Categories
Books & printed materials Sci-fi

[2981] Reading, listening and watching The Three-Body Problem

There have been several science-fiction novels adapted to the screens in recent years. Apple TV+’s Foundation is one. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is the name. And the most recent is Netflix’s 3 Body Problem. In that immature adolescent pride that still exists inside of me, I am proud to say I have read all of them long before I have watched these three. So, I can understand criticisms some have about how unfaithful these screen adaptations could be.

I am not too fanatic about source fidelity. I can understand and accept different medium may require tweaks. What works in written form might not work on the screen. Foundation is the guiltiest in this sense. Despite its liberal interpretation of the books, I still enjoyed the series. Dune is also guilty but not by much. And it is not just science-fiction adaptations suffering from such criticisms. Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings has details left out but the trilogy is just incredible. In contrast, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit appears to have added unnecessary draggy pages to make the movie series unbearable and an insult to J.R.R. Tolkien’s short book, and Jackson’s own adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

3 Body Problem appears quite faithful to Liu Cixin’s original work The Three-Body Problem. Yes, there are some divergences as far as I can remember: the main scenes have been shifted from China to the UK and Europe (making the series whiter than it should) and several scenes including the multiplayer mode are new. But the storylines are intact as I far as I could tell.

Still, I have not watched all the episodes yet. 3 Body Problem was after all released on March 21, just three days earlier and I am not about to binge watch it. But I can say I recommend it (and the novel too, which I enjoyed thoroughly).

This brings me to a question I have in my head for some time now while watching all these adaptions. Does it matter if you either read or watch it? In fact, with the rise of audiobook, does reading, listening or watching something truly matter?

Does the medium matter?

I know different sensory approaches offer different experiences. Reading offers the greatest details but it can be a laborious exercise. Try reading The Wheel of Time from start to finish. Listening arguably offers the same level of details but, at least for me who I think processes information best through sights, the level of focus is just not there. Moving pictures losses the details but makes the material easier to understand (assuming it is not Tenet) and oftentimes, quicker as well.

I was a snob once, and that partly why I have read all these science-fictions. But as I grow older, I am realizing that there are too many books to read out there in the world. I just do not have the time to go through all of them. And even during my snobbish period, I came to know various work through the screens instead of through pages. The BBC’s Pride and Prejudice. An adaptation of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The 1962 adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. The 1939 adaptation of Gone With the Wind. I have come to know many classics through televisions and the movies, not books.

Coming back to the question. If I were younger, I would say yes it matters. Now, upon the realization there is no time, I can no longer be a snob. Now, I will say no.

Categories
Books & printed materials Conflict & disaster

[2980] Reading Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of those things that is always present in the background. Almost everybody is aware of it, even those who do not give any headlines any serious thoughts. It is easy to take it for granted, expecting the conflict to last a lifetime if not for eternity. It is as if it is a trouble that has no beginning. It just exists.

Throughout the 2000s, that was definitely my context. And I remember the decade as a violent period for Israel and Palestine. The news on TV, radio and on the internet told me so.

As a member of a Malaysian generation at that time who had only (mostly) experienced peace, that violence was hard to stomach. What is more is that it was easy for an outsider like me to fall into the stereotype that the modern Middle East is doomed to an endless cycle of violence. So, from the outside, it felt natural to blame both Palestinian groups and Israel for the bloodshed all at the same time. The Palestinian groups were wrong for their bombing tactics, and Israel was wrong for its disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force.

My views of the long conflict have changed over the last 20 years. Previously, I was willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt… because the whole business was complex. And Israel appeared different from the rest in the region.

Now, no longer. Benjamin Netanyahu and his far right government played a role in that. The Arab Spring, in some cases, showed the Arab states are capable of reforms and could be democratic. And over two decades since, Arab states definitely have shown capacity for economic growth. All these developments and more made Israel less special.

