East of Eden is an epic novel of the oldest topic in the history of mankind, or “the only story we have” according to Steinbeck: good vs. evil. Set in early 1900s US, we follow the life of family threads for generations. It’s the era of settlement. People migrate, look for a place to stay, and cultivate the land. New towns and cities are built. Everybody tries to fit into a role: blacksmith, businessman, farmer, student, soldier, sheriff, seamstress, pimp, whore.

East of Eden has biblical undertone, with the story of Cain and Abel resonates throughout the book. The two major conflicts between brothers are the focus, along with conflict between Adam and his … not Eve, but Cathy. For me Cathy is easily the most interesting character in the book. It is made clear from the very beginning that there is something lacking in her. That she seems to be born with no conscience, doing one evil deed after another with no guilt nor regret, except when it endangers her situation. The other very interesting character is Lee, the Chinese-descent man who lives with Adam, first as his servant, later as his trusted friend. Clearly it was a time where racism was rampant, so even though Lee is all American born, everybody sees him as an outsider. To fit into the mold people expect him to be, he talks pidgin–broken English with heavy fake Chinese accent.

I would say East of Eden is a character centric novel, which I really enjoyed as I like my novel to have strong believable characters, while plot could be secondary. I do have a slight nagging feeling that the book is possibly enjoyed more by men than women. There is a myriad of major male characters, with only one major female character, who is the epitome of evil. I could be wrong. If you have read it, what do you think?

Steinbeck’s prose is straightforward and beautifully descriptive. I enjoyed the 600-page tome very much, though at times I wished it could be a little tighter. Will surely read more of his books in the future!

1952, 600pp

Memorable Quotes

“You can boast about anything if it’s all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.” ~ p4

“When a child first catches adults out–when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just–his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child’s world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing.” ~ p19

“I’ll have you know that a soldier is the most holy of all humans because he is the most tested–most tested of all. I’ll try to tell you. Look now–in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced. Any man who kills must be destroyed because this is a great sin, maybe the worst sin we know. And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, ‘Use it well, use it wisely.’ We put no checks on him. Go out and kill as many of a certain kind or classification of your brothers as you can. Ad we will reward you for it because it is a violation of your early training.” ~ p24

“I think the difference between a lie and a story is that a story utilizes the trappings and appearance of truth for the interest of the listener as well as of the teller. A story has in it neither gain nor loss. But a lie is a device for profit or escape. I suppose if that definition is strictly held to, then a writer of stories is a liar–if he is financially fortunate.” ~ p73

“Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.” ~ p131

“”Do you have Chinese ghosts?” Samuel asked
“Millions,” said Lee. “We have more ghosts than anything else. I guess nothing in China ever dies. It’s very crowded.”" ~ p261

“It was not laziness if he was a rich man. Only the poor were lazy. Just as only the poor were ignorant. A rich man who didn’t know anything was spoiled or independent.” ~ p339

Project
Guardian’s 1000 novels everyone must read | Nobel Laureates in Literature

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A Guy’s Moleskin Notebook | Rebecca Reads
(Did I miss yours? Let me know!)

East of Eden The Movie (1955)

The movie covers only the second part of the novel with Cal (Adam’s son) as the main character. Here’s what is off: Cal in the book is the unlikeable kid with the dark face while Aron is one with angelic face who everybody likes. Well, Cal in the movie is soooooo good-looking. Seriously, it is unlike me to gush over a movie star, but my gosh I could not take my eyes off him. WHO IS HE? WHO IS THIS PRETTY YOUNG MAN? I looked him up and apparently he’s James Dean! Whose name I had heard of before of course, but I never quite knew what he looked like or what movies he was in. Apparently East of Eden was one of only the three movies in which James Dean played a major part, and he died on a tragic car crash at the age of 24! What a loss! (It’s also so weird that I feel so much loss over someone who died more than 55 years ago because I just found out about him yesterday!) James Dean was nominated for Oscar for Best Actor in 2 different movies posthumously (East of Eden was one of them). It was the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. Imagine what he could achieve had he stayed alive!

Apart from James Dean’s nomination for Best Actor, East of Eden was also nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay. Jo Van Fleet won Best Actress in Supporting Role for her Kate role. It’s really a decent movie, just that again it’s a bit off in its portrayal of Cal and Aron. I felt so much for Cal (SO HURT AND PERFECT-LOOKING) and Aron was this insensitive prick who is really quite annoying (also not so good-looking). So uum.. yes I had stopped being objective and all, what with James Dean stealing my heart completely.

