The United Altered States of Maryam

Revolutionaries, self important children of Independence, a cat whisperer, struggling writers, struggling Coke-fiend writers, an Egyptian family – oh, the people you get to know through books. Some of the books I’ve read in recent (+not so recent) times:

1. The Bolivian Diary by Ernesto “Che” Guevara (+The Motorcycle Diaries)
The prose itself is nothing to shout about. Of course, if you were holed up somewhere in the Bolivian jungle, leading a guerilla army, you too would have little time to wax poetic about the moon and the stars, the sand between your toes and the bullet between your shoulder blades. This is the diary of Che Guevara right before he was captured and shot thirty something times and went on to grace the front of many t-shirts. If you happen to own of these t-shirts and find yourself confusing Guevara’s iconic mug with that of Zach de la Rocha from Rage Against the Machine (and trust me, I’ve met someone like you before), I’m sure Zach is flattered but you might want to try reading this.
A few years ago, I read Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries – his personal journal from when he was 23 years old, before he became “El Che” and an icon of the Cuban revolution, when he was just a young medical student on a road trip around Latin America with his buddy. While the American media often portrays Guevara as a cold, hard, executioner and The Bolivian Diary doesn’t do much for making the guy seem more affable, the Motorcycle Diaries presents quite a different story. It’s not a book about revolution or guerilla warfare but instead, it’s more of a coming-of-age account of a young adult, someone not much different from you and I, coming out of his largely comfortable, middle class bubble for the first time and is awakened to the realities and injustices of the world. He sees the harsh treatment of mine workers, the ruins of a once great civilization destroyed by corruption and gunpowder, he feels plain hunger, and he quite nobly, volunteers his services to a leper colony without treating the patients well, like lepers. At the same time, he’s no shiny, superhuman hero; he’s not infallible to the stupidity of young love nor the follies of idealism. It makes him well, relatable. And he writes well. He really does. Reading both journals, I started out thinking that I was going to be learning about how a man changed the world but what I actually discovered instead, was how the world can change a man. From that nice boy next door that you think you could’ve comfortably hung out with, to the historical icon that is hero to some and villain to others and well, the lead vocalist of Rage Against the Machine to a misinformed few.

*Note: I came home to find that my copy of The Motorcycle Diaries has been booknapped by a phantom reader. If I ever find you, I’m torn between wanting to hit you for spiriting away one of my favorite reads and wanting to congratulate you for making such an excellent version from my bookshelf. You could’ve done a lot worse for yourself by stealing one of those crappy Anne Rice novels buried somewhere in the back of the shelf. Well, at least they won’t be missed by me. Oh, and the movie based on The Motorcycle Diaries, directed by brilliant director, Walter Salles and starring the equally brilliant, Gael Garcia Bernal is an excellent watch. And not because I think Bernal is the sexiest short man alive. That’s not the point.

2. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
It’s typical of Murakami isn’t it? Something starts out seeming like some kind of murder mystery with a cat-killing figure called Johnnie Walker and ends up really being a meditation/ exploration of the nature of existence, life, etc…yadida. Don’t let my yadidas fool you, I’m actually a fan of Murakami, I’m just a terrible book-reviewer. Yes indeed, more important than ‘who-killed-who’ is ‘why are we here?!!’

3. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
My first experience of Rushdie’s work was The Ground Beneath Her Feet and I was taken by how Rushdie managed to use a fantastical, fairy tale-like narrative to tell a story that is deeply rooted and concerned with history and social realities. Still, I was told that it isn’t one of his best works and I should try reading Midnight’s Children which is an interesting way of looking at the birth of Modern India and Pakistan. So I did. I went to a second-hand bookstore on the Gold Coast and bought myself a copy for 6 Aussie Dollars right before I was due to return home to KL for the summer holidays. And then what do I find out? I could’ve saved AU$6 (approx RM18) and fished the book out for free from the Johor Straits. Apparently, this book is on the list of banned/restricted/we-think-it-is-but-it’s-not-for-sure-because-no-one-knows-what-the-fuck-exactly-they’re-doing books in Malaysia. Apparently, it has been deemed a threat to our morality by the good people at our Kementerian Keselamatan Dalam Negeri. Uhm, excuse me, a threat to whose morality, exactly? Morality is subjective and relative and one would have to have a certain degree of intelligence to discern what is right and what is wrong. By dictating to the people what they can and cannot read as if they were still trying to learn the alphabet and struggling to boost their IQ into double digits, you become a threat to our intelligence and thus, can it be said that you are a threat to our morality and we’d have to throw you into the sea? Oh yes, some things are banned/restricted on the basis that they might alarm public opinion so shouldn’t we then restrict our ministers, government officials and authority figures from saying the alarmingly inane things they do in the press? Put a duct tape over their mouth and throw them into the sea? Oooh, don’t tempt me.

