the asian authors bookpost.

[extemporally]

Oh my god, this whole book-buying thing. I went to a super rad booksale yesterday and ended up grabbing a whole bunch of local lit (including Singapore sci-fi written by a feminist author - ughhh I am so hyped for that one), which I'm going to be working my way through for a while yet. Meanwhile!

Free Food for Millionaires, by Min Jin Lee.

I felt there were a number of things that rang so true about this book, like the whole Asian/immigrant/working-class/etc drive to "succeed" in the most conventional of ways, i.e. by getting a huge corporate job and getting married and becoming part of the establishment, and the ways in which creativity tends to not get investigated and even spurned, and oh my god, Casey!!! I just felt incredibly sorry for her and how she had to be twenty-two and without any idea of what she really wanted from life.

And also that whole thing about interracial relationships and how that so often ties up to acceptance and class. Also somewhat relatedly, when her (white) boyfriend's talking about her elder female friend and how they could totally get help from her for their wedding:

In the street, he kept chatting, and Casey nodded, looking straight ahead. She didn't want to ruin his good feelings. But the thought that had persisted throughout the evening was: I have parents of my own.

Also I really liked Unu and his shiftlessness and all the ways in which he and Casey just reinforced each others' bad habits, and the sly - so sly! - way Lee writes about him:

'You're Shim jang-no's nephew. Ella's cousin,' Leah said.

'Yes, I am. Uncle Douglas is my favourite uncle, and Ella's the cousin I am closest to.'

Leah nodded, and Joseph gave a small smile. He'd noticed Unu's ears, too - indicating good fortune.

Joseph spotted the corner of a piece of paper peeping out from his pocket.

Unu casually tucked the racing form out of sight.

Aside from that, though - I thought the novel could have been written better (show not tell, etc), that it could have been edited more tightly (over 600 pages of a novel that didn't actually have a focused ending), and... yeah. I'm not sure how I felt about the multi-character narration, given that Min Jin Lee felt the need to give everyone a backstory, and it wasn't always super compelling. I think I would have enjoyed this even more if it was a 300 page novel mostly (if not solely) about Casey Han: ultimate hat connoisseur and her struggle for self-actualisation, please.

Miss Seetoh in the World, by Catherine Lim.

"Miss Maria Seetoh, a teacher of English and Literature in St Peter's Secondary School in Singapore, sees herself as a 'simple soul who only wants to be a good and happy person', and has a dream to write stories about 'simple, ordinary people going about their daily lives'. However, God/Providence/Fate/Chance, etc. decrees otherwise. She is thrown into the tumult of a disastrous marriage that begins as strangely as it ends, a failed love affair that 'hollows her out', and a controversial teaching career that ends with her abrupt resignation. Most of all, she is caught in a political event as shocking in its causes as in its consequences."

Catherine Lim's novels usually feature a number of things: a young, beautiful, intelligent girl oppressed by patriarchal structures (they are always young and beautiful and intelligent), jealous females who hate said main character (they always do hate her), an amazing love affair that usually ends tragically due to said prevailing patriarchal structures, copious use of Chinese mythology/gods and goddesses/many dream sequences that involve said gods and goddesses... etc. So when Catherine Lim said that this release was the most "different" of her novels, I would agree, on a superficial level - the book opens when Maria Seetoh is thirty-five, there's no amazing, practically legendary love affair (one of her books, as I recall, ended with the dead main character becoming a goddess, uh), and... it's one of her most politically overt novels (though on par with her short stories). However, there are still a) gods and goddesses b) dreams and c) patriarchal structures.

I seriously had such high hopes for this novel, though. Mostly because of the way she writes about what it's like to be trapped in an oppressive marriage:

... to her private world.

He invaded it relentlessly. 'Maria, where are you?'

He made the maid look for her. He would pick up one book after another, from her private store, and read out the titles slowly and deliberately, making a show of mispronouncing the polysyllabic words. Pe-dah-go-jeee, nooro-psycho-lor-jeee, fun-day-mental phi-lor-so-phee. Each book, taking time away from him, became an adversary. He knew about her secret longing to return to the university, to do a postgraduate course. Intellectual superiority was wifely treason. 'Just what are you trying to prove?'

And:

Silence remained the best option. I live in fear of my husband's daily displeasure, she thought miserably. What sort of life is this? I am truly dying. That night he made love to her as usual, briefly and sullenly, and without a word. Then he turned his back towards her and remained in that position through the night. The spare bedroom called, but she was tied down on the marital bed by a hundred cords of fear tightening by the day.

