interesting and sometimes humorous turn of phrase in the descriptions and origins of commonly used English phrases and examples of their usage.

The release of what can be considered the next book in the Logomania series presents another kind of conundrum. May I present:

Logomania: Fate & Fortune. Logomanias coming soon: Load Up
on Latin, Pardon My French and Crouching Adverb, Hidden Pronoun

Has the well-known writer and even more well-known cat lady and columnist waded into the choppy waters of fortune telling and feng shui famously patrolled by the likes of Lillian Too and Joey Yap?

No, not quite. Though it's a lovely design.

Logomania: Fate & Fortune is a welcome add-on to your treasure chest of more common phrases, organised and tied to elements of and related to Chinese and Western zodiacs. You don't just learn the phrases, but their origins as well. Some of the stories on how a saying or idiom came about are surprising. And it's an ongoing process. With new inventions and stuff entering our ever-growing lexicon, new phrases, sayings and words will invariably pop up.

What I dub "Logomania II" is split into two parts. Part One deals with zodiac signs, with Western zodiac symbols filling in for signs covered by the Chinese zodiac. Bonuses include animal adjectives and proper names of male and female adults and babies of the featured beasts, living or legendary. Because you never know.

Part Two is for phrases that incorporate general terms, astrological symbols and other elements of the "fate and fortune" theme that don't fit into the first half. Tarot symbols such as the sun, moon and stars, as well as wealth, saints, ghosts and devils, hearts and so on.

I'll admit: it's not a complete collection and there are, unfortunately, some repeated words and phrases that involve animals (such as chickens and dogs) from the previous book. it's still a handy guide for the right prose-enriching phrase in you next English composition, thesis or novel.

Let me have a crack at some passages, using some of the phrases in (and, maybe, not in) the book. They're examples, so don't get all mad like hatters, okay?

Look at that toad of a man, acting like the cock of the walk, bandying about his cock-and-bull story about how the march will threaten national stability. There was talk of a counter march, but in the end, he and his ilk chickened out.

It's all politics, really. He probably earns chicken feed in his day job, so he's trying to better his pecking order in the party hierarchy. Who knows? Maybe someday he might even rule the roost.

Nevertheless, he shouldn't start counting his chickens before they hatch. The ruling government has all but trashed our institutions like a bull in a china shop. It's only a matter or time before the chickens come home to roost.

The opposition? Don't count on them, either. Right now they're running around like headless chickens over church raids, court cases and whatever spanner the ruling party throws into their works.

Not convinced? Here's another. I think I'm having too much fun with this.

If I said we're all leading a dog's life these days, I'm not talking cock. Thanks to looming economical crises, the dog eat dog nature of the corporate sector has become hotter than Hades.

Nowadays I don't see the point to dress up like a dog's dinner to wedding dinners. Who cares if I end up in the doghouse with the folks over that?

The government is doing all it can, despite the financial malfeasance of a number of bad apples. But we're no tiger economy, and additional stimulus packages are about as effective as hair of the dog.

The armchair critics ranting in online portals over how this country is going to the dogs aren't helping much. Kleptocrats continue to steal, crime rates crawl ever upwards and racial and religious tensions simmer on as the tail wags the dog in the arena of discourse.

The dogs bark but the caravan moves on. The age of Aquarius seems a distant wish. Still, one hopes. Every dog has its day, after all.

So the tone is a little too socio-political, but the theme is much easier to riff on. I hope I didn't make English an even less appealing language in our hot-as-Hades socio-political climate.

So, have I sold you on this book yet? And may I suggest you pick up the other book too while you're at it?


Ellen Whyte was given her first dictionary in school when she was seven. Designed for kids, it was limited to defining words in a dull way. At about the same time, somebody gave her an encyclopaedia on animals. It had a panda on the cover and was filled with information about the biggest, smallest, fastest, toughest and weirdest animals on the planet. The dictionary was ignored while the encyclopaedia was read until it fell apart.

It wasn't for some years before she discovered that language can be as interesting as animal encyclopaedias. She now has a bookshelf bulging with dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopaedias and other reference books, and is completely hooked on learning the stories that lie behind the words and phrases we use every day.

She is also the author of Katz Tales: Living Under the Velvet Paw and Logomania: Where Common Phrases Come From and How to Use Them.

Logomania: Fate & Fortune will be available at all good bookstores.

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Logomania: Where Common Phrases Come From and How to Use Them

Ellen Whyte
MPH Group Publishing
314 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-967-5222-47-4

Buy from Kinokuniya | MPHOnline.com

Logomania: Fate & Fortune

Ellen Whyte
MPH Group Publishing
320 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-967-5997-62-4

Buy from Kinokuniya | MPHOnline.com

A Servant Of Sarawak

Among the heroes and other personalities who served the country in the days before and after independence were some orang putih who have grown to love Tanah Melayu and made it their second home.

Like the bloke who wrote this memoir. What a wonderful piece of history it was.

The next book is a bit different.

A Servant of Sarawak is Dato' Dr Sir Peter Mooney's memoirs about his Crown Counsel days in Sarawak, but touches lightly on his childhood back in Ireland, his youth in Scotland and his army days.

I'd say that the remarkable life of Irishman Peter Mooney began when, while he was in the army, dodging German bombs in Glasgow, he learnt that he was adopted. His first experience of the East was during the War in India and Burma. He had no idea he'd go east again later.

Upon his return, Mooney went to university and obtained a law degree. After some time practising law in Edinburgh, he was given the chance to become Crown Counsel in far-away Sarawak. He jumped at it.

Mooney arrived in Kuching in 1953 and would preside over a number of cases and immerse himself in the local cultures, eventually becoming Attorney-General. Among several memorable encounters include courtroom tussles with David Marshall (quite an actor, according to Mooney's accounts), who would become Chief Minister of Singapore; and Lee Kuan Yew, the future Prime Minister of Singapore.

He left Sarawak in the early Sixties and went to KL to start a law firm. He'd been busy since. In 1986, he was appointed Honorary Consul of Ireland in Malaysia, and was appointed of Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by the late Pope John Paul II in 2003.


Could be richer
One word: terse. ...Okay, perhaps several more: subdued, unremarkable, flat. A less diplomatic reaction would be boring, droning and dry. Which does not, at all, describe his life and the times he lived in. I felt it such a pity.

I could only guess that the colourless tone came from his life-long practice of law, which requires one to be neutral when conveying one's thoughts or opinions. Many chapters feel too brief. I'm sure lots more happened, but for whatever reasons, were omitted.

