Last night Sharon quoted Raman of having said to writers when they bring him their manuscripts for publishing, "How many books have you read? Have you read a thousand books? If not, get out and go read a thousand books, then come back with your manuscript." His point being, you've got to have read a lot if you want to be a writer. And I thought to myself, a thousand books isn't so bad. I've probably read more. Er...Wrong. After some quick calculations, we determined that if a person read a book per week, it would take around 20 years to reach a thousand. I'm a slow reader. I'm only 25. There's no way I've read 1000 books my whole life! When I got home I counted the books in my house. I estimate I own around 300 books, probably another 300 left at my parents's house. That's only around 600 books that I own... and a lot less that I've read! So with that number in mind, I have resolved to start keeping track of my book reading. I ne
I am sure they're just drawn by the exoticism(sic) of Tan's novel. Its actually poorly edited and could have done with less description of food and the fauna/flora of Penang ad neuseum. It comes across like a mishmash of Clavell and Mishima. Writing and hiding behind a half chinese/english character and writing about he knows just shows that he's hardly stretched as a writer, much less as a novelist
ReplyDeletePoorly edited? I must check again.
ReplyDeleteAs for exoticism... nothing wrong with that! Isn't that Asia's biggest export next to Apple computers and Nike shoes? :p
as for the food, this is the most food obsessed nation on earth (and rightly so!) so the authors are going to reflect that i think
ReplyDeletei also think authors here feel a need to fill in background detail that western readers and readers elsewhere might not know or understand.
why is he "hiding" behind this character? seems to be a v. useful way of exploring belonging vs. dislocation
It's his first novel and he's on the Booker Longlist, so I think he's doing well enough. I think the novel reads well and the exoticism doesn't bother me. Makes Malaysians more interesting! :-) Half-English semi-Chinese, whatever lah! What comes across is how HUMAN Philip is, so who cares if he's half this and half that.
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