On the other hand... in general I find Catherine Lim's powers of caricature more suited to short story than novel, in the sense that there's a sense of unreality about the ridiculities (V.K. Pandy hanging out in the same spot every day, for example, and the ceremony towards the end of the book) she writes which is... not wrong in itself, but kind of weird when I find the realism of some of the other things she writes about undeniable. And on another point, I really really liked (as I've mentioned) her portrayal of an oppressive marriage - it's seriously one of the most devastating things I've read recently - and the courtship prelude to that, the asymmetrical sexual context she frames it in (Bernard the 'pursuer', Maria the pursued unable to say no, no, no as a result of her socialisation not to say no). But I really disliked the cynicism with which she treated female friendships (yes, friendship is a complicated beast, and no, I'm not saying that it should be all amiability all the time, but I am saying there's something intensely problematic about the fact that the female friendships in this book were a) premised on the fact that all three women were spinsters for life and b) ultimately torn apart by bitterness re: men), and the fact that she suggested that sexuality was the biggest barrier towards honest relationships between men and women. (Maria's super platonic relationship with Brother Philip was delightful but also old hat in that I think she's written about the deep-abiding love between a woman and a sworn-to-chastity man before, and also kind of skeevy, and also there's the whole pure-and-innocent teen love that ended in a suicide pact that complicates it further. Also don't get me started on how queerness doesn't exist even as a theoretical construct in World of Catherine Lim! - like , most stories, I accept, are heterosexual narratives. I accept that. But this is a story about gender relations, and Catherine Lim is so committed to essentialising these narratives about men and women that you just sort of want to shake her and be like, yeah, no, there are alternatives on the most fundamental level.) And the other things she writes about Maggie and Maria's refusal to believe that she'd been subject to abuse by her boyfriend/help her out was just kind of maddening tbh.

Tl;dr I am deeply deeply suspicious of Catherine Lim's attitude towards gender relations, and also it doesn't help that she writes the same story over and over again even when it's not.

Renaissance Singapore? Economy, Culture, and Politics, edited by Kenneth Paul Tan.

"In this collection, public intellectuals and civil society activists discuss Singapore's public rhetoric about liberalisation and its association with the development of a creative economy, focusing on questions surrounding conservatism, national identity and values, civil society activism, and the societal role of the younger generation."

Perhaps facetious, but...



I have loved reading whatever publications by Kenneth Paul Tan I've been able to get my hands on since 2009. This love shows no signs of abating:

The PAP government appears to be adopting a classic strategy of divide-and-rule to sustain the heartlander - cosmopolitan divide in order to retain the old politics of PAP dominance by appealing positively to the moral and patriotic sentiments of the ideologically constructed heartlander, and warning the ideologically constructed cosmopolitan that heartlanders are not yet ready for change. At the same time, it hopes to reap the economic gains from a more open and liberal workforce that is clearly separated from the heartlands. The PAP government's political legitimacy is, after all, based both on moral authority as well as economic performance.

Because yes. There's no doubt that the heartlander-cosmopolitan divide is terminology that was constructed specifically for the ruling party's purposes, as not only divide-and-rule (I'd never thought about it in those terms before) but also a way of dodging difficult questions about class and income inequity in Singapore. Also it acted as a springboard for my own thoughts: if we reject the rhetoric that dichotomises the conservative working class (i.e. the "heartlanders") and liberal "cosmopolitans", what would a coherent and free-form account of class and ideology in Singapore look like? Later in the book Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen (who are also, amazing) argue that working class Singaporeans have more creativity than they are given credit for in official accounts, especially through the linguistic diversity engendered through the embracing of Singlish, that creativity has (and should not be) pigeonholed as a luxury of the privileged/valued for its commercial potential, and that is part of the answer but by no means a full one. (I would love to see people writing about the working class and queer people, for example.)

Ah, okay, here's another bit on Singlish and heartlanders that basically says what I was trying to articulate:

While I argue here that the government has defined the heartlander in terms of qualities that resist change, Woo Yen Yen and Colin Goh argue in Chapter 6 that the government has also belittled - even outlawed - the more creative qualities of heartland Singaporeans such as their use of the local English variant known as Singlish. This, Woo and Goh believe, has effectively excluded the Singlish-speaking heartlander from effective public participation. And yet, as I argue here, the abstract heartlander is constantly invoked in the government's public explanations against change that it does not want.

Because who even is the "moral majority"?

As long as I'm lovin' on Woo Yen Yen, in her co-authored chapter with her husband, Colin Goh:

... and may be impaired by their lack of facility with the English language. Are they only allowed to make minor decisions in relation to their own lives such as what colour they want their public housing flats to be painted? How can we avoid policy being determined in ways that recall a scene out of the Platonic dialogues, with political elders and wealthy, connected, male scholars discussing how to secure a happy concord for citizens over dinner in a rich merchant's house? The debate may be intellectual, sincere, and data-driven, but its exclusivity will invariably undermine its legitimacy and responsiveness to the needs of different groups of Singaporeans.

Yessssss. (Tangentially, might I just bring up the fact that Woo Yen Yen is a huge role model in the sense that she is doing all the things I find worthwhile - as a satirist and filmmaker and activist - and graduated from the same girls' secondary school as I did, a school which always somewhat suffered from the image of producing docile, un-outspoken students as a result of its Chinese/Confucian value system, which is... a whole other debate for another day. SHE IS AMAZING. Also, that she tends - depressingly - to be profiled in the context of "wife of Colin Goh, satirist and founder of satirical website TalkingCock.com.)