It's not as if it was all law, law, court, court, law in Sarawak. He'd gone into the interior, stayed at a longhouse and even spoke to a possible witness of the Krakatoa eruption. He'd attended weddings and a pubic Quran reading by a nine-year-old.

He'd even participated in the Kuching Regatta, though his boat took water and the team never finished the race. There was also a visit to a Melanau fishing village where he sampled (but didn't quite like) the Teredo worm or shipworm. I don't think anybody asked him about sago worm.

This rather sparse memoir by a servant of Sarawak leaves us hungry for more tales of a time where the occasional journalist would wander into the state and find "no beggars, no malnutrition, no smoking factories, no drug addiction and no crime" and "wrote lyrical articles on the last paradise" or the once-common practice of headhunting.

And what a time it was. "I thought that I had come to civilise the people," writes Mooney. "It was they who civilised me. They were friendly, warm and most hospitable, ever willing to share what little they had. Moral standards were high. It was hardly necessary to close windows or doors at night. Theft was almost unknown."

Oh, wow. Mooney's Sarawak sounds like a much better place.


This review was based on a complimentary copy from Monsoon Books.

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A Servant of Sarawak

Reminiscences of a Crown Counsel in 1950s Borneo

Peter Mooney
Monsoon Books (2011)
272 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-981-4358-37-8

Another Pile Of Books

On Monday, all the full-time editors made a trip to the book distribution arm of the company for books. I never knew the third floor of the complex had a warehouse.

Walking past boxes of The Da Vinci Code and other assorted books, we arrived at the office, an air-conditioned enclave partitioned from the warehouse area.

Something tells me I won't have to go far to get some review copies.

It was good to see another part of the company, and even better to get free, no-strings-attached books. Some of what I got were galley proofs, but that's okay. Better than lying on the floor covered in dust and what I suspect is guano.

• How to Lose a War
  edited by Bill Fawcett
  Harper (2009)
  356 pages
  Non-fiction
  ISBN: 978-006-135844-9
• War
  Sebastian Junger
  Fourth Estate (2010)
  286 pages
  Non-fiction
  ISBN: 978-0-00-733770-5
• The Sherlockian
  Graham Moore
  Twelve (2010)
  350 pages (galley proof)
  Fiction
  ISBN: 978-0-446-57588-1
• Rescue
  Anita Shreve
  Little, Brown and Company (2010)
  291 pages (galley proof)
  Fiction
  ISBN: 978-0-316-02072-5

How to Lose a War was okay, though the humour was somewhat deflated towards the end. Perhaps it would've been better not to retain much of the original authors' voices.

I also learnt that I won't have to do Ann Patchett's State of Wonder for the papers; they ran a wire review for it on 23 September.

Well, these things happen.

"Subsidies" Is Spelled With A "Die"

November already? Which means I've been with this outfit for a whole year.

But it's little cause for celebration.

This morning on the radio, news of "independent" power producers (IPPs) crying havoc over depleting gas supplies and the possibility of sourcing gas elsewhere at five times the price.

Then, the following:

The government has allocated RM15.9bil for petrol and diesel subsidies this year ... spending on the subsidies last year amounted to RM9.6bil.

. . .

Restructuring of petrol and diesel subsidies which saw reduction of RM0.05 per litre twice last year saved more than RM1.7bil in subsidies.

Arguably, allocated amount isn't necessarily the same as spent amount. But it's still worrying.

A radio ad said it: When energy (and by extension, everything) is subsidised, nobody feels the need to use it wisely. The public loves subsidies. Anything to take the edge out of market forces. But as some parts of the world now realise, they can't buy their way out trouble forever.

Nobody likes taxes, but if the money is well spent and is seen to be well-spent, the public should take pride in being a taxpayer. But years ago, in Greece, tax evasion evolved into what some call a "national pastime". The laws were lax, and few dodgers were punished, if ever. Pile that on top of huge public spending, and you have a ticking financial time bomb.

For me, Greece's financial meltdown resulted from failures at about every level. The government didn't check tax dodging; bad apples among bankers, politicians and businesspeople set a bad precedent; and the public adopted some of those bad habits. Nobody felt the need to save for a rainy day when the sun was still shining.

I don't know how serious our tax-dodging situation is. But the subsidies can't go on forever, not if they keep getting higher each year. And the government seems to cower every time we complain about rising prices.

...Well, they're certainly not going to fall any time soon.

Instead of more handouts, or looking to the various government bodies or departments (who aren't exactly paragons of frugality or prudent spending), we should probably start thinking of ways to help keep the country afloat? You know, before we end up like Greece?

Plotting Marriage With Eugenides

Weeks ago, I jumped the gun at a quasi-review of this book. I wasn't impressed with it the first time around. A colleague's e-mail prompted another go at it. Though my overall verdict on the book hasn't changed, the book wasn't as bad as I first thought.

I'd only punched this out and submitted it several days ago. Didn't expect it to be out so quickly.

---

Love and marriage

Do they go together like a horse and carriage, as the old song would have it? Persevere through the many details in this exploration of the theme and you will find a good love story.

first published in The Star, 30 October 2011


The "marriage plot" categorises a storyline that typically centres on the courtship between a man and a woman and the obstacles faced by the potential couple on their way to the altar. You'll find it in the works of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, in most rom-coms and Bollywood productions.

But with the hallowed halls of the institution of marriage sullied by gender equality, rising divorce rates and the like, whither the marriage plot in modern times?

That's the question explored in a thesis by bookworm and Brown University English student Madeleine Hanna, the heroine of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Marriage Plot.

Though it's the 1980s, one of her lecturers has already, apparently, pronounced the marriage plot in literature more or less dead, except in places where traditional cultures are still strong. (A Malaysian might start thinking about rice mothers, mango trees and silk factories....)

Thing is, Maddy soon finds herself navigating a love triangle with two fellow students in a version of the trope she's studying.

Though he's the one who gets to hook up with Maddy, manic-depressive Leonard Bankhead's status as a fluffy grey ball of gloom threatens the relationship – again and again.

Her old friend Mitchell Grammaticus is a spiritual hippie-type who's immersed in Christian mysticism – and the idea that Maddy's destined to be his wife.

The Marriage Plot offers wit, humour and fine storytelling.

The author displays a certain degree of sensitivity for his subjects, who go through the usual painful motions of the young in love: sometimes happy, often funny, and at times heartbreaking.

But we get too much background on characters we don't care about.

