Susan Abraham - Malaysia

Captivation

Today, I fell in love with the books I bought, the glorious bookshop that housed my waiting stack so lovingly and the enchanting spring sunshine that trailed a welcome parade with colourful performance theatre and musicians in tow on Grafton Street, Dublin, which I like to think was conjured up, just for my books and me.

I may have been stranded somewhere romantic for a South Pacific Christmas, had my quaint surrealism counted for anything. But there, I was swinging my weighty little haul in a handy books bag, with miraculous strength...such are the celebrations of enthusiasm, delight and the tempting allure of a whimsical cafe culture, invented from dreams and imaginings.

I am the true bookaholic. How could I not be by now, with the vibrant burst of my uncontrollable artistic passions, for all the world to see. I think nothing of shopping for books and world art cinema, every other day, as a more feminine individual would hoard up on shoes and bags. But then again, I too, was once like that while working as  a frenzied fashion magazine journalist in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. 

Now,  I play the sedate if not sporty dresser, preferring to read my novels with sober devotion and watching my films with apt diligence, that none may exist of a guilt trip. This afternoon, as my broadening interests would so shamlessly lend themselves, I picked up some valuable vintage Penguin paperbacks which I shall talk about another day, a fair bit of classics too that included John Conrad's sea stories and jungle adventures...think Borneo and a tome of the most delightful G.K. Chesterton omnibus.  My bookish interests and choice of subjects are growing ever the wider, no thanks to the constant travel that insists on broadening my horizons, by default.

To all, I stay enraptured.

Which is why I think from tomorrow, I shall aim to open an additional blog/site with a more serious intent than my Typepad one, could ever from now, earn a reputation for. 

I'd like to have more stringent categories that signal my present bookish tastes which now lie in the broader fields of adventure in the way of explorations, voyages and expeditions. I'm also reading a fair bit of science...especially one that would purport itself to Nature.  Today, I picked up Peter Forbes' Dazzled and Deceived, a major work on Nature, that won itself the Warwick Prize recently. Then there is Angela Saini's Geek Nation.

I find my reading interests determined to spread itself out like a fan that may still lie half-opened and poised for a dangerous stretch of the unknown. I've grown interested in Inuit (Eskimo) culture and also literature from the Far East, Asiatic, Africa and especially and always, the most overwhelming of all; the vast Middle-East region. Where films are concerned, I'm currently watching West European cinema.

Typepad is a subscribed blog and it earns fantastic listings on Google Search and also allows the blogger to receive immediate personal support, in the way of difficulties.  But common sense tells me that a free site would likely preserve my work for the entirety, long after I'm gone  from the world and no one would need to remember to pay subscriptions on my behalf.

Of course, my Typepad still goes on and the other site would be far more professional and industrious with a sharper critique. I'll run those posts here as well. I really would from now, like to build up a serious portfolio of thoughts, reviews and even the odd literary journey.  I've never had this inclination before on any of my older blogs. Of course, travel helps the individual evolve much faster than someone who prefers the quiet life in a parochial community. I have been on both sides of the coin and really marvel at the difference of my hedonistic days now, that have become so beautiful and peaceful and where  layers of thought and emotion, continue to revel in their riotous carnivals, with each ensuing day.

Credit: This wonderful picture of books is courtesy of the ever-generous FreeStockPhotos.

One Technique Creole Taught Me in the Art of PenningTravel Literature

Dublin 6-1-11: While lost in the rapt mood of a hushed, exciting eternity that threw itself into the tidy rolls of a new calendar date, I read and finished  Creole a 153-page novella, translated from the Portugese by Daniel Hahn and orignally sketched by the award-winning writer José Eduardo Agualusa; at one  swift sitting in the early morning hours, of New Year's Day.

I was held in awe by the seductive quality of the story and the lingering tenderness of a character's yearning, the kind-hearted aristocrat turned impulsive adventurer of the high seas; Fradique Mendez, who would eagerly tie his fate to the bliss of imagined romantic nights and fluid kisses, once  landing upon the shores of Angola.

Engaging myself with this brilliant book, that served to concern itself both with the end of the Portugese slave trade and an unexpected love  affair between the impetuous Mendez  and the unruffled but enchanting Ana Olimpia - a former slave girl - that stretched from Angola and Brazil, to Lisbon and Paris, then as hearts would be so tested; I too held my breath for the couple's sake; that their romantic fictitious destiny and because the era of the late 19th century proved a dangerous time; be kept safe.

Still, this is not a review although I will say that the plot spelling nail-biting drama and adventure, is narrated in the first person by Mendez himself and later, Olimpia in a series of letters to various sources but especially from Mendez's hand in numerous diary episodes to his grandmother.

Olimpia is saved from her slave-girl's fate by marriage to her wizened old master bearing property and all the right desires in his humble hopeful heart, with which to educate Olimpia in languages and necessary academic subjects, that she may prove a prized asset and one rightly beheld of his enduring adoration.

Sadly, he dies. This is followed by a sudden sorry state of affairs and  a series of chaotic, colourful encounters. Mendez will eventually win her heart and she will give him a good marriage, although she may from time to time appear from the outset, a little distant, well-humoured and  kindly  in disposition perhaps one more akin to a morose charwoman, rather than that of a flirtatious exotic lass, whipping up the teasing mercurial passions of a woman in love. 

The other half of the plot deals with the complex, political acumen of the slave trade facing its murky end and the eventual drawbacks, arising from the shocked rebellion of certain slave traders, smugglers and masters.

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Creole turned out to be a marvellous blessing for me in getting down to brass tacks for my art.  Its heaped a shiny enthusiasm on my new fervour especially towards the writing of travel literature, for a new book I'm contemplating.  There are my planned Kilimanjaro memoirs but I want something  a little more brazen to the occasion. I'm just trying to decide on the region and theme.

In this respect, I have been engulfed by mirthful reflections one way or the other, since my first book of verse was published so unexpectedly two months ago. I've been searching myself, wanting first of all to indulge in a creative writing process, that celebrates a highly broadened, liberal platform of my accompanying Christian faith. It helps that I am naturally an optimistic individual but also a sober realist, when a specific situation calls for that conduct.

From Creole, I learnt that descriptions that make for a narrator's  modest flaws and clumsy episodes would work just as well,  in transporting a reader, in  that splendid striking way, to an effective sense of place. This, without the usual enticement of a persuasive cajolery, bordering on the lure of allurement.

For example, Mendez's description of Victorino, the ancient-seeming slave master who first married his beloved, Ana, is described, not with neat politically-correct imaginings but hence in the exact straggly way that he was seen to have been.  "...He was tall, slim with a long face, a very wild, very white beard which cascaded down over his chest, an excessive contradictory character, whom I heard..." - Creole.

Now, this had me brimming with happiness, because how often the very erratic and eccentric characters, I myself have met in East Africa or even better still, Zanzibar, have been so similar in personality, not with appearance but with that recognisable wildness.

Another terrific example for instance of show-and-not-tell is of how Agualuso would paint a party crowd, far more the enthralling spectacle than a masqueraded affair and not as you would suspect, drawing on dapper outfits.  "... I was invited to the Governor's Ball... an event of great splendour, noise and show... In the halls of the palace you can see honest traders mixing with exiled criminals, children-of-the-country with blonde European adventurers, slave owners with abolitionists, monarchists with republicans, priests with masons..." - Creole. How wonderfully I snapped the picture... right on cue!

And of a bossy wicked lady, a huge, lumbering woman who kept alibino girl slaves for a sadistic hobby..."A mouth drawn so wide, that the teeth wander round it/in a state of agitation..." - Creole. Now, if this didn't remind me of Alice in Wonderland's barking Queen of Hearts. I shuddered a little to think of  this loud nervous woman, that may have been just about to pounce on me.

Agualuso also taught me of how physical beauty could be demonstrated to a dazed, willing reader  by the use of vivid imagery...and of how each exquisite feature that represented a woman's being, could possibly be drawn out with deliberate charismatic slowness...step by step, like an artificial flower being crafted with painstaking effort....a petal at a time.

Over here, Mendez describes his first impressions of Ana. "There have been moments in my life - dusk falling on the Alps, an evening in Asmera when I surprised a jaguar, right in front of me, ready to pounce, there have been moments which made me feel the proof of God... ....when I first saw her, I felt the very same emotion." - Creole.

I can't wait to employ these valuable lessons in storytelling for my own tales. Creole was of course, fiction but how realistic the descriptions of travel and adventure, of peoples met and places savoured. Now travel literature accounts for memoirs that are real, but then as they say, isn't truth itself stranger than fiction. Employing the same tricks would make truth rise to its worth...beguiling and captivating without really trying.

Oh...the Wistfulness of a Tender Hospital Romance

Last Saturday, while dashing about with alacrity and all the while, pretending an  unhurried dignity, with which to finish my shopping  and meeting the post at the eleventh hour in Dublin, I couldn't resist popping into the stylish Chapters bookstore on Parnell Street,  to pick up Love on Ward B, (Prion Books Ltd., 2008)  a collection of six hospital nurse picture library romances, I had spied only the week before.  Now, with a startled longing, I once more nurtured a forgotten teenage deviousness in proclaiming the hidden candy floss of a dewy-eyed romance, necessary to curing all of life's ills.

This sunny orange-y collection featuring gossipy nurses, grumpy patients, no-nonsense matrons and Adonis-type doctors, revolves around the brazen adventures of freckle-faced Sally Brown, a  stunning blonde at the General Hospital, who in her spirited role as the humble probationary nurse, patrolled her wards with clockwork instinct together with her colleague Maureen Evans, while hatching a host of  sparkling secret plots to match.

The lively picture stories from Pearsons Library which each sold for a shilling in the early 1960s  - the Hospital Nurse series was first run in 1963 - and were appropriately titled Naughty Nurse, First Love, Man Crazy, Cure for Diane, Live and Love and Blues for a Beat Boy, feature exceptional charcoal-like sketches for each story cover and skilled drawings of endearing old-fashioned winter coats, moonlight serenades, a sports car zooming into the sunset, well-heeled restaurant diners, steamers rolling off into the ocean, frocks, mink coats and the classic lingering kiss. Oh yes... and I did glimpse adorable illustrations, made up of urgent teaspoonfuls of medicine plus hospital beds and trays peppered about the cheerful strips.

Now, I bought this fat jolly read for purely sentimental purposes.  Not that a woman needs to be reminded of that odd enchanting romance, destined to sprout a 1,000 wings for the merry, somersaulting heart, now and again.

My new picture book may as yet promise to act as a salve for the now slightly beleaguered if not older, human spirit. What illuminated childhood memories the rosy stories bring about.

My mother, a teacher at the Convent where I studied in Klang, Malaysia was strict in some ways but strangely liberal in others. In my in-between years from when I was 12+ and had begun to abandon my Enid Blyton collection for those enigmatic Pearl S. Buck novels, I first encountered an unholy interlude where my mother in her sudden phase of nostalgic maudlin frivolity, let me dangerously peruse several stacks of Women Weekly Romance Magazines, each one featuring the formulac 64 pages of passionate prose.

I can still remember with a quiet smile, some of my enduring heroines what with an unsavoury mix of vixens, floozies and dishy heroes thrown into the fray; and all engaged in impressive  syrupy scenes, that I daresay, may have unconsciously shaped my own life at some point, before common sense set in.

My poor schoolfriends on the other hand were banned from reading such books by both parents and the no-nonsense Irish nuns that ran our Convent. These books were easily available as a powerful influence from our nation having survived an earlier British rule. A lot of our literature  featuring magazines, the classics, all manner of fiction and childrens' stories, were imported directly from England. My friends used to tuck their forbidden paperbacks in between the duller pages of textbooks.  They would then read as much as they could during recess. One had always to be careful as prefects would inspect our satchels during intervals and confiscate all the no-nos. School punishments could well include detention, gardening in the hot sun or worse still, cleaning the eerie toilets.

