Isn’t happiness a little overrated?

Every time there is a survey of unquantifiable traits like happiness and courtesy, we react as if someone has pricked a needle in our inflated ego of self-imagined humility or cast a stone at our glasshouse of laugh riots.

31 out of 34 in courtesy? 132 in Happiness Planet Index, the worst in the region? Could the rankings get anymore dismal?

The happiness rankings tell us that Singapore is a melancholy state and its black mood is shared by millions of its citizens.

In reaction, some sigh with despondency. Some froth with rage. Others try to debate and indulge in some introspection. Why are we what we are?

The question is: Is perception more real than reality? Do these rankings really mean anything? How does one ensure that a few citizen’s bad mood don’t take down a country’s ranking by several points?

Let us go beyond Singapore and look at a particular example.

As per the courtesy survey, Mumbai was ranked as the rudest city on earth. Mumbaikers were obviously not mighty pleased with their ranking but they grinned and bore it. And when the opportunity arose, recently during the July 11 train bomb blasts, they showed their true mettle. They went beyond courtesy. They demonstrated that humanity was alive and kicking even in the rudest city on earth.

I think, of all things, humanity matters most. It is the kernel of our civilization.

Singaporeans have also demonstrated their humane side during the tsunami two years ago. They broke all previous donation records in a short period of time. Every year they donate millions of charity dollars. That is quite commendable.

Coming back to the main issue, I frankly feel that happiness is overrated. All this song and dance about happiness is overblown.

Happiness is so mercurial. We don’t really know much about this animal.

A child beggar cries and begs at a Mumbai traffic light. He succeeds in creating enough pathos in you. You give him a coin and move on. You feel happy because you think you helped someone. You don’t look back. If you did you would know you’d been conned. The crying kid would be smiling on your back.

But, is his smile genuine? Is he genuinely happy? Who knows? And if you knew that he’d conned you with his theatrics, wouldn’t your happiness evaporate then and there?

Happiness is like God. If you went out in search of happiness, you won’t find it anywhere. Like God, it lives within your heart and you will have to find it there.

I will give you another example. When I was coming to Singapore, I was warned. Singaporeans don’t smile. They don’t laugh.

When I came here, I saw something else. One has to be simply blind not to see Singaporeans smile and laugh. Some Singaporeans prefer to maintain a reserved attitude though. In no city you will find all the citizens smiling and laughing all of the time. Singapore is no different.

But why are Singaporeans perceived to be so unhappy? I think there is a reason.
In just four decades, Singapore has leapfrogged from bullock carts to A380. It is no laughing achievement. This country’s success is a testimony of its people’s determination because it is people who make countries.

More precisely, it is hardworking citizens with aims, ambitions and goals who make successful countries.

Singapore is not built on tradition but on drive. Singaporeans display a sense of purpose in their day-to-day lives and so they seem to be humourless in public.

But the truth as we know is this: Happiness is a state of mind. Most often, we don’t know if we are happy but we sure know if were happy at some point of time. Right now is the time to act, to move on, and to live and let live. Happiness will follow.

On books

We know that bad news is good news. But is it true for books as well? Now an author has made the claim that bad reviews could actually augur good business. Read it all here.

Technology is really changing the way books are being produced and consumed (yes, consumed and not read, not necessarily). Now you can create your own book online with all the pictures, and you yourself are the author and designer of the book. Interested? It's all here.

Virgin’s Devi triumphant in the US

Indian filmmaker Shekhar Kapur’s comic book warrior Devi has a lot riding on her slender, but strong shoulders. Not only does Devi have to combat a fallen dark God called Bala; she is now the champion for Indian superheroes drawn from ancient mythology in lands that grew up on Superman and Catwoman.

In January this year, Virgin Atlantic boss Richard Branson teamed up with US-based motivational guru Deepak Chopra and Shekhar Kapur to create an Indian equivalent of stylised, futuristic Japanese-style cartoon books known as manga. The three-way joint venture is also aimed at producing cartoon films. Virgin just rolled out its first comic book — Devi created by Kapur and artist Mukesh Singh — in stores across the US.