For instance, do we need to know that Maddy's semiotics lecturer is a former English department renegade who's hygienically bald, has a seaman's moustache, wears wide-vale corduroys and has a reading list comprising Jacques Derrida, Umberto Eco and Roland Barthes?

By page 28, I was desperate for a drink of water and an open window.

But had I put down the book and never picked up again, I'd have missed out on some pretty good stuff.

Like the story of the mystery stain on Maddy's borrowed dress.

Why Maddy hooked up with Leo, the walking stormcloud. And how crazy Leo can get.

The drama that set Mitch and his friend Larry on their Big Fat Greek Adventure and Then Some.

The drama that is Mitch and Larry's Big Fat Greek Adventure and Then Some.

The realisation that hits you when Mitch asks Maddy if there's an Austen-esque book that ends happily, even if the girl doesn't end up with the right guy.

Mitch's time in Mother Teresa's Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart in India. And what sends him fleeing from there in a rickshaw, repeating the "Jesus Prayer" over and over again in his head. Oh, that bit was hilarious.

The author of Middlesex, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2002 , seems to be having fun in attempting a smart and entertaining rewrite of the marriage plot for an era where the very definition and idea of marriage itself is being rewritten. A little too much fun, perhaps, as I feel the book is about 100 pages too long.

Throughout history, courtship and marriage are often tricky affairs. If anything, they should be simplified, rather than complicated. And, as Maddy would learn, no amount of reading can prepare anyone for the pitfalls.

Stripped of the reading lists and textbook extracts, The Marriage Plot is a good love story that would also translate well into a screenplay.

---

The Marriage Plot

Jeffrey Eugenides
Fourth Estate (2011)
360 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-00-744128-0

MPH Quill Oct-Dec 2011 Delayed

This quarter's MPH Quill (October - December 2011) has been delayed.

Things were held up by about a fortnight after resources were temporarily diverted elsewhere. While the issue was being put together, the editor went on her much-needed Deepavali break.

I'd guess that it would be another week before the whole issue has been put to bed, which means it would only be out around the middle of next month. I'll put something up when the issue is, hopefully, out.

On behalf of the crew at Quill magazine, apologies for the delay.

Party Pooper Party

With protests like this cropping up so predictably, it wouldn't surprise me to hear foreigners saying that Malaysians don't know how to have a good time.

Laying aside all the usual arguments pro- and con- Elton, there are several reasons why I think the objections to this concert are irrelevant.

First, the venue: it's the Arena of Stars in Genting. Second, tickets for that concert are priced between RM380 and RM1,380.

You'd have to be someone of a particular stripe to pay that much to attend an Elton John concert at the Arena of Stars. Would it include the demographic whose souls or morals Pahang's PAS Youth intends to save? I'm not so sure.

These days I bet you'd get more information about gay sex in our local papers, thanks to the extensive coverage of Sodomy I and II, than a night (or two) with Glambert and/or Sir Elton.

The man will be here to play his music. The man is known for his music. He's been a musician - that's his job description - for decades. That he's married to a man does not make him a gay marriage advocate.

Buang yang keruh, ambil yang jernih. This is an old saying, which meant that we once knew how to take the good and leave the bad. When did we forget how to?

It's Just Piling Up

I really shouldn't be doing this, but the compulsion to is strong. If I delay any further, it'll only grow stronger.

The need to "update" viewers.

I'd just completed a second round of edits for a rather tricky manuscript, but nothing like what I've done previously. But it should be mostly done. Once the author comes back with comments, it's going straight to the designers.

I've also completed a review to be published; another is being put together. The book wasn't as bad as I'd thought it'd be.

And of course, there's the pile you see opposite. There are books to be reviewed for the papers and the blog, but I've decided not to separate the two groups.

It's just as well. Both feel more and more like work these days.

I'm finding it difficult to review books without a pen or pencil and some paper in hand. I've found it quite fast to get all the points down with non-electronic means of note taking. Putting it all together - that's still the hard part.

Did I say "work"? Feels more like school.

"Best years of your life"? Like hell they were.

At least the words are flowing again. Just have to keep it up.

What Happened Last Week

...Nothing much.

A doozy of a week saw me doing some heavy editing and finishing off a three-book review - finally! The latter left me so relaxed I didn't feel like doing more than the usual for the rest of the week. But I'm hoping things will pick up again.

I've been making toast. Toast bread. With lots of butter. Unsalted butter. Never use salted butter for toast. Salted butter tastes funny. An odd smell will manifest at the back of your throat, near the smell receptors. Does that happen to you? It does to me.

I bought salted butter by accident. For that brand, salted and unsalted butter has very similar packaging, except for a tiny word at the top. "No.1 in Singapore"? Who cares? And how can they tolerate that odd smell? I may have to throw out a whole block of good butter. I'm depressed. The butter is innocent...

...Correction: I bought only nine books at last week's big bad book event, still a modest haul. About half are non-fiction titles, an indication of where my interests lay.

• 10,001 Timesaving Ideas
  Reader's Digest (2008)
  447 pages
  Non-fiction
  ISBN: 978-192134415-2
  
  Reader's Digest churns out some of the most amazing non-fiction titles. Although time and the Internet have lessened the need for these volumes, it's nice to have a handy guide to nearly everything under the sky that doesn't require electricity, electronic hardware and an Internet subscription. This title is just the thing.


• The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge
  A Desk Reference for the Curious Mind
  St. Martin's Press (2007)
  1320 pages
  Non-fiction
  ISBN: 978-0-312-37659-8
  
  You'll feel like a good editor with one of these on your desk. Though it isn't incumbent on the editor to be an expert on everything, he should at least check up on facts, names, etc that look dodgy on a manuscript. A pity this edition is a bit out of date, but at RM20, this monster is worth it.


• Vintage Singapore
  Souvenirs from the Recent Past
  Editions Didier Millet (2006)
  191 pages
  Non-fiction
  ISBN: 978-981-4217-01-9
  
  At least one other person agrees that there's something about the cover that screams, "Buy me!" No mean feat, considering that hundreds of other books in the venue were doing the same. A testament to Didier Millet's expertise in coffeetable books.
  
  This one is, as the title suggests, is a museum display in a book of all old things in Singapore. That it invokes a sense of nostalgia for old things in Malaysia is no surprise.


• The Book of the Dead
  Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure
  John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
  Faber and Faber (2009)
  435 pages
  Non-fiction
  ISBN: 978-0-571-24491-1
  
  A witty, informative volume about some of the world's most famous and notorious personalities. Because you just need to know. ...Ah, George Psalmanazar! Greetings old friend. Haven't seen you since that Reader's Digest Amazing Facts book.