This book reminded me of a post I had written somewhere on the web, a few years earlier. Have managed to trace it. The Junk Bookstore at Jalan Tun H.S. Lee is still a memorable must-see for lovers of antiquarian literature, who find themselves in Kuala Lumpur. It's situated on an ancient street, that long filled up with Chinese traders eg. wholesalers and provision shops. A visitor may find himself dodging gunny sacks and silently bewailing the noisy, rackety buses snailing past.  On the contrary, the bookstore itself is a silent haven while spotting shiny dark glass for newly-renovated doors. The passing pedestrian that may pop up a swaying drunk,  is unable to peer inside.

The Junk Bookstore, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Pictured here is an illustration from the women's fiction my mother and her friends read in their time , in this case from an old Her World magazine, published in the early '60s.  The short billowy dresses they wore with matching coloured bags and earrings and the fashion magazines they snuggled up to.

Looking back, the days felt transient and more ephemeral. Such is the starry-eyed atmosphere that engulfs the Junk Bookstore, Kuala Lumpur's popular antiquarian bookshop and promotes its reputation as a thrilling, intimate haunt.

It's a captivating little place and may yet prove tighter than a mansion's alcove with its poky corners that hoard literary treasures in the vein of an ancient toyshop clutter.

After all, its matchbox size ensures a silent warning that, you may just stroll in at the risk of of a book-pile precariously perched from somwhere in the forgotten past, collapsing onto the floor in a thunderous heap. And do be careful climbing up the staircase that you don't suffer a thump on the head from a secret sloping wall, bent on mischief.

In spite of the limited space, the shop is famous for its colourful shelves of second-hand books that drag out all the romantic flavour from the world's rich Colonial past. Think of it as an Aladdin's cave with boxes of mixed-up oil lamps, for any literary enthusiast seeking mystery and adventure.

There are hundreds of detective novels - for instance, the startling range of a Perry Como series featuring Film Noir blondes and cigar-smoking thugs, - thrillers, limited local editions of Malaysian/Singaporean women's magazines from the Sixties, romances, comics and all kinds of other amusing paperback fare. Sentiment is heaven so carry more tissues than usual whenever you visit this tiny haven.

The Junk Bookstore, 78, Jalan Tun HS Lee, 50000 Kuala Lumpur, Tel: 603 238 3822. - susan abraham

What I Bought Today

My faithful Elif Shafak's Flea Palace, that has of late, followed me about dutifully like a silent shadow, caught more than its fair share of raindrops in the sudden shower at dusk. And oh... is it cold tonight, here in Dublin!

Whereas my beautiful new, heavy hardback, Life Times (Stories 1952-2007) by Nadine Gordimer, very nearly got soaked.

What a joy to have finally picked up the Collected Stories of Nadine Gordimer. I have read a fair few of her writings in my time and it was good to now reacquaint myself with all  of her pensive works; some of the titles being instantly recognisable. 

I will say though that in comparison to Doris Lessing 's novels on South Africa,  - both Gordimer and Lessing have each won the Nobel Prize for Literature - I read far more of Lessing. I felt I identified better with the latter's exquisite descriptions, employed in her  characterisation.  I always found it easy to worship the sheer beauty of Lessing's language. Gordimer's stories are like very old friends... I knew them briefly but while in passing, knew them well and after a long absence; whose friendships I am now eager to renew.

 

Thoughts on Current Reads

 

 

 

 

 

Believe it or not, but it was with a certain amount of delight, that I received a call, a day ago from Waterstone's Booksellers in Dublin. My order for Suad Amiry's newest memoir, Nothing to Lose But Your Life, had been met and that my much longed for book, was now awaiting collection, in the store. 

By the way, if I could just offer a plug for the industrious staff at Waterstone's on Dawson Street, that would be super. I'll say that their customer service is nothing short of superb. Always polished and efficient too and this, coming from me, a frequent book-buyer, who may purchase her desired rare titles, from obscure regions.   Plus, that's putting things mildly.

I adore the writings of Suad Amiry, who is  a Palestinian architect and author, now dedicated to the preservation and refurbishment of Palestine's architectural heritage, while still residing in Ramallah's West Bank.

In SHARON and my Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries,  which won the the prestigious Viareggio Prize in Italy in 2004, was translated into 19 languages  and whose Arabic version, proved a bestseller in France, Amiry offered a ticklish insider's view of the  precarious risks Palestinian residents were often forced to tackle, while occupied with menial everyday occupations.  This, at the helm of bored, grumpy and often, fickle-minded Israeli soldiers.

In this delicious memoir, Amiry showed herself up as an outstanding raconteur, what with her constant ribalds and banter, at the turn of almost every page.

Her sarcastic descriptions of scenes as she painted them  in diaries, notes and letters to close women friends, that in turn, solemnly latched her words to their heavy hearts; were so vivid, I could have well heard her whispering in my ear.

Here, the author sketched the  sort of hidden endearing episodes that television stations and media reports, still manage to miss, I fear.

 Thankfully, Amiry endured her lot, rather gracefully, in spite of various ridiculous upheavals that surrounded her neighbourhood. One of these of all things, lay in a series of hopeless reasonings with a stubborn 92-year old mother-in-law, who had suddenly inherited the late Palestinian leader, Yaseer Arafat as a next door neighbour.  This proved a potential explosive situation as Yaseer Arafat had already been placed under a dangerous seige by Israel.  

Yet to everyone's weary resignation, Suad Amiry's aged mother-in-law  refused to move but instead; proceeded to create numerous  comical inconveniences - the sort that ironically placed the little old lady's life in embarassing unwarranted situations.

Perhaps it was simply, that I had read Suad Amiry at a time, along with several other Arabic writers.  These included some brilliant writers like Yasmina Khadra, Rawi Hage, Sayed Kashua and Taher ben Jelloun, all of which I had selected, either according to an independent bookseller's recommendations or my own intuition. Then, I was tiptoeing into the enormous world of translated Arabic literature.

Today, I still remember the easy exhilaration and doe-eyed wonderment at this splendid new hobby, I had found for myself in middle age. There was no looking back. Discoveries while still swaddled in their infancy, are always akin to the affectionate charms of a first love, I would think. Hence, I would enthusiastically describe my reading life at the time in early 2008, as somewhat magical.

Naturally, I hungered for another Suad Amiry, with a painful longing, that you wouldn't believe. Now, I just can't wait - and God willing that all goes well for me - to meet with Suad Amiry at the Emirates Festival of Literature next March. What a moment that would be for me!

Now, in Nothing To Lose But Your Life, Amiry bravely attempts a man's disguise and follows a young chap Murad, on an 18 hour journey, across the Israeli border with a keen  bunch of lads; all eager for their pot of gold. I, the reader, am warned to expect some  near horrifying encounters,  but all generously mixed with a strong dose of comedy, Suad Amiry style.

The book itself is tastefully produced by Bloomsbury Qatar and was published in April 2010. Can you imagine, that I only knew of it, recently.

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On another note, I am still reading Elif Shafak's The  Flea Palace.  I have been rather slow, with it.  This comes from a preoccupation with several important issues going on. The book is chunky from a heavily descriptive content but what fabulous comedy indeed. 

The plot concerns itself with a group of eccentric families who all, tolerate each other,  in a derelict block of flats, in Istanbul. Each family finds themselves reluctantly bound to a neighbour for better or worse and overall, to the the unwelcome stench of garbage, that line the street.

I had also regaled in my first Elif Shafak.  I feel a little piqued, that I came rather late in the day, to the knowledge of Orhan Pamuk's strongest competitor,  in the field of contemporary Turkish writing.

I first read The Bastard of Istanbul, after coming across a wonderful interview with Shafak in the British papers. How I celebrated that novel too. Generations of women living together in the same house, but from time to time, recalling a painful history, that would draw out secrets and hearty quarrels. Two days ago, I went out and bought another Elif Shafak, a  smaller slimmer book, called The Gaze.

The plot reminds me of an Angela Carter. An overweight woman and her sweetheart, a dwarf, are so tired at being stared at wherever they go, that in desperation and anger, they take to reversing their roles in a bizarre manner. The man starts to don make-up and the woman wears a moustache in public!

I haven't yet read Elif Shafak's newest novel, which is currently out in all the good bookstores, and alluringly labelled The Forty Rules of Love. A close friend, an ardent reader but one not easy to please, has given it a thumbs-up. I've also discovered an older Shafak novel, published in 2005, called The Saint of Incipient Insanities.

Now, you may be wondering why I'm telling you all this. I think the reason has been made clear to me in the subconscious. I remember that while still in my teens and early  20s, that I had  doggedly pursued, hundreds of the classics and also British contemporary novels and biographies that featured my favourite authors. They included Virginia Woolf, Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell, Beatrix Potter (I read 2 in a row) and Sylvia Plath

I was almost devoted to the mission. So deep was my passion for British fiction. Naturally, I was a regular face at the British Council Library in Kuala Lumpur. For instance, I would pick one Iris Murdoch after another, mulling over the titles, like a deck of cards. In the end, I read almost everything she wrote. And that was how it was for the works of Charles Dickens, as well. Or for that matter, Kingsley Amis and his novelist wife at the time, Elizabeth Jane Howard. I read a fair few of each one of their novels; one after the other with clockwork efficiency and no hint of boredom knocking at the door.

Somewhere, along the way I lost this sacred devotion; a tool, I had eagerly acquainted myself with, in which to  better understand my favourite authors and their writings, on a deeply personal level.

Perhaps I became engaged with too many pursuits. Perhaps my thirst for reads sprouted wings in varied directions. There were too many books on the market...there were too many delicious subjects to want to peer into. As an analogy, the web turned what would seem like a shallow lake, into an ocean.  I found that I read books according to plots and authors anywhere at all, that laboured to stem my curiosity, rather than to target  a specific region with ease.

Now, I realise once more, that I yearn to return to my 20s. I've only just felt this way, frankly.  What I want to do, is probably organise a customised system, that closely targets the method on which I approach my reads.  One that combines both region and a hushed personal devotion. I yearn to specialise in the authors whose works I love and to 'taste the clay', if you will, of my especially adored cultures. I need to bask in this narrow but fathomless, introspection.

Thus, I've decided to concentrate on the complete works of favourite authors, that I may know the flourish of their pens in an astounding intimate fashion.

There stay a few cultures I just can't get enough of. This appear to be history - works of fiction and non-fiction - of old Malaya, Borneo and Singapore in the Far East, translated Persian, Kurdish and Arabic literature, translated Turkish literature, African stories and folklore and as always, the British classics and a few favourite English writers, from time to time.

I have recently been more than curious and doubly fascinated by the Inuit - Eskimo - culture and thankfully, I have bookmarked several  Eskimo  tales and folklore online. Who knows where an icy terrain may take me. Seriously, how can I resist the lure  of the unknown and if so, would I want to.

Still Learning

Today being the last Monday of an October month, turned out to be a bank holiday, here in Ireland. I had clean forgotten. I rushed in the afternoon to Chapters Bookstore on Parnell Street, Dublin and was relieved to observe that there was still a good four hours to go before closing time.

As an aside, once more, I was reminded of how appealing the store is, not just with its consistent hosting of lunchtime poetry readings and regular book launches, but with a rather grandiose collection of wonderful, astonishing  literature and of how, I in turn, take these astounding  tiny luxuries - destined to   thrill any bibliophile - for granted.

