The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 10 Dec 2011 11:12 PM PST This book sold a million copies in the first month of its release. Add your copy to that number and help make history, implores our enraptured reviewer. 1Q84 BETWEEN reality and fantasy is a small window beyond which, if one dares to step through, surrealism awaits. Haruki Murakami seems determined to stay right there within that space, transforming commonplace reality into magical revelation while being careful enough to avoid going over the top with his fantastical stories. That's what makes him special. With his ability to transform reality at its height in this book, Murakami invites readers to peek through that window into another world – a Murakami world where there exist two moons and where a woman gets pregnant without having sex. In this world, which is a take on the one George Orwell created in 1984, Little People rather than Big Brothers rule, and their omnipresence and omniscience is disquieting. It is a world I implore you to visit. Murakami wastes no time in presenting that window right away in the beginning of the story. The lightness of his prose and the mysterious clues he so nimbly and swiftly drops here and there lure you deep into his world. With his female protagonist, Aomame, you get out of a taxi amidst a traffic deadlock on an expressway and enter an emergency exit. After which, you and the pretty protagonist kill a man and find yourself in a different world that Aomame calls 1Q84. You, slightly confused and intrigued, have to stay on, for that exit no longer exists. She's in, and so are you. That is quintessential Murakami, the way he so swiftly and so coolly captures you. Once he draws you in, however, Murakami is no longer hasty; he takes his time, crooning his story and taking you on one detour after another to unfold it for you. You wait as the male protagonist Tengo Kawana appears, and you like him straight away for Murakami has a knack of making his men highly likeable. They are simple, ordinary, decent-looking and adventurous while also being sensibly cautious. Unable to pull himself away from a manuscript he screens before recommending it for an entry into a writing contest, Tengo is drawn into a writing scandal that could potentially expose a formidable religious cult. You read on with interest, for now this world has an occult element. Yet, many longueurs disrupt the flow, a result of Murakami's overarching eroticism, garrulous dialogue, and repeated repetition. Just as it is on the verge of turning you off, the story takes a swift turn and Aomame kills another man – a much larger man in size as well as importance. Once again, you have no choice but to stick around because giving up would be regrettable indeed. Continuing on will lead you into endless twists and turns. And in attempting to reach the end, you have more than borne with Murakami; you have become his collaborator, accepting his surreal vision and agreeing to ignore logic. You longer care how Little People can crawl out of a dead goat's mouth or why Tengo and Aomame, classmates in Year Five, have to be drawn into this strange world in order to be united. Because of that strangeness, it is all right that Little People emerge almost as strangely as they vanish. This strangeness permits two moons to exist side by side, one paler than the other. Within this strangeness lies the question: "What is reality?" Murakami answers us by stressing that things are not what they seem, and that it is our own perception that determines what reality is for us, whether or not it is reality for others. Aomame thinks she has entered 1Q84. But has she? Or has the world, in fact, remained the same and she is merely, like Murakami, standing at the window, blinded by her own fantasy? "Ho, ho," I can hear the Little People intone from somewhere, as they often do in the book. Do they really exist or are they metaphoric obstacles that Aomame must overcome in order to be united with Tengo, the only guy she has loved since she was 10 years old? It is customary for authors to explain unanswered questions and to tie up loose ends. But Murakami is un-customary; he is formidable and is oblivious, as his status allows him to be, of convention. He is the perceiver of a dream-like story that he transmits, and we receive it. All he asks, before he begins this surreal journey, is that we believe in him, for if we don't, the journey will be phony. A total of 925 pages, though not every page is exciting. Still, you will relish this book. It does, after all, provide a prodigious escapade however odd and elusive it may be. Hailed as one of the best books of this year, 1Q84 sold a million copies within a month of its release in October. Add your copy to that number and help make history. