Haruki Murakami / Sputnik Sweetheart

Decided to sit down and read before i start marking... wanted to just stop halfway, but finished anyhow cos i forgot to stop.

So this is the lightest read of Murakami.
It is similar to his other works, but still rather different...
Using his quirky marginalised characters again, he brings readers round and round in the story, zooming into the lives of these characters... forcing readers to deny again their deepest darkest fears/realities/dreams/etc while they flip the pages.

Murakami's characters, usually, seemed rather out of the world for me.
But in Sputnik, they tend to come alive more(even though they still do weird things).
i tend to sympathise more with K (the narrator) and the emotional concerns he went through while in search of the missing Sumire. By flying to greece and meeting up with Miu (Sumire's lesbian lover who cannot reciprocate physically with her) reconciled his inner desires/feelings for sumire.

It may seem abrupt at the end for Sumire to reappear in K's life after some time.
And that K's cool and steady reaction "that's good" clearly showed the reversed in his mind.
i donno where the relationship will go from there.
But it seems, i feel a part of K in me.

Clay Aiken / Learning to Sing

Usually when we do read memoirs, it's either for a paper or that he/she is one who had really done something impactful for the country or the world. And this one that i've just finished was neither. I only remember clay aiken as the second runner up for the American Idol 2. It was THAT time when all the "star searching" started.

No doubt this book was out to tap on his fast increasing fanbase during that AI period, as it was really easy reading. Some parts make me laugh and cry... Some parts made me think: hey that's life again, right? And there was this part about this... when he went on The Ellen Show, he doesn't understand why many of his relatives question him about going on the show... and by doing this he is condoning her lifestyle... and after the book, i went to pull out this first CD of his: Measure of a Man and ran it.

So i was trying to look for a good clip of his, i saw this... he looks TOTALLY DIFFERENT now.
See how stardom / tv / pop industry can change one's physical looks... well with money of course...
In the clip there was this contestant who claims to be a clay-wannabe, and well, yeah... maybe if he could sing like clay, he'd have the same stardom fate... but i can understand why the judges said no immediately. Well, think positively, he still got to sing with clay in the finals!



Well, many things happen everyday.
Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be.

Umberto Eco / How to Travel with a Salmon & other essays

Saw the recommendation from anobii online bookshelf and managed to get it from the library.

It's an interesting read.... did some brief readup on the author and actually this italian novelist / columnist was well-known for his novel "The name of the rose", but i couldn't find this book on the library shelves... but this book is a recommendation for anybody who wants some light reading, easy to digest (for pple who aren't very proficient in the language like me)...

i had good laughs while i held the book the whole of last afternoon.
U don't have to follow chapters, u can just flip to any page and start reading and u'll still get good stuffs.

I especially loved this one: "How it begins and how it ends".
Eco, during his university days loved movies and dramas, but becos of certain rules and regulations, he had to leave the theatre/cinema before midnight. Thus he did not have the luxury of knowing the ending of each and every movie/drama he went to. His friend on the other hand, was in charge of ticketing, and the numbers of latecomers alwiz let him end up missing the front part of the movie/drama. Thus he did not have the opportunity to know what went on in the beginning that laid the plots. So one day they sat down and talked about it. The anguish and disappointment they had was the same even though one was about the start and the other about the end. So they started to talk about it and filled each other about the parts they had missed. And Eco reflects after the event...

"Will we be happier afterwards? Or will we have lost the freshness of those who are privileged to experience art as real life, where we enter after the trumps have been played, and we leave without knowing who's going to win or lose the game?"

probably we will alwiz moan about things we've missed and we will alwiz be curious about things that we had missed. The curiosity may hang on us for many years till it was dug up again, and finally the key to your question was found... but later we realised... SO WHAT?

