66 - 68: get out, get out, get out of my head.

[extemporally]

Five Get Into Trouble, by Enid Blyton.

Yo, so I read this in the library, and very quickly too, so I don't have any quotes to post or remember much about this or anything like that except for the biking through the countryside (chances of parents allowing four kids to ride through the country in real life being ridiculously low aside, cycling in the #ountry is exactly as awesome as Blyton makes it out to be!!!) and the house with the smuggled man and the ~~abused lady~~. Blyton, why do all your plots sound so dumb when I outline them like that?

YEAH, SO I DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING INTERESTING TO SAY THIS TIME ROUND

Malay Sketches, by Alfian Sa'at.

So Alfian Sa'at is that one author I frequently plotz over and whose FB profile I look at way too much and always find interesting even when I disagree with what he says, often vociferously, and think pretty much is an asshole in real life but in a way I can understand, and I have been waiting for this collection for so long, so the chances that I was not going to like this were always going to be pretty low to begin with, anyway.

But the way he does syntax and dialogue and politics is just:

"Yah what, you were the only girl wearing a tudung among all the students. He probably thought, oh, this is a girl who can balance between studies and religion. And then you had to spoil everything."

"So what did the audience think?"

"People were shocked. He looked really stupid. His one hand sticking out. Like the Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel, you know, but just one hand lah. Some people didn't know whether to continue clapping or what."

So overnight, I became this poster girl for Malay non-integration. Apparently the President, in his memoirs to be written years down the road, would one day describe how Malays had become more and more fundamentalist, just because a panicky girl one day decided not to shake his hand. As damage control, my sister suggested that I write a letter to the President. I showed her the first draft.

"You're not apologising," she said. "You're just justifying what you did."

"No I'm not. I'm educating him."

She rolled her eyes. "You nak educate the President? Who are you?"

Here is a thing: I quite often have pretty conflicted feelings about my accent and where I come from and the fact that my voice often gets Anglicised quite unwittingly when I'm in England. THIS SECTION THO. This section makes me want to do dramatic readings with the ~~Singaporean accent~~ on full blast: "YOU nak eduCATE the President? Who are YOU?" like that. yes.

I love how tragic he gets here, often:

Two years later, in an editing room, a producer was reviewing rushes to be used for a montage for the National Day Celebrations. Ordinary Singaporeans were asked to respond to the question, 'What will you defend?' A yuppie-type with black-framed glasses said, 'My job.' A scout hesitatingly said, 'My future?' A woman at a food court said, 'Myself.' And then Jason appeared on the monitor. He was wearing his army uniform, with his green beret. He stared straight into the camera, and in a slow, measured tone, said, 'I will defend my family. My beautiful wife, and my one-year-old son.'

The producer thought this was the most heartfelt and sincere testimony, and slotted it right at the end of the montage. It helped that one could almost detect tears filling up the soldier's eyes.

ALL THE FEELINGS ABOUT HOW NONE OF THEM SAY 'MY COUNTRY' and NATIONALIST PROPAGANDA and SEPARATISM and ANGER

To be honest...... I'm not sure what to say about this collection. I find it brilliant, and so much has already been said about how the title, itself, is a reclamation of the 1895 collection Malay Sketches, put together by a British colonial officer, and how thematically it's about an indigenous community marginalised by newcomers which have themselves become the majority, and how that's bound up in a nostalgia for the past and it's about class and dignity and community. I think Singapore would be a better country if students had to read this in English class and Social Studies and think about the Maria Hertogh riots and do history, really do history, in a way that strikes deeper than just reading Understanding Our Past and. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say except that last week I met up with an old friend from high school and we got froyo and talked about how we want so many things for this country, like good cultural journalism and how much it sucked to grow up in a place that was so different from the type of pop culture that was being imported in; that your mental landscape turned out so different from what you saw, what you actually saw, around you. If I'd read Alfian Sa'at back then I don't think I would have been less angry or confused, exactly, but maybe I would've known what I was being angry or confused about. I appreciate his vision for Singapore, much as it may seem, on the surface, like a retrospective one. I appreciate it very much.

Read this, at least:

A few weeks later, Pak Jumat visited Keong's house to watch himself on TV. To his disappointment, the picture on Keong's screen was shaking terribly. All he could see were images sliced into ribbons, with glimpses of faces, but coloured purpole or green. Pak Jumat tried adjusting the aerial, but it was no use.

"Keong," Pak Jumat said, "You know or not your TV spoil?"

"How I know? I just listen to the sound only."

Pak Jumat was ready to leave. The show was in Mandarin, and there was little point in him staying on. But Keong started to translate for him.

"The hosts are talking right now," said Keong. "They're welcoming the guests-of-honour. And they're telling the viewers the number to call if they want to donate."

It was half an hour into the show, and Pak Jumat's segment had yet to appear. In the meantime, Keong had described which TV stars were appearing, and how much money had been raised. Pak Jumat noticed that Keong looked especially animated. This was probably the first time that Keong was helping someone else to see.

"I think you're on now," said Keong. "You're saying that you live alone. Your wife died and you don't have children. And you have sweet urine sickness."

"What's that?" It came to him within a second. "Oh, diabetes ah?"

Pak Jumat asked Keong if he wanted to have some Marie biscuits. The TV crew had given him a food hamper for agreeing to the interview.

"You mean they never give you money ah?" Keong replied. "You help them one, you know? People hear your story and then got more calls coming in."

Pak Jumat's mind wandered to the time when he was a child, dunking Marie biscuits in Milo. Depending on the cup's diameter, a side of his biscuit would be darkened, and it would look like one of the phases of the moon. Keong and Pak Jumat were old men now, so they dipped their biscuits in rich, black coffee. Pak Jumat's doctor had warned him against indulging in coffee, but he believed this was a special occasion.

"You also don't have many friends," he heard Keong's voice say. "Your friends all live far away."

Pak Jumat decided that he would take the whole hamper to Keong's house. He had yet to unwrap it, but had glimpsed through the orange cellophane wrapping a fruitcake, tinned peaches, butter cookies. He would let Keong choose what to open and eat. He didn't want to let Keong wait too long for him. Keong deserved better company than an accidental radio.

♥♥♥♥♥

A Tale of Time City, by Diana Wynne Jones.

Oh hey, look, my first Diana Wynne Jones!

... I actually have no idea why it took me so long to crack open one of her novels. I enjoyed this! I enjoyed this very much: it was a brilliant romp, the kind where you read way too fast because you want to know what happens next and then don't really get what's going on, but I will probably reread and have something more insightful to say the next time besides ♥THE VIVIANS♥ and DAMN THAT WAS A GOOD PLOT TWIST and also DOCTOR WILANDER :DDDDD and the Faber John resolution was basically the inspiration for Doctor Who's Utopia, wasn't it?

Next time I will: allow less time and fewer books to go by in between reviews. I never have anything terribly exciting to say except for one book at a time. /o\ On the bright side, I finally got around to keeping a list of books I want to read, and referring to it when I'm at the library. I now have a whole stack of books I'm really excited about! \o/ Currently reading: Raymond Carver.