Perhaps if I may excuse myself, it is simply that Grafton Street stays an  adored haunt whereas Parnell Square is clearly on the other side of town. Here, popular cinemas and the statuesque Dublin Writers Museum, lurk also, in a fashionable way. Incidentially, Chapter is Ireland's largest independent bookstore.

To a subdued revelry provoked by either a violin sonata or piano recital, carefully partying it up in the background; a customer may feel compelled to bend into a book on any of the scattered chairs, or otherwise, wander about the colourful shelves, like a merry maze calling a child to play. All display intriguing eclectic collections, from a variety of absorbing subjects, designed to seduce the unsuspecting reader. 

All the while no matter the day or hour, the carefully-conjured mood and atmosphere, appear fitting to the scene.

One of the things I especially admire about Chapters, is its vast assortment of elegant hardbacks and boxed sets featuring popular fiction, classical authors and ancient beloved stories amounting to world literature; among several other genres.   This stays a practical and viable collection for any reader, either interested in the intricate flow of critical theory, or who may be wanting to embark on a comprehensive study/research, of a singular author's works. It would also serve as an affordable method for the satisfying purchase of any bundle of collected stories at one go; without the clear anxiety that suffers a bleeding wallet.

Caption: Sir Richard Francis Burton, translator of the Arabian Nights.

This time round, I went on a mission - to look for the Arabian Nights. I came away well-rewarded for my efforts.  There was a shelf full of nothing but Arabian folklore. There lay several attractive editions in paperback on the Arabian nights. I felt that I had dipped my hand into a lucky draw. There were so many goodies, I didn't know which one to pull out first.

Finally, I decided against all the beautiful alluring paperbacks with their seductive pictures for covers.  The start of the tales did not attract me at all...rather I was more interested in the 'people' stories somewhere halfway through.  I could see myself jumping about from story to story but am always meticulous when it comes to reading a book. Hence, I decided I would buy nothing but settle for reading all the tales on my iPad.

Now, I say iPad because this nifty gadget has in a matter of weeks, turned up as an essential item in my reading life. I prefer to do a great deal of my web reading on it. An Arabian tale looks welcoming behind the flat, shiny glass tablet. It is a lightweight carry-about and  far easier to handle than a book when it comes to bedtime reading and I'm readying myself now too, for planes and airports.  Of course, I love my books as well.

What I'm trying to say is that on my iPad, I have the liberty of jumping from tale to tale as I wish, without feeling I may be doing a book injustice or nurturing a guilty conscience.  I am the meticulous reader who reads every book I decide upon, from start to finish. I never skip pages nor jump across paragraphs.

Still, as I was about to turn away, my eye happened upon the elegant collector's item for  the Arabian Nights (pictured above.)  It turned out  to be a big beautiful green book with highly decorative elements.  There were other selections as well. I was literally starstruck by the many handsome b/w illustrations that would have easily gripped me as a child, even as the pictures still stay captivating in adulthood. This is the kind of book that would easily engage you in a serious persual of a tale, it has that sort of formidable personality about it. My splendid hardback - oh yes, I did buy it, of course - reminds me of a well-preserved ancient  book of fairy tales.  Oh for the charms and beatitude of a strange beguiling beauty, that continues to linger beside the mesmerising  power, of folklore and storytelling.

There are countless tales I haven't yet read and confess to knowing nothing about. In this respect, I stay ever thankful to Sir Richard Francis Burton, a 19th century British explorer, scholar and man of letters. Why, Wikepedia describes Sir Burton of having spoken 29 European, African and Asian languages. I would love to read a biography of Burton  in the near future, to learn more about this man, whose talents I find fascinating and also  for having translated the entire Arabian Nights series.

I also picked another hardback comprising an odyssey of Indo-Persian mythology and naturally, flamboyant and magnificent in every respect called, The Adventures of Amir Hamza. My book is made up of a complete and unabridged translation by the novelist, Musharraf Ali Farooqi. I am told in the introduction to expect a marvellous chronicle of warriors, kings, tricksters, fairies, courtesans and magical creatures, from the hero Amir Hamza's travels to exotic lands and any one number of the brazen character's swashbuckling episodes.

At a glance, the prose is shameless with its lavish extravagance of marvellings and lush hospitality, towards the reader. The Adventures of Amir Hamza was written by two men: Ghalib Lakhnavi, a writer and poet in India in the 19th century and Abdullah Bilgrami who taught Arabic during that time in Kanpur, India.

In all earnestness, I must grant this resplendent work of non-fiction with its showy if not luxuriant prose, its own post.

In the meanwhile, I stay awed by the invisible footsteps of my reading journey, that is truly leading me into breathtaking unchartered territories. Each culture appears an Eden and while I may feel I am in paradise, cannot get enough of the beautiful, from the countless stories, that continue to grin and beckon.

 

Plans

Recent posts have caught me waxing lyrical on the subjects of translated Arabic,  Persian and Far-Eastern literature with a merry, self-imposed meritocracy, not often dedicated to the self. Both the legendary classics and modern contemporary stories, continue to beguile me with an inordinate sense of fascination, duly afforded  to a  lifelong  wonderment and one, spun from childhood yarns. 

Those who know and read me, easily  recognise my constant enthusiasm for the Middle-East.

So immeasurable is this passion that I finally gave in to my own literary inclinations and decided that I would specialise in literature from these regions. 

With Malaysia, I am deeply drawn to the old Malaya with its lush equatorial jungles, wildlife and fauna. I also stand awed by the traditions stemmed from an ancient Malay culture - and one centred by *kampong and rural surroundings, close to where my friends and I grew up, during sporadic seasons, at some measure of time or the other.  In small towns, even middle-class suburbs were  situated  next to lavish oil palm plantations. 

I did also write earlier, of a collection of antiquarian tales, I presently own, and which were written by a fair few of British explorers, here on the Peninsular and Borneo, more than a century ago. As I travelled a fair bit this year, I purchased each title here and there.

Still, the Middle-East and Persia, both catch my first flight of fantasy. I am contemplating a course in Classical Arabic but thought that my immediate port of call should be, to return without ado to a childhood where books first hoisted me onto my imagination with a great longing for foreign lands and the unknown.

The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and Aladdin's Lamp are only a few of a fattened series of colourful folklore, narrated to me by parents, teachers,  babysitters and kindly neighbours who may have played the odd raconteur.  Interestingly, these exotic commercial fare did not belong to the original  Arabic versions of the One Thousand and One Nights portal; more commonly known as the Arabian Nights .

They were instead,  included into the collection much later on by European translators, as the tales were marvellously Middle-Eastern in origin.

The legend goes that at the turn of the 18th century, there lived a  King Shahyrar of  Persia, who would marry a new virgin everyday, while the wife of the day before, would find her head, ready to be struck off.  This cruel act stemmed sadly enough from a thirst for revenge after the King had discovered a traitor in his first wife. And so the days went on where a  1,000 of his wives were  executed. 

Eventually, King Shahyrar, was introduced to Scheherazade, the *vizier's daughter. Amid her father's worried protests, Scheeherazade agreed to spend one night in the King's chamber. She then started on a bedtime tale. The King stayed up all night to listen. But dawn broke and Scheeherazade said her story had not yet finished. She would have to stop since it was already the morning. The King decided she had a point and being terribly curious about the ending, would spare Scheeherazade for another night. And so it went on. Night after night, Scheeherazade would swear to a series of incomplete tales and the short nightfall, that did her no justice.  During the long time ahead, she bore the King three sons. Finally on the one thousandth and one night, Scheeherazade confessed that she had run out of tales to tell her husband. By then, the King had grown older and wiser and fallen headlong in love with his  daring, clever wife. And so, Scheeherazade's life was spared as King Shahyrar, made her his queen.

I have discovered several delicious stories to the Arabian nights and thought that I might discuss each story's universal appeal and its accompanying plot with clockwork regularity on this blog.  How captivating the thought at just being able to  savour tales like The Fisherman and the Genie, The Tailor's Story, The Barber's Story, Noureddin Ali of Cairo and his Son Bedreddin Hassan and so on.   How delightful that in my summer years, I would still find hidden treasure trunks, with more storybooks than the imagination could ever hope to capture, in my reading journey.

I am pondering right now, where to read my beloved Arabian nights from. All the tales are available online.  But I would prefer another option. Dublin's biggest independent bookshop called Chapters and situated on Parnell Street, next to the Writer's Museum is wonderful for a vast selection of elegant books, that one would be hard pressed to find elsewhere.  It was from here that I first purchased Naguib Mahfouz's The Trilogy. The store stocks a brilliant array of world classics especially for any enthusiast of European literature. I distinctly remember seeing the Arabian  Nights displayed in varied editions and will definitely go tomorrow, to check it out.

Unlike many readers, my own reading stack, piled quite erratically in my head, that can prove clumsy and absent-minded from time to time, compile of books from my library, those I've spotted at a favourite bookshop or online reads. I seem to be indulging in my favourite picks here and there, without worrying too much at all, if I'm reading on a glass screen or resorting to carefully-turned pages. I could just as well curl up with my iPad tablet as I could with my book. I found these habits easy to form. The important thing being that I have access to the literature I need and am able to scour all with a necessary comfort.

In fact I find that with the advent of the worldwide web, I'm purchasing more books than ever.

I'm also going to do a personal study guide on the Arabian Nights, something I was very fortunate to stumble across and have bookmarked online. It's a sophisticated 8-page critical study guide, conducted by a theatre house.  The study guide offers a comprehensive critical analysis of many of the tales.

*vizier meaning political advisor to the King

*kampong meaning a small village or community of houses in Malay-speaking lands.

Credit: Arabian Nights image, courtesy of KarenWhimsy.com

 

 

 

A First Christmas Read for 2010

I was extremely gratified on a day like today, when the last remnants of sunshine still flitted through Dublin and I was able to enjoy a glorious spell downtown.

I ended up making an unlikely acquaintance with some brilliant new Irish fiction, which I'm only just going to read my way through and find out more, in the days to come.

I went late in the evening to Dubray Books a splendid and friendly independent Irish bookseller on Dublin's illustrious Grafton Street, an upmarket venue, featuring stylish boutiques, cafes, open-air concerts and colourful theatrical performances.

I wanted to check my dates.

England's glamorous cookery guru, Nigella Lawson is coming over to Dubray Books this Saturday, at noon sharp, for   signings of her new  bestselling cookery title,  Kitchen, a lifestyle offering that combines vintage moods with modernity. 

Whereas a brisk 15 minute walk to the other side of town, would allow any onlooker to meet with Gok Wan from his famous telly hit, How to Look Good Naked as he stops by the Eason Bookstore on the main thoroughfare of O' Connell Street, to sign copies of his new book, at 12.30pm, also on the Saturday.

I sleep very late into the early hours of the morning, turning in sometimes at 3.30am or even, the strike of dawn. I write, watch my films as an interesting nightcap, listen to some jazz, read... all sorts.  When not travelling, I am almost reclusive. I love my quiet life. So it's really a question of if I can wake up and manage my breakfast in jolly good time. I live in the city, close to Phoenix Park and am situated, just 10 minutes away, from the central business district.

So with dates and times settled, I strolled into the cosy interior where glasses were laid out on a table, in preparation for a book talk - Dubray Books and the Irish Tatler Magazine were welcoming Londoner and former fashion editor, Justine Picardie, for her new book signing of  Coco Chanel The Legend and the Life - with the sole exception, that lost in my own wishful thoughts, was keen instead for a look-see at the fiction titles. Dubray Books always features an excellent choice and I don't visit enough.