Life goes on. :)

只是好朋友？

     





     愛情裡最殘忍的曖昧
     是我明明知道我愛你
     而我們卻只是好朋友
 
     友情裡最自私的膽怯
     是你明明知道你愛我
     而你還假裝只是朋友
 
     兩個人，不勇敢，怎麼愛？


那天在Kino看到这本书。
看到了。却没有把它带回家。
眼角再次瞥见时，将它抛在脑后。
回家之后，竟然莫名其妙想起它。
还清晰记得作者的网站：橘子文字債

几米 / 我的错都是大人的错

很久都没有看到几米的作品。
趁着九月假期，把这部作品翻透。
最近，身边发生了一些事情。
对于内容，确实有些感触。
孩子们的错，是不是都是大人们的错呢？
我有时甚至不知道，自己被迫成长，被迫照顾比我小的孩子？
我其实还是一个不太愿意长大的小孩，一个已经超龄的小朋友。
有时间的话，请看看这本书。
不知道你会不会也有同感。


几米官方网站介绍《我的错都是大人的错》

Now Reading:BILL BRYSON / A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING

Khaled Hosseini / The Kite Runner

前两个星期在Port Douglas闲晃的时候，在街边的一间书店看见了这本书。
由于那里的商店很早就打烊，所以晚上时间都是在网咖流连，上网看书。
在前往悉尼之前，书已过半。

书名还未看出端倪。
越深入，不知道为何，越来越伤感。
特别是故事主人翁小时候的仆人被欺负那事。
那段之后，夜晚变得特别漫长。
kinda affected.
事件发生之后，被欺负的仆人一直都没有露面。
主人翁一辈子所背负的罪恶感，一直到他长大成人才慢慢化解。
在父亲病逝和父亲亲信Rahim khan病危的时候，他才发现一个惊人的秘密。

结局并不难猜出来。
但是，看到了延伸。
人与人之间的情谊，是一种莫名的联系。
血缘，也是一种无法言喻的感应。

梁文福 / 左手的快乐

很久都没有时间好好坐下来阅读。
机缘巧合之下，图书馆今年的READ！Singapore所选其一本地创作就是这本梁文福的《左手的快乐》

由于工作繁忙，喜欢看小说却没有时间，所以只好选择容易消化的微型小说。
正好这本书就出现在眼前。

偶尔伤感、偶尔讽刺的风格，并不陌生。
每一个小故事，是那么贴近身边发生的事件。
即使是盲目的岛国人都能够多少产生一丁点的共鸣。

这里分享一则小故事。

文化交流

下个月，将会有一批参加文化交流计划的美国学生到我们学校来上课。我在华文课时把这件事情告诉了班上的孩子，他们都很兴奋，表示要在课余的时间带新朋友到处看看。我鼓励他们把最想推荐的重要地点写下来。

第二天，有一个叫贾汉仁的学生把他列出的去处给我看，只见小纸条上写着：
1 Takashimaya
2 MacDonald
3 Boat Quay

我跟他说，这样怎么可算是介绍自己的文化？写一个英文名单给一个华文老师，太不象话了。
他把纸条拿回去，过了一会儿，又来找我，这次名单变成：
1 GaoDaoWu
2 MaiDangLao
3 BoChuanMaTou

我看了，比先前更气，对他说：“这是华文吗？”
他可怜兮兮地说：“老师，我不会写。”

我要他查字典。一个小时后，贾汉仁回来了，纸条上终于写着：
1 高岛屋
2 麦当劳
3 驳船码头

我称赞他：“这才叫有自己的文化。”他临走时，我再问他一句：“你打算带新朋友到驳船码头去做什么？”他回过头，笑得很灿烂：“去那里吃墨西哥餐。”

或许看官们都会嗤声笑，但是现实确实如此。
身为华文老师的，竟然把文化这个要求降得如此低，有何感想？
高岛屋、麦当劳，竟然高居榜首，充满文化历史的驳船码头退居第三位。
曾经驳船码头的辉煌历史，如今已感受到全球化的压迫。
结尾的贾汉仁笑得灿烂，文化的命运已经被这些人无知地挥霍贻尽。

无奈。

或许
左撇子那种夺命吸引力是无法解释清楚的。