Devi has sold over 10,000 copies in the United States in the first two weeks since publication and the Virgin Comics reincarnation of the Indian Goddess is heading for cult status.

Read the full text here.

Why bother with Patrick White?

Sometime ago, a British newspaper did it with one of Naipaul's books. Now, an Australian newspaper has pulled the trick off with an Australian Nobel prize winning novelist, Patrick White. The results are similar. Intrigued? Read on:

HE is the nation's most lauded novelist, our only Nobel prize-winning writer, twice a winner of the Miles Franklin award and three times the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medallist. Yet without his name on the cover, Patrick White's work is apparently of little value to Australia's publishing industry.
Inquirer submitted, under a pseudonym, chapter three of White's The Eye of the Storm to 12 publishers and agents. This novel clinched his Nobel Prize in Literature in 1973, with the judges describing it as one of his most accomplished works.

Not one reader recognised its literary genius, and 10 wrote polite and vaguely encouraging rejection letters. The highest praise was "clever". A low point was a referral to a "how to" book on writing fiction.

Pan Macmillan referred the author to writers' workshops; Mark Latham's agent, Mary Cunnane, recommended the author improve by reading Penguin Books' The Art of Writing, for hints on character and form. Text Publishing, which prides itself on finding and publishing Australian literature, sent back a form rejection letter and HarperCollins flicked it back unread.

For the experiment, the title of the manuscript was tweaked to become The Eye of the Cyclone, and an anagram was used for the author's name, Wraith Picket. And the age chosen for the 33-year-old father of one was the number of years that have passed since White wrote the novel.

Cunnane is a respected agent of 30 years' experience. She wrote: "Alas, the sample chapter, while (written) with energy and feeling, does not give evidence that the work is yet of a publishable quality.

"I suggest you get a copy of David Lodge's The Art of Fiction (Penguin) and absorb its lessons about exposition, dialogue, point of view, voice and characterisation."

Nicholas Hudson, of Hudson Publishing, found the work perplexing. "What I read left me puzzled. I found it hard to get involved with the characters, so it was not character-driven, nor in the ideas, so it was not idea-driven. It seemed like a plot-driven novel whose plot got lost through an aspiration to be a literary novel. It was very clever, but I was not compelled to read on," he wrote.

Read the full article here.

Krrish and the Spirit of Asian Cinema

July has been a gloomy month for Mumbai. First, the torrential rains almost brought life in Mumbai to a grinding halt. Then came the July 11 train bomb blasts, claiming over 200 innocent lives.

But amazingly, true to the irrepressible Mumbai spirit, the city got back on its feet the very next day. The show must go on!

Buoyed by the same indomitable spirit of Mumbai, the home of Bollywood, is India's first superhero movie, Krrish, which has been spreading some cheer at home and abroad. The good news is that it has been declared a super hit in India.

Despite mixed reviews, the film has surpassed all commercial expectations. The rain-washed Mumbaikers have given their shower of approval to the fantasy flick, despite having to choose between the Bollywood US$10-million-Krrish ($15.9 million) and the Hollywood heavyweight Superman Returns (US$200 million). It is also currently running all across the United States and according to reports, has been doing especially well in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Illinois.

A beaming Mr Rakesh Roshan, the director-producer of this sequel to an earlier smash hit Koi Mil Gaya (I Found Someone, 2003), claimed in an interview that the film had made box office history by taking in the biggest ever opening in India. Not just that, the film is on its way to Harvard University as it has been shortlisted for an international-level case study.

Now that the verdict on Krrish is out, Singapore can take pride in its success. Krrish was extensively shot here under the Singapore Tourism Board's (STB) $10-million Film in Singapore! scheme, launched to generate more awareness of Singapore in countries like India — one of Singapore's top 10 visitor-generating markets.