• Word Fugitives
  In Pursuit of Wanted Words
  Barbara Wallraff
  Collins (2006)
  192 pages
  Non-fiction
  ISBN: 978-0-06-083273-5
  
  The Internet age has, arguably, seen the coining of new words, some of which are amalgamations of and extrapolations from existing words. But not all of them have been corralled into a single, easy-to-reach source; ever tried looking up urbandictionary.com? Though not an exhaustive guide to (more like an exploration of) strange new words, lexophiles will love this slim little thing.


• Little Hut of Leaping Fishes
  Chiew-Siah Tei
  Picador (2008)
  389 pages
  Fiction
  ISBN: 978-0-330-42391-5
  
  I had... no idea why this ended up in my bag. Probably leapt inside when I wasn't looking. Or perhaps I absentmindedly chucked it into my bag for no reason other than the price tag. A balmy Saturday afternoon is waiting for this novel.


• Much Obliged, Jeeves
  PG Wodehouse
  Arrow Books (2008)
  203 pages
  Fiction
  ISBN: 978-0-09-951396-4
  
  One of two books by Wodehouse I managed to pick up at the sale. It's also, it seems, one of the only two books by Wodehouse on sale at the sale.


• Pigs Have Wings
  PG Wodehouse
  Arrow Books (2008)
  253 pages
  Fiction
  ISBN: 978-0-09-951398-8
  
  This book was how I learned that Wodehouse had written other than the Jeeves series. Not sure if it's reputed to be just as witty and engaging.


• The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency
  Alexander McCall Smith
  Abacus (2008)
  250 pages
  Fiction
  ISBN: 978-0-349-11675-4
  
  I've been curious about this author for a while, but sadly, the first of McCall Smith's novels about Mma Ramotswe appears to be the only No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency novel on sale. Finished this one. It has a certain charm.

Also, some things have happened in the last week which I've been too distracted to write about. And a whole bunch of books to review, with several more candidates in the pipeline.

So, no Occupy Dataran Merdeka™ for me. Not when my own time is so Occupied™ already.

Big Bad Wolf Eated Me

My first time, and it was not gentle.

This year, they held the sale at Hall A, the Agricultural Exposition Park in Serdang, within the sprawling grounds of Universiti Putra Malaysia. It was a bit hard to get to from Puchong, with a bit of a crawl and bottleneck en route. Got a bit lost too.

I'd parked a bit farther down the hall, which was located up a hill. A five-minute hike from my car to the entrance left me winded.

But what an eye-opener.

Abandon all inhibition, ye who enter here

It was Saturday, and it threatened to rain (which it did, briefly). There was already a crowd in the hall when I arrived. They were probably expecting a huge turn-out; Pizza Hut had a truck outside the entrance.

One thing for sure: they know the kinds of venues that'll work, and they know how to market. Even the music set the mood - no downer tunes, so patrons feel good ... and maybe set aside their inhibitions.

Yes, it'll be a horrible shame not to buy these... and these,
and these and THESE and...

I imagine one visitor weighing the pros and cons in the head: "I probably don't need that Manicka, and my to-read pile is threatening to breach the ceiling-"

Then Beyoncé comes on. Yes, that song. What Kanye West said was "the best music video of all time".

"...never mind, it's RM8! I'll put it in the office and read it later!"

I suppose that it's ♪ cuz if you like it then you shoulda put your ringgit on it ♫ if you liked it then you shoulda put ya ringgit on it woo oh ooh... ♪

People mountain, people sea; Big Bad Wolf so, so happy

Packed, packed, packed! This was perhaps almost an hour later. Visitors were carrying books by the boxful. Not enough boxes? Dump your full box at one of the several service counters and get an empty box to fill.

Parents came with their kids, and their prams, and- look at the size of the children's section! Kids and young adults occupied nearly a third of the floor space.

Just wondering: Will all these people actually read the stuff they've bought? Because as far as I know, our reader cred hasn't gone up a lot in the past few years. Still, it's as if a whole town turned up today.

Perhaps it's a Malaysian thing: price something cheap and we go bananas, oranges and mangosteens. Case in point:

Evening is a Whole Day, so spend it here in the Wolf's lair.
Look! Only RM8! Don't you just want to... take it home? Maybe
get some for... friends? It's almost Chrissstmasss, after all...

Evening may be the whole day, but the Big Bad Wolf will not be deterred! Chomp! Munch! Gulp! Slurrrp...! And just like that, a novel that used to cost over RM50 now goes for RM8. What's not to like?

I suppose there is something to be said about such warehouse sales. There are half a ton of books right now that I want but can't afford in terms of time, money and space.

My haul at the end of the day was modest: about ten books. The two biggest books in the pile were last-minute purchases. I loved these big big books of ostensibly useless facts as a child. As a pay-drawing adult, however, I found these to be quite expensive. But at a price tag of RM20 each? Mine, mine!

Perhaps, for their trouble they took to get there, Big Bad Wolf gave away these bookmarks, and an offer of three years' free membership at BookXcess, to be claimed 90 days from the date of the receipt.

For an arm, a leg and your first-born, the Wolf thinks you should
get more than just cheap books and a bookmark or two

I'm not sure if a minimum purchase amount is involved, though. But hey, whatever. Besides, would it make sense to drive all the way to Serdang for less than ten books, at such high discounts?

Not sure if I like the title selections for this year. I wanted some Haruki Murakami but they gave us Ryu Murakami instead (are they siblings or the same person?)

At the risk of sounding awed, fawning or impressed... see you next year, Big Bad Wolf.

Lost In This Plot

The term "marriage plot" categorises a storyline that typically centres on the courtship between a man and a woman and the obstacles faced by the potential couple on their way to the altar.

The Wikipedia says it became a popular source of entertainment in the 18th and 19th centuries with the rise of the bourgeois novel, with such foremost practitioners as Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and the Brontë sisters. Today, it's a popular device in most rom-coms.

Marriage plot. Jane Austen. 18th and 19th centuries.

Is that why I couldn't seem to get Jeffrey Eugenides' latest novel?

Who wants to read about a love triangle among three university postgrads in the 1980s? I don't.

The title looked interesting though.

The storyline is also rather 1980s. Three youngsters are graduating from university, and of them all, Madeleine Hanna is perhaps the most normal one. She's a rather brainy student of semiotics who, despite looking somewhat like Katherine Hepburn, is not very confident in her looks or body shape.