Another big change was the inexistent of Lee the Chinese man. What a shame. I would’ve loved to see how they would handle it. Most of his roles in the story is taken by Abra (Aron’s girlfriend). The love story here is also more emphasized than the book.

Would I recommend the movie? Yes yes yes. Two words. James. Dean.

Rating: 8/10

Look at that gorgeous face

ps: Some birds said that a new East of Eden movie is in the making. It’s a huge book so I’m curious to whether they’d take the same portion of the book to screen as the 1955 version. And who’s going to play Cal? (assuming his story is in) Who wants to be compared to James Dean?! Wouldn’t want to be him.

“The Red Tree began an experimental narrative more than anything else: the idea of a book without a story. I’ve always loved Chris Van Allsburg’s classic picture book ‘The Mysteries of Harris Burdick’ (1984) which is a great example of word-picture enigmas, exhibiting partial fragments of unknown stories and leaving the reader to use their imagination. It has no sequential narrative, which is something a picture book is ideal for – you can open it at any page, go backwards or forwards, and spend as much time as you wish with each image.” ~ Shaun Tan’s comment on The Red Tree

I was intrigued when he mentioned Chris Van Allsburg. Never heard of him before. A quick browse of his name showed that not only he’s a very successful author and illustrator, of books that have been made into films like Jumanji and Polar Express, but also how close his artwork style is to Tan’s. It’s easy to see where Tan got his inspirations from. The images reminded me distinctly of The Arrival. I’ll be sure to look out for his books in near future!

Going back to The Red Tree, it contains ones of the strongest images that I have seen several times featured by other bloggers. And the book is as good as everyone raves it to be. It’s really hard to imagine The Red Tree to be read by little children, fairly dark and depressing as it is, even though it ends with a hopeful note. (In case you missed it–I did, there’s a small almost unnoticed red leaf at every page, symbolizing hope)

“nobody understands”

“sometimes you just don’t know what you are supposed to do”

“or who you are meant to be”

The Red Tree is such a beautiful book. Every page could stand on its own as a surreal painting. I love having it in my Shaun Tan personal library.

2001, 32pp

The Red Tree as puppet-based theatre production (Queensland, 2004) — with some spectacular images

Also reviewed by
su[shu] | things mean a lot | mental foodie

An enormous share of the country’s wealth was squandered on the military. North Korea’s defense budget eats up 25 percent of its gross national product–as opposed to an average of less than 5 percent for industrialized countries. Although there had been no fighting in Korea since 1953, the country kept one million men under arms, giving this tiny country, no bigger than Pennsylvania, the fourth-largest military in the world. ~ p65

Much wisdom in the saying “One death is a tragedy; a thousand is a statistic.” and Demick understood this. She followed the life of six defectors and took the human angles of the catastrophe that is North Korea. It must be the weirder place on the planet at the moment, like a place you would read in dystopian fictions. It is ruled by an absolute dictator who brainwashes everybody in the country to think that their leader is God–not just a respected country leader, but God–the true and only path to salvation, the provider of everything that you need in your life.

Most people, like me, are probably curious of why the citizens do not make a move, when it is obvious their leaders the Kims are losing control of situation, when people are starving everywhere, dropping like flies. You would understand when you read the book. The government controls so much of every aspect of its citizens’ life that it is impossible to stray off path. First, with absolute communism system, nobody practically gets salary. They get a tiny amount, like a few dollars a month, that they could use for extra things like hair cut or make up. But the food is provided by the government based on coupon system, which people get when they do work. Everybody is assigned workplace and house. There are “community polices” everywhere in the neighbourhood to ensure everyone is behaving. A tiniest scruple or disagreement expressed about their leader would get people in trouble. Radio and TV are restricted to only North Korean channels, all carefully constructed to let the citizens know that North Korea is the place to be. South Korea, China, Japan are poor and horrible (hence the title of the book, which is taken from a popular national chant). US is their ultimate enemy. Don’t even mention Internet. North Korea is the only country in the world not connected to the Internet by choice. And I’m just barely scratching the surface here.

