Buku2 yang aku baca minggu lepas tatkala hujan

thamrong

I am always fascinated by cities and eleven world抯 biggest cities are in Asia. Asia meets the requirement for extremities.  One the top of the list is the squeaky clean Singapore city-state run like an enterprise and the super efficient Tokyo or Osaka.  On the bottom end the chaotic and 憂othing 杦ork 杊ere

seribulan

another one to tickle ur fancy...

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

        There once was a young person named Red Riding Hood who lived with her mother on the edge of a large wood. One day her mother asked her to take a basket of fresh fruit and mineral water to her grandmother抯 house- not because this was womyn抯 work, mind you, but because the deed was generous and helped engender a feeling of community. Furthermore, her grandmother was not sick, but rather was in full physical and mental health and was fully capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult.
        So Red Riding Hood set off with her basket through the woods. Many people believed that the forest was foreboding and dangerous place and never set foot in it. Red Riding Hood, however, was confident enough in her own budding sexuality that such Freudian imagery did not intimidate her.
        On the way to Grandma抯 house, Red Riding Hood was accosted by a wolf, who asked her what was in her basket. She replied, 揝ome healthful snacks for my grandmother, who is certainly capable of taking care of herself as a mature adult.

pessoa

Originally posted by Greenbottle3 at 7-1-2006 08:22 AM
read carver's short story 'fat' last night....then watched coen brothers'  FARGO for the second time...
now i kinda understand where all this style of writing comes from...hmmm...i'm referring to fat not fargo...fargo is brilliant...just like all other coen brs' films...the dialogue is closest to good books as far as films can go... as far as i know coen brs are not writers (as in books) not like that pervert   and pitiful woody allen....

The Man WHo Wasn't There is the last good Coen Brothers movie. Intolerable Cruelty is a letdown. Big Lebowski is a joke without a punchline and Ladykillers is just horrible.

I'm re-reading Carver again. He is good. But he has zero sense of humour. The writers after him, Hempel, Lorrie Moore, Palahniuk, Saunders, Ellis - they managed to distill his intensity and they did it with brio.

and by the way it is   Jay McInerney i'm referring to, not sure who McIerney (sic) is....though i think we're talking about the same person...and i've never read brett easton ellis...may be my prejudice...i think i saw a film adaptation of one of his books sometimes ago  but don't really like it so i stay away from him....

Yes. Same person. Can't be bothered to learn his name. Easton Ellis' American Psycho is good, despite the hype. If you care about writing you should read him, even if in the end you find that you don't like him.

pessoa

Originally posted by thamrong at 8-1-2006 12:20 PM
I am always fascinated by cities and eleven world抯 biggest cities are in Asia. Asia meets the requirement for extremities.  One the top of the list is the squeaky clean Singapore city-state run li ...

Aku tak pernah suka penulis dari India. They try too hard. That's why they invariably fail.

peacefrog

Originally posted by seribulan at 28-12-2005 05:34 PM
buku yg dibaca hujan ari tu lak...THE POLITICALLY CORRECT bedtimes stories...
yg mana citer2 bedtimes mcm Cinderella,Snow White, The Emperor's new clothes , Rapunzel telah diubah jln cerita dan di ...

tak silap aku buku nih jual kat Payless Bookstore sekitar RM 5-10.....go get it..!

thamrong

Originally posted by pessoa at 8-1-2006 04:18 PM


Aku tak pernah suka penulis dari India. They try too hard. That's why they invariably fail.

That is a simplistic and a reductive assumption. When I am refering to Indian, I meant those of Indian  extraction. They could be British, Indian, American etc.etc.

List of Indian Booker prize winners:
1971: V.S. Naipaul In a Free State(Nobel Laurate for Literature  2001)
1981: Salman Rushdie Midnight's Children
1997: Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things
1992: Michael Ondaatje The English Patient and Barry Unsworth Sacred Hunger(Sri Lankan)

See! the record speaks for itself.

pessoa

Originally posted by thamrong at 8-1-2006 06:49 PM


1971: V.S. Naipaul In a Free State(Nobel Laurate for Literature  2001)
1981: Salman Rushdie Midnight's Children
1997: Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things
1992: Michael Ondaatje The English Patient and Barry Unsworth Sacred Hunger(Sri Lankan)

It's not simplistic, nor is it reductionist. It is my opinion and it is based on my reading. Naipaul dan Ondaatje ARE NOT FROM India. Check my exact wording, writers from India. Rushdie is the epitome of trying too hard. Arundhati is horrible, Booker notwithstanding.