I think there's something going on with her and two guys. Part-Greek Mitchell Grammaticus, said to be the author's sort-of avatar, is a spiritual hippy-type who did religious studies and went off to Europe and then India with his Francophile classmate Larry... something.

By the time I got to the bit about Leonard Bankhead, I couldn't care to find out what he'd studied. However, it seems that he's Madeleine's squeeze. Dude also came from a dysfunctional family, and suffers from depression. Madeleine's mom is uncomfortable with Leonard's condition, and it seems as though she's trying to keep the two apart towards the end of the novel.

I'll admit: I'm totally unfamiliar with Mr Eugenides's works. His list of literary influences make me look like a pre-Neanderthal. I gave up on Jane Austen after one paragraph (Pride and Prejudice, I think it was). I parsed, not read, it from cover to cover. Prior to the e-mail from a colleague who handed me the early reading copy (on which this review is based), I wasn't aware of Mr Eugenides's existence. Nor did I know that his 2002 novel, Middlesex, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the Ambassador Book Award, or that said novel is said to be the precursor to the "long-awaited" release.

From what I could gather from The Marriage Plot, Eugenides can write. He has humour, storytelling and a certain degree of sensitivity to his subjects. The three go through the motions of the young in love: sometimes happy; at other times, heartbreaking. Mitchell's (mis)adventures in finding G*d and himself are fun, perhaps due to the injection of Eugenides's own experiences when he trod on a similar path.

But does all that exposition about semiotics, religion, etc necessary to advance the story? And all that backstory on the main characters and some supporting characters just adds to the ...chaos? Well, it's okay for the main characters, but... Too much going on in the background, I feel.

So, kudos to the reviewers who dug deeper and deconstructed Eugenides's marriage plot. But I can't concur with some of the more positive comments ("sedulously unplayful, with the exception of the odd Pynchonian near-aptonym ('Bankhead', 'Grammaticus', 'Thurston Meems') and a (rather perfunctory) metafictional gesture on the final page.") or observations ("The tight plotting and internalised psychology of this new novel, allied to the full sweep of ideas and social observation and quiet comedy that characterised Eugenides's earlier works, are signs of a new maturity.")

Because I can't. I couldn't go that deep.

I won't doubt that it's a good love story, with flashes of wit and humour, and that it'll translate well into a screenplay. And perhaps some, if not all of the niggling little details that made my experience with the book less than ideal would have been excised from the final edition.

The book is, I feel, a tad overwritten. The discussions and inquiries in the narrative don't do much for the enjoyment of the story, unless it's meant to be more than the usual marriage plot.

I'll wait for the movie. So...

Mr Jeffrey Eugenides, have mercy on me, a poor critic.
Mr Jeffrey Eugenides, have mercy on me, a poor critic.
Mr Jeffrey Eugenides, have mercy on me, a poor critic.
Mr Jeffrey Eugenides, have mercy on me, a poor critic.
Mr Jeffrey Eugenides, have mercy on me, a poor critic.
Mr Jeffrey Eugenides, have mercy on me, a poor critic.
Mr Jeffrey Eugenides, have mercy on me, a poor critic.
Mr Jeffrey Eugenides, have mercy on me, a poor critic.

---

05/10/2011  I put this up because I thought I was no longer required to do a review for this book, but turns out I still have to.

Anyway, I just received a "real" copy of The Marriage Plot, so there will be another version of this review somewhere down the line, which will probably re-use some passages from this version. Hence, this post is no longer a valid book review.

So, yes, I jumped the gun on this one. And I may have... really lost the plot. Apologies.

30/10/2011  Read the "official" review for The Marriage Plot here.

Weekend Wrap-Up

Had I not slept the whole afternoon away yesterday and repeatedly fling angry, vaguely bird-shaped creatures into wood and concrete structures on screen, I could, perhaps, have made more out of the weekend. I believe I could have:

• Fleshed out a couple of book reviews and wrote one more.
• Ironed my clothes sooner.
• Cleared out my storeroom a bit.
• Got rid of the old desktop tower CPU and CRT monitor.
• Got rid of the IT and programming-related books I no longer need.
• Went for my usual evening walks.
• Swept and mopped the floors.
• Cleaned the fridge.

I did catch up on some much-needed sleep, though. Which is what I seem to be doing with all my weekends of late.

Ah, well. Here's to a packed, more productive week ahead.

Jacob Black Won't Be Here

And nor will Taylor Lautner, despite the given moniker.

But do make your way to the address below for what is said to be the the biggest book sale in the country.

Big Bad Wolf Book Sale
Hall A, MAEPS
Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang
Kuala Lumpur

07 to 16 October, 2011
From 10am to 9pm

Arguably, 1.5 million books at discounts of 75% to 95% is something to huff and puff about. Visit www.bigbadwolfbooks.com for more information.

Yes, I'm experimenting with Google Map embedding. Feel free to correct me if this is the wrong map.

No, not sure if I'll be there.

A Week To Remember

This week is Banned Books Week? Shame on me for not noticing.

Could it just be some mental fatigue on my part, the blasé-ness of living for so long in a country where the media is controlled and policed, to the point where everyone starts to self-censor their opinions?

No, I'm not Singaporean. But thanks for asking.

Banned Books Week, says Molly Raphael, President of the American Library Association, is a reminder that one's freedom to read should not be taken for granted. She suggests that one will not be aware of the significance of this freedom until books start disappearing, e.g. banned.

I suppose it can be argued that censorship of reading material is ineffective or insignificant in countries where the populace doesn't have a reputation for being voracious readers of Everything Under the Sun. But Ms Raphael thinks differently.

...Such censorship matters to those who no longer can exercise the right to choose what they read for themselves. It matters to those in the community that cannot afford books or a computer, and for whom the library is a lifeline to the Internet and the printed word. And it matters to all of us who care about protecting our rights and our freedoms and who believe that no one should be able to forbid others in their community from reading a book because that book doesn't comport with their views, opinions, or morality.

Suddenly, her message becomes clear. Had her article been banned or blocked, I wouldn't have learnt a new word: com·port, which means 1) conduct oneself; behave or 2) accord with; agree with.

New words may not be a good reason to abolish book bans, and some may argue away many of the reasons given for the total freedom to read anything. As we have learned, book bans don't always accomplish their aims.


Public hanging
For writing a book that criticised the Singaporean judicial system and its seemingly arbitrary application of the death penalty, mostly in drug trafficking cases, British journalist Alan Shadrake was found guilty of contempt of court and sentenced to six weeks in prison.