But the recent leveling of Gaza by Israeli military has removed completely any sympathy I might have for Israel.

The ongoing Israeli atrocities have prompted me to read more about Palestine and Israel beyond disparate Wikipedia articles. I bought several fictions and non-fictions to do just that. One of them was The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by historian Rashid Khalidi.

The book reframes my experience of the 2000s and makes me understand why I had some sympathy for Israel at that time.

During that decade, Palestine and Israel were going through what is now known as the Second Intifada. It involved suicide bombings and other deadly tactics carried out by multiple Palestinian groups. The violence itself was the result of deep frustration at a decade-long peaceful process that was never meant to succeed.

The deadliness of the Second Intifada, as Khalidi notes, had sapped global support for Palestinian cause, which was abundant before. Not too many governments (and definitely liberals, which I roughly identify myself as then and now) were willing to justify violence even in the face of injustice during the 2000s. The decade after all began with the September 11 Attacks that marked the start of the US War on Terror.

So, the Second Intifada was ruinous for Palestinian reputation as far as outsiders were concerned. And I was among the many outsiders who frowned at the violence.

But what I did not understand then was that the Second Intifada came after period of relative peace, even as Palestinians continued to suffer injustice. The First Intifada that began in the late 1980s and ended in the 1990s was a peaceful organic Palestinian resistance. But Israel would have none of it and suppressed it brutally. The non-violent Palestinian approach, and the violent reaction by Israel forces created deep international sympathy the Palestinian cause. At the time, for the first time in a long time, Israel was seen as the bad guys. So strong was the sentiment that it jumpstarted a peace process.

Unfortunately, as the author argues, that peace process was problematic. On the Palestinian side, the PLO led by Yasser Arafat was incompetent and shortsightedness (who themselves were victims of Arab states’ political maneuvering against each other and were victims of Israel’s policies). On the Israeli side, there was no sincerity about the peace process and about the establishment of the state of Palestine. Meanwhile, the US was not an honest broker; the author describes the US as Israel’s lawyers instead of arbitrators. Already during negotiations, Palestine’s legal team was no match for Israel’s. In the end, Palestine sacrificed too much for nothing with Israel offering no real concession. This brought the successes and the hopes of the First Intifada to naught.

This made many Palestinians bitter. The First Intifada was an organic resistance which was hijacked by PLO. And when PLO had the chance to do something do, they botched it badly.

In Palestinian eyes, as the author sees it, this discredited the PLO and Yasser Arafat immensely. They felt betrayed by the PLO, by the US and even angrier at Israel (especially as the peaceful route towards independence was closed). This created a split in the Palestinian leadership and a room for Hamas to rise in Gaza, at the expense of the PLO which after Arafat’s death, was led by an uncharismatic and ineffective Mahmoud Abbas.

As I mentioned, that recontextualizes the bloody uprising of the 2000s.

But the The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine is not just about the First Intifada, the subsequent 1990s peace process that failed and the Second Intifada in the 2000s. Rashid Khalidi goes back to the earliest days of Zionism to argue how the whole conflict should be seen within the lens of settler colonialism. He goes through the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1947-1948 war that led to the Nakba, the 1967 Six-Day War, the 1982 Israel invasion of Lebanon and all the way to the Trump years.

Each of these events represented a major turning point in Palestinian struggle for statehood over 100 years. In each of these events, the author demonstrates that it was never an even fight for the Palestinians.

Categories
Books & printed materials

[2979] My readings in 2023

Fictions dominated my list this year. In 2022, more than four fifths of my major reads were non-fictions but for 2023, the ratio fell to less than half. There were two reasons behind this.

One, I have gained more responsibilities at work and despite that, I had played Football Manager 2023 quite religiously as a way to alleviate work stress (I do not recommend this because… ‘alleviate’ is not a word in the Football Manager’s dictionary). This had left me with less time to read, and risked having me falling short of my reading goal. To meet that goal, I cheated by turning to fictions. I find fictions are generally easier to read than non-fictions (as long as they are not written by Kafka).