The record says nothing at all. The truest test for literature is in the reading. Not in Prizes.

thamrong

Originally posted by pessoa at 8-1-2006 07:07 PM


It's not simplistic, nor is it reductionist. It is my opinion and it is based on my reading. Naipaul dan Ondaatje ARE NOT FROM India. Check my exact wording, writers from India. Rushdie is the  ...

If it is your opinion and  based on your reading I suggest we leave it to rest.

pessoa

And your opinion is based on what?

Ah, whatever.

pessoa

Ayu Utami - Si Parasit Lajang

Ini koleksi esei penulis sensasi Indon, Ayu Utami yang menggempar dengan bukunya Saman yang jadi bestseller dan diangkat oleh kritik sebagai memberi nafas baru kepada dimensi sastera Indonesia. Malang sekali koleksi esei ini membosankan, tak lebih kadang-kadang dari artikel Cosmo dan fikiran-fikiran yang malap. Mengecewakan

[ Last edited by pessoa at 9-1-2006 01:56 PM ]

DanaScully

Originally posted by thamrong at 8-1-2006 06:49 PM


That is a simplistic and a reductive assumption. When I am refering to Indian, I meant those of Indian  extraction. They could be British, Indian, American etc.etc.

List of Indian Booker pri ...

eh i love indian writers. they had more feel in their prose.

actually midnight's children dgn god of small things tu were my treasured collections. :bgrin:

Greenbottle3

Picked up an old travel writing "Sunrise with Sea monsters" by Paul Theroux and read a couple of short essays...."memories of old afghanistan" written in 1974 and a short 3 page essay "Malaysia" written in 1973 just before going to sleep last night.

I'm quite amused by Mr Theroux's mildly condescending description of an old sultan in one of the states who 'designed his own uniforms' and goes by the nickname 'Buffles'. In one of the polo games that Paul Theroux was present he at one point asked the sultan what was the opposing team malay name meant in english and this 'buffles' remarked "i have no idea. i'll have to ask zayid.It's malay you see. i don't speak it terribly well".....

i'm sure this buffles is long dead now but i suppose there are still quite a few buffles among our many sultans now.... it's kind of sad that those that are supposed to be the most powerful and ought to play some real role in running the country are merely ornamentals at best . ... and yes being 'buffles' most of the time....

pessoa

The Torch in My Ear - Elias Canetti
------------------------------------------

Dia seorang rakonteur lalu bukan kejutan yang memoirnya menarik sekali (walau tidak sampai brilliance yang dicapai Marquez dalam Living to Tell the Tale). Dalam bahagian kedua memoir Elias Canetti ini (bahagian ketiga baru dirilis pos-humus dan malang sekali, khabarnya tanpa sempat disunting oleh Elias) dia bercerita tentang watak-watak dan pemikiran yang membentuknya menjadi seorang penulis.

Materi/kerjaya (disebut sebagai berada dalam the thick of life) yang mempengaruhi ibunya  memualkan Elias hingga dia terpaksa melaksanakan perang gelap pada ibunya, seorang literati yang berubah kerana kesempitan hidup.  Lalu hidup nyatanya satu usaha panjang untuk mengaburi mata ibunya - dia belajar ilmu kimia hingga ke peringkat doktorat, walau dia tak pernah minat bidang itu.

Di sisi gelapnya pula wujud watak warna-warni dunia literati Jerman, dari si gadis cantik Veza, Bertold Brecht hingga ke Karl Krauss, satiris yang mempengaruhi pemikiran cendekiawan Jerman pra-perang dunia kedua, tapi babak-babak ini terlalu sedikit walau ia lebih menarik bagi aku, daripada kisah-kisah familial yang berkisar dalam hidupnya - terlalu banyak hingga ia menjadi seperti The Periodic Table karya Primo Levi. Tapi tanpa brilliance yang dimiliki penglipurlara seperti Marquez,  yang menghidupkan situasi dengan sudo-realismanya, memoir Canetti ini kadangkala umpama teater mendatar yang memperkenalkan satu demi satu watak seperti pertunjukkan fesyen.

Bagus, tapi 3.5/5

Greenbottle3

...this afternoon...went to TESCO to buy some groceries but ended up at the book section where they have this sales bin full of surprisingly good books...old penguin classics and some contemporary british fictions... bought "groucho" a biography of marx (the groucho) by stefan kanfer, "Riding the yellow trolley car" ...selected non fiction by william kennedy ...the only reason i bought this was because it has his pieces on gabriel garcia marquez, norman mailer , saul bellow and don de lillo among others.... Herman melville's "typee"... and Giovanni verga's Cavalleria rusticana and other fictions...these last two are penguin classic publications...