North Korea was (and remains as of this writing in 2009) the last place on earth where virtually all staples are grown on collective farms. The state confiscates the entire harvest and then gives a portion back to the farmer. ~ p67

The peak of North Korean starvation happened in 1998, when millions were dying while the rest did unthinkable things to survive. The coupon system came to a halt, nobody got food or salary. People ate bark trees, grass, rotten fruits, you name it. I found out that in famine the females have more chance to survive than the males, even though the males are usually given priority for food in the family. Death also gets to the young and the old first. Mrs. Song, one of the defector featured in the book, lost her aged mother-in-law, her husband and soon her son. People don’t necessarily starve to death. Often some other ailments get them first. Chronic malnutrition impairs the body’s ability to battle infection and the hungry become susceptible to all kinds of illnesses.

This is a very emotional book for me for many reasons as I kept seeing parallels with my own life. Coincidentally 1998 was also the darkest time for Chinese-ethnic citizens in Indonesia. In May 1998 there was mass anti-Chinese attacks that crippled the whole nation for 10 days and chased away many out of the country. People were killed, home and business were burned down, and there were mass gang-rapes of women including children, too horrible to even mention. It was a massive turning point for all Chinese-ethnic Indonesians. People’s lives were changed forever. Even now 13 years later it is still talked about among us, the wounds are raw and effects are always carried. My life too was changed forever. I fled the country a few months later, did not finish high school, and was told by my dad to never come back, leaving everything behind: home, family, friends, school, and the only place I ever knew. I guess I too am a defector. I fled and renounce my birth citizenship. For many people this is a rather foreign concept. Your home, your citizenship, is the place where you were born and grew up in and nothing can change that. Sometimes people ask me whether it was a hard thing to do, to “give up” my citizenship. As if it is something worth holding on to. It’s hard to explain. How do you explain the dark side of your country that made you leave and never look back? I wonder if someday I could possibly visit my hometown without any trace of bitterness. I’m lucky to personally survive pretty much unscathed, thought it’s not the case for thousands of people.

Among the 6 defectors that are the focus in the book, I connected most with Mi-ran and Jun-sang and their little teenage romance, since again I saw some parallels with my own life. I too had a little something with a boy from high school at a tumultuous time and place, unfortunately, and got separated to live in different countries. Mi-ran and Jun-sang had to go to great lengths to reach each other, spending most of their later years staying at different cities and communicating with slow unreliable postal system. My boyfriend and I used to send one letter every week and number them, so we knew if any got lost. Sometimes the letters wouldn’t come for a month and a few came together at once. And I just broke down when before running away from her village Mi-ran had to burnt all the letters and left everything Jun-sang gave her. She could not even tell him the plan. It was too dangerous to trust anybody. I too had the collection of letters and little presents in a box from the boy I loved, which I held on to even after years of separation, because there was a little hope that one day something might change. Burning them means no turning back. It’s devastating. What happened to Mi-ran and Jun-sang after that? You have to read to find out for yourself. As for me, I married my high school sweetie 10 years after I ran away from Indonesia and left him. So very lucky to have a happy ending.

Liberty and love
These two I must have.
For my love I’ll sacrifice
My life.
For liberty I’ll sacrifice
My love.
~ 19th-century Hungarian poet Sandor Petofi, p279

Answer to why Mi-ran left Jun-sang.
Also answer to why I would never go back to that hell hole of a country even if my love was there. He had to get out and come with me.

How do people go from absolute trust and loyalty to defection? When North Koreans defect, there is no way to go back. The regime takes extraordinary measures to keep its population locked up. When North Koreans left the country on official business, they had to leave behind spouses and children who were effectively held hostage to assure their return. Defectors had to be able to live with the knowledge that their freedom came at the expense of loved ones who would likely spend the rest of their lives in a labor camp. As South Korea stands as the true Korea, any North Koreans that cross over to their side are accepted as citizens. But these people have to go find their own way to the South. Crossing the North and South Korean border is impossible because that’s where the strongest defense is. So people cross over to China. But if China finds out they’d send them back to North Korea and the consequences are fatal. The ones with money and connections could forge a fake passport to fly to South Korea. The ones without have to find their way to Mongolia up North, which accept North Korean defectors and send them to South Korea.

Only a small fraction of the 100,000 or more North Koreans in China are able to make it to South Korea. In 1998, there were just 71 North Koreans who requested South Korean citizenship; in 1999 the number rose to 148; in 2000, there were 312 defectors; and in 2001, there were 583. In 2002, 1,139 North Koreans were admitted. Since then, anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 have been arriving steadily each year. ~ p246

Feel like I need to apologize for interspersing my own personal stories in a book review but I guess it just goes to show that you can only read a book in the way you know how. It struck the chord in me in so many ways. I had memories floating around and emotions running wild. Even my post seems scattered and all over the place, but I just had to let it out otherwise this would’ve stayed in draft forever. Really I’d like to reiterate how informative Nothing to Envy is, so eye-opening, so personal, so heartbreaking. It’s a story of human survival and unbelievable will to live. Inspirational at so many levels. Read it.