Though Once a Jolly Hangman wasn't banned outright, the advisory issued by Singapore's censors put the fear of Harry Lee into book sellers. You can't buy the book in Singapore, but I suspect Malaysian book sellers stocked it up with a certain amount of glee.

The book has seen four print runs and sold about 6,000 copies as of last year, making it the Strategic Information and Research Development Centre's (SIRD) top selling title. It still drifts in and out of MPH's list of best-selling non-fiction.


Royal smash
Sometime ago, a book about then Princess (now Empress) Masako raised the hackles of the Japanese establishment, including the shadowy Imperial Household Agency. Once could perhaps understand why something called Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne would not be warmly received in the Land of the Rising Sun.

An edition of the book, apparently sanitised for the Japanese market, was eventually not published. The author, Australian freelance journo Ben Hills, seemed glad about that. "Their version of my book was something I'd have been ashamed to see my name on the cover of," he said.

Publishers outside Japan, however, were interested. At one time, Princess Masako topped Amazon.co.jp's list of best-selling foreign-language books, ahead of the new Harry Potter (back then) and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. When he tossed the phrase "shooting themselves in the foot", you can almost hear the bullet go in.

North of our borders, an American citizen of Thai birth became among the latest to run afoul of Thailand's strict lese majeste laws with a blog post that had translations from a book the country had banned. Look for "Paul M Handley, US freelance journalist" (see a pattern here?) on the Google to learn more.


Body snatching
Mid 2010, copies of a book billed as the first "Malaysian queer anthology" were seized by the Home Ministry. Published a year earlier by Amir Muhammad's MataHari Books, Body 2 Body was a collection of stories about the Malaysian gay community. About 2,900 copies had been sold since publication and the publisher has stated there will be no reprints.

At the time, given the vigour in which the Home Ministry moves to contain various subversive elements in the media, the one-year lag was kind of surprising.

I'm certain interest in that book peaked around the time the news came out.


We are the power
It's quite plain that book bans suck, mostly because they don't really work, and when they do, not very well. Now that books are going digital, it would be interesting to see how the book bans of the future will be implemented. Will this also affect the much-touted no-censorship pledge for the Internet in Malaysia?

Governments and institutions will always ban books, and although we may not agree with the rationales for banning books, we should nevertheless respect the decision and the laws behind it.

A nation and society is ultimately responsible for its own growth, and that growth - and change - must come from within to really work. We'll just have to hope that people of, say, Thailand, will eventually see that there's no need for such harsh laws to protect their monarchy.

Words, like images, draw their power from the reactions of those who read or view them.

The fate of the books we read is determined by our responses to their contents.

For the time being, all we can do, in our own backyard, is to read more, and be thankful for the books we can access. And learn to control our reactions to published ideas and opinions that may offend or disturb us. If we can do that, the "subversive" nature of many books would vanish.

Jungle Juju

In 2010, The Bomoh's Apprentice by gwailo expat Geoffrey S Walker was quietly published. Until the manuscript for its sequel hit my table, I had no clue it would become a series.

What I thought was the usual jungle tale with magic, folklore and indigenous cultures... wasn't. Working with this manuscript had been fun. So far, I'd never written so much author correspondence as I did on this project. Ah, what tales I could tell...

The Bomoh's Apprentice (left) and Blood Reunion.
A "Harry Potter in Borneo" in the making?

Both books are written in a very anachronistic - albeit at times, long-winded - tone that begs the reader to just sit back and enjoy the ride. They can also easily make the leap from paper to screens big and small. I'm thinking, Saturday morning cartoons. Or maybe CGI, ala Upin & Ipin. As always, your mileage may vary.


The early years
This budding series begins deep in the jungles of Borneo, at a village named for a tree god who resides in the twilight realm of Inworld. It is this realm and this god, Tuan Pokok Tertinggi (literally, "the Lord Highest Tree"), that the bomoh or witch doctor Katak Hitam ("Black Frog") will eventually serve and protect.

One day, in the aftermath of a gruesome murder, Katak Hitam adopts a young boy whom he names Kutu or "flea". For years, the large, black-skinned bomoh patiently coaches Kutu in the magical arts and the ways of the spirits, preparing the boy for the day he becomes bomoh.

Then, one day, tragedy strikes.

To save Kutu's life, Katak Hitam takes drastic steps and as a result, is trapped in the realm of the tree god. Though the old witch-doctor designates Kutu as his successor, the villagers do not believe the boy, who is exiled for allegedly murdering his mentor-father.

The boy's problems do not end there. With Katak Hitam gone, Ketuat, the pompous, self-important headman of the village, seeks the means to become the bomoh. When things do not go according to plan, however, his pride and lust for power threaten to push him over the edge...

...but it all works out for Kutu in the end. At least, as far as this book is concerned...


The schemer and the skeleton
In Blood Reunion, it's been four years since Kutu succeeded his adopted father Katak Hitam as the bomoh of Kampung Pokok Tertinggi and installed the cool-headed, sagely hunter Pak Sumpit as its headman. Life in the village has never been better, but not everyone is happy.

Seething with anger at the loss of his assumed birthright as the village's headman, Sulung wanders into the abandoned hut where a young mother met a violent end and encounters another ghost from the past.

Seventeen years ago, midwife Mak Cik Bidan fled Kampung Pokok Tertinggi for her life, leaving her young charge behind to face the murderous wrath of a madman, taking with her a toyol - an undead familiar conjured from the spirit of a stillborn child. She has returned after years of wandering to rid herself of the curse that hung over her head since that day, and to find her toyol a new master.

In his great-aunt's supernatural pet, Sulung sees the chance for wealth, stature... and revenge.

Meanwhile, Kutu is informed of an unexpected visitor to his hut. He enters and finds the skull-less skeleton of Panglima Awang, once a fearsome headhunter, warrior and Casanova, looking for his missing head. The young bomoh later introduces the headhunter to Pak Sumpit and the two become friends.

But with trouble brewing in the horizon for Kutu, Pak Sumpit and the village, is the presence of this Skullduggery Pleasant a good or bad thing for everyone?

The second book in The Bomoh's Apprentice series, Blood Reunion evokes the rich traditions of ancient Malaysian folklore while tapping the universal themes of love and hate, greed and self-sacrifice, honour and betrayal.


