The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 15 Dec 2012 11:29 PM PST FOR the week ending Dec 9, 2012: Non-fiction 1. Syed Mokhtar Albukhary: A Biography by Premilla Mohanlall 2. Justin Bieber: Just Getting Started (100% Official) by Justin Bieber 3. Unstoppable: The Incredible Power Of Faith In Action by Nick Vujicic 4. Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother by Amy Chua 5. Chicken Soup For The Soul: The Gift Of Christmas by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen & Amy Newmark 6. The Wisdom And Teachings Of Stephen R. Covey by Stephen R. Covey 7. Creating A Purposeful Life by Richard Fox 8. 1D: The One Direction Story by Danny White 9. Stephen Hawking: His Life And Work by Kitty Ferguson 10. A Thousand Lives: The Untold Story Of Jonestown by Julia Scheeres Fiction 1. Life Of Pi by Yann Martel 2. Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda 3. The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky 4. Charm Bracelet by Melissa Hill 5. The Hobbit (movie tie-in) by J.R.R. Tolkien 6. The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling 7. The Sins Of The Father by Jeffrey Archer 8. The Time Keeper by Mitch Albom 9. One Hundred Names by Cecelia Ahern 10. The Garden Of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng Weekly list compiled by MPH Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur; www.mphonline.com. |
| Posted: 15 Dec 2012 11:28 PM PST The Boy Who Could See Demons ALEX'S best friend Ruen is about five foot three. He speaks various languages and is fond of Mozart, table tennis and bread and butter pudding. He is also a demon from one of the lowest depths of Hell. What do you do with a friend who sometimes keeps good company and makes you laugh, but continuously pressures you to commit murder? Such is the dilemma faced by Alex Broccoli, the protagonist of The Boy Who Could See Demons, the latest novel by award-winning Irish author Carolyn Jess-Cooke. Thought-provoking and suspenseful, even heart-warming at times, Cooke's novel proves the devil always has the best tunes as it impresses with a gripping tale of friendship, death and identity. Cooke, who writes poetry, fiction and non-fiction, is a bestselling author who has been awarded the 2006 Arts Council of England Writer's Award and the 2008 Northern Promise Award, among others. While her previous novel, the critically-acclaimed The Guardian Angel's Journal, focused on an angel, Cooke now shines the spotlight on creatures from the other side in her latest novel, which was inspired by the C.S. Lewis classic, The Screwtape Letters. While Demons has been described as being in the vein of Mark Haddon's (also award-winning) The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, I personally feel it's more like a cross between horror film The Sixth Sense and comic strip Calvin And Hobbes. A highly unique mix; but then again, this is a highly unique book. Demons is the story of troubled Alex, who starts seeing Ruen on the day his father walks out on the family. Taken into psychiatric care after his mother's attempted suicide, Alex is assigned to Anya, a psychiatrist facing inner demons of her own. Alex describes Ruen as a shape-shifting demon, capable of taking various forms, which he calls Horn Head, Old Man, and so forth. He also says Ruen wants him to kill somebody. Anya tries to help Alex believe that his conversations with Ruen are mere delusions of his troubled mind, but as the case progresses, discovers that Ruen may not be as imaginary as she thinks. How, for example, does Alex know things he could not possibly know, especially about Anya's deceased daughter? At first glance, this seems like the synopsis of a horror novel. Thankfully, Demons avoids this route completely, instead delivering a tightly-plotted psychological drama about a boy, his troubled family, and his unlikely "friend". Cooke cleverly leaves the answer of Ruen's nature open, never making it absolutely certain whether he is a hallucination or a demon. The novel contains many well-researched scenes where demonic visions are compared and contrasted with both religious experiences and psychological disturbance. For what do we do with people who claim to be guided by invisible voices? Do we medicate, venerate, or exorcise them? The strongest part of Demons, however, is undoubtedly its wonderful characters. Ruen is done well, his dialogue crackling with wry humour and sinister undertones. His scenes can often be frustrating, but for the right reasons, as the reader is torn between being happy Alex has a friend to talk to and furious at the things Ruen tells him to do. Most of the book is narrated by Alex, and Cooke captures his 10-year-old voice capably, portraying him as a lost little boy forced to be more mature than he really is. The novel's breakout character, however, is Anya, whose emotional flashback scenes with her daughter capture perfectly the challenges of someone living with schizophrenia. Despite a troubled past, she constantly shows heart and determination, which makes it easy for readers to become invested in her struggle to help Alex. She and Alex are beautifully written, fleshed out with various hopes and insecurities, and their interactions are always captivating and fun to read. Demons also contains some very heavy subject matter and features a shocking climax. This, thankfully, is balanced by the novel's ending, which is hopeful and highly satisfactory. Woven into the plot are references to Shakespeare's Hamlet, an apt mirror to the situation Alex is facing (like Hamlet, Alex is haunted by the supernatural after the loss of a father figure), as well as the Troubles, an Irish political conflict that took place from the 1960s to the 1980s and whose effects linger to this day. These references not only flesh out the world of the novel but also serve to enhance one of the novel's major themes, that of mental and emotional anguish. While it may come in various forms, such as troubled family history, mental illness, post-war trauma or negative emotions, Demons suggests that many of us suffer from "demons" of our own, and we must do all we can to stop them from triumphing. A diabolically delightful read, which will charm the hell out of you with its strong narrative voice and memorable characters. |