Read the full article at Today.

The Myth of a New Delhi

FOR the last 10 years, New Delhi had been my home until I left for Singapore two years ago.

My friends, who visited New Delhi recently brought me amazing news about the city.

Delhi is transformed, they say. It has developed like never before; people are making lots of money, getting unbelievably high salaries and buying cars and houses like there's no tomorrow.

Impressive, I thought.

Read the full piece here.

The Myth of the New India

Pankaj Mishra likes to swim against the tide. When the world is singing paens to India's economic miralcle, Mishra writes an op-ed in the NYT questioning the fundamentals behind the assumption of India's miracle. And he marshalls some convincing data to prove his point:

"INDIA is a roaring capitalist success story." So says the latest issue of Foreign Affairs; and last week many leading business executives and politicians in India celebrated as Lakshmi Mittal, the fifth richest man in the world, finally succeeded in his hostile takeover of the Luxembourgian steel company Arcelor. India's leading business newspaper, The Economic Times, summed up the general euphoria over the event in its regular feature, "The Global Indian Takeover": "For India, it is a harbinger of things to come — economic superstardom."

"This sounds persuasive as long as you don't know that Mr. Mittal, who lives in Britain, announced his first investment in India only last year. He is as much an Indian success story as Sergey Brin, the Russian-born co-founder of Google, is proof of Russia's imminent economic superstardom."

"...The main reason for this is that India's economic growth has been largely jobless. Only 1.3 million out of a working population of 400 million are employed in the information technology and business processing industries that make up the so-called new economy."

I agree with Mishra's conclusion--we need to do a lot of work before we can rightfully claim that the 21st century is the century of India: "Many serious problems confront India. They are unlikely to be solved as long as the wealthy, both inside and outside the country, choose to believe their own complacent myths."

What's in a name?

Probably a lot. That's why some places are wiped off the map, says Mark Monmonier in his book, From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow.

Mark says: "'Nigger's were abolished in the US in 1962. 'Squaw's and 'Jap's went in the decade following. The erasure of 'Dago's, 'Chink's and 'Wop's has been a more piecemeal affair. In From Squaw Tit to Whorehouse Meadow, Mark Monmonier reads map names to diagnose the racial, political and moral tensions which enmesh them. A toponym (the name of any feature that appears on a map), he argues, is both a legacy and an argument waiting to happen."

Name of places do fascinate me. If you go into the heartland of India, or for that matter, any other country, you will notice how the names of the places are linked with local language and folk lore. These days in the metros, however, you will find more anglicised names than ever before. In Delhi's suburb Gurgaon, for example, you will find a lot of apartment buildings named as Ridgewood and Hill View Apartments in Pocket so and so and Zone so and so.

Sometimes, even your name could have a geographical existence. I was really surprised to find out that my name stood for two different places in different parts of the world: Zafar in Oman and Anjum in the Netherlands. Interesting, isn't it?

Who's the voice of this generation?

Asks Lev Grossman in this Time magazine article.

" David Foster Wallace is 44 years old. Jonathan Franzen is 46. Jonathan Lethem, 42. Michael Chabon, 43. I point that out not to be rude--although I admit it is kind of rude--but because those are the writers that people--people who think about such things, anyway--think of as the young American novelists. And even by the notoriously elastic standards of the literary world--the only place on earth where you can still be a wunderkind at the age of 30--42 is not especially youthful. Wallace, Franzen, Lethem and Chabon may be great writers, but one thing they are not is young writers."