2010, 314pp

ps: I don’t usually pay much attention to the edition of the books I have or read, because most of them are imported. Where and when they’re printed or published or first published seem inconsequential. But this one caught my interest. I borrowed my edition from a local library and it was actually published by Harper Collins Australia in 2010. The subtitle says Love, Life and Death in North Korea as opposed to Ordivary Lives in North Korea or Real Lives in North Korea for the US/UK publications, which I thought was a great choice, and a better one. There’s also Korean characters on the cover (as you can see above) which adds a nice touch. Cheers for the Australian publisher!

Award
2010 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction
Finalist of 2010 National Book Award for Nonfiction

Also reviewed by
Bibliojunkie | Reading Matters | A Striped Armchair | Sophisticated Dorkiness

In this volume of Oishinbo the topic of pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizer is very prevalent throughout. Organic grown vegetables is the way to go. Which is all nice and everything, but I’m not sure if it’d change my grocery shopping habit. I find it hard to justify the double or triple price of organic food for daily consumption. Occasionally, maybe. Or if I cook only for myself, not for a bunch of family members who eat a whole lot more than me and may not appreciate the whole organic thing price-wise.

Perhaps I should read more on this topic?

2009, 268pp

This month’s task for Hello Japan is about Japanese cooking. Contrary to the lack of cooking post in Bookie Mee, I actually love to cook (who doesn’t if you love to eat?!). And Japanese is my favorite type of cooking, at home or outside. Will try to post something else before the end of the month, but if not, I have this post for submission :).

Bacon wrapped asparagus yakitori. My favorite! Yum! (photo source)

My next Oishinbo is Izakaya: Pub Food which I’m currently reading. I’ve committed to reading the whole series and only have a few more to go!

More in the series (links to my reviews):
Oishinbo a la Carte 1: Japanese Cuisine
Oishinbo a la Carte 2: Sake
Oishinbo a la Carte 3: Ramen & Gyoza
Oishinbo a la Carte 4: Fish, Sushi & Sashimi
Oishinbo a la Carte 5: Vegetables (this post)
Oishinbo a la Carte 6: The Joy of Rice
Oishinbo a la Carte 7: Izakaya: Pub Food

Having lived in Indonesia and Malaysia for more than 18 years, Islamic rules and society are not new to me. However, there are always questions in my mind about how things came to be this way and that, about why Islam is often identified with oppression of women, about all the violence done in the name of Islam, about polygamy, and so on and so forth. Nine Parts of Desire did not answer all of them, but it definitely satisfied some and sparked things I would never have thought before. What I loved is that it specifically talks about women issues and Brooks has done her research first hand extensively, spending a decade talking and befriending many Muslim women in Middle East countries, poor and rich, ex-foreigners, converts, royal family. I applaud her for being so brave. Being a woman and a Jew at that really put her at disadvantaged position in that area. In many ways she’s everything I hope I could be.

There are 12 chapters in total, each discussing a different issue: veil, marriage, polygamy, jihad, about women in education, politics, army, business, art or entertainment. It covers many countries in Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and more. One of my favorites is the chapter on women soldiers in UAE, the obstacles they need to break to become fully trained and qualified soldiers, fighting along with the men, even supervising them. In any country, women soldiers seem to be rare breeds, but this is even done in extreme Muslim country, who is used to having women at home and in complete obedience. The idea is so out of the way it seems absurd! Cool is the word to describe them!

In Indonesia polygamy is something that is quite real. Men from range of classes are known to take more than one wife, beknownst to one’s wife or otherwise. Influential clerics do the same, using Islam as reasoning base, and caused an uproar. Polygamy seems to be against the society’s conscience in this age, but for some people there’s always Islamic rules to fall back to. Here’s what the book says:

“In the Koran, polygamy is presented as an option for men, not as a requirement. In seventh-century Arabian society, there had been no restriction on how many wives a man could take. The Koran, in stipulating four as a maximum, was setting limits, not giving license. A close reading of the text suggest that monogamy is preferred.