| Posted: 15 Dec 2012 11:27 PM PST A fascinating look at another facet of that imponderable mystery known as India. The Village AFTER the 2007 Booker Prize for Fiction long-listed The Gifted, this second novel from Nikita Lalwani is an exploration of the nature of identity, punishment, freedom and ideals. There are books that entertain by virtue of their storyline or narrative. There are books that seduce us with aesthetic images and the beauty of the prose. There are books that challenge our preconceptions and give us a new perspective on the world. And there are occasionally books that manage to do all three. The Village by Nikita Lalwani is one of those books. As the title suggests, this book is about a village. But this is not an ordinary village. In fact, it is an open prison where all the inmates are murderers. The author, like the protagonist, travelled to India to make a BBC documentary about a real village very similar to the one depicted in this book and the details from her experience seem almost barely fictionalised. In fact, the reader is left wondering which parts are true and which parts are the fruits of the writer's imagination. The author uses the story partially as a questioning of identity. The main character, a young woman named Ray, is of Indian stock, though she lives in England and speaks only some Hindi. Though she shares some of the villagers' physical attributes and cultural references, she is almost as much an outsider as her two British colleagues. We see two sides of Ray – the one looking through the camera and the one seeing with her eyes. She is Indian, but she is not Indian. She is spectator and performer, playing out the role expected of her, trying to be more Indian than she really is. The villagers are villagers, but they are prisoners at the same time. When we see the seemingly mundane nature of these people's daily lives and hear their stories from their lives before they committed their crimes, we understand that they were already prisoners in the circumstances of their lives. The inference this reader took away from this book is that, in a way, every village in India is a prison of sorts, with bars made of strict moral codes, caste segregation and often unreasonable expectations. The documentarist's camera is used as a device through which we see scenes, often of sublime beauty, even in the simplest of things. The camera focuses on details, highlights them, and in so doing, removes them from their context, transforming them into something else. Then there is the exploration of the documentary maker's deliberate manipulation of images for emotional effect – how the shakiness of the handheld camera adds more raw authenticity and immediacy to a scene. The author shows us how things are twisted and then with her skilful prose, proceeds to manipulate the alerted reader in exactly the same way. There is a thrill and joy in understanding the mechanism and still submitting to its charms. In contrast, Ray's own responses to what she sees are more emotionally charged than what is seen through the coldness of the camera lens. She faces challenges living and working with colleagues she barely knows outside the meeting room. Then there is the tension created by the knowledge that almost everyone she sees and meets has killed another human being. But by far the most important theme of The Village is its exploration of the role of the prison system and what it means to take somebody's freedom away and remove them from any normal context of human life. It questions the usefulness of the idea of incarceration purely as a form punishment, retribution and revenge. It explores the themes of rehabilitation and forgiveness, of responsibility, both of the criminal for the crime and of the penal system towards the criminal and to society as a whole. At a time when members of both sides of the political divide in Malaysia are discussing the merits and usefulness of the death penalty, this book offers an alternative vision of how to punish crime. The criminals in this story remain largely integrated in society. They have the responsibility of working and fending for themselves and often of providing a livelihood for their families who live with them as well. In the traditional prison system no such prerogative exists. Prisoners have no real responsibilities towards their own upkeep and don't have bills to pay. They become removed from society, often so far removed that it is almost impossible for them ever to come back and function as normal and productive citizens again. As Lalwani says in her book: "The traditional prison makes the transition back into society even harder." In The Village, the prison walls are just a line of stones that even a child could step over. The prisoners have a great degree of personal autonomy. They are allowed to go to the town to work, but must return by 6.30 in the evening. They fraternize with the prison guards, who are only distinguishable from the inmates by their uniforms. There are no re-offenders and no one attempts to escape – perhaps because returning to their previous lives is not an option and they have no better alternative life or place to escape to. All told, a fascinating and beautifully written novel that reveals another facet of the imponderable mystery known as India. |
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