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Posted: 10 Dec 2011 11:10 PM PST Our columnist continues her recommendations of trilogies with a series that might just get both teens and parents hot and bothered. ALTHOUGH not written for young adults (the label hadn't even been adopted by publishers when these books were first published), I know many teenagers (myself included) who breathlessly devoured Virginia Andrews' Dollanganger series. There are five books in all, but I have only read the first three and that's the "trilogy" I'm recommending for teens this Christmas. I discovered these books in my mid-teens and spent sizeable chunks of my pocket money on them. They were somewhat of a guilty pleasure as they were so terribly trashy. However, my incredibly cool parents did not object to me reading the books – my father read them himself and, if memory serves, was quite as hooked as I was. So, yes, I am recommending three really lurid and nasty books as Christmas presents. Why? Because I think it's great fun to read something really scandalous and tacky once in a while. I read a lot and sometimes I like my reading material to be the book-equivalent of a delicious and greasy plate of char kuey teow. The first book, Flowers In The Attic, sees a woman return to her childhood home (a mansion), with her four children (Christopher, Cathy, and fraternal twins Cory and Carrie), following the death of her husband. Corrinne committed some unforgivable transgression in the past that caused her to be disowned and disinherited by her fabulously wealthy parents. She hopes to be forgiven now that she's a penniless widow, but her mother tells her that she can stay only if the children are locked in the mansion's attics, hidden away from their grandfather who would probably die if he knew they existed. Any offspring of Corrinne and her late husband, as far as Corrinne's parents are concerned, would be practically the devil's spawn. Need I elaborate? Anyway, lots of horrible things follow. Corrinne seems in no hurry to get her children out of the attic, and they spend years there. Of course, the older two hit puberty while imprisoned and have only each other to unleash their raging hormones on. Need I go on? The children eventually escape but not before Cory dies of arsenic poisoning. The next book, Petals On The Wind, describes the three children's lives after their escape from their grandparents' mansion. They are adopted by Paul, a kindly doctor whom Cathy eventually has an affair with even though she doesn't really love Paul being totally preoccupied with her brother, Chris. By the way, it seems like every man Cathy comes into contact with falls head over heels in love with her. And then they die. Perhaps she is the devil's spawn after all.... Oh, before I forget, Carrie (the surviving twin) commits suicide because she is convinced that she's the devil's spawn. Now, you must admit that it's a case of not knowing whether to laugh or cry over all the melodrama. It's just the thing though, with a bag of crisps and a big bar of chocolate. So, so bad it's so, so good. And it gets worse, and better! The third book, If There Be Thorns, focuses on Cathy's children, Jory, Bart and Cindy, an adoptee. By now, Cathy and Chris are living as man-and-wife. Thankfully, Cathy can no longer have children, so there's no danger of producing devil's spawn with Chris. Unfortunately, she seems to have gone one better and produced the devil himself, with Bart. I won't give away the ending, but rest assured that it's as mad as the rest of the book. In fact, you must have gathered by now that all three books are pretty ridiculous – but only as much as your average soap opera is. Just remember that it's fiction, it's not meant to be taken seriously, and teenagers need something to breathe heavily over. If you allowed your teens to pant over Twilight's Bella and Edward (What? You don't think paedophilia and stalking are at least as bad as incest?), you have no excuse not to let them wheeze over these books. Just in case, your kids (or you) get hooked, books four and five are Seeds Of Yesterday and the prequel, Garden Of Shadows. The series has been re-issued by Simon Pulse. Have a Happy Christmas! Daphne Lee reads to wonder and wander, be amazed and amused, horrified and heartened and inspired and comforted. She wishes more people will try it too. Send e-mails to the above address and check out her blog at daphne.blogs.com/books. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
| Posted: 10 Dec 2011 11:07 PM PST FOR the week ending Dec 4, 2011: Non-fiction 1. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 2. Body Language At Work: Read The Signs And Make The Right Moves by Peter Clayton 3. The Night The Angels Came by Cathy Glass 4. by Guinness World Records Ltd 5. The Secret Letters Of The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma 6. Chicken Soup For The Soul: Find Your Happiness: 101 Stories About Finding Your Purpose, Passion, And Joy by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Amy Newmark 7. A Doctor In The House: The Memoirs Of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad 8. Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going by Han Fook Kwang, Et Al 9. The Perfect 10 Diet: 10 Key Hormones That Hold The Secret To Losing Weight And Feeling Great – Fast! by Michael Aziz 10. Back To Work: Why We Need Smart Government For A Strong Economy by Bill Clinton Fiction 1. The House Of Silk (a Sherlock Holmes novel) by Anthony Horowitz 2. The Time Of My Life by Cecelia Ahern 3. Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer 4. The Sense Of An Ending (2011 Man Booker Prize winner) by Julian Barnes 5. The Fifth Witness (a Lincoln Lawyer novel) by Michael Connelly 6. Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult 7. The Story Of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon 8. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (movie tie-in) by Stieg Larsson 9. The Litigators by John Grisham 10. Untold Story by Monica Ali Weekly list compiled by MPH Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur; www.mphonline.com. Full content generated by Get Full RSS. |
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