 

Presently, the Christmas titles stay vibrant and welcoming, in childrens' bookshops, all over town. However, the adult fiction sections of the bigger bookstores have seen the annual sparkly titles, only just trickling in. Naturally, I'm delighted to have stumbled upon  Patrick Taylor's An Irish Country Christmas. (hardback, 19 euros 99 cents).

 

I'm enthralled by the cover. It commands the instant power to draw on an apt nostalgia. When I was very little in Malaysia, lots of the Christmas card boxes then, were imported from Great Britain.

All those glittery shiny bits and chocolate box scenes of a Dickens or Sherlock Holmes era, snow-covered houses, Santa Claus' reindeers striding through the air and an equal number of famous lamplights, for appropriate evocative moods; served to hold me still with childlike pleasure and an animated wonder.

My father sensing my love for the festivities and always one to indulge in a Christmas celebration himself, in ways that were anything but modest; would humour me in retrospect and let me post childish greetings to all my friends in the neighbourhood. This irregardless of religious beliefs. The cards were to signal neighbourly camaraderie. All my friends loved their enchanting envelopes. My father would also take the trouble to allow me the pleasure of licking on a score of stamps and dropping them in the post box with considered reverence.

Later, our nation's cards changed and Hallmark just wasn't the same. Now of course, I'm surrounded by a directory of quaint landscapes once more...one of the reasons why I cherish an English Christmas, while harbouring a possessive eternal fascination for old-fashioned scenes.

I applaud the atmospheric cover don't you; what with its lashings of luminous watercolour shades, that hint strongly at an incandescent hushed Silent Night portrait. The tale - I haven't read it yet - sounds just up my alley. It talks about a young doctor, plying his trade in rural Ireland.

I couldn't get enough of either Irish folklore or modern contemporary stories, from the British Council Library in Malaysia, all those years ago. I read almost all of Edna O' Brien's novels and short story collections with fervent vigour and was introduced to the works of Maeve Binchy, those of which I afforded a worship no less than any promising cuppa, that proved  warming to the heart. 

With childlike delight, I tiptoed around the profound works of Elizabeth Bowen, wearing a well-mannered, respectful grace and embraced, or rather waltzed with the delicious if not lively rural tales,  sketched by the famed Irish short story writer, Sean O Faolain.

Naturally, when fate finally conspired to lure me to Dublin many years later, I already knew something grand of its literature and felt richly blessed. I discovered from Patrick Taylor's website that here was a distinguished medical research worker and many other talented occupations besides including that of model boat builder. Patrick Taylor has won three lifetime achievement awards for his career in medical research. He lived in Belfast during the first two years of the Troubles and later emigrated to British Columbia, Canada, with his family. He now lives on Salt Spring Island.

I enjoy the cheerful conjecture that in An Irish Country Christmas, young Dr. O' Reilly's fictitious role, comes accompanied by his housekeeper, Mrs. Kincaid. In a blurb, Ireland's Own describes the tale as "A fond and amusing portrait of the people and the peculiarities of an Irish village." How thrilling also, to discover that this title was preceded by An Irish Country Doctor and An Irish Country Village.

Apparently, Brandon, an imprint of Mount Eagle Publications, will publish Patrick Taylor's An Irish Country Girl in 2011.  I'm only sorry to say that I knew nothing about this wonderful literary platter and must now quickly make amends.  After all,  Taylor writes on an assortment of tales I grew up with and have always adored.

In the video below, the novelist Patrick Taylor talks about An Irish Country Christmas

 

 

The Books I Bought Today

How exciting! It certainly felt like a sackful of Christmas presents. My book purchase choices were strategic and followed my deepening interest in translated Arabic literature in English. They were designed to help me learn more about authors  whose works I found beguiling and had begun to admire; and also, to adopt a personal affliation with regions that are very much on the cards for travel and exploration, next year.

Titles I Picked Up In-Store

 

Damascus: Taste of a City

Haus Publishing : £7.99/paperback

The thought of Damascus and all of its glorious wonders is to me, an enticing allure, not just for its layered biblical romanticism but also for its enigmatic historical intrigue and architectural value. World bestselling author, Rafik Schami who gained fame in 2009 for his chunky novel, The Dark Side of Love  and which also garnered him the shortlist for the 2010 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize; lived in the city for a quarter of a century, before being exiled to Europe. I was deeply moved to observe that even as Schami  pined for a lost Syrian love, his sister Marie Fadel , had wandered about the city, sporting a nostalgic air on his behalf while relishing atmospheric moods, sights, smells, sounds and tastes. Finally, with the embrace of exclusive flavours held securely close, she would then relay all of Damascus' quaint, lingering charm to Schami, over the telephone. I could only imagine the tender tenacity and the yearnings, passions, laughter and tears that would have surely both peppered and drowned conversations between the two siblings. The novelist would write everything down, but especially resting on an adored  subject of  Damascene cuisine. Hence, Damascus: Taste of a City was born.

With the exception of a scattering of black and white photographs, it is all of texts, highly personal  and already tempting with strong hints of street sounds, featuring exotic, aromatic flavours of the city. At a glance, I catch words like alleyways, neighbourly coffee feasts, classic Syrian recipes, and wondrous nostalgic tales of Schami's mother cooking for him and of his friends who regaled in slap-up meals.

(by Marie Fadel as told to Rafik Schami and translated by Debra S. Marmor and Herbert A. Danner.)

 

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The Calligrapher's Secret by Rafik Schami - a novel - Arabia Books London £17.99 (hardback)

 I had picked up an extract of the novel at the Haus Showroom (a highly elegant bookshop) in early September in London. Thus, I was impatient for The Calligrapher's Secret, released just last week. I had no hesitation today, about buying a hardback, even as it pulled me back by a cool 22 euros.

Naturally, I am very much looking forward to the read. Rafik Schami sketches the fictitious life of a young man, Hamid Farsi who is a renowned calligraphy expert. But the flaws incurred in the Arabic language over time and the additional disappointment of a heightened script limitation, causes Farsi to take matters into his own hands, so as to manouvere a risky radical reform.

Now, Farsi has a beautiful wife, Noura, who is unaware of her cold husband's steely ambitions. She is instead, drawn to the flattery of Farsi's young charismatic apprentice. The intense love story of a Muslim woman and a Christian man is soon born, from temptation and deceit.

(Translated from the German by Anthea Bell)

 

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Modern Poetry in Translation - Transplants (3rd series. No.13) Edited by David & Helen Constantine £9.95/11 euros and 80 cents. (paperback).

I once went to a Modern Poetry in Translation launch at Foyles Bookshop,  London, some years ago. It was a terrific opportunity to meet different poets and to reinstate the appreciation of varied cultural dialects, choruses, utterances, romantic sonnets, whispers and even the odd rhythmic line that would lend itself to a song.

Being a poet myself, how my heart wove its own tune, when I came across the publication's latest series called Transplants, on sale today. Interestingly, in this title that takes its inspiration from flowers and roots, the editorial questions the aspect of rhymes being subjected to migration, irony flourishing through the tongue or jokes being 'transplanted' elsewhere through dealings with foreign lands. 

I am enthralled especially with the reminder that this particular issue holds epic poetry from five languages; tanka, elegy, ballad, sonnet and ghazal and that the reader can expect prose poems, rhymes and unrhymings and all manner of crossings-over.''

The many, many poems stay a treat. I am looking forward to reading four Afghan poems translated from the Persian and a Palestinian one.

 

Titles Ordered In-Store

B as in Beirut - A Modern Arabic Novel from Lebanon by Iman Humaydan Younes

I was so charmed by the poetic eloquence of Lebanese novelist, short story writer and journalist, Iman Humaydan Younes in Wild Mulberries - please see my book review Here - that I feel presently compelled, to want to read B as in Beirut. I should be able to pick it up in a few days.

Unlike Wild Mulberries which highlighted broken family relationships in an isolated Lebanese village close to the sea, B as in Beirut, interlocks the  tales of  four women who live in the same Beirut apartment building, during the time of the Lebanese civil war. Each one makes her own survival rules as she resigns herself to a personal heartfelt yearning.

 

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 Learning English - A Modern Arabic Novel from Lebanon by Rachid el-Daif (£7.99 paperback)

Basically, the premise for this novel is one inherent to the majority of  us who seek materialism and a better status with the best of intentions; only to have a 'it's not what you are but who you are' conscience, crop up for the uninvited ride. A 'hip Beiruti'  Rachid tries to adopt sophistication and a worldly-wise manner by attempting to learn English. His cell phone and high-speed connections help his dreams along.

However, the protagonist soon finds himself battling with an old-fashioned 'clan mentality' in his village of Zgharta and his father's sudden murder that all at once, throw Rachid back into a strange disturbing quest that engulfed his childhood, where many searching questions were left unanswered. Once more, Rachid must turn away from the future to confront an uncomfortable past.

I like it especially that the suspense-filled plot is also described as laden with comical asides. I notice from a glimpse that the bearing of Learning English, appears to hone a similar gritty edge to the writing style with its sometimes humorous no-nonsense manner, a pattern of which I see so far in Lebanese male authors like Rawi Hage for the award-winning DeNiro's Game and a more recent purchase, The Year of the Revolutionary New Bread-Making Machine by Hassan Daoud.

Whereas banking on the literature I've already read, Lebanese female novelists are softer and far more whimsical in approach to a novel's complex plot. Besides Iman Humaydan Younes, I'm also recalling Dreams of Water by Nada Awar Jarrar and a girl made of dust by Nathalie Abi-Ezzi.  Which reminds me that I've just happily spotted Rawi Hage's newer novel Cockroach on my bookshelf and am making a mental note, to read it soonest.

 

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Spectres by Radwa Ashour (paperback/£7.99)

I couldn't resist this new release. Spectres tells the story of two different women, Radwa and Shagar, born on the same day. The narratives are said to alternate back and forth between changing seasons of their lives. The novel is described as part fiction and part documentary with its attempt to unite history and literature. Naturally, in the process the storytelling genre changes.  For instance, Shagar accounts a large chunk of her historical episodes, to the April 1948 massacre at Deir Yassin, a Palestinian-Arab village near Jerusalem.

Radwa Ashour, is an Egyptian writer and scholar with more than 15 published works of fiction, memoir and criticism. She is also a recipient of the Constantine Cavafy Prize for Literature.

 

Credit: Photograph of Radwa Ashour from PenAtlasOrg.

 

The Book in my Hand

I'm presently reading Mrs. Jeffries Sweeps the Chimney, an intriguing  Victorian mystery and the 18th title in the delightful popular series created by Emily Brightwell.

I started my paperback in the late afternoon,  am already halfway through and continue to be totally riveted by a mind-boggling murder mystery, that's certainly proving a tough nut to crack.

My 215-page storybook (10 euros/ Berkley Prime Crime Books, NY) is small enough to slip  snugly, into any discreet pocket of a long   winter coat.

I have held an  absorbing fascination for British mysteries and the lovable dour sleuth making the rounds, in an unsuspecting picturesque countryside, since I was little.  Let me happily blame my Dad for this endearing venture.

But first of all to digress a little and going just a bit further back, Malaysia as you know - or rather, Malaya as it was then - stayed under British rule until my nation's independence day on August 31st, 1957.  Still,  influences from England continued to shadow our multicultural lifestyles for many years to come. While several expatriate families eventually returned to England, an equal number waited a few more years, to finish up their contracts.  My first best friend at the Convent School was English and so too, one third of my classmates,  although independence had already been achieved for more than a decade.