Two, the non-fiction-heavy list in the past few years was really due to my book writing project. By 2022 and definitely by 2023, the project that began in mid-2010s was coming to an end. So, there was a bit of non-fiction fatigue happening.

Here, I am summarizing selected books I read in 2023.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is my best read this year, and bought from Literati in Ann Arbor. The novel describes the experience of a Nigerian woman moving to the United States and then returning home. While written from a Nigerian perspective, I think the theme would resonate with a lot of foreign students in the US. The author tells the story of a person wanting to run away from home, the racism she faces in the US and eventually the conflicting feeling she have about returning home. I enjoyed how the author describes Lagos: I love novels that tell me more about a place, like The Art of Losing, The Kite Runner and A Bookshop in Algiers, all of which I read in recent years.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Speaking about places, during a recent visit to George Town, I stumbled upon one of Hemingway’s less known work. The novel tells a story of a group of friends living in 1920s Paris making a trip to Pamplona to watch a bullfight. The highlight of the novel is the bullfight but I found I like the Paris part of the story better. But how do I rate it? The Sun Also Rises is the inferior version of A Moveable Feast, also by Hemingway.

Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau

Yet another novel with place-context heavy set in the 1950s Paris. This was supposed to be a funny breezy read but I ended up struggling to go through it. Originally written in French and quite influential when it first came out, the translated English work lost a whole lot of nuances. There is a movie adaptation of the novel, and I recommend watching that instead of the translated work.

Victory City by Salman Rushdie

Unlike the earlier three, Victory City sets in a semi-fictional place. It is a fictional retelling of Vijayanagara, which was an actual empire in pre-colonial India. Since I have reviewed this in much longer length, I do not want to spend too much time here, except that I recommend the novel.

The Employees by Olga Ravn

I bought this from Kinokuniya Kuala Lumpur because it was shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize. I regretted that. It is a science fiction with an interesting theme but its unorthodox structure left me dissatisfied and made reading a burden despite its low word count.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

This must be read with the right frame of mind and at the appropriate turn of your life. You would have to be really sad and in melancholy. I was generally content when I read this and so, I did not really appreciate it.

The Fall of Srivijaya in Malay History by O. W. Wolters

A classic, the work explains that the content of Sejarah Melayu should not be dismissed as myths. Instead, should be read within a certain context. Once the context is set right, the piece of literature could tell a lot about history of the Malays in the Strait of Malacca. The title suggests the work is about Srivijaya, but it is really more about the early days of Malacca, and how Malacca is linked to Srivijaya. I was lucky to found it while visiting Riwayat bookstore in old parts of Kuala Lumpur.

Malay Ideas on Development: From Feudal Lord to Capitalist by Maaruf Shaharuddin

A huge chunk of the book is a continuation or a repeat of points made in another of his work, Concept of a Hero in Malay Society. It is the latter parts of the book that I found interesting, where the author discusses several 20th century Malay personalities who he presents as the leader of their respective school of thoughts. I think the two most important ones are Zaaba’s Malay capitalism (which blames the Malays for their own backwardness) and Abdul Rahim Kajai-Ishak Haji Muhammad’s version of Malay capitalism (that blames other communities, specifically British and Chinese, for Malay backwardness). Maaruf reasons that the synthesis of these two ideas came in the form of Mahathir Mohamad (which is best understood by reading The Malay Dilemma).

The Malaysian Islamic Party 1951-2013 by Farish A. Noor

I think this is the best book about Pas available out there. Farish explains the evolution of the party from the beginning up until the 2013 General Election. In short, Pas began as a provincial insular gouping but in the 1950s, it evolved to become a leftist pan-Islamist political party. But the 1970s, it evolved again to become a Malay nationalist party before shedding its racist skin to become an Islamist party in the 1980s. By the 2000s, the party moderated its stance and became a party of Muslim democrats.

