i miss reading

i miss...

...escaping from this world

hm, what book shall i read next?

where shall i escape to?

posted by lil piggie at 8:10 PM

I've not posted much here, but worry not, I have been reading though somewhat minimal compared to what I used to read.

Currently I am working out on 'the 7 habits of highly effective people'. Let's hope it make me more effective. Also, I'm trying to finish Macbeth - a little tricky because I'm not use to that kind of playwright classical style. I still like reading novels. =)

Other books I have read:
Snow Mountain by Kawabata
No One Writes to the General by Márquez

... I'm sure there are others. See, there's really a need for me to keep track of the books that I have read... =S

posted by lil piggie at 12:42 AM

Ishiguro's An Artist of the Floating World sounds like Japanese strings being plucked to a traditional tone. As I read, I always reflect and ponder about two questions: "Who is the artist of the floating world?" and "Why so?". Obviously the first one should be quite easy to answer, but it's always the second question that casts doubt to my first one. Hasn't Ono left the floating world yet? And I have bittersweet sentiments about the way Ono would put it as "Again I realise that I have drifted" because I, too, have drifted off with him and I needed as much as he did to pick up from where he had left off. This book shares with us the feeling of the Japanese people after the war, and it greatly taught me how I can make the character's voice sound like my own.

Before this, I read Lee Harper's To Kill a Mockingbird, and Nancy Peacock's Life Without Water. Of course, needless to say, the former book is more well known that the latter. Yet both are life-sized drama, and I enjoy reading such books.

Now, I am going through a masterpiece, that of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. I'm utterly amazed by Wilde. One paragraph has never held as much! Honestly I wonder if I'll ever have such an upper hand. To give you a taste:

"I believe that if man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream..."

Imagine that! And sadly he also broadcast this:

"We live in an age when men treated art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty."

Well, one cannot fully agree with Wilde's assertions, but one must pull back and reflect upon such words. And truly it is rather sad to treat one's autobiography as one's greatest achievement. So I must start churning up and working things round the other way.

posted by lil piggie at 8:28 AM

I shall be a princess, or at least pretend to be one. *grinz. That's what you get from reading The Little Princess. Something that Sara mentioned is quite true, that in good times, you can choose to be who you want to be, and it is only in bad times that you show who you really are. I must admit that I can be really nasty when I'm stressed up, or when things are not going my way. So I am not that nice after all. But there's always a time to amend, to know about such things and change from them. Like how Sara decided to act differently, how she began to talk to Emergrande (Gosh, how to spell her name?!) and little Lotty even in her midst of difficulty. I admire that.

I haven't been doing much of reading. I've been sleeping on bus and train rides. Saramago's Blindness and Lee Harper's To Kill A Mockingbird are both hanging. Most likely I'll give up on the former because it's starting to bore me. I've lost quite a lot of zeal for reading. Probably this will do me good for now, as I am supposed to focus on my Japanese lessons and writing. Though the latter is abandoned too, for the moment.

posted by lil piggie at 8:09 AM

May I proudly announce that I finished reading Nineteen Eighty-Four! Boy, it was no easy feat. It feels like I am digging the ground. At first, the soil is still loose on the top, and things are just starting to take shape, just like the hole I am digging. 1984 reminds me of Animal Farm, with the similitude between Big Brother and Napolean. Later, the soil becomes more packed, and therein lies some gravel and small stones which get in the way of the spade. And the stones get larger, and the digging is decidedly slowed down. Every deepening inch gets harder to achieve. If one can get this mental picture, one can imagine the mental suffering, that of endurance required, to pull through until the very end of the book.

The text within 1984, as purportedly written by Goldstein (another character that resembles Snowball in Animal Farm), is horrible medicine. I read and gain some understanding as to how the world was then in 1984, yet I read and gain nowt about why the world was like that. Even the later part when O'Brien explained it, I still missed the point, or rather I can't quite accept it. I have dug my way to the core of the book, only to find that the molten state is unchangeable. And the ending is unbearable as well, for Winston to have his fate like those who did what he had done.

On a shorter note, I've read Kafka's The Metamorphosis. It carries with it the same unchangeability nature. I wish George Samsa could return to his previous state, even after he had died. That, too, did not happen.

posted by lil piggie at 1:16 AM

As I was saying, the sensei in Kokoro had a past, a dark one that he would not tell anyone, not even his wife. Perhaps it is this secret that compels me to read the whole book, or rather how the student himself is so intrigued by it. At one point of time, I thought that the book shall not contain the sensei's past and if that is so, I shall be greatly disappointed and forever pondering what it may be. As it turns out, the sensei presented his story clearly in the third chapter. Maybe extra, but all the same, necessary to me.

The sensei's past is not unlike what some people may have suffered in life. Many may be able to identify with him. Not me, though. But it shears my heart at how one person's past can form his future so much that it destroys the entire being. I read and I revere the sentiment felt which is quite unexplained in the first two chapters when the general died after the Meiji Emperor's death. It did not cross my mind then that patriotism can catch such a strong hold onto one person to allow himself to end his life along with what he probably assumed as the end of an era. That it could affect so many other citizens as well, even the student's father, and needless to say, the sensei as well.

"Soft sunlight." This phrase captures my heart in one page in Kokoro, and it took me a while to flip through the many pages again to search out this phrase because I have forgotten what it was. There are certain phrases that I like, at how the different authors would describe or say of certain things. Just like how Kundera once said of the air as 'crispy'.