Our bookshops at the time that I was little, were considered far more appealing than the dozens of confectionary shops.  A tiny rented shoplot could well stock an abundance of  comics, annuals, picture books, fairy and adventure stories  and grown-up novels, from England. I was raised on all the regular Beano, Dandy, Bunty, Pink and Princess Tina picture stories. My mother was good like that and always made sure to pick up the weekly serial with her shopping.  She dearly encouraged me to read. A favourite place was Caxton bookstore in Rembau Street, Klang.  Our jigsaw puzzles were also from England.  I still remember pictures of parks, riverbank picnics, squirrels and otters. So were the import of  grocery supplies, food produce, fabrics and toys.

My father was an avid reader and created such a delicious atmosphere for me with books. His bookcases tickled senses behind watchful glass doors, what with their rows of mysteries, and thrillers, neatly arranged according to the author's name. I adopted my normal attentive influences through the Blyton books which also lent the young reader heaps of whodunits.  Often, I  exchanged other storybooks with schoolfriends.  I can't recall titles but remember pictures of foggy days, fireplaces and caricatures of bad guys, slipping in the snow.  While growing up in the tropics, the changing seasons only served to add a distinct allure to the imagination.

Detective stories, comedies and dramas from London were also slotted a-plentiful into Malaysia's  two main television channels.  All that's gone now of course, but if there's any good thing about my life, I'm so glad I tasted the final tip of a Colonial power that didn't just add romanticism to the power of memory, but also worked industriously to draw me into a lifetime love for the  Arts and for which, as a child of Malaysia, I was duly enriched and shall stay, always grateful.

I loved British detective shows over racier American ones with their exaggerated flamboyance, possibly because the English sleuth, suggested an astounding critical analysis, through the work of dialogue alone, with which to solve a crime. I was already writing some decent school essays  and composing poetry for friends, so was often awestruck by the power of words.

 Now here in Ireland, we receive all the London channels and I can view as many sleuth stories as I like.  Some are old reruns, that remind me of that special time in childhood.  In light of this, two of my adored television channels are ITV3 and Alibi. Perhaps this is why my sentiment for the hardy English detective story, has failed to wither away.

Perhaps too, this explains the book in my hand.  I'll have you know that Mrs. Jeffries is a perfect representative for the duplicate role of a more discerning Scotland Yard.   The widow of a police officer, she now serves as housekeeper to Inspector Witherspoon who has inherited a small fortune and a house accompanied by  friendly help, in Upper Edmonton Gardens.  Mrs Jeffries is a confidante for the Inspector after a tired day at the station and secretly responsible for many of his successes in the swift completion of murder investigations.

Their customary habit is of course, to share a glass of sherry each in the evenings, where information may be probed  and notes exchanged.

Now, there is nothing that Mrs Jeffries likes for a hobby, than to solve a murder.  All it takes is the whiff of one in the air and there she is hurriedly rounding up  her crew of household help comprising maids, coachman, a cook and so forth for secret round-the- table meetings where each is afforded a field task for enquiry, to piece together a mysterious puzzle. This, in addition to a stack of household chores, which I must assure you, is always completed with a faithful competent touch.

As a writer, I am stirred by Brightwell's premise and find it absolutely fascinating, that such a team would live together like family and solve crimes with alacrity and a dexterity, not afforded to the average policeman on the beat.

I am engrossed by the engagement of Brightwell's plot. A Christian minister back from an overseas mission in India is murdered, on his way to accomodation from the London docks. At 75, he is a poor runner as he flees  from trailing footsteps.  The frightened old man is eventually cornered, slammed against a  wall by his assassin and shot through the forehead, with a pistol.  Later, the police find  in the priest's clasped hand,  an address of a derelict abandoned cottage, destined to reveal peculiar going-ons. When the police head out there, they find a foot sticking out of the chimney and the rotting skeletal bones of a woman.

Two murders all at once and possibly connected together, provoke an industrious occupation among the excitable and highly inquisitive Mrs Jeffries and her team.  Duties are soon assigned. Everyone is roped in to make  enquiries and create unexpected encounters, at different locations.  It was a time when a great deal of  footwork, proved of the utmost importance.

Mrs. Jeffries team is well-fleshed out with their varied, colourful personalities. Brightwell takes great pains, to draw up   each character's own aspirations, circumstances and desirable emotions. The reader observes the different ways, in which information is received. Some include bribery and others interestingly enough, may add worry what  with a controversial clash against Christian values, in the Victorian era.

Mrs Jeffries and her friends, also enlist the help of Dr. Bosworth, a pleasant congenial gentleman and an expert with post-mortems.  Meanwhile, the unsuspecting Inspector Witherspoon makes his dutiful rounds of suspect elimination, with his assistant, Constable Barnes, as they go about interviewing reluctant relatives and supposedly grieving ones, all of  respectable means and confined to the upper classes; who knew the dead priest intimately and appear subsequently shocked.

I'm also amazed at Brightwell's thoroughness, her meticulous forethought with descriptions from a hansom cab ride through gritty streets and a character's careful movements through the plots.  Everything is thoughtfully explained and no aspect of the story so far is careless or rushed. The story rides on a comprehensive detail like a vast sculptured garden with not a blade of grass, out of place.

I find the mystery very similar in context to one of my other thrilling shows, Midsomer Murders. I'm finding out that Mrs Jeffries makes for a marvellous bedtime read and an adept winter one. I definitely would love to devour all of the other mysteries, in Brightwell's series.

 

 

My Forthcoming Reads - from mid October 2010

Caption: Scrooge from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Already, it is close to winter time. There is something rather hushed and enchanting about the new season as it readies its curtains  for an atmospheric close, in two months.

I feel enthused about what lies ahead. With vibrant candour, I still harbour the animated delight of resolutions and come 2011, am keen to consider some really spirited ones about books.

Next year, I want to travel more, to read and write heaps, to watch films with an eager knowledge of each one's visionary purpose and to celebrate every moment of goodwill, with a warm heart.

I have accomplished much this year but never one to rest on my laurels, am aware that I can give so much more of myself, in the way of storytelling, books, films and travel.

On the subject of books alone, I confess to a fair bit, on my plate just now. I have been too slow a reader and rather erratic in the last months.  With a complicated reading aptitude that serves a far cry from childhood,  how my heart battles at the moment with a powerful  showdown on my library's assorted eclectic collection.

Caption: Winter in Ratty's home - The Wind in the Willows

At this time of my life - and my well-stocked library and nearest bookstore are well prepared for this - I yearn to read more than anything, translated Arabic and Persian literature. I am  practically consumed by the thought alone.

Now that's the one. 

At the same time, I'm keen to explore an intriguing stack of  antiquarian tales, narrating exotic episodes on the far side of the equator.  I had purchased  my stack and painfully mind you, while armed with a pretty penny in tow, at bookstores  in Malaysia and Singapore and even one in London. I own the more commercial of Somerset Maugham's Far Eastern Tales naturally but I am suddenly passionate about the lives of explorers and adventurers who lived in the Far East - than Malaya, Singapore and Borneo and who wrote and published streams of tales regarding rural life, more famously called kampong stories.

I am in love with the authentic Malay culture, that heralds an elegant celebration of my country and the romanticism of adventure, marked by forests, rivers, shanty hearts, rubber trees, sarongs and all sorts. I am greedy to soak in as much as I can, of what makes of the magic of  this specific history. 

All this year as I travelled, I had sought and shopped for books that I see hardly talked about by Malaysian readers on the web and I am suddenly awed by my extraordinary stash of literary treasures.  Like a grinning pirate, I am protective of my heavy catch; a bagful of  lost stories and all the while compassionate to each tale's sense of belonging in a dusty time long forgotten.

I also feel compelled to read and study captivating texts,  which I had bought recently from Singapore and Ireland; this being both a critical analysis of fiction and titles that denote the deeper science of reading. From Singapore, I picked titles with a significant Asian bearing one of these being Different Voices:  : The Singaporean/Malaysian Novel by Rosaly Puthucheary and from Ireland, I recently bought The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies edited by Neil Lazarus, also one of a few.

I don't feel I know that much at all and dearly strive to improve my capabilities as a thinker, reader and reviewer.

African and South Asian literature seem to have sadly taken a back seat at the moment, in light of these heartfelt passions.

What's even more alluring is my eager penchant for the old English classics, come winter. What is it about that traditional portrait featuring a cosy room scene filled with armchairs, rugs, a curled cat, a hot cuppa, a good book and a welcoming fireplace.

Now, if this wasn't enough, I have been thrilled to bits since buying an iPad a few days ago and have been engaged with bookmarked online reads. I'm impatient for all the thousands of titles displayed. Of course, if I can manage a couple of good online reads where the novel alone is concerned, that would be a pretty grand accomplishment in my books.

At the same time, I have to promote my first little book coming out on the UK market and also look forward to returning to Africa. 

If you follow my blog, do be reassured that I shall be more disciplined to post regularly. I fear though that you must expect a spinning carousel of themes and regions, ranging from the Far East and the Arabic lands to the older British classics, the detective story and my list of Christmas reads.

Alas, they say the world is one's oyster, but if only there weren't too many pearls in mine that I would always be restless to grab  one and then the other and yet, another.  In this case, the idea of pearls being attributed to the enthralling haunt of my beloved books.

 

More Global Than We Realise

A beautiful friend of mine, the novelist, Leela Soma, referred to a recent engaging observation,  that many book covers featuring local African fiction, tended to reflect her own favourite paperback novels, sold in the vernacular, in India. Soma who was born in  Chennai, now lives in Glasgow, Scotland. My other fervent buddy as attributed to world literature and films,  Lotus Reads, agreed without hesitation and added that a glance at the lot, only succeeded in drawing on nostalgia. I thought this aspect of the conversation, to be immensely interesting. Perhaps it suffices to say, that I harbour a little memory or two of my own.  

This morning, I strolled along Jamhuri Street, after a superb breakfast encounter, at Mr. Ali's tearoom, where I had without hesitation, downed two heady cups of his popular chai,  concocted from a secret recipe, in a hidden pail, in a mysterious kitchen.  I was noting down quite a few insights for my own book from the signboards roundabout; when I noticed a favourite bookshop, run by a few generations of an older North Indian emigrant family.

The building  on which the shop stands, has always looked terribly  ancient. Once having squeezed my way inside, what with the  heavy wooden doors and the aid of a clumsy Tanzanian guard intent on a catnap; I was treated to the usual stationery fare, primary school textbooks   and neat rows of Jeffrey Archer novels.  I proceeded with some relish, into the slightly more poky corners that managed to look  properly foreboding and happened upon stacks of displayed storybook titles; straight from a blessed Indian cargo! Indeed, to say nothing of the series of Vikas Childrens' Rhymes and Bedtime Stories, far more accounted for Soma's remembrances. Here they lay..the very paperbacks that she  had wistfully mentioned.  Another stack held more displays of local African fiction owning the same delicious covers, but commanding texts in both the English and Kiswahili versions.

Meanwhile, an entire display shelf, appeared to be lovingly dedicated, to the many eclectic works of  one of India's most prominent writers,  Khushwant Singh .  I selected a joke book with exactly the kind of covers, you would find in African fiction. My own steadfast memories were drawn to my mother's hundreds of 64-page Women Weekly Romances that used to be imported to Malaysia from Great Britain.  Many featured the same dramatic covers that showed off sketches, reflecting raw emotion or the main conflicts to either a romance or detective story.

A few years ago - and I must remember to do this when next in London - I had the opportunity to visit the gorgeous antiquarian Ripping Yarns  bookshop, situated at 355, Archway Way Road, Highgate, London. It held many similar romance paperbacks, with the same alluring covers, that my mother collected so faithfully in addition to her stack of Woman Own magazines.  I did purchase a fine assortment but many of these little books of my own, are back home in Dublin. On my return, I aim to stick a few of those copies here. In a nutshell, it isn't just India and Africa but also England, that employs a host of vibrant sketches and cartoons so as to sell a tall, enticing tale.