Geoffrey S Walker first read about Borneo as a young boy, and his fascination with the island stayed with him ever since. In 2004, following a successful career in advertising, he left the United States and settled in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. As a member of the Sabah Society, he has had the opportunity to explore many parts of Borneo that are well off the beaten track, and these experiences helped shape his first novel, The Bomoh’s Apprentice, and its follow-up, Blood Reunion.

Cover illustrations for both books are by graphic illustrator and art teacher John Ho; visit his blog at artwhizkids.blogspot.com

The Bomoh's Apprentice is now (or should be) in all major bookstores. Blood Reunion, the second book in the series, is scheduled for release sometime next month.

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The Bomoh's Apprentice

Geoffrey S Walker
MPH Group Publishing
389 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-967-5222-81-8

Buy from MPHOnline.com

Blood Reunion

Geoffrey S Walker
MPH Group Publishing
420 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-967-5997-61-7

Buy from MPHOnline.com

The Misanthrope's Job Survival Manual

During a trying time in my old job, I was browsing at a bookstore and came upon this book. On the cover, a stick figure was kicking a water cooler above the big bold title, "I Hate People!"

It spoke to my heart. I picked it up, believing it held some answers to my predicament at the time.

Penned by Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon, I Hate People!: Kick Loose from the Overbearing and Underhanded Jerks at Work and Get What You Want Out of Your Job claims to help you do exactly that.

Written in an informal and humorous manner, it suggests that it's not the reader's fault if he or she's having a hard time at the office, and starts listing the kinds of people who are in such open and somewhat derisive terms as the "stop sign", "bulldozer", "switchblade", "minute man" and "sheeple". The reader, if he meets certain criteria based on a quiz, is referred to as "the soloist", the Individual, the Standaloner, the Chosen One.

As more and more of the Chosen One's foes are revealed, Littman and Hershon continue to sell the Way of the Soloist, outlining strategies that allow him to carve out a little space for himself within the organisation where he can work, plot, delegate and perhaps dig his way out of his stagnant little pond towards something better. All the while avoiding people, i.e. at meetings, functions, seminars and the like - potential time-wasters and threats to your impending glowing solohood.

Supporting anecdotes, case studies and facts-and-figures are bandied about to add to the feel-good factor, reinforcing the belief that the Way of the Soloist is the reader's way, your way. The reader is finally exhorted to embark on his solo quest and say out loud and proud: "I hate people!"

Upon some reflection, there are problems with this book, and the main one being: It won't necessary apply to a typical Eastern corporate environment which tends to be - correct me if I'm wrong - conservative, conformity-centric, sheeple-populated biospheres. Western-style concepts such as telecommuting, flexi-hours and the like don't quite jive with conformist-comfortable firms where employee attendance is considered a performance benchmark.

Individuals with the soloist bent tend to attract mostly unwanted attention. They become, at best, the butt of jokes and gossip fodder at the water cooler, pantry or dinner tables; at worst, scapegoats for something that went wrong somewhere in the company.

Not to say that this brand of office politics is strictly an Eastern problem, or that it's worse than the Game of Thrones in Western firms and multinationals.

It's just that everywhere, self-help books such as this one tend to make the best-seller lists, but few seem to think about whether a product based on Western corporate culture and practices can be applied to conditions in my part of the world.

For one, the anecdotes, facts and stats in the book are overwhelmingly from the West - which gives the unfortunate impression that, if you're in Korea, the Philippines or Petaling Jaya, the authors aren't talking to you. Only one "Soloist" from the East is highlighted: Ken Kutaragi, who is considered "Father of the Playstation".

Regardless, I Hate People is fun, engaging, informative and makes you feel good about one's crappy situation (it doesn't blame you if your job sucks). There's some content that might be useful, but it will be even more work to find out what works. The way it's written and categorised is bound to throw its status as a self-help book into question. Its entertainment value isn't really worth the price tag, however.

It did me and my job little good. My resignation, ill-timed, perhaps, was done with an old-fashioned quit letter.

But bravo to its branding. I paid nearly RM60 because of a stick figure kicking a water cooler and a loud catchy title.


12/10/2014  Made a couple of edits, and amended this paragraph to show that there are "Soloists" from the East in this book - albeit only one.

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I Hate People!

Kick Loose from the Overbearing and Underhanded Jerks at Work and Get What You Want Out of Your Job

Jonathan Littman, Marc Hershon
Little, Brown and Company (2009)
263 pages
Non-Fiction (Business/Humour)
ISBN: 978-0-316-06882-6

For more details: www.IHatePeople.biz

Bedtime Stories From The Dead Of Night

One of the first manuscripts I had to look at was this collection of short, disturbingly creepy stories by Julya Oui. Its publication was stalled for months for one reason or another.

What a relief it was when we finally passed the manuscript to the printers.

According to Oui (pun-tastic surname!), the stories were written and compiled over a number of years, way back when. So there were marked differences in... quality. I could only imagine how old she was when she first started.

I worked on it for a total of over two months. It was a... challenging assignment, partly because I'm not a fan of horror or the macabre. But Oui's imagination's like... whoa. Every few pages, I'd ask myself, "What does she smoke? Think I might want some." Sadly, I don't and can't smoke.

Creepiness abounds in the pages. Upset with her own life and angry at the world, a girl kills herself in the dead of night, adamant that nothing could be worse than the cold embrace of death - and is soon proven wrong. Over and over again.

A priest who laments his flock's disinterest in confessing their sins gets more than he bargains for when a prominent, well-respected member of society walks into the confession booth and opens up about his terrible hidden sin.

A thunderstorm traps a quarrelsome quartet in a mansion with a sprawling front yard filled with derelict vehicles. However, it soon becomes evident that there's something sentient - and sinister - about the roof over their heads.

For a reclusive unfortunate, the shadows between the trees ringing his home harbour a darkness from a violent war-torn past. Elsewhere, an overworked executive is haunted by the scarred, grotesque figure of a laughing vagrant.

A man who would do anything - yes, "anything" - for a million bucks is challenged by an extremely wealthy old man whose idea of "anything" is far worse than any Fear Factor challenge ever devised. For a country girl seeking her fortunes in the city, the harsh reality of the rat race is only the beginning of her nightmare.

Justice comes to a belligerent and cruel robber-rapist in an unexpected, yet most appropriate and macabre manner when he picks the wrong victim. An erotic dance of a different kind in a dim, squalid parlour (are those bloodstains on the walls?) leads a woman to a place she doesn't want to go - or does she?