He goes on and then concludes:

"That probably gets at some of the truth of it. The world has changed, and the novel has changed with it. Fictional characters just can't get away with being generically white and middle class and male anymore, the way they used to. Not and still be the object of mass identification and adoration the way the Voice has traditionally been. We just don't think about people that way anymore: we're interested in the specifics of their racial and ethnic and historical circumstances, where they came from and who made them that way. If the novelists under 40 have a shared preoccupation, it is--to put it as dryly as possible--immigration. They write about characters who cross borders, from East to West, from Old World to New and back again, and the many and varied tolls they pay along the way. Their shared project, to the extent that they have one, is the revision of the good old American immigrant narrative, bringing it up to code with the realities of our multicultural, transcontinental, hyphenated identities and our globalized, displaced, deracinated lives. It's a literature of multiplicity and diversity, not one of unanimity, and it makes the idea of a unifying voice of a generation seem rather quaint and 20th century. I may love and empathize with the transplanted Bengalis who populate Lahiri's fiction, or Shteyngart's semi-Americanized Russians, or Foer's uprooted Old Worlders or Smith's international extended families. But I would never be so foolish as to mistake any of them for myself."

That's an interesting thought there. Reading experience, in this age of TV and rich media and what not, is not the same any more.

But to think of India in this context, thankfully there are a number of 30 or below 30 something novelists--whether they represent the voice of this generation is a differet matter.

Interestingly, in a poll in the same issue, to see the emergence of a classic novel written by the recent crop of writers, Zadie Smith and Jhumpa Lahiri are on the tops (at least as of now).

Krrish invokes mixed reactions

Rakesh Roshan's Bollywood bonanza Krrish, his sequel to the super hit Koi Mil Gaya, starring his star son Hrithik Roshan, has been one of the most awaited movies of the year in Bollywood circles. For months, it has been promoted as India's first Superhero movie. The action sequences and special effects were tauted as the best Bollywood had ever seen. In fact, Roshan Sr said in an interview that "It (special effects) is not like Hollywood. It is Hollywood."

For me and many watchers, Krrish has been special also because it was extensively (60%) shot in Singapore. Singapore Tourism Board (STB) invited the Roshans to shoot the movie here and promote Singapore, hoping to repeat the Roshan effect on Indian tourists what they had seen in the case of New Zealand (Roshan's earlier film Kaho Na Pyaar Hai was shot in NZ and it had apparently increased the tourist influx to NZ many times over).

I haven't seen the film yet but the reviews have been kind of mixed.

Rajiv Masand says in IBNLive: "Yes, Krrish may actually be Bollywood's first stab at a superhero story, and the intention is commendable, but the effort leaves a lot to be desired." He adds: "My biggest complaint against Krrish is directed towards its screenplay: It stinks."

Sukanya Verma says in Rediff.com: "The production values are shoddy. SFX team of Marc Kolbe and Craig Mumma's shabby use of super imposed background is annoying and distracting. Cinematographer Santosh Thundiiayil could have opted for a darker, slick look. Instead, he lends Krrish an extra-bright and powdery appearance befitting a detergent commercial. Siu Tung Ching and Sham Kaushal's action gets no points for originality. Most of it is borrowed from Matrix flicks and is repetitive in nature. Surely there must be more to a superhero than surging from one pole to another. This gratification comes to you only in the tail end of the movie. Krrish neither has the sleek aura nor the deep-rooted ideology of superheroes. What it does have is a super spirited performance from Hrithik Roshan, which is likely to appeal to kids. And that's worth a three-star cheer."

Raja Sen in Rediff.com has another view to offer: "Do the Krrish writers succeed? Not really. While luxuriously taking up almost three full hours of screentime, they plod through an extremely derivative landscape. Ideas are borrowed from a bunch of movies -- the few people who have watched John Woo's Paycheck will feel some déjà vu -- and effect-shots from a million more, including The Matrix films, Spider-Man, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. And watch out for the distinct Batman hangover when he actually dons the mask. Krrish is mired by predictability. There are no big revelations, no sudden surprises. There's also no real character involvement, the viewer not actually caring enough about Krrish but just, like the protagonist himself, caught up in all his contrived coolth. However, the fact that it's exactly what the KMG fan expects is the reason the sequel will actually succeed. I'd bet on a sequel to Krrish."