As a writer and avid reader of what must now be probably hundreds of multi-cultural novels,  I've realised that such a conclusion easily wipes off any notion that a harmony of different races may still exist long enough to stay spectacular and unique. I suppose this is now a mammoth trait and such a thought proves nothing more than an illusive spectacle. Even travel writers race against the clock to cover as many obscure regions as they possibly can, together with the help of production studios, a lone cameraman and an embassy's aid.  In fact newer novels like Rani Manicka's The Japanese Lover and Tishani Doshi's The Pleasure Seekers, speak of a recent pattern; one moulded, to draw in any many cultures and faiths as possible, to a singular plot. It will probably be left to what may be concluded as sizzling combinations, that finally offer the cutting edge for hearty book sales.

This could easily be one of the reasons why, debut novelist in the UK, Anjali Joseph whose new novel, Saraswati Park, was profusely praised by legendary writer, Amit Chaudhuri, stays in a league of her own. Joseph through a superb gift for plain storytelling, devised a skeletal foundation for a  theme and plot that concentrated on just one culture and one faith, in a series of ordinary family lives; drawn from an insignificant flat, in chaotic suburban Bombay. A host of fictitious characters embroiled in the rituals of everyday life, suddenly proved too refreshing and seductive for words. Ordinariness is probably one of the few qualities left in literature and the arts, that would account for a solitary if not insular identity that cleverly clings to a strange, distinctive power, not yet intruded upon.
 

 

 

Local African Fiction

While sauntering downtown and on the way back to my hotel a day ago, I had spied a large, rambling  bookshop, on a nearby street, housing a vast range of local fiction.   

It was veteran  Tanzanian journalist, Wilson Kaigarula's sunny  novel, The Old Idiot (pictured here), which I suspected held interesting social satire, that stopped me in my tracks. I lingered for awhile amidst the noisy crowd of cobblers, watch-repairmen, spectacle salesmen and the odd toothpick chewing lads, with crushed paper in their hands, whispering stealthily of 'secret places' , one could get terrific currency rates. Now, of course, I've been told in no uncertain terms, that these robust guys specialized in the murky counterfeit trade...there was big money to be had, walking up and down the dusty streets, cornering the muddled tourist. There's often a hullabaloo going on.

 Anyway, I resolved to stride back there, this morning after a late breakfast and having attended to my emails. I was joyous all at once, to find myself  confronted by such a generous display of African literature in English; that I thought it simply too good to be true.  A visit to an exciting bookshop that counters for a leisurely stroll along the way, brings me enormous pleasure.

Now, I was faced with an assortment of  colourful local fiction.  On my last trip in June, I had already purchased a stack of paperbacks, some of which I had featured here. I was exhilarated when I discovered titles I hadn't yet come across before. 

Now, I know that almost all books are featured over Amazon these days, but aren't there lists of several hundreds of thousands...  I don't know about the rest of the reading world; but unless I myself, had been exposed to these titles in some way beforehand, I simply wouldn't know about them. Many of these nifty little paperbacks face a restricted distribution as a bookstore staff, had once hinted.  Sometimes, in Dar-es-Salaam, it may even come to a point where a bookseller discovers intriguing local fare and has to himself plead with distributors to send on stock.

I suppose in that way, I consider my small collected stack, each time I fly in to Africa, a little treasure trunk of modest gems.  Today, I picked up just five (all pictured above). Chinua Achebe  is of course, a legendary Nigerian novelist, whose legendary classic Things Fall Apart; we had once devoured in school. Anthills of the Savannah looks just as promising.

With world fiction, I am mostly drawn to women stories, although I have tried to expand my horizons by reading more works by men...and this constituting for war reminiscence. But I do so love my women stories...gossips at the local bazaar, family squabbles, social envy, introspection etc.  So although there counted for a rollicking display, I picked three women's tales to start me off. Each title introduces colourful traditions, habits and cultures that shape everyday Kenyan and Tanzanian life and subconsciously cause women to behave and react emotionally in the way they often do.

The Bride  a slim little stage play, was based on the short story, Two Husbands , One Night,  by L.M. Kimaro, who first published his tale, in 1966 with the Literature Department of the University of Dar es Salaam.   Austin Lwanga Bukenya who re-created his play on African folk and accompanying traditons; is a Tanzanian poet, novelist, critic and sometimes sportsman, if not  renowned stage and screen actor.

I hope to get started on my little pile this afternoon and will grant each title full merit by talking more about my storybooks once I have read them. At the moment, I feel elated by my purchases.

 

I've Discovered Nahid Rachlin

In late 2007, while already in Dublin and happily engulfed by the European nation's own brand of proud, glorious literature; I began to embrace Middle-Eastern and Iranian stories with what I still suspect, to be a sudden delightful frenzy, devoid of sense or logic.  My early influences  would probably have lain mute and assured, while cradled within the alluring  wonders of  another passionate art form - world cinema.  Tempting titles were often screened late into the night, over the UK's television satellite. 

I remember now, a spellbinding film moment, as I waited with my nightcap, being slowly immersed in  Niki Karimi's surrealistic One Night (Yek Shab).  The screenplay  talked about a rather suspenseful tale that trailed a young lady's  stubborn wanderings around the streets, on an isolated Tehran night.  The cinematography was terrific and for the first time, I fell in love with Iran.  My visions were formed with new eyes and my heart lay trembling, while encased in a far broader human spirit than I had ever known. 

Meanwhile, in Persian literature, I  devoured very quickly for the first time; the American-Iranian diaspora novelist, Anita Amirrezvani's pensive novel, called The Blood of Flowers.  This, in a somewhat dazed fashion while on a flight from Frankfurt to Singapore.  The Blood of Flowers held all the necessary elements for enchantment.  The rambling plot was made up of much historical folklore, poetry and the ticklish noisy clamour that always heralded  the gatherings of inquisitive and chatty womenfolk.  

Later,  at the Emirates Festival of Literature in Dubai in 2009, when I had already read my way through scores of translated Middle-Eastern and Persian titles; I would meet Amirrezvani, a beautiful, thoughtful and softly-spoken woman, who celebrated the subjects of dance and exercise, as effective swift remedies to combat a plot's stifling or sticky formations.   Sometime later during a coffee break and while in private conversation with Amirrezvani, the much-lauded novelist would cajole me to keep on and never to give up on writing a book; this no matter how long it took. Once the first paragraph had been embarked on, the essence of a chore would simply have to be sustained.  'If you are patient enough, that simple paragraph will make you your finished book,' she smiled.

I think now of this quiet wayward journey, that gave my heart its own dance.  The borders of my reading habits that count for curious horizons in the far off distance, keeps expanding.

I recognise that I would have leaped upon many current titles and when one thinks of older Iranian or world literature reads, it is natural to want to then pounce on the classics, ancient poetry, the odd biography or even history.

In this way, it becomes extremely easy for an enthusiastic reader like myself, to brush past earlier contemporary titles, ones that would have whisked past my destiny  to plant themselves ecstatically in literary pages and journals;  all with much ooh-ing and aah-ing by critics.  Sadly, that proved a time when much of  Iranian literature was not yet known to me.  Clearly, in my ignorance, my more rigid literary passions at the time - I was lost in mostly British fiction - may have been summed up as careless and inhospitable.

Last night, unable to sleep once more and thanks to the final remnants of a fading jet lag, I settled down to read The Heart's Desire, a riveting paperback, published by an older, stylish Iranian-American novelist, an Associate Fellow at Yale  and currently a New York resident, Nahid Rachlin. I had picked up the novel at the famously-eclectic Kinokuniya Bookstore in Kuala Lumpur, the day before.  I recognised the rare intimate study of family portraits, as a 1995 edition and simply had to have it.

In a nutshell, Jennifer an American working in a hospital and playacting the loving mother and wife, marries Karim, an Iranian Professor, who lives and works in Columbus, USA. They have a small son, Darius. As soon as the Iran-Iraq war is over, the small family reluctantly returns for two months to Tehran.

I won't attempt a review at this stage, just skeletal impressions, but clearly, a reader can expect the  interesting clash of cultures, wary compromises, assumptions, misgivings and eventually, a sad, poignant thawing of the marriage, not helped by sensual temptations that parachute without warning, on Jennifer and Karim's  paths.

To start with, I love Rachlin's style. Her hand moves very much in the vein of an older romantic 64-page paperback writer, contracted to  a Women's Weekly series.  Rachlin owns a crisp light manner,  that offers for a slick manouvering and dogged focus of  narration and a steady flow of events.  Think a meandering stream that keeps plodding along! This quality appears to matter more to Rachlin's story as she would see fit; rather than any impressive cloud of showy vocabulary.

Rachlin's characters are neatly and thoughtfully drawn out... penned from a simple, straightforward symmetry, that eventually makes for a series of disturbing events.

Through a sensitive portrayal, the author would reveal as much sympathy and analytical study for a bolder, liberal American way of life while outlining a list  that displays compulsory, if not straight-laced rituals that define everyday movements, in Iran under the rule of the Ayatollah Khoemini.   Of course, one  relishes the even taste of the old-fashioned mother-in-law; who may all at once, hold a dangerous grudge against Jennifer for teaching Darius nothing of Islam.  Then there lies too, the silent solidarity if not accepted resignation of a host of oppressived sisters-in-law and female relatives...all intelligent and articulate of course, but lacking in a necessary fiery spirit of independence.

There is also  the well-meaning husband in Karim, who suddenly seems drawn to his old way of life, rather than nursing any desire for a return to  a hostile America - a country still  furious with Iran over the capture and late release of several American hostages.

Now, I was glad that I had picked up a Rachlin, in the sense that this was a subject rarely touched upon among Iranian writers of the present generation.  It is soon after the kidnapping of  52 American hostages held in prisons for 444 days, that Rachlin tenderly shows her readers, how many Iranians in America ended up  discriminated by colleagues, friends and neighbours, at the time.  

On November 4, 1979,  a group of Islamist militant students, seized the US Embassy stationed in Tehran. 66 hostages were taken initially.   As a result of the incident, ordinary Iranian citizens in America, suffered  fear with threatened assaults and painful humiliation.     

On the other end of the scale, Rachlin busies herself,  sketching  out with great depth and intensity, the many 'Hate America' demonstrations, that went on in Iran.  The setting of the novel is bleak and gloomy...probably a subtle metaphor that makes comparisons to the Shah's lost era and where Iran now stand; straitjacketed in its conservative regalia with Imam Khoemini as leader.  I also liked it that Rachlin talked somewhat about the Iraq-Iran war...stretching from ruined architecture and desolate faces of jobless soldiers and mournful families, holding silent shrines to their martyred sons.

 

 

I shall have to read more of similar titles and having only just discovered Nahid Rachlin, am heartened to observe that she has already written four novels and produced a collection of short stories as well.

I've just found this brilliant feature on Nahid Rachlin, on quite a handsome Website, where her illustrious credentials are introduced to an audience who will then listen to Nahid Rachlin talk and read from her memoir, Persian Girls. Oh, but Rachlin is just so lovely. How did I miss her all this while.

In Sickness and in Health...

It was a real shame that I returned to Ireland recently, cornered by a slight exhaustion and caught unwares by the tensed, nagging bane of a flu. Not to worry. It was just a nasty touch of the common cold.

In my luggage at the time, and snuggled too close for comfort, lay heaps of African novels - many  titles of  which I haven't yet displayed on this blog - and also a stack of Malaysian and Singapore titles. I blame the impressive  array of recent splendid publications, if I may offer an excuse at all, for my merry book addiction and tearful wallet.