4. Ideas that Changed the World by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
This book is really more of an Idiot’s Guide to Everything Anyone Has Ever Thought Of. It contains a brief overview of nearly all the bright ideas Humankind has had since the dawn of history – from cannibalism to cultural pluralism which most also accept the idea of anti-pluralism – it’s a good place to start learning a little about everything but not a whole lot about anything. Useful to have around for: a) boring someone to tears with your fun facts during small talk so they’ll leave you alone b) fooling people into thinking that you know more than you actually do and c) when your niece and nephew is at that age when they want to know about historical dialectic and you can’t remember anything you’ve learned in uni because you’ve become a mindless drone who yaps on about that artist who had a scandal with Datuk SoandSo all the time, you can just hand them this book and tell them to turn to page XYZ and leave you alone.

5. Down & Out in Paris & London by George Orwell (+1984)
I have a confession to make: it took me ages to get through Orwell’s 1984 when I read it awhile back because I kept falling asleep after every three pages. Not because it lacked any interesting, thought-provoking ideas (quite the contrary) but because I found Orwell’s style of writing like a charcoal suit left out in the desert – dull and dry. But when you’re writing about Dystopia, fanciful and flowery prose would just ruin the effect, wouldn’t it? I suppose the same can be said for Down & Out which is basically, about poverty and as Orwell clearly demonstrates, there’s nothing pretty or romantic about poverty. It’s true that life kicks you when you’re down, then bitch slaps you twice and flicks your nose. It’s all too easy to keep staying down when you’re down. Poverty and homelessness doesn’t only affect the lazy, the junkies and the crazed. Through a few cruel twists of fate, you might find your relatively hard-working, relatively sane self in dire consequences. Aspiring artists and writers be warned, maybe you should’ve listened to your momma when she told you to be a lawyer. Oh, bah! Screw that. Oh, by the way, I found an old, interesting article from the New York Times about Orwell’s 1984: click (here) if you’re interested in reading a few excerpts from the article.

6. Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
Like in Orwell’s Down & Out, here is another story about a struggling/aspiring writer. Except, while Orwell’s depression was largely economic, the narrator of this book’s depression is really all in his cocaine-fuelled head. Set in New York City in the heady, glitzy 80s, the narrator works as a fact-checker in the Department of Factual Verification at a well-known magazine and whinges about wanting to work in Fiction instead, his supermodel wife just left him which results in more whingeing and coke snorting with a nightlife-loving, freewheeling friend called Tad Allagash, whom the narrator describes as either reminding him of his best self or his worst self, a character and description that reminds me of a few of my own real life friends. The book starts out funny, in a cynical, tragic way but by the end, you find out the narrator’s doing all this cause his mommy died the year before and he misses her. Boo-hoo. Uh. Alright, alright, I might have missed the point entirely. The book has been dubbed the ‘80s version of The Great Gatsby but I don’t recall being overcome by a feeling of ‘Meh’ at the end of The Great Gatsby.

7. Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
Eh, I just bought this book and am only halfway through it. Check back with me later.

8. Projek: Elarti (December 06 – “Majalah Kulturpop yang Plural Lagi Liberal”)
A non-profit project and an interesting and refreshing magazine read because Off the Edge is “Arts and Culture for the Business Person” and you’re thinking – What?! The Business Person is interested in arts and culture?!! And Cleo and all those girlie mags about 10 Ways to Wank A Man and 100 Pants that Flatter Your Fat Ass only If You’re Willing to Lose About a 100 pounds and spend 1000 ringgit is poison to your system. I’m probably a bit late in pimping this magazine but I think we’ve established a while ago that I’m slow, alright? For more info, click “Dubuk Dekaden” in the links section and find your way from there.

Posted by Maryam on Wednesday, January 31, 2007 at 2:17 PM | Permalink