That is a bit positive. More positive is Diganta Guha in The Hindustan Times: "Technically, Krrish is perhaps the best in Bollywood history, whether in terms of action, special effects, cinematography or sound. There's little for the actors to do but deliver their bit and let Roshan Sr take the credit for a brilliant package...The sleek action sequences by Hong Kong-based Tony Ching Siu Tung and Sham Kaushal set a new trend, and combined with the special effects by US-based Marc Kolbe and Craig Mumma, they are a treat to watch...Krrish is a breath of fresh air into the staid world of Bollywood, much like Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black. Watch it for its own sake and feast your eyes on the spread Roshan Sr has laid out for you."

Wah! That is a wonderful review for Krrish. Roshans must be happy to read this but the site looks like the official promotional site of Krrish.

Surprisingly, none of the above mentioned reviews have mentioned, not even once, the breathtakingly beautiful scenes from Singapore and how well Roshan has exploited their picture postcard prettiness!

In fact, on the other side of the Singapore River, Singapore's Today film reviewer had some complaints against Roshan's portrayal of Singapore in "A prosaic portrayal: Krrish makes Singapore look uninteresting" (June 24, 2006):

"There is a good reason why so many Singaporean film-makers choose to set their films in Singapore's grittier spaces: There is little that is interesting about Singapore's snazzy side. And that is one of the problems with the blockbuster-wannabe Krrish — the first Bollywood film to be funded under the Singapore Tourism Board's $10-million Film in Singapore! Scheme."

"It doesn't make Singapore look terribly interesting."

In this sequel to the 2004 hit Koi Mil Gaya, Hrithik Roshan plays Krishna, a man with supernatural powers — his father was, wait for it, empowered by an alien called Jadoo — who falls in love with Priya (Priyanka Chopra) and follows her to Singapore. The problem is, Priya initially wants only to exploit his powers to score a hit show for the TV station where she works. So, Krishna and Priya go traipsing through Singapore's most prominent places in their courtship. Audiences get to see Shenton Way, Sentosa, Chinatown and Boat Quay filmed in the most prosaic ways. Buy a postcard and you'd get the same picture."

"Perhaps to add interest to banality of the setting, the film also portrays a seedier Singapore that doesn't really exist. As Krishna steps out of Changi Airport, two thugs on a motorcycle try to grab his belongings. And if the film is to be believed, Clifford Pier is a hangout for motorcycle thugs who speak bad English."

Whatever the criticism and irrespective of Krrish's aforementioned weaknesses, the film is going to increase the Indian tourist inflow to Singapore. After all, millions of Indians seeing the beautiful Singapore shots in the Krrish songs playing on their telly day and night won't be able to ignore the charm of the lion city.

Kitaab@APWN

There is this interesting news that I want to share with you. My website, Kitaab, has been featured in APWN (Asia Pacific Writers Network, an initiative of PEN Australia). Along with my editorial, writings by my friends Fakrul Alam, Deepika Shetty and Jai Arjun Singh have also been showcased. Take a peek here.

India vs China: Is the world really 'flat'?

Sorry for digressing from my pet topic of books and writers this week. I find the India vs Chian debate extremely engrossing as it concerns our own future. A good debate on the two rising economies has been going on for quite some time now.

Here is an interesting podcast, which in fact provides a radically different view on this topic (TiECON East 2006: Howard Anderson Keynote on India & China: Is the World Flat or “Spiky”?)

Venture capitalist Howard Anderson, in this podcast, predicts the position of India and China in the next 20 years.

Anderson says that India has a temporary advantage and it might lose the game if it does not move towards development of proprietory software and increase its manufacturing base (Amartya Sen said the same thing in a BBC interview a few days ago). India already employs about 10,000 foreign workers (from US, Europe as it is suffering from shortage of skilled workers!!) and the salaries of its workers are steadily increasing--damaging India's cost advantage (No wonder recently Apple decided to shut down its outsourcing lab there; Another company, a British power company, also recently closed down its call centre business in India).