Thus, my antics - the true bookaholic  that I am -  saw me caught in a whirl of disbelief at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, as I sat down gamely, next to the Etihad  Airways check-in, with my suitcase opened and my books spread all over the floor, in the way that may have commanded me to playact, the dutiful, clumsy librarian, sitting atop a messy tumble.

Being a frequent Skywards member with Emirates means that I always get away with a pretty heavy amount of kilos. But Emirates doesn't fly to Dublin and I've only just joined Etihad Airways, as its guest flyer. Naturally, I hadn't yet accumulated enough sky miles.

I had the sense mind you, one of those rare times - and I shall pat  myself heartily for this - to head  directly to the Etihad staff just before check-in opened at all,  to find out, if I would have to pay a penalty for extra luggage. The passenger service given me was top-class. My bag was weighed but playing the unfaithful lover to my pleading spirit;  tipped the scales a little.

The airline's duty officer felt sorry for me and shook his head kindly, at the prospect that l I should have to pay for extra luggage.  Surely not,  when I hadn't gone that drastically overboard.  Why, there were others who would sneak in sackfuls if they could and argue their escape.  A few were surprised and amused at my books; one asked if I had planned to read them all eventually and I said, yes, oh yes.

So there they were finally, gathered around me; a curious little crowd, watching me with fascinating interest - and while I had to pack a bag myself - offered rushed suggestions on where to tuck in the heavier books and how to throw in the lighter ones, with that nary a care feeling.

After a bit of mulling on my part, I managed with a dexterity, I would have surprisingly granted only to one of my precarious Jeep climbs, while on safari.   I learnt that a loving encounter between the  luggage and the self, were all one needed, to conjure the odd, astonishing miracle.  In the meanwhile, my hand luggage warned that it was as light as anything and happy for stowaways.  Thus, it was settled without ado, that I would throw a few culprit heavyweights into my little rucksack and viola, that did the trick!

Unfortunately, while I had so looked forward to my reads in Dublin, I felt first of all ill with the flu.  Having finally recovered from that misadventure , I soon gained a temporary limp - it has since gone - on my right heel - my first ever sports injury - from the Kilimanjaro climb, decided to flare up at just the right time. 

I became restless and irritated. The spark for all my book purchases had fled with the wind. I lacked the patience or rather, the romantic effort of wanting to plan a good reading list. 

You see, I never read when I am ill. My memory often remembers strange eccentric things from childhood and snatches crazed moments, to be immortalised forever. I can remember self-proclaimed traumas of quite a number of little illnesses i.e. everything from the measles and the mumps to coughs and tonsils that may have stretched my childhood, from when I was about two.

I once attempted to read Dicken's Dombey & Son (illustrations pictured above) with decided patience when I caught a very high fever and had to stay in from work. I was in my 20s. I gave up halfway, but years passed and until recently,  was not able to re-read the novel. Everytime, I came across the title, I remembered every aspect of my long-ago illness, the intensity of that wretched fever...the idle restlessness, the isolation that came with rest and the general if not unwanted, sluggish feeling of the time. My memory had woven itself as clear as day, rather strangely into a book that I had tried to grasp with innocent passion, while ill. Hopefully, now that I am right as rain, I will be able to soon enjoy all my new delightful books that double up as  a healthy tonic, for the right and ready heart.
 

A Memory

I am missing a time long gone and this of yarns, bred from a simpler life. None more so that may be  set upon me, than from this bleak Wednesday morning when a downpour threatens and even the plantive cries of a seagull, refuse to be soothed. My memory is sweet but distant, enclosed in an enclave that cannot be rescued, nor tamed. 

I am comforted but in this crazed moment of pursuit for the past, just as restless.

There was a time when life was made simpler from an extremely focussed reading life.

I was in Malaysia and longed to go to England. 

Call it my Christian calling if you must. It may have simply been to fulfill a deep spiritual need within me, with regards to the writing of poetry and stories. I felt that Europe would cajole my passions in a way that the Far East had simply tired of my upbringing. I was ready to be nostalgic but not futuristic, about life in the tropics.

Also, the weather had turned distinctly hotter from what I recalled in childhood. I missed the light cool breezes that often accompanied my playtime, out on the verandah or in the garden. Global warming and a need for a nation's development meant deforestation, a change of direction with my familiar monsoon winds and eventually, much of a scorching heat, that would come to stay, during unusual months of the year.

Then I longed for  astonishing things like the whistle of  birdsongs, meadows, dales and cooler seascapes. If I closed my eyes long enough, I may have slipped into a village painting. When we reside too long in a place, sometimes our vision may miss the magic of the ordinary.   

I decided that I would not compromise my ambitions but to simply keep my options open.  It was one of the best decisions I would make,  although at the time, circumstances shoved the dream a little further away.

During these years, I read a lot. Reduced to a conventional life of a 9 to 5,  I exhausted my mother's varied collection of old romantic Women Weekly paperbacks as pictured above, whenever I had a moment free. A sentimental survival made the heart stronger. 

I joined the British Council Library in Kuala Lumpur which was practically a life-saver, in keeping my dream alive.

I devoted myself to British contemporary fiction, poetry and the classics with a frenzy. I knew what I wanted to read from the romantic throes of Sylvia Plath, Martin Amis, Penelope Mortimer and Muriel Spark to Dickens, Mrs. Elizabeth Gaskell and gentlemen-farmers turned writers, in the vein of H.E. Bates and Henry Wilkinson. I devoured so many books at a go...I was simply hungry to lose myself in a world I had already deemed, would pave my future.

At the same time, it was all very focussed. I knew exactly what I wanted to read. I've always been a loner in this respect. I was never one to depend on someone's else's recommendations. I would also shy away from a novel that contained too much hype. I was individualistic with my choice of titles. Meditation and books were all I needed.

One day, I met a popular Malaysian poet and critic at the time, Mr. Beda Lim, who has since passed on. He was already a right and proper age. He had a look at some of my poetry... a few which had been published in the small presses in Britain and pointed out to me, the ones he liked and the ones he felt needed work...But they all held promise, he assured me.  Mr. Lim also persuaded me to go to England...sooner than I had planned. He saw that my writings were clearly anglophile...at the time, there was something unknown, painful and desperate that  I was still  searching for...  I was puzzled and asked him if my poems on winter and the countryside were not right...how then had they been published by a few magazines in England.

I remember that Mr. Lim told me I had indeed hit the right notes...but that  I needed to visualise in reality, exactly what I was writing about. That the vision was equally important as the creative process.

At the end of the day, I did go to England but not before I went to Australia.  It  was simply delightful and turned out very much, a kindergarten orientation if you will, for later life in London.

Then my life expanded to such a degree especially with travel. Now, with a myriad of interests before me, I find it very hard to pick from a mountain of world reads. My passions constantly tug at the heartstrings,  in a careless helter-skelter fashion. They shine with the confusing glint of a prism, twirling mischeviously before me.

I long to be seduced by Arabic literature, as much as I want to devote time to fiction from the Far East. Sometimes the need for a certain literature is so great, it may bring tears to the eye.  I also have a stack of African literature to get through.  Plus, I want to return to the British classics with renewed vigour and swim through the sea, that makes for South Asian fiction.  Can you imagine the literary delights of just one small nation alone, never mind a Continent. I want to taste Innuit folklore and poetry and plan a trip to the Artic.

How on earth did I become a mountain climber? With what daring, did I end up threading , the odd icy boulder, without a care.  When did I plan to write a book? When did I realise that to engage in travel stories, was for me a vital form of study. Oh, the troublesome joys of such a feat. Without travel, I am nothing. Without books, I am even less.

Yet, there was a time when life was simpler and  in that silent struggle, scented and tenderly sweet.

Recently Purchased African Fiction

Note: I will be flying up to Arusha on June 9th (Wednesday morning) to meet  with friends and make plans for wildlife activities next week.  I should be back on the books blog this Friday.)

Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania June 8th, 2010: Meanwhile, here are some African fiction, I purchased a few days ago, from the bookshops. I haven't had time to write about them yet but do have a look at the book covers. One is North African. The rest are a mix of Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya & Zanzibar. Unless you've specifically heard about them, I'm quite sure that many of these titles would be difficult to find in mainstream bookshops or commercial listings outside Africa. They're localised, rural fiction and written in truly authentic voices. The last picture (which appears  a painting) is taken from a beautifully illustrated Zanzibar children's storybook called I am Bakari.

Tips on How to Read World Literature for Personal Enrichment

by Susan Abraham

*The first part of a weekly series 

Introduction:

Reading world literature - stories, poetry, novels and works of non-fiction in the  shape of  biographies, current affairs and personal memoirs, can prove highly rewarding  and that's an understatement to be sure.  In the same breath, the prospect turns overwhelming if you approach such a reading or  cinematic venture  in 2010. We are in the throes of a New Age.

At a glimpse, from the gargantuan lists,  stand the ancient classics, the modern classics, thousands of works down the different centuries all eager to spot exclusive groupings, and not to forget too, the modernist and post-modernist  classes. You may also be thinking of translated literature or  contemporary literature penned in English as a second language by asian, african and middle-eastern writers who currently live and work in the West. Oh, but aren't there historical works as well?

The last few months have  already surpassed wonderment with  a bumper feast  of novels, short story collections and memoirs from several  parts of the world.  Plus, it's still only May.

As an example - one which represents a needle in a haystack -, translated Arabic literature from the Middle-East alone,  is currently being published by the sackful, thanks to  the University of America in Cairo Press, which presently leads English-Language publishing in the Middle-East. The prestigious and innovative establishment, runs bookshops and offices in both New York and Cairo.  Their publications are presently found  in bookstores or on online bookselling sites, all around the world. At the same time, there are also  prolific Arab writers writing and publishing works  in English. 

The above stays a similar occurence with Iran, Europe, Africa, the Indian sub-continent and also vast parts of Asia. Where would you begin with a monumental African literature, for instance? The South, North, West or East? Each African nation brings to light, a unique history, geographical and social landscape.  By the way, don't forget the South Pacific, the West Indies  and please don't forget the Artic!  ;-)

Now, what you don't want, to be is a Jill/Jack of all trades and a mistress/master of none. Do remember that enthusiasm is always looked on kindly, but doesn't carry as much credibility as the next reader with a stronger knowledge base on the same subject. I speak this from a hindsight which hints at trials and errors from the past.

This brings to mind, the Biblical saying, 'The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.'  :-)

If you're a reader eager to broaden your horizons, can't always rely on a wish-list   and would prefer not to spend a small fortune at the risk of  an eventual disappointment, then here are some tips and more to come of course, in the coming weeks;  pointers that will shape your approach to world literature as a powerful resource, provide you with a competent knowledge base and rarely leave you disappointed with a chosen read.

Part 1 - Some  Simple Tips Today on how to Choose  World Literature that's just right for you.

These simple tips below, will help create a personal enrichment, made up of streamlined logical thought  that may help expound on your comprehension of the  world and enlighten discernment to a point that your awareness grows wings and perceptions are  broadened in incredible ways.