The issue of polygamy is analogous to that of slavery, which was gradually banned in Islamic countries. As with polygamy, the wording of the Koran permits, but discourages, slavery. Muhammad’s sunnah included the freeing of many of his war-captive slaves. Because freeing slaves is extolled as the act of a good Muslim, most Muslims now accept that conditions have changed enough since the seventh century to allow them to legislate against a practice that the prophet probably would have chosen to ban outright, if his own times had allowed, Polygamy is already on the decline throughout the Islamic world, and many Muslim scholars see no religious obstacle to a legal ban on the practice.” ~ p186

On the issue of inheritance, the Koran states that daughter should receive only half of the son’s inheritance. Interesting point is that the Koran was actually advanced in its time when it was first out.

“The Koran sets out the formula for inheritance as an instruction which all believers must follow. In seventh-century Arabia the Koran’s formula was a giant leap forward for women, who up until then had usually been considered as chattels to be inherited, rather than as heirs and property owners in the own right. Most European women had to wait another twelve centuries to catch up to the rights the Koran granted Muslim women. In England it wasn’t until 1870 that the Married Women’s Property Acts finally abolished the rule that put all a woman’s wealth under her husband’s control on marriage.” ~ p186

It reminded me of the time last year when I read Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. For the life of me I couldn’t make sense of why the Bennett sisters and their mother get nothing if their father dies–the estate would instead go to a distant male cousin. Now that seems backwards in comparison with the Koran, doesn’t it?

In the face of politic, in 1994 women led three Muslim countries: Tansu Ciller for Turkey, Bagum Khaleda Zia for Bangladesh, and Benazir Bhutto for Pakistan. If you think about it, USA has never had a female president. Australia just appointed a female Prime Minister last year (2010). Why is that? It’s a wonder that I have no answer to. These Muslim women get death threats (and Bhutto was assassinated in 2007) for being female in authority position. You’d wonder how they got to the top in the first place.

There are a lot more aspects discussed in the book. Though at times Brooks cried disagreement, her objectivity is more prevalent throughout the book. What I concluded at the end was that Islam seems to be religion of contradictions and therefore it’s quite easy for some groups of people to twist the text to their own interpretation. Added to the mix is the conservative Arab culture where Islam is easily absorbed and takes root.

Nine Parts of Desire was published in 1994, so some things have obviously changed since then (just knew that Queen Noor of Jordan has become a widow in 1999). But to my understanding the progression of Muslim women’s lives and roles goes at snail’s pace, so I believe the book is still as relevant today. Check out the afterword written post 9/11 at Geraldine Brooks’ website. Love the last paragraph. Brooks writes so beautifully that I’m sure I’m going to check her other books including the fictions.

It could be very depressing to read about the unfairness and the inequality towards female gender in that part of the world, but above all Brooks looked into the women who succeed in their own small or big ways, who prevail against all odds. In many ways, it’s celebration of the strength of women, of the choices they make in their lives, whether we agree to or not.

“I have my own young sons now, and it is unlikely that I will go adventuring again into lives so far removed from my own.  Somehow, moving house between London and Sydney, Virginia and Massachusetts, I lost the chador in which so many of my memories were wrapped.  Yet they are with me, always; memories of women who trusted me across the chasm of faith and culture. When I think of them, I think of laughter and kindness, warmth and hospitality.  I think of the things that united us rather than those things on which we disagreed.  They wanted to live, to see their children live.  That, at least, we had in common.  That, at least, is a place to start.” ~ Nine Parts of Desire, New Afterword

1994, 255 pp

Nine Parts of Desire at Geraldine Brooks website

More Memorable Quotes

“Almighty God created sexual desire in ten parts; then he gave nine parts to women and one to men.” ~ Ali ibn Abu Taleb, husband of Muhammad’s daughter Fatima and founder of the Shiite sect of Islam

“”Rose,” I said, incredulous, “are you telling me you’ve ruled him out because he had dirty fingernails? For goodness’ sake! You can always clean his fingernails.” She raised her head and gazed at me sadly with her huge dark eyes. “Geraldine, you don’t understand. You married for love. What’s a dirty fingernail on someone you love? But if you are going to marry somebody you don’t love, everything, everything, has to be perfect.”" ~ p65

“Few women’s colleges have their own libraries, and libraries shared with men’s schools are either entirely off limits to women or open to them only one day per week. Most of the time women can’t browse for books but have to specify the titles they want and have them brought out to them.