Then I allow myself to read Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden even when FK lent me The Little Princess first. The latter one will just have to wait a bit. There's an excerpt from this book that I like:

Much more surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.

"Where you tend a rose, my lad,
A thistle cannot grow."

It is a book for children and adults alike, so the language is easily digestible and the story a thrill to behold. I watched the movie Secret Garden when I was young, but I knew that was not how the story ended, as it was not also for the movie Little Women that I watched. It is refreshing to read a children's book once in a while; it takes the load off. And I like to hear how Colin talks about the Magic, and how Mrs Sowerby says that He is known by many other names. How comforting!

Then I started on Banana Yoshimoto's Lizard, which turns out to be a collection of short stories. I used to think that short stories are bad, and I never take much liking to them. I'd rather read a novel, something lengthy and more solid. Short stories tend to be left hanging in the end, and that was how I initially felt about her works. However I persevered, and I was shown the light when I read what she wrote about the book. Lizard is a collection of short stories, related somewhat, with the same theme that carries hope in the lives of other people in different walks of life. This is a new revelation to me, and I have come to appreciate short stories better; it reminds me of a series of artwork based on one theme.

At where I am now, I can barely exceed the 2500 word limit. So perhaps I should consider writing short stories first, and make a collection of it, with the same theme.

It being in my possession, still I hesitate not a moment to read Coelho's By the River of Piedra, I sat down and wept. Coelho seems to be at his height in expounding about Catholicism, with a tinge of deviant towards Mother Mary that reminds me of Dan Brown's novel. Excusing all that, I follow the story well, and simply like the way Coelho talks about love. The way it concluded is out of my expectation, as I thought it would be a sad story. It turns out that the man could love and be with the woman as well as continue on with his faith. I'm glad such decision can come about, but it does not work for everyone.

posted by lil piggie at 2:01 AM

As I try to recollect what other books I have read, I felt lost. This is not good. I have to keep track of my reading, more importantly of my reflection of what I have read, else it would all be in vain. What have I learnt, how can I apply that in my life (if any)? All the various questions that books may be a solution to. Lost. *Gag* This should not be so. Let me recall...

There was Lolita, way before Tangerine. It could be said that I finished reading the book, or rather I got the whole gist of it, though I am sure I messed up with the ending plot somewhere. The opening sentences:

"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."

These words captivated me to read further because I fancied that style of writing. It reminded me of A Clockwork Orange, perhaps a little darker and more psychotic details. And true enough, when I tried to pronounce her name Lolita in my mouth, it was exactly as the author described it. But the book got worse, more sickening, and I decided to spite Nabokov and did what my friend would comment as sheer insult. I read the ending of the book, then I was quite intrigued as to what happened that I flipped and read backwards until I got a fairly clear picture. It was mean, but Nabokov deserves such measure from me.

It's not that he's not a good author. I give it to him that he has a very unique writing style, and a very original idea to write that during his times. But today, I would seriously regard that reading material as sinful. There, I have said enough about this particular book, more attention that it deserves.

Now is a season for me to sample Asian works, as I have previously mentioned. So I looked into other writers such as Adeline Yen Mah's Watching the Tree, which touches on Chinese spirituality. An interesting and informative book, which I have yet to finish, but I am taking my time because though as lightly as she presents the fact, my eyes beg me to look elsewhere. And I found Kokoro by Natsume Soseki.

Kokoro.. Literally in Japanese, it means 'heart'. It speaks of the life of a man, whom a student (the narrator) regarded as his sensei. This man - the sensei - differs from the other people that the student knows, in that he was indifferent, quite aloof about things. It seems as if he had withdrawn from the world, despising its very existence as he so quoted himself.

(they're closing down the place.. i'll continue later tonite... *darn..)

posted by lil piggie at 4:09 PM

My reading life has certainly not become as idle as this blog. I've taken every spare time that I have while traveling, and sometimes even burning the midnight oil just to read. I read so feverishly that albeit it might have been more refreshing for me to take a short nap on the ride, I push that idea aside to make way for more brain waves to absorb and burn whatever book I am currently reading. At times I even get sick of heavy text, yet I continue reading - the light-hearted ones, that is.

During my long weekend in May, which I went to KL with my family, I completed Tangerine by Colin Cheong. Perhaps it was a bad idea to read when I'm going some place else and not Hanoi, not any parts of Vietnam. That book made me want to go to these rural places and see them, see what he wrote. Perhaps that was what made me quite unsatisfied about my overall trip to KL.

Then I sampled other Asian writers such as Catherine Lim. I figure that since I stay here in Singapore, I should see how the locals fare in their writings. I was slightly disappointed by Colin Cheong, but Catherine boosted up the image quite a bit. I like the way she would describe the surroundings in her book 'Following the Wrong God Home' - somewhat lucid and permanent. I realise this:

It is not what you see around you,
but how you create it, in words.

She is very capable of doing just that.

My mom surprises me by taking on an interest in her books, and to date, she has read more of Catherine Lim than myself, who shamefully have not even finished a single one. I even borrow Adeline Yen Mah for my mother to read, the story about the Chinese Cinderella girl. Now she is at home, with no more books to read, and I know not what else would be good and easy for her to read.

There are other books I have yet to comment on, some even before the Tangerine season. Later then.

posted by lil piggie at 10:42 AM