China is developing its physical as well intellectual infrastructure at a great speed. It seems to be at a more advantageous position.

America on the decline?

While the media is agog with stories of China and India rising and becoming great economic powers, America's decline as a technological innovator (and obliquely as a power) is also being discussed a lot these days. Recently, Newsweek ran a cover story on this theme titled, Can America Compete?

Writes international editor of Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria:

"Well, Americans have replaced Britons atop the world, and we are now worried that history is happening to us. History has arrived in the form of "Three Billion New Capitalists," as Clyde Prestowitz's recent book puts it, people from countries like China, India and the former Soviet Union, which all once scorned the global market economy but are now enthusiastic and increasingly sophisticated participants in it. They are poorer, hungrier and in some cases well trained, and will inevitably compete with Americans and America for a slice of the pie. A Goldman Sachs study concludes that by 2045, China will be the largest economy in the world, replacing the United States.

It is not just writers like Prestowitz who are sounding alarms. Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of GE, reflects on the growing competence and cost advantage of countries like China and even Mexico and says, "It's unclear how many manufacturers will choose to keep their businesses in the United States." Intel's Andy Grove is more blunt. "America ... [is going] down the tubes," he says, "and the worst part is nobody knows it. They're all in denial, patting themselves on the back, as the Titanic heads for the iceberg full speed ahead."

"Much of the concern centers on the erosion of science and technology in the U.S., particularly in education..."

In another relevant story, "The fast-fading luster of the American story" in IHT,
Nathan Gardels and Mike Medavoy conclude that America's soft power (its cultural exports) is on the wane. I have been thinking along these lines, and their ideas strike a chord with me--didn't somebody great minds think alike?

"This vast influence of American culture in the world is what Harvard professor Joseph Nye has called "soft power."

Now, however, we are witnessing a mounting resistance, particularly from Asia and the Muslim world, to the American media's libertarian and secular messages.

There is also resistance to the mere fact of America's overwhelming cultural dominance. Josef Joffe, the publisher-editor of the German weekly Die Zeit, has put it directly: "Between Vietnam and Iraq, America's cultural presence has expanded into ubiquity, and so has resentment of America. Soft power does not necessarily increase the world's love for America. It is still power, and it still makes enemies."

If, as Nye has said, politics in the information age is about whose story wins, America's story, which has won for so long, is losing its universal appeal.

Fewer and fewer are buying into the American narrative. Needless to say, that has big implications for America's storyteller - Hollywood - as well.

America's soft power is losing its luster for several reasons."

Now read on to know those reasons. The piece is thought-provoking.

Minorities in Malaysia

I seldom write about politics here in my blog but this one is special. Fellow blogger, Sharanya Manivannan, sent me this link to her open letter to the Prime Minsiter of India. Sharanya forcefully talks about the despicable state of minority rights in Malaysia-- a real cause for concern. Reading her account makes me shudder at the dangers of radical Islam. Only yesterday I read the news that some Muslim clerics in Malaysia wanted to impose a ban on general Muslims from attending religious festivities of other religions. Thankfully moderate Malaysians have criticised such remarks. The same spirit and more needs to be shown for minority rights as well.

Read the open letter here.

A discussion on this topic is already on at Sepia Mutiny.

Fishwick does a la David Davidar and Dalrymple catches big fish

Michael Fishwick of Bloomsbury has done a la David Davidar. The publisher and cheque-writer has turned a fairly successful novelist. When I read about him here, I got reminded of David Davidar. Davidar was the CEO of Penguin Books India when he sent off his novel, The House of Blue Mangoes, to the most famous lit agent in London, of course under a different name. Fishwick did the same thing, and you know, he sent his ms to the same agent! Pure coincidence! Looks like Atundhati Roy's agent is the publisher's favourite too.