But women and men sit the same degree examinations. Professors quietly acknowledge that women’s scores routinely outstrip the men’s. “It’s no surprise,” said one woman professor. “look at their lives. The boys have their cars, they can spend the evenings cruising the streets with their friends, sitting in cafes, buying black-market alcohol and drinking all night. What do the girls have? Four walls and their books. For them, education is everything.”” ~ p150

Challenges/Projects
Middle East Challenge, Aussie Author Challenge, Reading the World

Also reviewed by
Books in the City | Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’? | Muse Book Reviews

Oishinbo (美味しんぼ, lit. “The Gourmet”) is a long-running cooking manga published between 1983 and 2008, but only in 2009 it is published in English in thematic compilation volumes (7 volumes so far), which means they contain “best of the best” and do not follow the original manga chronological order. There are a few minor storylines that jump forward and back. But I guess in the big picture of things, it does not matter that much, because the food is really the central of excitement!

The big question throughout this volume is What constitute real Japanese cuisine? What menu is essentially Japanese? In Oishinbo: Japanese Cuisine we learn more about sashimi, rice, and green tea. (I love sashimi. I can keep eating sashimi if it’s not so expensive!) There are different cuts of sashimi, different fish (obviously), and even different way of “cooking” it, one of them with a complex method of using a special type of rice paper and pouring boiled water over the rice paper and the skin side of the fish so that only the skin is cooked, not the flesh. Definitely not something you can do at home! Then there’s one chapter about cooking rice competition. It’s later revealed that the winner hand-picks the rice so they are all the same size and cooked evenly at the same time. Talking about serious cooking!

So yes they can go a bit over the top, although are seemingly realistic at the same time. As a foodie, I just found it a joy to read a book that treats food with so much respect. The green tea ceremony at the end of this volume was a nice closure that reflects how respectful the Japanese are.

delightful sashimi (source)

2009, 272 pp

The volumes in this series (links to my review):
Oishinbo a la Carte 1: Japanese Cuisine (current post)
Oishinbo a la Carte 2: Sake
Oishinbo a la Carte 3: Ramen & Gyoza
Oishinbo a la Carte 4: Fish, Sushi & Sashimi
Oishinbo a la Carte 5: Vegetables
Oishinbo a la Carte 6: The Joy of Rice
Oishinbo a la Carte 7: Izakaya: Pub Food

A rather late shout for Bellezza’s Japanese Literature Challenge IV which runs until the end of January 2011. I’m not sure if I get a chance to read a Japanese novel before the end of January (so far I’ve read only manga), but I’ll try!

Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank (the micro-finance bank he built) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, and since then he came to my attention over and over again, though only until a few weeks ago I managed to set a time to read his autobiography, in which he tells you everything about micro-lending and the battle against world poverty.

Poverty is a subject that is close to me, having been born and lived most of my life in third world country, where poverty is not a problem in the other part of the world, but very real, very close, that I saw every single day. But as life would have it, I’m not someone who works in vital sectors, like doctors, economists, lawyers, teachers, or politicians. I work in entertainment industry. So I guess learning about problems of the world and contributing a small portion of my earning would be as far as I can go. Anyway, that’s food for thought for another day.

Muhammad Yunus though, was exactly in the perfect position to make a difference. He’s a Bangladeshi from a well-off family, had a chance to study in US, and became a professor of a respectable University in Bangladesh. He’s highly intelligent, has very strong concern for humanity, and is well connected because of his position and upbringing. And boy did he make a difference.

The idea was born one day in 1976 when he loaned $27 from his own pocket to 42 people living in a tiny village. By lending the small amount of money, they were able to buy raw materials for their trades. What he found later on was that the poor only needs to be given a chance to lift themselves out of the death circle of poverty. By lending a small amount of money and encouraging them to be micro-entrepreneurs, they are able to help themselves. These people have managed to live with such minimum resources. Imagine what they can do given even the smallest window of opportunity. The possibility is limitless.