Julya Oui loves a good story, and writes to appease her imagination and reaffirm her sanity. She loves dreaming up things and making them come alive with the stroke of her pen. Gazing at the night skies, listening to trees, and taking long walks are just some of the things she enjoys doing when she is not lost in the alternate realm. ...Whoa.

Bedtime Stories from the Dead of Night, her first book, came off the presses a couple of days ago, which means it'll be about several weeks before they hit the shelves at all major bookstores. Just in time for Halloween.

Oh: If any of you have seen this on another blog, relax. She has my permission. Wouldn't you know, it's the book's author! Say hello and see what else she's got.

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Bedtime Stories from the Dead of Night

Julya Oui
MPH Group Publishing
218 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-967-5222-64-1

Buy from MPHOnline.com

"It Must Never To Laugh Of The Unhappies"

Long before I dipped my toes into cyberspace, my journey into the strange, amazing and wonderful world was through books: encyclopaedias and those voluminous I-didn't-know-that books.

The Internet has made this indulgence much easier; it was while I was reminiscing about typos past that I rediscovered an old favourite that had - and still does - left me gasping for air and my sides numb from laughter.

In an old volume of Reader's Digest's Amazing Facts books is an article about what was claimed to be the world's funniest phrasebook.

O Novo Guia da Conversação em Portuguez e Inglez (The New Guide of the Conversation in Portuguese and English) was first published in Paris in 1855, and was allegedly written by José da Fonseca and Pedro Carolino.

Though little is known about this New Guide, one theory suggests that Carolino had based it on some or all of da Fonseca's earlier and better Portuguese-to-French phrasebook. His translation tool was a French-English dictionary, and he named da Fonseca as co-author to give the book some cred.

Which was understandable, since it was believed that Carolino did not speak English. So the author had to rely on literal translations, based largely on a word-to-word comparison, without much attention to grammar or syntax.

The result is an epic tour de force of linguistic FAIL that rivals the strongest forces of nature and set the GrammarSense™ of all English teachers ablaze.

Worse still, da Fonseca may not have been involved at all in Carolino's enterprise. Nor did he know that Carolino used his helpful little book to create a comedic masterpiece and associated both their names with it.


"...for the care what we wrote him..."
The book, as the author describes it, includes a "choice of familiar dialogues, clean of gallicisms, and despoiled phrases" usually found in other similar works of the time.

He also hopes to fill the "imperfections and anomalies of style" found in other works that are due to the "corelessness" of rival publishers, "in spite of the infinite typographical faults which some times invert the sense of the period."

Oh no, don't leave yet! From here on, it gets better.

While I often get to read some classic and neo-classic examples of grammarcide, nothing compares to the piquant awesomeness of the New Guide. Not even Nando's, which sounds Portuguese but is actually South African.

Remember, this guy thought he was really teaching English, and this book was actually published.


Craunching the marmoset
In Carolino's universe, people are involved in "trades" such as "coffeeman", "nailer", "Chinaman" and "lochsmith". Men use "the button-holes", "the buskins" and "the lining", while women have "the cornet", "the pump" and "the paint or disguise".

In the kitchen, where dishes such as "some suger-plum[sic]", "a little mine" and "vegetables boiled to a pap" are prepared, expect such utensils as "the spark", "the smoke", "the clout" and of course, "the fire".

Wildlife observers can expect to see "quardruped's" such as the "rocbuck", "wild sow" and "dragon"; marine biologists can look forward to the "hedge hog", "calamary", "muscles", "wolf" and "torpedo".

Body parts include "the brain", "the inferior lip", "the brains" (what?), "the reins" and "the ham". Apparently, being left-handed is a disease. By the way, does anyone know where the superior and inferior lips are on the human body?

Also, good luck explaining your family tree with such terms as "the quater-grandfather", "the gossip mistress", and "an relation".


"It is a noise which to cleave the head"
The section on "Idiotisms and Proverbs" provides such gems of profundity as, "The necessity don't know the low."; "A horse baared don't look him the tooth." and "After the paunch comes the dance."

Break the ice with such "Familiar phrases" as, "Apply you at the study during that you are young."; "This wood is fill of thief's."; and "What is it who want you?" Discuss the weather with "There is some foggy."; "I fear of the thunderbolt."; and "The sun rise on."

Prior to sailing, someone may ask, "Don't you fear the privateers!" To which a captain might reply, "I jest of them; my vessel is armed in man of war, I have a vigilant and courageous equipage, and the ammunitions don't want me its."

Someone might ask a bibliophile such: "Do you like the reading good deal too many which seem me?" And the usual reply would be, "That is to me a amusement."

At the bookshop, one might enquire of the bookseller: "What is there in new's litterature?" To which an answer would be "Little or almost nothing, it not appears any thing of note." Puzzled, the customer would ask, "But why, you and another book seller, you does not to imprint some good wooks[sic]?" And the weary reply might sound like: "There is a reason for that, it is that you cannot to sell its. The actual-liking of the public is depraved they does not read who for to amuse one's self ant but to instruct one's."


"...it is perfect"
As far as I can remember, nobody is sure if da Fonseca "died of embarrassment" when the book came out, or what happened to Carolino after that.

Despite its ironic and epic FAIL as a serious phrasebook, an abridged edition was published in London by Field & Tuer in 1882. Entitled English as She is Spoke, it was probably catalogued somewhere under "Humour", and would eventually be regarded as a classic source of unintended hilarity.

A different abridgement was published the same year in the US with an introduction by Mark Twain, who sounded quite enamoured with its contents. "In this world of uncertainties, there is, at any rate, one thing which may be pretty confidently set down as a certainty: and that is, that this celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the English language lasts."

Writer Stephen Pile, in The Book of Heroic Failures, sums up the power of the New Guide: "Is there anything in conventional English which could equal the vividness of 'To craunch a marmoset'?"

Which is perhaps why Twain was certain that "...nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect, it must and will stand alone: its immortality is secure."

Who can argue that?


This quasi-review/commentary of English as She is Spoke is based on the excerpts (at least I hope they are) from one of its abridged versions. I'm still hoping to get a copy of the real book from a local bookstore.

14/09/2014  It was also published in the 36th issue (October-December 2012) of the MPH Quill magazine (PDF file for the entire issue is here).

14/08/2023  At long, long last, you can get a physical copy here.

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English As She Is Spoke

Being a Comprehensive Phrasebook of the English Language, Written by Men to Whom English was Entirely Unknown

Jose da Fonseca, Pedro Carolino
edited by Paul Collins
McSweeney's Books (2004)
151 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-1932416114