In general, I found this a great book. (Greatest parts: the chapters K.P. Tan wrote. Um) It read like a love letter to civil society activism at times (something which I had no problem with in general since I've just started getting involved with the scene and am growing increasingly enamoured with the amazing people I've met so far), but it was pretty comprehensive in its spread - it included chapters about Singapore's earliest Internet community, forum theatre, Muslim politics (the 'tudung incident' being recasted as an act of civil disobedience... omg. you know what, it totally is!), and youth: 'every generation's moral panic' (I found what Tan had to say about scapegoating REALLY PRESCIENT and absolutely spot-on, given the fact that youths are especially beleaguered in the Singaporean context, and also one of the most shat-on demographics anywhere in the world). As some of the chapters were written by practitioners and participants in civil society, the book in general wasn't as academic as I'd have liked, but that was fine.

What I would have liked more of, though, was a head-on tackling of the 'Asian values' rhetoric I saw being mentioned then summarily dismissed in so many of the chapters of this book. Yes, it is true that 'Asian values' don't say much on the face of it, given that Asia is made up of several disparate communities with their own systems of ethical and moral adjudication, and that modern societies in themselves are more often than not more likely to be heterogeneous and homogeneous, but a) doesn't this lend more weight to the idea that 'human rights' are a Western imposition than indigenous? (Note: I'm not denying the reality of human rights, I just want to see a more thorough deconstruction of the obstructing 'Asian values' rights.) b) Asian values rhetoric has been used Singapore, give or take, for about thirty years. Within that period of time, I find it highly probable that this rhetoric has taken root/been internalised by Singaporeans, i.e. "become true" over time. Again, I think the idea of 'Asian values' patronising and one-size-fits-all, I just found the treatment of it in this book less penetrating than I think the contributors to it are capable of. I feel like there's a lot to be said of Asian conservatism and how its mushrooming was spurred on by Christian fundamentalism in the region, and how that in itself was a result of British colonialism (thus deepening, though not falsifying, the correlating rhetoric of 'Western degeneracy'). ALSO, the paradox that is the allying of 'Asian values' with 'rugged individualism', in the sense that the individual is treated as the family is the basic unit of society, and that is given as an alternative to welfarism (a 'Western' thing), when if we are to speak of 'Asian values' with any cogency at all we should also discuss collectivism and the community, both of which are generally given more priority in Asian cultures. (See: the American saying 'the squeaky wheel gets the oil', and its Japanese equivalent, 'the protruding nail gets hammered down', etc.)

And beyond that, if (to use an analogy) the feminist movement worldwide must be brought forward by the nascent movements in developing countries (... this is not my argument, I came across it in a book but I forgot which), or strategies for domestic violence must be targeted at women of colour and women with immigrant status in order that positive effect is not disproportionately distributed to battered white women, then liberalisation in Singapore must not be a "Western" (yes yes, the homogenising effect of the word acknowledged - not everyone in Europe or the US are raging liberals, I am only too aware) import but be indigenous to it. In essence: how do we go forward?

... my god that was a lot of thoughts, not all of them on books. I apologise!

Jointly & Severably, by Eleanor Wong | Wills & Secession, by Eleanor Wong | Mergers & Accusations, by Eleanor Wong | GASPP: A Gay Anthology of Singaporean Poetry & Prose, edited by Ng Yi-Sheng | Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier | Gone Case, by Dave Chua | Sex and the City, by Candace Bushnell | The Waters & the Wild, by Francesca Lia Block | Growing Up: Getting Along in the Sixties, by Tisa Ng | Oreo, by Fran Ross | Caucasia, by Danzy Senna | Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class, by Owen Jones | Racism: A Very Short Introduction | Modern China: A Very Short Introduction, by Rana Mitter | Feminism: A Very Short Introduction, by Margaret Waters | A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin | Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean | Sons of the Yellow Emperor, by Lynn Pan | Scapegoat: Why We Are Failing Disabled People, by Katharine Quarmby | Tipping The Velvet, by Sarah Waters | Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro | The Lantern Bearers, by Rosemary Sutcliff | The Silver Branch, by Rosemary Sutcliff | The Eagle of the Ninth, by Rosemary Sutcliff | The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli | Brick Lane, by Monica Ali | The Savage Detectives, by Robert Bolano | Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell | Cat On A Hot-Tin Roof, by Tennessee Williams | Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Style, Celebrity, and the Women Who Made America Modern, by Joshua Zeitz | Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, by Jeanette Winterson | The Moon By Night, by Madeleine L'Engle | To Live, by Yu Hua | Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer | The Next Competitor, by K.P. Kincaid | Raffles Place Ragtime, by Phillip Jeyaretnam | Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy, by Frances Mayes | Mao's Last Dancer, by Li Cunxin | Marie, Dancing, by Carolyn Meyer | Man Walks Into A Room, by Nicole Krauss | How To Be Good, by Nick Hornby