When you hear a success story of somebody, you often forget that there’s an enormous amount of time and energy to get them to where they are. When I heard Muhammad Yunus winning the Nobel Prize, I imagined a smart professor solving world problems with his almighty brains. But I did not imagine the little things he had to go through physically: going to house after house in a small village, day after day trying to gain the villagers’ trust, to convince them to borrow money and give it a go, rain or shine, literally. There was an occasion when it was downpour raining and he had to wait outside because it was against the custom for a non-relative male to be in the house without the men of the family. So the women lent him an umbrella while he was sitting at the gate of the house, while one of his female students played messenger, going back and forth between the house and the gate. His first “office” did not even have a lavatory since he started with very little money in a tiny village. When nature called he had to go to his neighbour. These are just ones of many little things that brought tears to my eyes. There is someone in this world, willing to go through so much, so his fellow human beings could have better lives. Not just by making up high theories in the comfort of his room, but by diving head first into the center of the problem, to the lowest of the lowest of society. It restores your faith in humanity. It makes you believe the power of one person to change the world. It makes you believe in all sorts of things.

“How did we define “poverty-free”? After interviewing many borrowers about what a poverty-free life meant to them, we developed a set of ten indicators that our staff and outside evaluators could use to measure whether a family in rural Bangladesh lived a poverty-free life. These indicators are:
1) having a house with tin roof
2) having beds or cots for all members of the family
3) having access to safe drinking water
4) having access to a sanitary latrine
5) having all school-age children attending school
6) having sufficient warm clothing for the winter
7) having mosquito nets
8) having a home vegetable garden
9) having no food shortages, even during the most difficult time of a very difficult year
10) having sufficient income-earning opportunities for all adult members of the family”

How down to earth is he? The goals they set are clear and very realistic. The poverty rate has fallen from 74 percent in mid 1970s to 40 percent in 2005. A ridiculously high achievement for a nation that is often struck by natural disasters and has no great natural resources apart from the hard work of its people.

Professor Yunus is truly one in a million. What a better place he has made the world. My admiration for him has no bound.

2003, 277 pp

Kiva – loan as small as $25!
Grameen Bank
Yunus Centre

The Book Nest (review)
Dawn @ she is too fond of books talking about Kiva

Describing Shaun Tan’s books as picture books for adults can’t be more true than in the case of The Lost Thing. I’m not sure how it far it could resonate with kids. For me it shook my soul a little bit, as his books always do.

Storyline is simple. From Shaun Tan’s description at his website:

The Lost Thing is a humorous story about a boy who discovers a bizarre-looking creature while out collecting bottle-tops at a beach. Having guessed that it is lost, he tries to find out who owns it or where it belongs, but the problem is met with indifference by everyone else, who barely notice it’s presence. Each is unhelpful in their own way; strangers, friends, parents are all unwilling to entertain this uninvited interruption to day-to-day life. In spite of his better judgement, the boy feels sorry for this hapless creature, and attempts to find out where it belongs.

The Lost Thing itself I always knew would be red and big, so very noticeable, which makes us wonder why nobody really notices it (this is the key question of the story, for which there is no single answer).

The Lost Thing likes to eat Christmas decorations

Apparently there could be different interpretations of what the Lost Thing actually represents. While reading it though it seemed very clear to me that the Lost Thing is a thing that is important to us, so huge, so noticeable. It’s taking our entire world and yet you wonder why people just don’t see it the same way. That they just don’t care. Don’t you have things like that in your life? I do. Especially, perhaps, back when I was younger. Back when lots of things were important, to me, and people kept saying that they didn’t matter, not after you’ve grown older and learned more about the world. Annoying, but for most things, are sadly true.

In essence, The Lost Thing comments on the sense of being lost, of not belonging, which seems to be the recurrent theme I found in his works. Probably caused by experience as an Asian growing up in Australia many years ago?

The illustrations are stunning. There is no empty space within the pages. Even the gaps between panels that are usually white for normal comics are full of doodles and collages. The book is an absolute keeper. Love.

1999, 32pp

The Lost Thing @ shauntan.net

Stevens is an old-fashioned butler who has been working his entire life at an old style English house (mansion to be exact, or castle? Anyway, it’s huge). Being a butler is not just his job, it’s his entire life. He has extreme pride for what he does, who he works for, and who he is for his profession. Because of his extreme, rather odd views of things, he is somewhat socially imbalanced, and that causes him to be caught in all kinds of interesting situations with the people around him.

The basic premise is not what I would call my kind of story as it deals with upper class society in a wealthy country, albeit it’s the butler who gets the spotlight. Having said that, I was totally absorbed into Stevens’ thoughts and life from beginning to the end. This is a book that is heavily based on characters rather than plot, and what a great characterization Ishiguro has done. Everything about Stevens is so believable, so well-developed. And the ending will surely take your breath away. It did mine. It was so tragic, so devastatingly heartbreaking.