In the same interview, we get to know that Dalrymple has signed a huge deal with Bloomsbury that has caused some controversy in the publishing industry:

"But he stiffens at mention of the Dalrymple deal. "It wasn't wildly more than he was being paid at HarperCollins," he says sniffily. The reports ignored the small print, he adds. The £2m is for five books. "His last book sold 50,000 in hardback and will have sold 200,000 in paperback. All William's books sell 5,000 or 6,000 copies a year and have done since I first published him in 1987. So, in terms of where you are going to put your money, it is as safe a bet as you can think of."

Last Words

Harper Lee's has been a curious story. She did not publish anything after her first hugely successful novel, To kill a mocking bird.

Here is some light on her rather mysterious life:

Harper Lee's last major interview was given to Roy Newquist in March 1964, for his book 'Counterpoint'

"I never expected any sort of success with Mockingbird. I was hoping for a quick and merciful death at the hands of reviewers, but at the same time I hoped that maybe someone would like it enough to give me encouragement - public encouragement. I got rather a whole lot, and in some ways this was just about as frightening as the quick, merciful death I'd expected.

[My next book] goes ever so slowly. Many writers really don't like to write ...They loathe the process of sitting down trying to turn thoughts into reasonable sentences. I like to write - sometimes too much because when I get into work I don't want to leave it. I'll go for days and days without leaving the house. I'll go out long enough to get papers and pick up food and that's it.

This was my childhood: if I went to a film once a month it was pretty good.

We had to use our own devices in our play, for our entertainment. We didn't have much money. We didn't have toys, nothing was done for us, so we lived in our imagination most of the time. We were readers, and we would transfer everything we had seen on the printed page to the backyard in the form of drama.

It takes time and patience and effort to turn out a work of art, and few people seem willing to go all the way. I see a great deal of sloppiness and I deplore it. I think writers today are too easily pleased with their work. This is sad. There's no substitute for struggling, if a struggle is needed, to make an English sentence as beautiful as it should be.

I want to do the best I can with the talent God gave me. I would like to leave some record of... small-town middle-class southern life. All I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama."

John Updike, Terrorism, and the Future of Books

These days terrorism is a hot topic for novelists. Both Yasmina Khadare and John Updike have come out with new novels that have terrorism as their central themes. While Yasmina Khadare's novel is titled "The Attack," Updike's is simply called "Terrorist."

Here's a review of Updike's novel by NYT's Michiko Kakutani:

"Unfortunately, the would-be terrorist in this novel turns out to be a completely unbelievable individual: more robot than human being and such a cliché that the reader cannot help suspecting that Mr. Updike found the idea of such a person so incomprehensible that he at some point abandoned any earnest attempt to depict his inner life and settled instead for giving us a static, one-dimensional stereotype.

"Terrorist" possesses none of the metaphysical depth of classic novelistic musings on revolutionaries like "The Secret Agent," "The Possessed" or "The Princess Casamassima," and none of the staccato, sociological brilliance of more recent fictional forays into this territory, like Don DeLillo's "Mao II."

However, this is not going to dampen my spirits. I look forward to reading these two novels.

Here is another link (podcast) to Updike's speech on the future of books. Quite interesting!

In Lust We Trust?

Singaporean author Gerrie Lim is back with a bang, and his new book is lustier than his previous outputs: It is befittingly called, In Lust We Trust!

Lim was a scribe in the US in the yester years and used to cover the music industry and later on the porn industry there.

He got famous with his book on the escort business: "His 2004 book Invisible Trade, an expose on the upscale escorting industry, is in its third printing and has sold an impressive 20,000 copies."

Lim has used his porn industry experience (of covering it) to write his latest, what looks like, bestseller. In an interview with Today, he made some interesting points:

"I think that a lot of us are inherently voyeuristic, whether we like it or not. The people who deny it are obviously lying. The fact that someone bothers to watch a reality show where people make fools of themselves is voyeuristic, not to mention more exploitative than pornography."