You may want to keep a little journal or notebook on the process. Reading purposefully can take you on a splendid journey of self-discovery:

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a) When starting out, let  passion be your best guide. Look to your heart, search your memory, remember your joys.

i) Now while focussed on the above, if you had the resources and time, what countries would you most like to visit?  What regional pictures and cultures truly excite you?

ii) What television documentaries, musical productions, country or town life in broadcasting media,do you mark on your calendar and that you just must so not miss. Consider also your favourite films up to now and your essential radio and television programmes.

iii) Which places and cultures do you feel spiritually led to from your inner consciousness,without any proper explanation?  This is the tip that best worked for me.  Spirituality knows no boundaries and when I first felt led to embrace with relish, the  Iranian,  Middle-Eastern and  Nigerian cultures,  I soaked in as many stories as I could through films and books. I felt the happy greedy vulture, devouring as much as I could in my midst. And what incredible joys and dreams than seeped in through my spirit. I still can't get enough.  There was no stopping me, no weariness, no tiredness, nor boredom simply because these passions lay at the crux of my heart.

b) Who are your favourite authors? What  are the usual kind of stories that have appealed to you for years?

c) By now, you should have a distinct idea of the kind of cultures, places or people you would like to read. From here and following these observations as a close guide, start on a few titles you are most likely to enjoy. 

d) As you immerse yourself in a new historical era or country,  your own consciousness, inate curiosity and innermost passions, will take you on the same road but into deeper worlds. For instance, you may like to read modern stories about present-day village life along the Nile. Soon, you may find your interests stretching  at breathtaking speed, to a healthy inspection of  ancient stories featuring village life along the Nile as well. You may then want to pursue books on the Suez Canal or the Gulf of Aqaba.

e) In a  natural way, the imagination turns  a multi-layered format for each literary adventure.  A number of exploratory reads will lead you to an interplay of stories, images and newer worlds in your sub-consciousness; that you may call upon as an extraordinary package of creative material anytime you need information.

You will be surprised following a focussed reading journey, how  your intellect turns sharper by the minute. Your mind will foster new literary ideas.  Your own consciousness will guide you to a customised catalogue for the  next book and the next. You would most likely be considering books closest to your heart - this greatly reduces chances of a disappointed read - rather than holding on to a recommendation for a title you know  or care  little about but just because someone else said... you know...that kind of thing. 

Don't compare your read  to supposedly far more satisfying titles that may have come before. It's like sizing up one sibling against another.  This serves as an injustice to the author.   A book is a product that stands on its own merit, reputation and integrity. It is never a Siamese twin.   

f) Recognise that life is fleeting. In the Guardian I often read of interviews with older established novelists who scour the classics or whole volumes of a favourite author.  Staying vulnerable to their own mortality - when this may not have been the case before - these novelists use cherished stories, letters and diaries to awaken something lost and to search new paths.  With time no longer on their side, they are desperate for that final beloved tale.

So don't take time for granted nor succumb to procrastination. Then good intentions fade and a reading journey turns retarded. Read to transcend your spirit to something rich and beautiful.  Let intriguing stories parachute you to an inner  grace and artistry.  Your consciousness won't take a back seat if you don't.  May your passions playact your guardian angels.

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(more soon)

Note: This guide would apply just as well for viewers of world cinema.

 Picture Credits: Pomegranate, publishers of exquisite note-cards

With a Little Help from R. Austin Freeman

  Susan Abraham

 

 In steadfastly approaching the aura of the present, I would once more be parachuted into the fascination of the past where inward glimpses still thread  decorative purposes for an illuminated human spirit. All at once, I am reminded of jagged memories lost and not yet recovered. This today of all things in a little crime fiction bookshop where I had trooped in with alacrity and  the checked eagerness of a book lover.

 

In the otherwise quiet afternoon, a film noir tune rang out its note of expectancy  with - as I could only have imagined - the same tender fervour as my little thrilled heart. As luck would have it,  I happened upon a forgotten slice - just 21 broad pages in all - of  a solitary obscure work of English detective fiction. A Mystery of the Sand-Hills by R. Austin Freeman.  This displayed with aplomb on the sunny cover.

Fat and cheery and bordered by a wide yellow fringe bearing the format of a slim school workbook, I considered it a treasured find - a treat if you must - of America's own Kessinger Publishing's beloved Rare Reprints. To my delight, thousands of reproduced titles emerged from folklore, earth sciences and geography to fiction, poetry and ancient mysteries amongst others; all lovingly meted out in a broad catalogue that defines scarce literature for the alluring hold, it owns.

Of course, I am reminded in the same breath that I dearly hoard one other piece of favourite antiquarian fiction by Kessinger, a stout anthology of old Malay sketches by Sir Frank Swettenham who turned up an accolade or two by being pronounced the first English Resident General of the Federated Malay States; then known as Malaya and now many years later, Malaysia, my country of birth in the Far East.

Then too, I had happened upon the rare Malay tales as an astounding discovery in Kuala Lumpur's eclectic Kinokuniya bookshop, when in Malaysia not too long ago

I have to admit now with a slightly red face that being far more susceptible in recent years to the likes of M.C. Beaton's Agatha Rasin's series,  Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver mysteries or Ruth Rendell's charming Inspector Wexford among others, I'd heard only ever slightly about Freeman and not probed the further.

Thus,  I spent a good hour - and feeling the better for it - reading up on Freeman's biography and being drawn with faint interest into his closed private life. 

Freeman was a legendary British writer of several detective stories and he produced an alarming number of works; one mystery after the other with keen Victorian intensity, at the turn of the century. A list of his titles may be found here.  

One of Freeman's intriguing creations was the illustrious fictional detective and not one in the ordinary sense of the word;  the athletic and handsome bachelor Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke an Edwardian and said to be a charismatic medical practioner who was later called to the bar. According to Wikepedia, Thorndyke was seen to have appeared  in around 60 novels and stories.

Here the detective in his inate passion for meticulous detail and best known for poking around a grisly crime scene or inspecting puzzling evidence with fastidious precision  is aptly described of his extraordinary talent at  solving crimes conducive to  methods best adopted by a forensic scientist ...

..His solutions were based on his method of collecting all possible data (including dust and pond weed) and making inferences from them before looking at any of the protagonists and motives in the crimes. 

Indeed, in A Mystery at the Sand-Hills, Thorndyke strolls with a good friend his narrator and a barrister, along the beach when they come across an abandoned heap of clothes upon a sand dune. Two other barristers walk briskly to join them and all ponder the mystery of the shirts and trousers.

It is Thorndyke who after observing the nature of sand, the sharp points of a razor blade, a hickory and the dumped clothes figures out after a lingering re-playing  of events and with a deliberate studied air; how the corpse may be found and the likely appearance of  the dead gentleman.  All turn out to be correct.

I enjoyed the banter among friends and  wry, comic humour that peppered congenial conversations throughout the mystery and which made for the pleasantries of everyday life. In this respect, I am reminded of a similar dry caustic humour employed by Sherlock Holmes and indeed too agrees  Wikepedia which saw itself fit to compare the two detectives, not for a mood as I did  but rather, to sum up  engrossing personalities:

Thorndyke tended to have a better relationship with the police (usually in the form of Superintendent Miller) than Sherlock Holmes did, despite proving them wrong on numerous occasions.

 

However, this is not a review. I suspect I wrote this piece out of the need for a spiritual inclination with Freeman's reminder of a lost personal diligence.  Events once bereft of a digital technology  relied on exact thinking aptitudes that later on made for an exhilarating contentment once results were known. There was a time when thanks to limited resources, intellect was required to be challenged in a profound way.

 I now miss that time and view it as a season shrouded by my own self-proclaimed romanticism...as one of an unassuming thrilling encounter. In this case, Thorndyke delves deeply into immediate and trivial clues or exercises his manual knowledge of science for eg. the geographical differences between a beach sand and dune sand; odd conjectures surely but a strictly stringent method  that finally shapes the story of a crime. When a clever man triumphs, the result is all at once celebratory.  When digital technology resounds with victory, it isn't quite the same. Quite simply, I miss the adventurous labour of visionary forethought.

Perhaps, this yearning was heightened from a week ago when I watched the 1951 Japanese film classic, The Lady of Musashino directed superbly by the late Kenji Mizoguchi. I will be reviewing this film a little later this week on my cinema blog. But I stayed captivated by how on a silver screen with nothing more than black and white shades,  Mizoguchi appeared to work twice as hard to  challenge creative boundaries where the subject of 'atmosphere' is heightened with far more electrifying anticpation than he may have needed to do, had his film been screened in colour.

The shimmering ripples in a lake were everything...the sun glistening on the greyish waters reflected near perfection so as to mesmerise the senses. The rain was seen to be beating down a forest and along a window pane with passionate ferociousness, so viewers would taste the drenching of a thunderstorm.

Just before buying my Freeman, I had filled some forms at the post office. Naturally alert to my public surroundings but completely absorbed in my endeavour, I found myself biting the tip end of a ballpoint and clicking my tongue in deep thought as to the amount of content I ought to scribble down. I observed an unexpected relish as I glanced down at my forms and pictured them  scattered about the counter in a slight disarray. Without warning, I was thrown back in an almost dream-like trance but momentarily so, to when I was 16 and busy with my schoolwork. Then I allowed a strange art for an endearing unruliness that was mine alone. Having written on a computer for years afterwards, I had forgotten that enthralling feeling of innocence, the deep joy of working out a science problem or circling a geographical contour in my exercise book, the signature mark of a harmless untidiness that said, 'Susan was here.'

How acutely then, I missed with a thorned pang of my heart, the symmetry of an industrous astuteness that had once governed my life through a mismatched and engaging practicality; but with my head turned towards a new technological device, had fled forever without saying goodbye.

 

 

Credit: Picture of out-of-print paperback cover, The Unconscious Witness by R. Austin Freeman is from CoverBrowser Avon Books & Picture of R. Austin Freeman is from Library Thing/Author Gallery

Dipping into a Beatrix Potter Journal

Susan Abraham

This morning, I watched the light of spring unfold through the bleak wintry chill like a fiery glow would strive to illuminate a fireplace on a dark evening and much to its delight, succeed.

The birds sang their Easter songs and cajoled by an army of grateful bright green leaves, rested happily in the shade of treetops. A light wind wafted through the leaner branches, shaking them silly. From somewhere distant, a seagull deep in worship for the dance of its beloved flight, cawed a swift hum.

Once more  inspired, I flipped through the pages of my precious *Beatrix Potter journal. It hides securely in my bookcase, regal and welcoming for the touch of my fingers weighed upon its dusty, colourful candour.

In earlier years while still enchanted by the author's exquisite Peter Rabbit stories and later, accompanying Peter Rabbit memorabilia - purchased with that odd sense of fascination from a cosy if not wonderfully cluttered upstairs-shop in Covent Garden, London - I too, would relish in childlike merriment liable to shout boo, come the stillness of a sudden sunny morning.

Here lies the attentive reproduction of a famous illustrator, artist, children's book writer and one who while nursing a broken heart would later join the farming gentry; whose tender biographies I read when young; borrowed  of course, with high anticipation from the British Council Library in Kuala Lumpur - this library is now closed - and which I am certain to read again before I draw my last breath.

Meanwhile, the large sunny journal is recreated; golden in its appearance with which to match a playful spirit, while bearing the sentiment of a treasured family photo album. 

The heavy book has been turned into a sterling work of art cradling an assortment of splendid images that may have run with longing to embrace you, dear reader, straight from a secret enchanted forest where you may have on further adventurings, crashed into a toadstool or worse still, Mr. Jeremy Fisher's damp pond house and shiny galoshes.

Thus, like marshmellows plunged for a game of hide-n-seek into a nightcap of  foamy hot cocoa, I too would submerge my daylight hours  into the whispers of old letters, stuck together with stamped and postmarked stick-on envelopes, ancient but oh so jolly Christmas cards and charming notepaper that all make for nifty, opened flaps and pockets in the diary.  The sketches, handwritten scribblings and watercolour paintings nestle alongside Potter tales in the Lake District. 

*The Beatrix Potter Journal (27 euros in April 2009) was purchased from Past Times, 14, Wicklow Street (opens up to Grafton Street), Dublin, a store popular for British nostalgia.

Further Reading: Do read Beatrix Potter stories online: here.