Jess, my book fairy who passed me the book, described it as “pitch perfect” and I couldn’t agree more. What really stood out for me, apart from the language, was the technique. It felt like Ishiguro has painstakingly rewritten and edited the book, again and again, honing it to perfection. No word was wasted, no gesture was not meaningful, no speech was unnecessary. It was so clean, so lean, so articulate. Yes, it was pitch perfect!

As the basic story is not one that is close to my heart, it probably won’t end up as my favorite book of all time. (Maybe it will maybe it won’t. Only time will tell.) But as a novel, it is amazingly accomplished. Give me another Ishiguro’s anytime of the day. I’m sure I’ll end up reading all his books eventually. I would therefore give The Remains of the Day the perfect 5 stars. I’m not sure if that makes sense. Can you think of a book in which the basic story is not close to your heart but you think it works perfectly as a novel? What’s the next Ishiguro would you recommend? The Unconsoled, An Artist of the Floating World, or A Pale View of Hills? Any that you feel strongly about from the three?

1989, 258pp

First Line
It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days.

Memorable Passage
“There was, for instance, the question of cost. For even taking into account my employer’s generous offer to ‘foot the bill for the gas’, the costs of such a trip might still come to a surprising amount considering such matters as accommodation, meals and any small snacks I might partake of on my way. Then there was the question of what sorts of costume were appropriate on such a journey, and whether or not it was worth my while to invest in a new set of clothes.” ~ p10

Challenges/Projects
Read the Book, See the Movie, The Man Booker Prize, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, Reading the World

Also reviewed by
Steph & Tony Investigate! | Arukiyomi

The Film (1993)

The film was nominated for 8 Oscars in 1994 for Best Actor, Actress, Costume, Art/Set Direction, Director, Picture, Music, and Writing. (too bad it didn’t win any. But their competitors of that year were Schindler’s List and The Piano. Tough competition!)

Stevens the butler was played by Anthony Hopkins beautifully, as well as Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton the housekeeper. The movie stayed very true to the book, it captured the mood very well, and the important scenes were played better than what I imagined while reading.

The setting in Darlington Hall was amazing. I got to see everything that was hard to imagine by myself: the summer house, dining room, kitchen, servants’ quarter, drawing room, library, etc. There were even a couple of nice extra touches that I don’t recall being mentioned in the book, like secret passages for the servants to go from room to room without being intrusive (so fun!) and the myriad of labeled bells connected to different rooms.

The Remains of the Day is a wonderful movie. Really well done. And for me the tragedy was even more apparent than in the book. Highly recommended.

Rating: 8/10

In Discworld, a Wizard is chosen to be one and he must be the eighth son of an eighth son. One day however, an old Wizard bestowed baby Esk a staff, one requirement to be a Wizard, ignorant to the fact that Esk is a girl. As Esk grows up and starts to show signs of magic power, Granny Weatherwax, the Witch of the village where Esk lives in, takes her under her wing. But Granny is a Witch, while Esk is supposed to become a Wizard. So starts their journey to the Unseen University, where wannabe Wizards study to be real Wizards. Naturally, it’s not an easy journey for Esk (and Granny) as they navigate through the misogynistic world of the Wizards and hear too many times: Girls can’t be Wizards!

Unfortunately I did not find the book as exciting as I expected. Perhaps it was my fault to start this book right after One Hundred Years of Solitude, but it just felt bland and far too light. It wasn’t as funny as I expected and the story wasn’t as deep as I wanted. It took me a while to get through the book even though it’s rather thin and light in content, because I could never really get into it. I needed to push myself to finish it so I can at least say that I’ve read Terry Pratchett.

Don’t get me wrong. Equal Rites was not bad, not at all. It was just… ordinary, when I want wow-ness from my books. Esk’s story is a typical hero’s journey and there isn’t enough twist and turn to make me excited. It was not a very satisfying read for me.

I know lots and lots of people love Pratchett, book bloggers and even several of my colleagues in real life alike (who all pushed me to try his book). But we didn’t click, Pratchett and I. I’m not sure if it was just the timing, but it might be a while before I try another of one of his books.

I’m sorry you guys. I’m just as disappointed as you!

1987, 283 pp

First Line
This is a story about magic and where it goes and perhaps more importantly where it comes from and why, although it doesn’t pretend to answer all or any of these questions.

Challenges
Terry Pratchett Challenge

Also reviewed by
another cookie crumbles