"Of course, adult entertainment has been demonised and there is no way around that. It's like writing a book about professional wrestling and explaining it to people who think it's stupid. Well, stupid is the point. It's funny and not real because it's not sports but entertainment."

"It's the same with porn. Adult actress Nina Hartley gave me a great quote when I was researching this book: "You've got to remember that porn is basically live action sex cartoons."

If you can't hold it anymore and read the whole stuff, go here.

The Birth of a Jehadi

In its latest issue, New Yorker takes a look at the phenomenon of Muslim Jehadis, in the context of the last year's London bombings. The article quotes from a British investigation report and shows respect for its conclusions:

"The report concludes that there is no consistent profile that could be used to help identify who might be vulnerable to such radicalization, and yet the biographies do show in some detail how the making of an Al Qaeda-inspired suicide bomber is an idiosyncratic narrative of push and pull. Alienation from citizenship or family and a loss of faith in secular opportunity create a pool of potential volunteers; preachers, recruiters, and Al Qaeda leaders take it from there. The British parliament’s main intelligence-oversight committee, in a separate report, admits that Britain has failed to consider adequately how it might reduce the number of potential recruits: “We remain concerned that across the whole of the counter-terrorism community the development of the home-grown threat and the radicalisation of British citizens were not fully understood or applied to strategic thinking.”

In the same issue, Margaret Talbot profiles the famous Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci and her views on Islam.

In the piece, there is this interesting anecdote about Fallaci' meeting with Khomeni:

"Fallaci continued posing indignant questions about the treatment of women in the new Islamic state. Why, she asked, did Khomeini compel women to “hide themselves, all bundled up,” when they had proved their equal stature by helping to bring about the Islamic revolution? Khomeini replied that the women who “contributed to the revolution were, and are, women with the Islamic dress”; they weren’t women like Fallaci, who “go around all uncovered, dragging behind them a tail of men.” A few minutes later, Fallaci asked a more insolent question: “How do you swim in a chador?” Khomeini snapped, “Our customs are none of your business. If you do not like Islamic dress you are not obliged to wear it. Because Islamic dress is for good and proper young women.” Fallaci saw an opening, and charged in. “That’s very kind of you, Imam. And since you said so, I’m going to take off this stupid, medieval rag right now.” She yanked off her chador."

Fallaci has written a lot on Islam and the West in recent years. The profile further notes:

"She writes that Muslim immigration is turning Europe into “a colony of Islam,” an abject place that she calls “Eurabia,” which will soon “end up with minarets in place of the bell-towers, with the burka in place of the mini-skirt.” Fallaci argues that Islam has always had designs on Europe, invoking the siege of Constantinople in the seventh century, and the brutal incursions of the Ottoman Empire in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. She contends that contemporary immigration from Muslim countries to Europe amounts to the same thing—invasion—only this time with “children and boats” instead of “troops and cannons.”

Meanwhile, in the NYRB, Michael Massing somewhat rises to the defence of two American researchers who have done a controversial paper on the Israel Lobby in America.

"Not since Foreign Affairs magazine published Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations?" in 1993 has an academic essay detonated with such force as "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy," by professors John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Published in the March 23, 2006, issue of the London Review of Books and posted as a "working paper" on the Kennedy School's Web site, the report has been debated in the coffeehouses of Cairo and in the editorial offices of Haaretz. It's been called "smelly" (Christopher Hitchens), "nutty" (Max Boot), "conspiratorial" (the Anti-Defamation League), "oddly amateurish" (the Forward), and "brave" (Philip Weiss in The Nation). It's prompted intense speculation over why The New York Times has given it so little attention and why The Atlantic Monthly, which originally commissioned the essay, rejected it."

Worth a read as it gives interesting insights into the working of political lobbies in the US.

Flamingoes in the Jurong Bird Park, Singapore.