The End of the Nineteen-Nineties by Hafiz Noor Shams

Okay, this is a cheat. I read this multiple times as I went through the proofreading process with my editors. Yes, written my me. More about the book here.

Cover for the The End of the Nineteen-Nineties

Other mentions

The Parade by David Eggers — a fiction about two men building a highway in a war torn country, which people aspired for peace. There is a twist at the end. I recommend this if you need a short but impactful story.

How I Learned to Hate in Ohio by David Stuart MacLean — a story of racism in 1980s Ohio. It gets dark, slowly.

Acts of Resistance: Dol Said and the Naning War by Shaun Adam — it is a bit of retelling of the Naning War.

Categories
Books & printed materials Personal

[2978] Shall we read The End of the Nineteen-Nineties?

It has been a long journey but after seven or eight years of writing it, I am pleased to share that The End of the Nineteen-Nineties, published by Matahari Books, is finally out in the market.[1]

Cover for the The End of the Nineteen-Nineties

The synopsis on the back cover does a good job describing what the book is all about. Still, I feel I should explain it further and the best way to do so is to discuss the title of the book.

The obvious interpretation of the title is that the book is about the nineteen-nineties in Malaysia. The decade is the subject because, as I explained in the book, the period is special in several important aspects. To understand its specialness, I look back far into history to explain certain trends, and then rationalize the decades after through the lens of the 1990s.

One reason the 1990s is special is what I consider the end (as in the purpose) of the decade. That end is the creation of a larger civic nationalism that we commonly call Bangsa Malaysia. That wider nationalism beyond ethnicities was not conceived in the 1990s. It has a long history, but the specialness of the decade created space which civic nationalism could grow and prosper, unlike previous (and latter) attempts that failed.

The 1990s ended in a spectacular fashion with a political upheaval and an economic crisis. One of many victims of the end of the nineteen-nineties was Bangsa Malaysia.

The book is a broad sweep of Malaysian history. It is a bit of retelling by a person who grew up during the decade. It is written by a person who loved the country, fell out of love, and then ends up in a situationship.

Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved

[1] — The book is slowly making its way to various physical stores. But online purchase is likely the best for most people. Here are several places where you could buy it online:

Finally, there will be several events linked to the book set in February 2024. I hope to see you there.

Categories
Books & printed materials Fiction

[2977] How I learned to stop worrying and love Salman Rushdie’s Victory City

Reading Victory City, I found myself figuring out whether the places and persons mentioned in the book were real. It is like reading Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code: fiction is weaved through real history and that blurs the line separating the two.

But Victory City is worse than that. It is fashioned as a casual modern translation of a supposedly ancient text detailing the rise and fall of the Bisnaga Empire, which is a reference to a real entity that was the Vijayanagar Empire that covered much of southern India.

My knowledge of the Indian subcontinent history is not as good as that of other areas. That shows when I know of Vijayanagar largely from playing Europa Universalis IV.

Already having a superficial understanding of southern Indian history, the novel did not help. Is Victory City, actually based on something like Sejarah Melayu, an actual document however fanciful the details are? At the back of the novel, the author Salman Rushdie, lists sources he referred to, giving an aura of seriousness (aura of non-fiction?) to his work of fiction. He was painting a picture of 14th-15th-16th century southern India on an un-blanked canvas belonging to another painting. I was worried that would give me the wrong impression of Vijayanagar.

So worried was I, that I tried ascertaining the real history behind names and places in the book. Google. Wikipedia. The usual places for a quick lookup. But that worked up as a distraction, slowing my reading pace and disrupting the rhythm set by the book. Reading became a chore by too much.

Realizing that, I stopped my side quests, and enjoyed the book as it is, tracking the fictional life of the founder of Bisnaga, the fantastical almost immortal sage Pampa Kampana, born just before the empire was founded, and died as the empire collapsed more than two hundred years later.